Posted by Kseniia Shumelchyk, Android Developer Relations Engineer
Today we’re releasing version 1.1 of Compose for Wear OS, our modern declarative UI toolkit to help developers build beautiful, responsive apps for Wear OS.
Since the first stable release earlier this year, we have seen many developers taking advantage of the powerful tools and intuitive APIs to make building their app simpler and more efficient. Todoist and Outdooractive are some of the developers that rebuilt their Wear apps with Compose and accelerated the delivery of a new, functional user experience.
Todoist increased its growth rate by 50% since rebuilding their app for Wear 3 and Outdooractive reduced development time by 30% and saw a significant boost in developer productivity and better design/developer collaboration:
“Compose makes the UI code more intuitive to write and read, allowing us to prototype faster in the design phase and also collaborate better on the code. What would have taken us days now takes us hours.”
The Compose for Wear OS 1.1 release contains new features and brings improvements to existing components, focusing on UX and accessibility. We’ve already updated our samples, codelab, and Horologist libraries to work with Compose for Wear OS 1.1.
The Compose for Wear OS 1.1 release includes the following new functionality (baseline profiles already added for new components):
A new experimental API has been added to implement placeholder support. This can be used to achieve three distinct visual effects separately or all together:
Check out the reference docs and sample in Horologist to see how to apply the placeholder to common use cases, such as a Chip with icon and a label that puts placeholder over individual content slots and draws a placeholder shimmer on top while waiting for data to load.
Horologist’s fadeAway modifier has been graduated to scrollAway modifier in version 1.1. Modifier.scrollAway scrolls an item vertically in and out of view, based on the scroll state, and already has overloads to work with Column, LazyColumn and ScalingLazyColumn.
CurvedTextStyle now supports additional parameters (fontFamily, fontWeight, fontStyle, fontSynthesis) to specify font details when creating a curved text style. Extended curved text style can be used on both curvedText and basicCurvedText.
The 1.1 release also focuses on bringing a refined user experience, improvements for TalkBack support and overall better accessibility:
To begin developing with Compose for Wear OS, get started with hands-on experience trying our codelab, and make sure to check out the documentation and samples. Visit Compose for Wear OS release notes for full list of changes available in version 1.1.
Note that using version 1.1 of Compose for Wear OS requires using the version 1.3 of androidx.compose libraries and therefore Kotlin 1.7.10. Check out the Compose to Kotlin Compatibility Map for more information.
Compose for Wear OS continues to evolve with the features you’ve been asking for. Please do continue providing us feedback on the issue tracker and join Kotlin Slack #compose-wear channel to connect with the Google team and dev community.
We’re excited to see a growing number of apps using Compose for Wear OS in production, and we’re grateful for all issues and requests that help us to make the toolkit better!
Discover even more with technical sessions from the Android Dev Summit providing guidance on app architecture, testing, handling rotary input, and verticalized sessions for media and fitness.
Posted by Wolfram Klein, Product Manager, Android TV OSToday we’re releasing the newest version of Android TV OS, Android 13 for TV! This latest release brings further improvements in performance and accessibility to help our developers build engaging apps for the next generation of TVs.
Here’s a look at some of what’s new in Android 13 for TV.
Android 13 brings new APIs to the big screen that help developers deliver high quality experiences to users across different device types.
Android 13 brings new features to make interacting with TV more adaptable.
Check out the Android TV OS developer site for details on even more features that come with Android 13 on TVs. The new release is now available for both ADT-3 and the Android TV emulator, and developers can choose to test on either the Google TV interface or the standard Android TV interface. As always, we are thankful to our developers for the continued support of Android TV OS. We can’t wait to see what amazing and innovative experiences you’ll continue to build for the big screen.
Posted by Aditya Swamy, Director, Google Play PartnershipsI sat down for a “virtual coffee” with Haemin Yim, founder and CEO of Creatrip, from Korea to discuss starting on the web, setting up the company for global reach, and tips for startups looking to grow.
Despite having a great idea for an app, Haemin shared with me that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. After gaining significant brand awareness and with increasing travel bookings across the app, the pandemic sent the travel industry into disarray. As with many businesses, this had significant implications for Creatrip. However, Haemin and the team used their strong understanding of the people using their app to quickly expand their offering.
With the knowledge that people often wanted to visit South Korea because of their interest in K-trends and culture; Haemin adapted the business to provide K-products to those who were unfortunately unable to travel during that period. This led Haemin to grow the business beyond just a travel app and into a global e-commerce platform.
Creatrip started as an app that provided travel content. It quickly expanded to provide people with in-app booking features, local currency exchange rates that weren’t previously digitized, and even a global e-commerce platform providing access to popular ‘K-items’. However, content is the key element that draws users into the app.
My top advice for businesses looking to continue to evolve their content is to expand their content creator pipeline. For example, by encouraging South Korean locals to contribute, Creatrip could gain a richer and more diverse range of content, showcasing Korea through the eyes of many different people. Haemin and the team are already in the process of building a new feature that allows people to create their own content on the app.
Think about short form video apps. By allowing people to become their own content creators, it enables them to have a much wider repository of content and encourages users to spend more time on the app. Now more people want to be creators and make their own content as seen on YouTube. This is fueling growth in watchtime, and adding more users.
Something I found particularly interesting from my chat with Haemin, was how she prepared the business for global reach from the start. Haemin believes that despite requiring a bit more time and effort, preparing for global reach from the beginning can actually allow for exponential growth, as you start to target the right markets and reach a global fan base. It is wonderful to see how Haemin brings her passion for all things Korean, to people all around the world. The team’s first step towards going global was by listening to and understanding the needs of the people already using Creatrip.
The team at Creatrip have definitely brought a lot of unique ideas to the app. With 90% of their users having started on the website, the team had an ingenious idea to bring people over to mobile. They listened to their global users and saw that people were keen to find out the currency exchange rates being provided at local stores in Seoul. They created a mobile-only feature that shows local currency rates from local stores. This required the team to actually go to the stores twice a day, however it led to a large increase in people using the mobile app - all by providing information that was previously unavailable to people from outside of Seoul.
It’s amazing to see how much Creatrip is flourishing; the app has grown from 100k monthly users up to 1.5 million. There are many factors that helped Creatrip grow over the past few years, but some notable takeaways from my chat with Haemin include:
As a final thought I couldn't let Haemin go without asking her favorite K trends. She mentioned that fusion fine dining was a top trend in Korea, NewJeans were a trending K-pop band, and South Korean blankets were a top K-product.
Do you have any questions for Creatrip? What are your own tips for other app or game businesses? Let us know on Twitter.
Posted by Neelansh Sahai Android Developer Relations Engineer (on Twitter and LinkedIn)What if you have a set of users who are quite fluent in English, Hindi, and Spanish, and they have a news app on their phones and prefer to read the news in Hindi? For their texting app, they prefer Spanish as they have some friends and family who they text with in Spanish. But for ease of access, they still prefer their device to be in English. Now there are many such use-cases where the users might want their app languages to be different from their system language. Interesting!
This blog focuses on how to integrate the Per-App Language Preferences API in your app to provide your users the flexibility to choose different languages for different apps.
1. Users can change the language settings from system settings by selecting:
Settings → System → Languages & Input → App Languages → [Select the desired App] → [Select the desired Language]
NOTE: Only those apps that have opted in for the feature by specifying the locale_config.xml file (more on this below), will appear in system settings.
There are 5 steps that need to be followed while working on the Per-App Language Preferences feature, listed here →
1. Create locale_config.xml file
NOTE: The locale tags must follow the BCP47 syntax, which is usually {language subtag}–{script subtag}–{country subtag}. Anything other than that will be filtered out by the system and won't be visible in the system settings.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><locale-config xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> ...
<!-- English --> <locale android:name="en"/>
<!-- Japanese (Japan) --> <locale android:name="ja-JP"/>
<!-- Chinese (Macao) in Simplified Script --> <locale android:name="zh-Hans-MO"/>
<!-- Chinese (Taiwan) in Traditional Script --> <locale android:name="zh-Hant-TW"/> ...</locale-config>
<manifest> ... <application ... android:localeConfig="@xml/locale_config"> </application></manifest>
def latestAppCompatVersion = “1.6.0-rc01”
dependencies { ... implementation "androidx.appcompat:appcompat:$latestAppCompatVersion" implementation "androidx.appcompat:appcompat-resources:$latestAppCompatVersion" ...}
val appLocale: LocaleListCompat = LocaleListCompat.forLanguageTags("xx-YY")// Call this on the main thread as it may require Activity.restart()AppCompatDelegate.setApplicationLocales(appLocale)
// Call this to get the selected locale and display it in your Appval selectedLocale = AppCompatDelegate.getApplicationLocales()[0]
NOTE: These APIs are also backward compatible, so even if the app is being used on Android 12 or lower, the APIs would still behave the same, and no additional checks for OS versions are required in your code.
<application ... <service android:name="androidx.appcompat.app.AppLocalesMetadataHolderService" android:enabled="false" android:exported="false"> <meta-data android:name="autoStoreLocales" android:value="true" /> </service> ...</application>
// Specify the constants to be used in the below code snippets
companion object {
// Constants for SharedPreference File const val PREFERENCE_NAME = "shared_preference" const val PREFERENCE_MODE = Context.MODE_PRIVATE // Constants for SharedPreference Keys const val FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION = "first_time_migration" const val SELECTED_LANGUAGE = "selected_language" // Constants for SharedPreference Values const val STATUS_DONE = "status_done"}
// Utility method to put a string in a SharedPreferenceprivate fun putString(key: String, value: String) { val editor = getSharedPreferences(PREFERENCE_NAME, PREFERENCE_MODE).edit() editor.putString(key, value) editor.apply()}// Utility method to get a string from a SharedPreferenceprivate fun getString(key: String): String? { val preference = getSharedPreferences(PREFERENCE_NAME, PREFERENCE_MODE) return preference.getString(key, null)}
// Check if the migration has already been done or notif (getString(FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION) != STATUS_DONE) {
// Fetch the selected language from wherever it was stored. In this case it’s SharedPref
// In this case let’s assume that it was stored in a key named SELECTED_LANGUAGE getString(SELECTED_LANGUAGE)?.let { it →
// Set this locale using the AndroidX library that will handle the storage itself val localeList = LocaleListCompat.forLanguageTags(it) AppCompatDelegate.setApplicationLocales(localeList)
// Set the migration flag to ensure that this is executed only once putString(FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION, STATUS_DONE) }}
Here are a few things that might prove to be beneficial for you users.
With that, most parts of the feature are covered. So let’s have a quick recap on what we discussed in today’s read.
Platform
Android Studio
Google Play
Jetpack
Kotlin
Docs
News
![A cellphone screen demonstrating finding the language settings from system settings by selecting Settings → System → Languages & Input → App Languages → [Select the desired App] → [Select the desired Language]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigMMkDrk24GFhwQYTFL3SOe7BtcvUXhnudcyYkJE4um0woEr2aRZ78LqcP8_UaqoSJliwQmoBllEw44RwSYuPTaG372Oyorri8Q_qkaapDOrzkU6nR_kWh9pQTx6Jj6Tqmjb4VwqiPtn43bZsOoAQyQ1RZ9kLnhbEScICv-ApjTaPNS7Gd3L4HxJZu/s1600/image1.gif)
