New goodies from Android, Wearables at Mobile World Congress + tune in to a new episode of #TheAndroidShow next week!

Posted by Anirudh Dewani, Director of Android Developer Relations

Earlier today, at Mobile World Congress (MWC), an annual conference showcasing the latest in mobile, Android and our partners unveiled a range of new goodies, including new wearables, foldables, as well as a number of new features for Android users. Keep reading below to see how you, as developers, can take advantage of these new features and devices that are being released. And in just over a week, on Thursday March 7 at 10AM PT, we’ll be kicking off another episode of #TheAndroidShow, our quarterly live show on YouTube and on developer.android.com, where we’ll dive more into these topics.

Meet the new watch from OnePlus and how we’re boosting power with the Wear OS hybrid interface

Wearables are on display across MWC this week, and one of our favorites is OnePlus Watch 2, powered with the latest version of Wear OS (Wear OS 4). As part of our ongoing work to improve the Wear OS by Google user experience, we’ve made fundamental changes to the platform and substantially expanded the capabilities of the Wear OS hybrid interface that improve two key areas: power and performance. As a developer, you can leverage existing Wear OS APIs to get underneath optimizations without any added effort – no code changes required! You can read more about the updates here.

A few new features for Android users

Google released 9 new features Android users can take advantage of across Google apps, you can read more about those features here. For developers, we wanted to highlight a few ways you can take advantage of this news across experiences you build into your apps:

• More places for users to see their Health Connect data, now in the Fitbit app: With permission from your users, Health Connect is a central way to connect and sync their favorite health and fitness apps, see all their data in one place, and stay in control of their privacy. By setting up Health Connect in the Fitbit mobile app for Android, users will have an overview of their health and fitness data from across their apps in one place. You can join developers like Peloton, ŌURA, and Lifesum who are using Health Connect to provide their users with deeper health and fitness insights, get started now!

• Add Stylus support, like Google Docs did: With Google Docs markups, you can add handwritten annotations to Docs from your Android phone or tablet using just your finger or stylus. Google Docs took advantage of stylus support; you can learn more about adding support for Stylus here.

• Use Tiles for Wear OS, like Google Maps did: With public transit directions on Google Maps for Wear OS, you can leave your phone in your pocket and glance at your wrist to make sure you catch your bus, train or ferry. Users can see these public transit directions through Google Maps use of Tiles which provide quick access to the information and actions users need to get things done. You can learn more about building a Tile for your app here.

A new episode of #TheAndroidShow, live on March 7 at 10AM PT. Send us your #AskAndroid questions now!

You can join us on March 7 at 10AM PT for a new episode of #TheAndroidShow. In this quarterly show, we’ll unpack the latest Android foldables and large screens for you to get building on, plus a behind-the-scenes on Gemini Nano and AICore.

We’ll have a live #AskAndroid Q&A with the team about building Android; you can ask us about building excellent apps across devices, Android 15, Compose, Gemini and more, using #AskAndroid on X or on YouTube. Our experts are ready to answer your questions live!

#TheAndroidShow: March 7 at 10AM PT, broadcast live on YouTube and d.android.com/events/show!