Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer

Today we're bringing you Beta 4, the last scheduled update in our Android 15 beta program, so make sure your apps are ready and you've given us any critical feedback before non-beta users start getting Android 15.

What's in Beta 4?

This is our second Platform Stability release; the developer APIs and all app-facing behaviors are final for you to review and integrate into your apps, and apps targeting Android 15 can be made available in Google Play. Beta 4 includes our latest fixes and optimizations, giving you everything you need to complete your testing. Head over to our Android 15 summary page for a list of the features and behavior changes we've been covering in this series of blog posts, or read on for some of the top changes to be aware of.

Removed PNG-based emoji font

Android 15 removes the legacy PNG-based emoji font file (NotoColorEmojiLegacy.ttf) meaning that some Android 15 devices such as Pixel will only have the vector-based file. Beginning with Android 13, the emoji font file used by the system emoji renderer changed from a PNG-based file to a vector based file. We kept the old font file around in Android 13 and 14 for compatibility reasons, so that applications with their own font renderers could continue to use the old font until they were able to upgrade.

You can choose to adapt your app in a number of ways:

• Use platform text rendering. You can render text to a bitmap-backed Canvas and use that to get a raw image if necessary.

• Make sure your text library supports COLRv1 fonts. The FreeType open source library version 2.13.0 or later supports it.

• As a last resort, you can bundle the legacy emoji font (currently 10.1MB) into your APK.

Get your apps, libraries, tools, and game engines ready!

If you develop an SDK, library, tool, or game engine, it's important to prepare any necessary updates now to prevent your downstream app and game developers from being blocked by compatibility issues and allow them to target the latest SDK features. Please let your developers know if updates are needed to fully support Android 15.

Testing your app involves installing your production app using Google Play or other means onto a device or emulator running Android 15 Beta 4. Work through all your app's flows and look for functional or UI issues. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. Each release of Android contains platform changes that improve privacy, security, and overall user experience, and these changes can affect your apps. Here are several changes to focus on that apply even if you don't yet target Android 15:

• Package stopped state changes - Android 15 updates the behavior of the package FLAG_STOPPED state to keep apps stopped until the user launches or indirectly interacts with the app.

• Support for 16KB page sizes - Beginning with Android 15, Android supports devices that are configured to use a page size of 16 KB. If your app or library uses the NDK, either directly or indirectly through an SDK, then you will likely need to rebuild your app for it to work on these devices.

• Private space support - Private space is a new feature in Android 15 that lets users create a separate space on their device where they can keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication.

Remember to thoroughly exercise libraries and SDKs that your app is using during your compatibility testing. You may need to update to current SDK versions or reach out to the developer for help if you encounter any issues.

Once you’ve published the Android 15-compatible version of your app, you can start the process to update your app's targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes that apply when your app targets Android 15 and use the compatibility framework to help quickly detect issues.

Take advantage of new platform features!

Go beyond getting your app ready and take advantage of new features that can make your app stand out on Android 15 devices:

• Predictive back animations - Beginning in Android 15, system animations such as back-to-home, cross-task, and cross-activity will now appear for apps that have opted in to the predictive back gesture either entirely or at an activity level. It's a great time to implement in-app animations and transitions as well.

• Low Light Boost is a new auto-exposure mode available to both Camera 2 and the night mode camera extension for an improved user experience with low light previews and recordings.

• The font file for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) languages, NotoSansCJK, is now a variable font opening up new possibilities for creative typography.

• The ApplicationStartInfo API helps provide insight into app startup including startup state, time spent in launch phases, how your app was started when your Application class was instantiated, and more.

• Your app can now detect when it's being recorded.

• With partial screen sharing users can share or record just an app window rather than the entire device screen.

• You can link specific views like username or password fields with Credential Manager requests, making it easier to provide a tailored user experience during the sign-in process.

• Apps that target Android 15 draw edge-to-edge by default, so consider supporting it on older devices as well by calling enableEdgeToEdge(). Make sure your app handles insets correctly, and make sure to test the Android 15 related changes.

• Generated previews allow your app widget providers to generate RemoteViews which contain live-content and accurate device theming to use as the picker preview, instead of a generic static resource.

Get started with Android 15

Today's beta release has everything you need to try out Android 15 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Now that we’re in the beta phase, you can check here to get information about enrolling your device; Enrolling supported Pixel devices will deliver this and future Android Beta updates over-the-air. These OTAs will begin this evening PDT. If you don’t have a supported device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. If you're already in the Android 14 QPR beta program on a supported device, you'll automatically get updated to Android 15 Beta 4.

For the best development experience with Android 15, we recommend that you use the latest version of Android Studio Koala. Once you’re set up, here are some of the things you should do:

• Try the new features and APIs - your feedback is critical during the early part of the developer preview and beta program. Report issues in our tracker on the feedback page.

• Test your current app for compatibility - learn whether your app is affected by changes in Android 15; install your app onto a device or emulator running Android 15 and extensively test it.

• Update your app with the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant - The latest Android Studio Koala Feature Drop release now covers android 15 API changes and walks you through the steps to upgrade your targetSdkVersion with the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant.

Android SDK Upgrade Assistant in Android Studio Koala Feature Drop

We’ll update the beta system images and SDK regularly throughout the remainder of the Android 15 release cycle. Read more here.

For complete information, visit the Android 15 developer site.

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