Our first Spotlight Week: diving into Android 15

Posted by Aaron Labiaga- Android Developer Relations Engineer

By now, you’ve probably heard the news: Android 15 was just released earlier today to AOSP. To celebrate, we’re kicking off a new series called “Spotlight Week” where we’ll shine a light on technical areas across Android development and equip you with the tools you need to take advantage of each area.

The Android 15 "Spotlight Week" will provide resources — blog posts, videos, sample code, and more — all designed to help you prepare your apps and take advantage of the latest features. These changes strive to improve the Android ecosystem, but updating the OS comes with potential app compatibility implications and integrations that require detailed guidance.

Here’s what we’re covering this week in our Spotlight Week on Android 15:

• Android 15 goes to AOSP

Big news for the Android world as the latest release - Android 15 - moves to AOSP.

The Android 15 summary page outlines what a developer needs to know about what is new in the release, behavioral changes affecting all apps, and changes applicable only when targeting the new SDK level 35.

• Edge-to-edge

Tuesday, September 3: To kick-off the week, a change that will most likely be impacting your app, Edge-to-Edge are APIs that lays out your app to optimize for screen real estate. It will be enforced for all apps targeting Android 15, making the status bar and navigation bar transparent, for a more high-quality experience. Understand how these changes will affect your app by reading the documentations linked. Learn how to work around these changes by reading the Insets handling tips for Android 15's edge-to-edge enforcement blog post.

• Building for the future of Android, an in-depth video

Wednesday, Sept 4: Watch now

• Foreground services and a live Android 15 Q&A

Thursday, September 5: Foreground services changes are coming in Android 15, and we’re introducing a new foreground service type, updating the exemption scenarios that allow a foreground service to start from the background, and updating the max duration of certain foreground service types. These changes are intended to improve user experience by preventing apps from misusing foreground service that may drain a user’s battery. Plus we’ll have a live Q&A: you can start submitting questions on X using #AskAndroid or submit them in the comments in the LinkedIn post, and tune in on YouTube.

• Passkeys and Picture-in-Picture

Friday, September 6: Passkeys enable a more streamlined and secured means of authenticating your users. Learn more about passkeys through our sample code and about the updates made to further simplify the login process in Android 15. Plus, we're highlighting a Picture-in-Picture sample code that is applicable to apps with video functionality.

That’s just a taste of what we’re covering in our Spotlight Week on Android 15. Keep checking back to this blog post for updates, where we’ll be adding links and more throughout the week. Plus, follow Android Developers on X and Android by Google at Linkedin throughout the week to hear even more about Android 15.