Adaptive development for the expanding Android ecosystem

With the release of Android 17, we are transitioning into an adaptive first development standard. Your users no longer rely on a single form factor; they transition between phones, foldables, tablets, laptops, automotive displays, and immersive XR environments throughout their day.

Now, with over 580 million large screen devices in the hands of users, adaptive is no longer just a technical goal. It’s a massive opportunity to reach highly engaged users. To thrive in this multi-device ecosystem, your app must be resilient, responsive, and ready for virtually any surface.

The multi-device opportunity

The Android device universe is now a multi device reality. Users are buying into entire ecosystems, moving from handhelds to foldables, tablets, and cars. And the data is clear: users with multiple devices often spend more than users with only a phone.

• Drive higher revenue: Multi-device users spend 9x more on average than phone only users. On foldables, that engagement multiplier can reach 14x. (Source: Google Internal Data, 2026)

• Capture high-value segments: Large-screen users (tablets, foldables, and Chromebooks) typically spend roughly 5x more than phone-only users.

To help amplify your reach with these users, we've rolled out a new badge in Google Play. Apps meeting adaptive quality standards now earn an "Optimized for large screens" badge, making it easier for users to discover high quality experiences.

Latest in adaptive Android development from Google I/O

Android 17, new Jetpack updates and advanced tools help you build apps that feel native across diverse surfaces, from pocket-sized foldables to Googlebooks.

Adaptive by default: Android 17 updates

In Android 16, we introduced significant changes to orientation and resizability APIs to facilitate adaptive behavior, while providing a temporary opt-out to help you make the transition. Android 17 (API level 37) sets a new quality baseline by removing that developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screen devices (sw > 600 dp). When you target API level 37, your app must be capable of adapting to a variety of display sizes. This helps your app deliver an experience that matches the users’ expectations.

Tip: You can start testing these behaviors by enabling the UNIVERSAL_RESIZABLE_BY_DEFAULT flag in App Compatibility Changes under Developer Options under SDK 36.

Your app on even more surfaces

In addition to your mobile app running on large screens devices including foldables, tablets, Chromebooks and XR, we are also expanding the Android surface area for your mobile apps:

• Connected Displays: Now in stable as of Android 16 QPR3, Connected Displays support enables supported Pixel and Samsung mobile devices to transform into a desktop environment via external display support.

• Automotive & TV: With the Car Ready Mobile Apps program and enhanced pointer support for Android TV, your adaptive app can now benefit from engagement on the infotainment system and the living room with ease.

Googlebook: Evolving desktop computing

Talking about more surfaces, we’re evolving our work in the desktop space with Googlebook, the next generation of ChromeOS. Built with parts of the Android stack, we are enabling your apps to achieve a "laptop-class" feel with native level performance.

Building with adaptive principles today helps ensure your app is ready for this new generation of high performance hardware.

To help you prepare for this new generation of devices, we’ve released comprehensive new documentation including comprehensive design guidance and developer guidelines. Built on the principles of adaptive, these guidelines offer a playbook for transitioning your mobile apps to offer a premium desktop class experience.

Try out the new Desktop Emulator, available now in the Android Studio Canary to get started today.

Building adaptive layouts with Jetpack Compose

We are now Compose first and Jetpack Compose is our recommended way to build modern, adaptive UIs to help you manage layout complexity efficiently.

• New layout primitives: We’re introducing Grid and FlexBox layouts, bringing powerful, CSS-inspired capabilities to Compose for both 1D and 2D layouts.

• Navigation 3: The 1.1 release for compose-navigation3 introduces Scene Decorators, allowing you to wrap your screens with other content, such as bars, rails and dialogs.

• MediaQuery API: The new experimental MediaQuery API provides observable device UI capabilities, such as window size and pointer precision, that allow you to adapt and optimize your app's UI for the current device configuration.

• Styles API: Dynamically evolve the visual properties of your app using the new state-based experimental Styles API.

Beyond layouts: non-touch input

Adaptive app quality goes beyond window dimensions, including handling non-touch input paradigms e.g. keyboard, trackpad, mouse, stylus that are primary input methods on large screens.

• Trackpad support: Compose 1.11 now brings trackpad support on par with mouse, and provides new APIs to automate non-touch input testing including TrackpadInjectionScope and performTrackpadInput.

• Focus indicators: Enhance accessibility with built-in support for standard focus rings in Compose.

AI-Powered developer tools

Android Studio and Android CLI are evolving to help you architect adaptive apps faster than ever.

• Android Skills: These modular AI instructions are designed to assist any LLM through complex architectural tasks, including helping you with View-to-Compose migrations, implementing adaptive layouts, Navigation 2 to Navigation 3 transformation, and migrating off of legacy camera libraries to CameraX. Get started with these latest skills on the Android Skills Github repo and via Android CLI.

• New Project Agent: Available in Android Studio Panda 2, this agent initializes new projects with adaptive best practices by default.

For developers working with cross-platform frameworks, we continue to provide full support for Web, Qt, and Unity. Whether you are building from scratch or modernizing a legacy codebase, these tools are designed to meet your users exactly where they are.

We’re excited to see how you bring these new adaptive capabilities to your apps. By moving to an adaptive first approach, you’re not just reaching more users but you’re delivering the seamless, high quality experiences they expect across the entire Android device landscape.

Get started with adaptive development and start shaping the future of your apps.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.