Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

There are over a quarter billion big screen gadgets running Android throughout tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS gadgets. In simply the last 12 months we’’ ve seen almost 100 million brand-new Android tablet activations–– a 20% year-over-year development, while ChromeOS, now the fastest growing desktop platform, grew by 92%. We’’ ve likewise seen Foldable gadgets increasing, with year on year development of over 265%! All informed, there are over 250 million active big screen gadgets running Android. With all of the momentum, we’’ re continuing to purchase making Android an even much better OS on these gadgets, for designers and users.

So today at Android Dev Summit , we revealed a function drop for Android 12 that is purpose-built for big screens, we’’ re calling it 12L, in addition to brand-new APIs, tools, and assistance to make it much easier to develop for big screens. We likewise discussed modifications we’’ re making to Google Play to assist users find your large-screen enhanced apps more quickly. Continue reading to see what’’ s brand-new for big screens on Android!

. Previewing 12L: A function drop for big screens.

Today we’re bringing you a designer sneak peek of 12L , our upcoming function drop that makes Android 12 even much better on big screens. With the sneak peek, you can attempt the brand-new big screen functions, enhance your apps, and let us understand your feedback.

In 12L we’’ ve fine-tuned the UI on big screens throughout alerts, fast settings, lockscreen, summary, house screen, and more. On screens above 600dp, the notice shade, lockscreen, and other system surface areas utilize a brand-new two-column design to take benefit of the screen location. System apps are likewise enhanced.

Two-column designs reveal more and are much easier to utilize

We’’ ve likewise made multitasking more instinctive and effective – 12L consists of a brand-new taskbar on big screens that lets users immediately change to preferred apps on the fly. The taskbar likewise makes split-screen mode more visible than ever – simply drag-and-drop from the taskbar to run an app in split-screen mode. To make split-screen mode a much better experience in Android 12 and later on, we’’ re assisting users by immediately allowing all apps to get in split screen mode, regardless whether the apps are resizable.

Drag and drop apps into split-screen mode

Last, we’’ ve enhanced compatibility mode with visual and stability enhancements to provide a much better letterboxing experience for users and assist apps look much better by default. We’’ ve made letterboxing quickly personalized by gadget producers, who can now set custom-made letterbox colors or treatments, change the position of the inset window, use customized rounded corners, and more.

We prepare to launch the 12L function drop early next year, in time for the next wave of Android 12 foldables and tablets. We’’ re currently dealing with our OEM partners to bring these functions to their big screen gadgets – expect the designer sneak peek of 12L coming quickly to the Lenovo P12 Pro. With the functions concerning gadgets in the couple of months ahead, now is a good time to enhance your apps for big screens.

For designers, we extremely advise taking a look at how your apps operate in split screen mode with windows of different sizes. If you sanctuary’’ t enhanced your app yet, see how it searches in various orientations and attempt the brand-new compatibility mode modifications if they use. Together with the big screen functions, 12L likewise consists of a handful of brand-new APIs for designers, together with a brand-new API level. We’’ ve bewared not to present any breaking modifications for your apps, so we won’’ t need apps to target 12L to fulfill Google Play requirements.

To begin with 12L, download the 12L Android Emulator system images and tools from the most recent sneak peek release of Android Studio. Evaluation the modifications and functions to learn more about locations to evaluate in your apps, and see sneak peek summary for the timeline and release information. You can report demands and problems here , and as constantly, we value your feedback!

12L is for phones, too, however given that the majority of the brand-new functions won’’ t show up on smaller sized screens, in the meantime we’’ re keeping the concentrate on tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS gadgets. Later on in the sneak peek we prepare to open Android Beta registrations for Pixel gadgets. For information, check out developer.android.com/12L

.Making it simpler to construct for big screens.

It’s time to begin developing completely adaptive apps to fit any screen, and now we’re making it even easier. To assist you prepare yourself for these modifications in the OS and Play, in addition to the designer sneak peek we’re launching updates to our APIs, tools and assistance.

.Style with big screen patterns in mind.

The primary step to supporting adaptive UI is creating your app to act perfectly on both a little and a bigger screen. We’’ ve been dealing with brand-new Material Design assistance that will assist you scale your app ’ s UI throughout all screens. The assistance covers typical design patterns common in the community that will assist influence and kick-start your efforts.

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Adaptive UI patterns in the Material Design standards

. Develop responsive UIs with brand-new navigation parts.

To supply the very best possible navigation experienceto your users, you ought to supply a navigation UI that is customized to the Window Size Class of the user ’ s gadget. The advised navigation patterns consist of utilizing a navigation bar for compact screens and a navigation rail for medium-width gadget classes and bigger( 600dp+). For expanded-width gadgets, there are numerous concepts on bigger screen designs within our freshly launched Material Design assistance such as a List/Detail structure that can be executed, utilizing SlidingPaneLayout. Take a look at our assistance on how to carry out navigation for adaptive UIs in Views and Compose .

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While upgrading the navigation pattern and utilizing a SlidingPaneLayout is a terrific method to use a big screen enhanced design to an existing application with pieces, we understand a number of you have actually applications based upon numerous activities. For those apps, the brand-new activity embedding APIs launched in Jetpack WindowManager 1.0 beta 03 make it simple to support brand-new UI paradigms, such as a TwoPane view. We ’ re dealing with upgrading SlidingPaneLayout to support those APIs- search for an upgrade in the coming months.

. Usage Compose to make it much easier to react to evaluate modifications.

Jetpack Compose makes it much easier to develop for varied designs and big screens. It ’ s agreat time to excellent for large enhance along big way if you ’ re beginning to embrace Compose.

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Compose is a declarative UI’toolkit; all UI is explained in code’, and it is simple to make choices at runtime of how it must adjust to the readily available size. This makes Compose specifically excellent for establishing adaptive UI, as it is really simple to manage UI modifications throughout various screen sizes or elements. The Build adaptive designs in Compose guide covers the essentials of what you require to understand.

. Usage WindowManager APIs to develop responsive UIs.

The Jetpack WindowManger library supplies a backward-compatible method to deal with windows in your app and develop responsive UI for all gadgets. Here ’ s what ’ s brand-new.

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Activity embedding.

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Activity embedding lets you benefit from the additional screen location of big screens by revealing numerous activities at’when, such as forthe List-Detail pattern, and itneeds little or no refactoring of your app. You figure out how your app shows its activities– side by side or stacked– by developing an XML setup file or making Jetpack WindowManager API calls. The system deals with the rest, identifying the discussion based upon the setup you ’ ve developed.

. Activity embedding works flawlessly on collapsible gadgets, stacking and unstacking activities as the gadget unfolds and folds. Activity embedding can improve your user experience on big screen gadgets if your app utilizes numerous activities. Attempt the activity embedding APIs in Jetpack WindowManager 1.0 Beta 03 and later on releases. More here .

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Activity embedding with Jetpack WindowManager

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Use Window size classes to assist find the size of your window.

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Window Size Classes are a set of opinionated viewport breakpoints for you to create, establish and evaluate resizable application designs versus. The Window Size Class breakpoints have actually beendivided into 3 classifications: compact, medium, and broadened. They have actually been developed particularly to stabilize design simpleness with the versatility to enhance your app for the most distinct usage cases, while representing a big percentage of gadgets in the environment. The WindowSizeClass APIs will be coming quickly in Jetpack WindowManager 1.1 and will make it much easier to develop responsive UIs. More here .

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Window Size Classes in Jetpack WindowManager

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Make your app fold-aware.

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WindowManager likewise supplies a typical API surface area for various window functions, like hinges and folds. When your app is fold conscious, the materialin the window can be adjusted to prevent hinges and folds, or to make the most of them and utilizethem as natural separators.Discover howyou can make your app fold mindful in this guide .

. Structure and screening for big screens with Android Studio.

Reference Devices.

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Since Android apps must be constructed to adjust and react to all classifications and gadgets, we ’ re presenting Reference Devices throughout Android Studio in lots of tools where you style, establish and evaluate UI anddesign.The 4 referral gadgets represent phones, big collapsible inner screens, tablets, and desktops.We ’ ve developed these after evaluating market information to represent either popular gadgets or quickly’growing sectors. They likewise allow you to guarantee your app works throughout popular breakpoint mixes with the brand-new WindowSizeClass breakpoints, to guarantee your app covers as lots of utilize cases as possible.

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Reference Device meanings

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Layout recognition.

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If you ’ re unsure where to start adjusting your UI for big screens, the very first thing you can do is utilize brand-new tools to determine prospective problems affecting big screen gadgets. In Android Studio Chipmunk , we ’ re dealing with abrand-new visuallintingtool to’proactively appear UI cautions and ideas in Layout Validation, consisting of which referral gadgets are affected.

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Layout recognition tool with Reference Device classes

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Resizable emulator.

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To check your app at runtime, we can utilize the brand-new resizable emulator setup that includes AndroidStudio Chipmunk . The resizable emulator lets you rapidly toggle in between the 4 recommendation gadgets- phone, collapsible, tablet, and desktop. Thismakes it much easier to verify your design at style time and test the habits at runtime, both utilizing the exact same referral gadgets. To produce a brand-new Resizable emulator, utilize the Device Manager in Android Studio to produce a brand-new Virtual Device and pick the Resizable gadget meaning with the Android 12L (Sv2 )system image.

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Resizable Android Emulator

. Modifications to Google Play on big screens.

To make it simpler for individuals to discover the very best app experiences on their tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS gadgets, we’re making modifications in Play to highlight apps that are enhanced for their gadgets.

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We ’ re including brand-new checks to evaluateeach app ’ s quality versus our big screen app quality standards to make sure that we emerge the very best possible apps on those gadgets. For apps that are not enhanced for big screens, we ’ ll start cautioningbig screen users with a notification on the app ’ s Play Store noting page.

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We’ll likewise be presenting big screen particular app scores, as revealed previously this year , so users will have the ability to rate how your app deals with their big screen gadgets. These modifications are following year, so we’re providing you advanced notification’to get your apps all set!

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Also, ensure to have a look at our post that highlights how we are developing our organization design to resolve designer requirements in Google Play.

. Find out more!

To assist you get going with structure for big screens and foldables, no matter whether you ’ re utilizing Views or Compose, we ’ ve got you covered! We ’ re introducing brand-new and upgraded assistance on how to support various screen sizes both in a brand-new and in an existing app, how to execute navigation for both Views and Compose, how to benefit from collapsible gadgets and more. Inspect them out in the big screens guides area for Views support or in the Compose guides area.

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Nothing speaks louder than code- we upgraded the following samples to support responsive UIs:.

. Google I/O Android App . Trackr Jetnews Jetcaster( tabletop assistance )

For some hands-on work, take a look at our Support dual-screen and collapsible gadgets with JetpackWindowManager upgraded codelab.

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