Android 3.1 Platform, New SDK tools

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As we announced at Google I/O, today we are releasing version 3.1 of the Android platform. Android 3.1 is an incremental release that builds on the tablet-optimized UI and features introduced in Android 3.0. It adds several new features for users and developers, including:

• Open Accessory API. This new API provides a way for Android applications to integrate and interact with a wide range of accessories such as musical equipment, exercise equipment, robotics systems, and many others.
• USB host API. On devices that support USB host mode, applications can now manage connected USB peripherals such as audio devices. input devices, communications devices, and more.
• Input from mice, joysticks, and gamepads. Android 3.1 extends the input event system to support a variety of new input sources and motion events such as from mice, trackballs, joysticks, gamepads, and others.
• Resizable Home screen widgets. Developers can now create Home screen widgets that are resizeable horizontally, vertically, or both.
• Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) Applications can now receive notifications when external cameras are attached and removed, manage files and storage on those devices, and transfer files and metadata to and from them.
• Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) API for audio. Developers can directly manage on-demand or interactive data streaming to enable VOIP, push-to-talk, conferencing, and audio streaming.

For a complete overview of what’s new in the platform, see the Android 3.1 Platform Highlights.

To make the Open Accessory API available to a wide variety of devices, we have backported it to Android 2.3.4 as an optional library. Nexus S is the first device to offer support for this feature. For developers, the 2.3.4 version of the Open Accessory API is available in the updated Google APIs Add-On.

Alongside the new platforms, we are releasing an update to the SDK Tools (r11).

Visit the Android Developers site for more information about Android 3.1, Android 2.3.4, and the updated SDK tools. To get started developing or testing on the new platforms, you can download them into your SDK using the Android SDK Manager.

Android 2.3 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

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Today we're announcing a new version of the Android platform — Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). It includes many new platform technologies and APIs to help developers create great apps. Some of the highlights include:

Enhancements for game development: To improve overall responsiveness, we’ve added a new concurrent garbage collector and optimized the platform’s overall event handling. We’ve also given developers native access to more parts of the system by exposing a broad set of native APIs. From native code, applications can now access input and sensor events, EGL/OpenGL ES, OpenSL ES, and assets, as well a new framework for managing lifecycle and windows. For precise motion processing, developers can use several new sensor types, including gyroscope.

Rich multimedia: To provide a great multimedia environment for games and other applications, we’ve added support for the new video formats VP8 and WebM, as well as support for AAC and AMR-wideband encoding. The platform also provides new audio effects such as reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization, and bass boost.

New forms of communication: The platform now includes support for front-facing camera, SIP/VOIP, and Near Field Communications (NFC), to let developers include new capabilities in their applications.

For a complete overview of what’s new in the platform, see the Android 2.3 Platform Highlights.

Alongside the new platform, we are releasing updates to the SDK Tools (r8), NDK, and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (8.0.0). New features include:

Simplified debug builds: Developers can easily generate debug packages without having to manually configure the application’s manifest, making workflow more efficient.

Integrated ProGuard support: ProGuard is now packaged with the SDK Tools. Developers can now obfuscate their code as an integrated part of a release build.

HierarchyViewer improvements: The HierarchyViewer tool includes an updated UI and is now accessible directly from the ADT Plugin.

Preview of new UI Builder: An early release of a new visual layout editor lets developers create layouts in ADT by dragging and dropping UI elements from contextual menus. It’s a work in progress and we intend to iterate quickly on it.

To get started developing or testing applications on Android 2.3, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 2.3 platform, the SDK Tools, the ADT Plugin and the new NDK.

Check out the video below to learn more about the new developer features in Android 2.3.

Android 2.3.3 Platform, New NFC Capabilities

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Several weeks ago we released Android 2.3, which introduced several new forms of communication for developers and users. One of those, Near Field Communications (NFC), let developers get started creating a new class of contactless, proximity-based applications for users.

NFC is an emerging technology that promises exciting new ways to use mobile devices, including ticketing, advertising, ratings, and even data exchange with other devices. We know there’s a strong interest to include these capabilities into many applications, so we’re happy to announce an update to Android 2.3 that adds new NFC capabilities for developers. Some of the features include:

• A comprehensive NFC reader/writer API that lets apps read and write to almost any standard NFC tag in use today.
• Advanced Intent dispatching that gives apps more control over how/when they are launched when an NFC tag comes into range.
• Some limited support for peer-to-peer connection with other NFC devices.

We hope you’ll find these new capabilities useful and we’re looking forward to seeing the innovative apps that you will create using them.

Android 2.3.3 is a small feature release that includes a new API level, 10.Going forward, we expect most devices shipping with an Android 2.3 platform to run Android 2.3.3 (or later). For an overview of the API changes, see the Android 2.3.3 Version Notes. The Android 2.3.3 SDK platform for development and testing is available through the Android SDK Manager.

Android 3.2 Platform and Updated SDK tools

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Today we are announcing the Android 3.2 platform, an incremental release that adds several new capabilities for users and developers. The new platform includes API changes and the API level is 13.

Here are some of the highlights of Android 3.2:

Optimizations for a wider range of tablets. A variety of refinements across the system ensure a great user experience on a wider range of tablet devices.

Compatibility zoom for fixed-sized apps. A new compatibility display mode gives users a new way to view these apps on larger devices. The mode provides a pixel-scaled alternative to the standard UI stretching, for apps that are not designed to run on larger screen sizes.

Media sync from SD card. On devices that support a removable SD card, users can now load media files directly from the SD card to apps that use them.

Extended screen support API. For developers who want more precise control over their UI across the range of Android-powered devices, the platform’s screen support API is extended with new resource qualifiers and manifest attributes, to also allow targeting screens by their dimensions.

For a complete overview of what’s new in the platform, see the Android 3.2 Version Notes.

We would also like to remind developers that we recently released new version of the SDK Tools (r12) and of the Eclipse plug-in (ADT 12). We have also updated the NDK to r6.

Visit the Android Developers site for more information about Android 3.2 and other platform versions. To get started developing or testing on the new platform, you can download it into your SDK using the Android SDK Manager.

Android 4.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

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Today we are announcing Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich — a new version of the platform that brings a refined, unified user experience for phones, tablets, and more.

Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — efficient multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing. It includes many great features for users, including social and sharing integration, network data usage control, innovative connectivity and camera options, and an updated set of standard apps.

For developers, Android 4.0 introduces many new capabilities and APIs. Here are some highlights:

Unified UI toolkit: A single set of UI components, styles, and capabilities for phones, tablets, and other devices.

Rich communication and sharing: New social and calendar APIs, Android Beam for NFC-based instant sharing, Wi-Fi Direct support, Bluetooth Health Device Profile support.

Deep interactivity and customization: Improved notifications, lockscreen with camera and music controls, and improved app management in the launcher.

New graphics, camera, and media capabilities: Image and video effects, precise camera metering and face detection, new media codecs and containers.

Interface and input: Hardware-accelerated 2D drawing, new grid-based layout, improved soft keyboard, spell-checker API, stylus input support, and better mouse support.

Improved accessibility: New accessibility APIs and text-to-speech APIs for writing new engines.

Enhancements for enterprise: Keychain and VPN APIs for managing credentials and connections, a new administrator policy for disabling the camera.

For a complete overview of what’s new for users and developers, please read the Android 4.0 Platform Highlights.

Alongside the new Android platform, we are releasing new versions of the SDK Tools (r14) and ADT Plugin (14.0) for Eclipse. Among the highlights are:

• Improved build performance in Ant and Eclipse
• Improved layout and XML editors

To get started developing on Android 4.0, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 4.0 platform, the SDK Tools, and the ADT Plugin.

If you have already developed and published apps, we encourage you to download the Android 4.0 platform now, to begin testing your app before devices arrive in stores.

Check out the video below for a closer look at Android 4.0 in action.

Android 3.0 Platform Preview and Updated SDK Tools

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Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a new version of the Android platform that is designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. It introduces a new “holographic” UI theme and an interaction model that builds on the things people love about Android — multitasking, notifications, widgets, and others — and adds many new features as well.

Besides the user-facing features it offers, Android 3.0 is also specifically designed to give developers the tools and capabilities they need to create great applications for tablets and similar devices, together with the flexibility to adapt existing apps to the new UI while maintaining compatibility with earlier platform versions and other form-factors.

Today, we are releasing a preview of the Android 3.0 SDK, with non-final APIs and system image, to allow developers to start testing their existing applications on the tablet form-factor and begin getting familiar with the new UI patterns, APIs, and capabilties that will be available in Android 3.0.

Here are some of the highlights:

UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and other new features to create rich and engaging apps for users on larger screen devices.

High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.

Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.

Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.

New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.

Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.

For an complete overview of the new user and developer features, see the Android 3.0 Platform Highlights.

Additionally, we are releasing updates to our SDK Tools (r9), NDK (r5b), and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (9.0.0). Key features include:

• UI Builder improvements in the ADT Plugin:
  • Improved drag-and-drop in the editor, with better support for included layouts.
  • In-editor preview of objects animated with the new animation framework.
  • Visualization of UI based on any version of the platform. independent of project target. Improved rendering, with better support for custom views.

To find out how to get started developing or testing applications using the Android 3.0 Preview SDK, see the Preview SDK Introduction. Details about the changes in the latest versions of the tools are available on the SDK Tools, the ADT Plugin, and NDK pages on the site.

Note that applications developed with the Android 3.0 Platform Preview cannot be published on Android Market. We’ll be releasing a final SDK in the weeks ahead that you can use to build and publish applications for Android 3.0.

Android 4.0.3 Platform and Updated SDK tools

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Today we are announcing Android 4.0.3, an incremental release of the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) platform. The new release includes a variety of optimizations and bug fixes for phones and tablets, as well as a small number of new APIs for developers. The new API level is 15.

Some of the new APIs in Android 4.0.3 include:

Social stream API in Contacts provider: Applications that use social stream data such as status updates and check-ins can now sync that data with each of the user’s contacts, providing items in a stream along with photos for each. This new API lets apps show users what the people they know are doing or saying, in addition to their photos and contact information.

Calendar provider enhancements. Apps can now add color to events, for easier tracking, and new attendee types and states are now available.

New camera capabilities. Apps can now check and manage video stabilization and use QVGA resolution profiles where needed.

Accessibility refinements. Improved content access for screen readers and new status and error reporting for text-to-speech engines.

Incremental improvements in graphics, database, spell-checking, Bluetooth, and more.

For a complete overview of what’s new in the platform, see the Android 4.0.3 API Overview.

Going forward, we’ll be focusing our partners on Android 4.0.3 as the base version of Ice Cream Sandwich. The new platform will be rolling out to production phones and tablets in the weeks ahead, so we strongly encourage you to test your applications on Android 4.0.3 as soon as possible.

We would also like to remind developers that we recently released new version of the SDK Tools (r16) and of the Eclipse plug-in (ADT 16.0.1). We have also updated the NDK to r7.

Visit the Android Developers site for more information about Android 4.0.3 and other platform versions. To get started developing or testing on the new platform, you can download it into your SDK using the Android SDK Manager.