11 ms·
Android M Developer Preview and Tools
- JasonFruit 11y agoThe update to provide run-time permission prompts pleases me as a user; as a developer, I'm not as excited about it, especially if it doesn't come with narrower categories of permission. I could see it prompting the user to provide permission to do much more than is being done, and without the ability to provide reasoning and context in the dialog.
- EddieRingle 11y agoDave stated during the keynote that they were slimming down the number of permission categories.
- tdkl 11y agoFor devices running M. Versions prior to that will be left as is.
- EddieRingle 11y agoNot devices, but applications targeting M, yes.
- tdkl 11y agoThe new permission system will be available on devices running M only. So a dev will have to support both when targeting M.
- EddieRingle 11y agoWell that goes without saying. I'm just trying to say that applications running on M and later that still target an older SDK will not use the new system.
- digi_owl 11y agoAs best i could tell, on a device running M it would be like this: M ready app, you get no permissions display up front but asked to approve on API use. Older app, you get a permissions display up front and can disable API access in Android settings. On older devices both M ready apps and older apps would behave like today, giving you a list of permissions up front and no way to control them (unless you are running a custom Android or the OEM added the possibility).
- magicalist 11y agoAccording to the android session this morning even apps compiled against older SDKs will still have permissions that can be disabled when run in M, so they were encouraging everyone to test apps on M even if they weren't going to release their app built against the M SDK anytime soon.
- lsaferite 11y agoWait, wouldn't slimming down categories result in even less granular control?
- baddox 11y agoI assume that the upfront permissions prompted before an install will be simpler and fewer, and the more granular permissions (like microphone or camera access) will be prompted when they are actually requested by the app. Just like iOS.
- digi_owl 11y agoDon't think so, as their post install UI slide showed pr category switches with categories very similar to those already seen in the "improved" Play app.
- rsync 11y ago"Dave stated during the keynote that they were slimming down the number of permission categories." So ... they're taking a terrible problem and making it even worse ?
- mcintyre1994 11y agoI disagree. I don't know that they've got the right balance until I try it, but anything is better than eg Facebook having permission to just about everything and presumably using it whenever some algorithm tells them there might be useful data to grab. Forcing them to ask every time will either show my concern is wrong (a good thing) or stop them doing it (even better).
- amolgupta 11y agothe NDK support in Studio will end the use of eclipse for Android development.
- quotemstr 11y agoI like how people see Android developments as a choice of heavyweight IDEs. I do all my Android development, Java and native, with Emacs and Buck.
- jraines 11y agoCan you recommend any good resources learning about taking this approach?
- quotemstr 11y agohttp://buckbuild.com/ http://buckbuild.com/
- Ologn 11y agoI often program Android in Emacs as well. I use the Java Development Environment for Emacs and have been happy with it. If you add an Android-specific class like TextView in your code, you can easily have Android Studio add the needed import command for it. With Emacs/JDE, I point my jde-global-classpath to the Android jar, then when I need to add an import line I highlight the class and do a Control-C, Control-V, Control-Z. It is slightly more convoluted than Studio but works well enough, I could probably automate and simplify it more if I needed to. This was the main shortcut I missed when moving from Eclipse/ADT to Android, but doing this got it back for me.
- jophde 11y agoThe thought of writing Java without IntelliJ makes me want to quick programming. Ironically, Kotlin might be great in a text editor despite being made by Jetbrains.
- zserge 11y ago
- heyheyhey 11y ago> Battery - We’re making Android devices smarter about managing power through a new feature called Doze. With M, Android uses significant motion detection to learn if a device has been left unattended for a while. In this state, Android will exponentially back off background activity, trading off a little bit of app freshness for longer battery life. Will this improve wakelock performance that has been plaguing Android for years?
- jaredmcateer 11y agoThe keynote claimed they took two identical Nexuses side by side with Lollipop and M loaded it up with a bunch of common apps. The standby battery time with M was around double.
- sumitviii 11y ago*Up to double.
- digi_owl 11y agoApparently apps could use priority notifications got wake devices up early. Expect Facebook and the rest to go priority priority priority...
- NeutronBoy 11y agoThe user sets which applications are 'priority' applications.
- kllrnohj 11y agoWakelocks have just been a scapegoat for people to pretend to sound smart when just saying that they want better battery life. They haven't actually been an issue for years. No, this won't magically fix bugs in apps that lead to poor battery life. If an app opens the camera and forgets to close it, yeah that's gonna murder your battery.
- serve_yay 11y ago
- jfuhrman 11y agoWill there be an official Android M for the Nexus 4 ? It's a very powerful device even by today's standards with a quadcore and 2GB RAM.
- runjake 11y agoFrom the article this submission is linked to: "The M Developer Preview includes an updated SDK with tools, system images for testing on the official Android emulator, and system images for testing on Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player devices." So, no.
- rhodysurf 11y agoBut the actual release may support it, theres no way to know now
- nly 11y agoI don't think they released the Android L previews for the the N4 either? Maybe someone can confirm.
- christop 11y agoThey didn't, but by the time Android M comes out, the Nexus 4 will be approaching three years old. As a Nexus 4 user, I'm not holding my breath (and my N4 isn't holding its charge).
- mahouse 11y agohttps://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LCRPmN9Lx_E/VWc6aVDdMkI/AAAAAAAABpI/Kt5p6uEMK-U/s0/cropped_runtime_permissions.png https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LCRPmN9Lx_E/VWc6aVDdMkI/AAAAAAAAB... That image... Seriously, when will Google stop doing things like these? Will they ever learn to be attentive?
- isbadawi 11y agoWhat are you referring to?
- mahouse 11y agoThe image is blurry and the colours are dithered. This really looks good to you? https://i.imgur.com/r3HZWyG.png https://i.imgur.com/r3HZWyG.png
- nacs 11y agoThat was probably just a poor attempt by whoever edited the screenshot to de-emphasize the app in the background and highlight the actual permission dialog.
- kllrnohj 11y agoIt looks like its been compressed and made suitable for a web page where the image quality of that screenshot is pretty much irrelevant to everything. Which seeing as they used it for a 400x248 image in the blogpost is pretty much exactly on point.
- Zigurd 11y agoThe pace of development is impressive. Now if they could get OEMs to keep up.
- 27182818284 11y agoGoogle is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android. In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO) Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negotiators to go to the right meetings at Motorola, Verizon, etc to talk about updates?
- digi_owl 11y agoOnly way i see Google getting them all onboard is revenue sharing from Play based on what Android version the person is using.
- wongarsu 11y agoOr google could just stop playing nice, they practically own the platform after all. If they would say "either you supply updates for two years or you are not allowed to preinstall google apps on new devices" the issue would be over.
- digi_owl 11y agoAnd watch Samsung go Tizen over night, HTC partner up with Microsoft, etc etc etc. Damn it, Android without Google is already big in China. And lets not forget that Amazon is maintaining what amounts to a fork for their device range. Google can't really play hardball unless they want to go full Apple. In essence Android has gotten where it is by being more accommodating to OEMs etc than the competition. Something akin to what MS was doing until they went retard with Windows Mobile 7.
- threeseed 11y agoSamsung/HTC are never going to just abandon Android arguably no matter what Google does. People have invested money in apps and content which locks them into that platform. Tizen is a non-starter (nobody is building apps for it). And Microsoft is still struggling for traction.
- frik 11y agoPermissions "We are giving users control of app permissions in the M release. Apps can trigger requests for permissions at runtime, in the right context, and users can choose whether to grant the permission. Making permission requests right when they’re needed means users can get up and running in your app faster. Also, users have easy access to manage all their app permissions in settings." Great, finally Google got it. Hopefully with the old Android 2.3 style fine granular permissions and not the few permission groups of Android 4/5.
- calvin_c 11y agoThey've actually set the number of permission groups to 8. But at least you can accept/decline each individually. EDIT: The permission groups are Location Camera Microphone Contacts Phone SMS Calendar Sensor
- e40 11y agoWhat I see missing, that Xposed + App Ops gives me is the "Keep Awake"... having revoked this permission from almost all non-Google apps, my battery life is a full 50% longer than other people with my phone report.
- digi_owl 11y agoBest i can tell, Doze is supposed to cover that automatically. But then Doze will wake the device up if a GCM priority notification comes down the wire. And i expect Facebook and the rest to start spamming those to make sure they get every nanosecond of your life to their servers.
- ignoramous 11y agoIMO, the most game changing feature announced today is 'Now on tap' Google isn't releasing more details on it, but with it, Google would be able to understand what you do, when you do it, who your pals are, who you go out to movies with, who you chat with the most, are you looking to quit your job, are you about to break up, are you going through a depression and so on... They haven't revealed anything about how exactly 'Now on tap' works...but the potential for data collection is enormous. With 'Now on tap' they promise to do 'searches' based on the context (which is derived from the contents in the app that's showing on-screen). So no matter what app you're using, Google will get its hand on the data. It sounds nightmarish and exciting at the same time.
- Roritharr 11y agoWhat scared me about that announcement was that "no changes in the app are necessary" which basically means that google from now on will parse the text that is displayed, regardless of the type of app that is open. Without any further clarification i have to expect Google now to send the displayed data of my mobile banking app to its servers everytime i hit that "Now on Tap" button, accidentally or not, while its open. I don't like that.
- Sargos 11y agoThis only works if the developer uses app indexing where Google can search through the content and make it searchable to end users and other endpoints. It doesn't come for free so Google has no access to things like your bank app's screen.
- Roritharr 11y agoDo you have ans links or sources for that? I couldnt find anything so far.
- wikyd 11y agohttp://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now-on-tap-shows-contextual-info-at-the-press-of-a-button/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now... makes it seem like they just walk the view hierarchy. They show examples of using this in a chat app, which makes less sense to be found via app indexing.
- axg 11y agoProduct page: https://developer.android.com/preview/index.html https://developer.android.com/preview/index.html And downloads page: https://developer.android.com/preview/download.html https://developer.android.com/preview/download.html
- hadrien01 11y ago> Android Design Support Library - Making Material design apps gets even easier with the new Android Design support library. We have packaged a set a key design components (e.g floating action button, snackbar, navigation view, motion enabled Toolbars) [...] Finally! I had to start developing for Android not too long ago, and I couldn't stand seeing "mandatory" material components for certain usages that weren't supported in the official SDK.
- krschultz 11y agoNothing is mandatory. Material guidelines are a suggestion and a set of tools to make the baseline app better by default. In general the UI components are moving out of the SDK into the support libs or the community at large. RecyclerView & Toolbar are examples of Google untangling the foundation from the look & feel, and letting the community come up with the final implementation of things.
- dharma1 11y agoIs that a deliberate strategy or a lack of communication between teams at Google to create the SDK level support for components their design team designs?
- izacus 11y agoI don't understand this sentiment, why do you need those components? There's bunch of 3rd party libraries to implement the UI patterns. Do you go annoy Safari/Chrome/Firefox developers that they don't provide you with components for carousels in browsers as well?
- dharma1 11y agoAnnoy? I'm not sure I understand that sentiment. I think the comparison between operating systems and browsers is apples (no pun) and oranges. Browsers generally don't implement any specific UI design language, whereas operating systems do. Android is a system where Google controls most of the baseline UI and does implement much of the Material design language in the SDK- but at least on the launch of 5.0 several components were missing. As you rightly say the community came to the rescue and there are several versions of each component now on github. Was just wondering if that was on purpose, and the strategy is only to provide base components in the SDK, and only visual designs of a more comprehensive set of UI components - and then let the community implement the missing components outlined in the design guidelines? Not saying that's a bad thing, just curious if it's done on purpose.
- jwilm 11y ago> Most notable is a much requested feature from our Android NDK & game developers: code editing and debugging for C/C++ code Does this mean gdb integration with android studio? That would be fantastic! Working with the NDK has been a pretty painful at times, and this change will make a lot of people very happy.
- jordanthoms 11y agoYes, They mentioned they integrate with the gdb and llvm debugger.