Android Q Beta
Introducing Android Q Beta
In 2019, mobile innovation is stronger than ever, with new technologies from 5G to edge to edge displays and even foldable screens. Android is right at the center of this innovation cycle, and thanks to the broad ecosystem of partners across billions of devices, Android's helping push the boundaries of hardware and software bringing new experiences and capabilities to users.
As the mobile ecosystem evolves, Android is focused on helping users take advantage of the latest innovations, while making sure users' security and privacy are always a top priority. Building on top of efforts like Google Play Protect and runtime permissions, Android Q brings a number of additional privacy and security features for users, as well as enhancements for foldables, new APIs for connectivity, new media codecs and camera capabilities, NNAPI extensions, Vulkan 1.1 support, faster app startup, and more.
Today we're releasing Beta 1 of Android Q for early adopters and a preview SDK for developers. You can get started with Beta 1 today by enrolling any Pixel device (including the original Pixel and Pixel XL, which we've extended support for by popular demand!) Please let us know what you think! Read on for a taste of what's in Android Q, and we'll see you at Google I/O in May when we'll have even more to share.
Building on top of privacy protections in Android
Android was designed with security and privacy at the center. As Android has matured, we've added a wide range of features to protect users, like file-based encryption, OS controls requiring apps to request permission before accessing sensitive resources, locking down camera/mic background access, lockdown mode, encrypted backups, Google Play Protect (which scans over 50 billion apps a day to identify potentially harmful apps and remove them), and much more. In Android Q, we've made even more enhancements to protect our users. Many of these enhancements are part of our work in Project Strobe.
Giving users more control over location
With Android Q, the OS helps users have more control over when apps can get location. As in prior versions of the OS, apps can only get location once the app has asked you for permission, and you have granted it.
One thing that's particularly sensitive is apps' access to location while the app is not in use (in the background). Android Q enables users to give apps permission to see their location never, only when the app is in use (running), or all the time (when in the background).
More privacy protections in Android Q Beyond changes to location, we're making further updates to ensure transparency, give users control, and secure personal data. In Android Q, the OS gives users even more control over apps, controlling access to shared files. Users will be able to control apps' access to the Photos and Videos or the Audio collections via new runtime permissions. For Downloads, apps must use the system file picker, which allows the user to decide which Download files the app can access. For developers, there are changes to how your apps can use shared areas on external storage. Make sure to read the Scoped Storage changes for details. We've also seen that users (and developers!) get upset when an app unexpectedly jumps into the foreground and takes over focus. To reduce these interruptions, Android Q will prevent apps from launching an Activity while in the background. If your app is in the background and needs to get the user's attention quickly -- such as for incoming calls or alarms -- you can use a high-priority notification and provide a full-screen intent.
Foldables and innovative new screens Foldable
devices have opened up some innovative experiences and use-cases. To help your apps to take advantage of these and other large-screen devices, we've made a number of improvements in Android Q, including changes to onResume and onPause to support multi-resume and notify your app when it has focus. We've also changed how the resizeableActivity manifest attribute works, to help you manage how your app is displayed on foldable and large screens. To you get started building and testing on these new devices, we've been hard at work updating the Android Emulator to support multiple-display type switching -- more details coming soon!
Sharing shortcuts
When a user wants to share content like a photo with someone in another app, the process should be fast. In Android Q we're making this quicker and easier with Sharing Shortcuts, which let users jump directly into another app to share content. Developers can publish share targets that launch a specific activity in their apps with content attached, and these are shown to users in the share UI. Because they're published in advance, the share UI can load instantly when launched.
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