https://bytevikas.com/blog/index.html Android engineering articles by Vikas Dhiman: performance, architecture, Jetpack Compose, Kotlin, Media3, and AI-assisted development. en Sat, 07 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-xr-xreal-aura-stable-jetpack-xr-engine-hub.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-xr-xreal-aura-stable-jetpack-xr-engine-hub.html Sat, 07 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 XR XREAL AURA wired glasses launch with stable Jetpack SceneCore, ARCore and XR Runtime, stable Geospatial APIs, the Android XR Engine Hub for Unity, Godot and Unreal, and ML Kit Text to Speech for audio-first eyewear. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-intelligence-system-appfunctions-mcp-computer-control.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-intelligence-system-appfunctions-mcp-computer-control.html Fri, 06 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Intelligence Three ways system agents like Gemini can act in your app: AppFunctions (Android MCP), a remote MCP server and OEM Computer Control. What each demands, when to pick which, plus on-device agents with ML Kit and Gemini Nano 4. https://bytevikas.com/blog/appfunctions-1-0-rc01-migration-from-alpha10.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/appfunctions-1-0-rc01-migration-from-alpha10.html Thu, 05 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Agents AppFunctions hit release candidate on Nov 4, 2026. What changed since alpha10: AppFunctionDeclaration rename, AppFunctionContext removal, explicit isDescribedByKDoc, AppFunctionState, patternMatchers and the rc01 Gradle setup. https://bytevikas.com/blog/google-play-subscriptions-multi-quantity-usage-billing-dynamic-grace.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/google-play-subscriptions-multi-quantity-usage-billing-dynamic-grace.html Wed, 04 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Subscriptions Play's subscription roadmap sorted by availability: multi-quantity seats, usage-based billing, mixed carts, bundles, dynamic grace period, retention and winback offers, plus a verified showInAppMessages sample. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-dev-summit-2026-keynote-agentic-flexible-android.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-dev-summit-2026-keynote-agentic-flexible-android.html Tue, 03 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Keynote Which Dev Summit announcements are stable, beta or alpha: Android CLI plugins for Claude Code, Codex and Antigravity, AppFunctions beta, A2UI, ML Kit Agentic API, Navigation 3 1.2 and Googlebook adaptive guidance. https://bytevikas.com/blog/instagram-direct-ai-native-compose-migration-lazylayoutcachewindow.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/instagram-direct-ai-native-compose-migration-lazylayoutcachewindow.html Mon, 02 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Case Study Meta and Google on migrating Instagram Direct to Compose for AI agents: constructor-only items, a RecyclerView/LazyColumn interop layer, Pausable composition plus LazyLayoutCacheWindow, and 33% lower token cost. https://bytevikas.com/blog/appstate-transform-statestore-compose-state-beyond-ui.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/appstate-transform-statestore-compose-state-beyond-ui.html Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0530 State AppState 1.0.0-alpha01 takes Compose State out of the UI: transform and listener run composable blocks without UI, StateStore shares keyed state across components, and DataStore sync survives process death. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-dev-summit-2026-performance-toolchain-cli-lightbuild.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-dev-summit-2026-performance-toolchain-cli-lightbuild.html Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Summit The Dev Summit tools post, performance half: android profiler leakcanary, android analyze and the R8 Configuration Analyzer, Tracing 2.0, recomposition tracing, Crashlytics heap dumps and the experimental Lightbuild YAML build. https://bytevikas.com/blog/jetpack-xr-sdk-1-0-0-stable-arcore-scenecore.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/jetpack-xr-sdk-1-0-0-stable-arcore-scenecore.html Fri, 30 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 XR ARCore and SceneCore hit 1.0.0 stable on Oct 21. XR Compose is still beta02 with a SceneCore leak workaround, and 1.1.0-alpha01 adds SpatialAnnotation, dynamic meshes and simpler glTF animation. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-studio-rabbit-2-bring-your-own-agent-acp.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-studio-rabbit-2-bring-your-own-agent-acp.html Thu, 29 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 ACP Rabbit 2 makes Bring Your Own Agent stable: 40+ ACP agents including Claude Agent and Codex, a Skills Manager and a /review walkthrough for agent changes. Setup, what agents can access and the CLI plugins. https://bytevikas.com/blog/a2ui-compose-agent-driven-native-ui.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/a2ui-compose-agent-driven-native-ui.html Wed, 28 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 A2UI AndroidX now ships an official Compose renderer for the A2UI protocol. The agent describes the UI in JSON, your catalog decides what can render. A2uiSurface, custom components, two-way bindings and what changed in alpha02. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-13-0-beta-polygonshape-slider-border.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-13-0-beta-polygonshape-slider-border.html Tue, 27 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Compose Beta01 and beta02 of Compose 1.13 break PolygonShape, Slider, Modifier.blur and MediaQuery posture APIs, require Kotlin 2.2, and ship a new Modifier.border with opt-out flags. What to fix before stable. https://bytevikas.com/blog/gemini-4-argon-android-antigravity-cli-agentic.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/gemini-4-argon-android-antigravity-cli-agentic.html Mon, 26 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Agentic Gemini 4 Argon arrives for Android developers through Antigravity, Android Studio Canary and Firebase AI Logic. Self-healing build loops, AGSL shaders in Compose, android-cli-plugin setup, and who actually has access. https://bytevikas.com/blog/write-contacts-permission-intents-manage-contacts.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/write-contacts-permission-intents-manage-contacts.html Sun, 25 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Contacts Apps targeting the next Android release can no longer write contacts directly. The three standard intents, the Contact Picker and People Directory replace it, and MANAGE_CONTACTS covers the few apps that truly need broad access. Kotlin before/after and a migration checklist. https://bytevikas.com/blog/grab-r8-full-mode-baseline-profiles-anr-startup.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/grab-r8-full-mode-baseline-profiles-anr-startup.html Sat, 24 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0530 R8 Grab's 10-million-line superapp went from legacy ProGuard config to R8 Full Mode in phases: ~32.5% fewer ANRs, ~30% smaller downloads and ~35% faster cold start. The sequencing, the reflection fixes and the CI guardrails worth copying. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-13-0-alpha01-flexbox-stable-selection-api.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-13-0-alpha01-flexbox-stable-selection-api.html Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Compose Compose 1.12.0 went stable August 12, and alpha01 of 1.13 dropped the same day. FlexBox graduates from experimental (no more @OptIn), a new SelectionState API gives you programmatic text selection control, and click sounds are now automatic on Android. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-12-0-stable.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-12-0-stable.html Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Compose Compose 1.12.0 hit stable August 12 alongside Fragment 1.9.0, Tracing 2.0.0, and Navigation3 1.1.6. What's genuinely new vs RC01 (WCG, variable fonts, Dialog blur), what breaks on upgrade, and the exact migration checklist before you bump the BOM. https://bytevikas.com/blog/x-android-app-kotlin-compose-rebuild-kmp.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/x-android-app-kotlin-compose-rebuild-kmp.html Tue, 11 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 KMP X shipped a fully rebuilt Android app on July 20, 2026 — 100% Kotlin, Jetpack Compose end to end, and Kotlin Multiplatform powering X Chat's E2E encryption across Android, iOS, and Web. Here's what a year-long clean-slate rewrite looks like and what every Android engineer can take from it. https://bytevikas.com/blog/benchmark-1-5-0-beta-uiautomator-aot-perfetto-tracing.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/benchmark-1-5-0-beta-uiautomator-aot-perfetto-tracing.html Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Testing Seven alphas, one beta, and the Benchmark library has its most consequential upgrade since stable. UiAutomator 2.4 lands in MacrobenchmarkScope, requireAot flips to true by default to stop silent JIT-warm measurements, TraceProcessor moves to benchmark-common, and beta01 lets PerfettoCapture merge Tracing 2.0 in-process events into one Perfetto file. https://bytevikas.com/blog/fragment-1-9-0-rc01-ktx-merged-compose-interop.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/fragment-1-9-0-rc01-ktx-merged-compose-interop.html Sun, 09 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Fragment Fragment 1.9.0 is at RC01. Three practical changes: fragment-ktx is absorbed into the main artifact (Jake Wharton contribution), AndroidFragment gets a maxLifecycle param to fix lifecycle leaks in Compose pagers, and Fragment officially enters maintenance mode. Here's what each means and what to do about it. https://bytevikas.com/blog/media3-1-11-0-stable-muxers-chapter-metadata.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/media3-1-11-0-stable-muxers-chapter-metadata.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Media Media3 1.11.0 graduated to stable on August 5. Beyond what alpha01 and beta01 shipped, stable adds OggMuxer and WavMuxer for audio output, MP4 chapter extraction, enablePerStreamMediaProgression() for startup latency, HLS Content Steering, and five API removals to fix before you upgrade. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-skills-built-for-deprecation.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-skills-built-for-deprecation.html Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Skills Google's official Android Skills are built for deprecation by design — every skill should eventually make itself obsolete as models improve. The philosophy, the evaluation framework (think integration tests for AI knowledge), when skills actually add value, and why only ~20 official ones exist. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-12-rc01-sound-credentials-input.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-1-12-rc01-sound-credentials-input.html Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Compose RC01 shipped July 29 — stable is weeks away. Beyond the visual APIs covered in beta, 1.12 adds SoundEffectOnInteraction for accessibility-aware click sounds, credentialRequest Semantics for passkey-ready Compose login forms, a breaking TextObfuscationMode rename in BasicSecureTextField, and InterceptPlatformTextInput promoted to stable. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-adaptive-layout-flexbox-grid-mediaquery.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-adaptive-layout-flexbox-grid-mediaquery.html Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Layout Three new experimental layout primitives bring CSS-inspired adaptive layouts to Jetpack Compose: FlexBox for flowing content sections, a structural Grid for 2D panels without lazy loading, and mediaQuery() for branching on device posture, pointer precision, and viewing distance — not just window width. https://bytevikas.com/blog/navigation-2-10-kmp-predictive-back-maintenance-mode.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/navigation-2-10-kmp-predictive-back-maintenance-mode.html Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Nav Navigation 2.10.0-beta01 ships multiplatform support for Desktop, macOS, iOS, WASM, tvOS, and watchOS; NavBackStackEntryInfo for custom predictive back animations; NavUri replacing android.net.Uri; and a deep link security fix. Plus the honest maintenance mode reality check and a decision tree for Navigation 2.x vs Navigation3. https://bytevikas.com/blog/mlkit-genai-generable-structured-output-speech-recognition.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/mlkit-genai-generable-structured-output-speech-recognition.html Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 ML Kit Google's 'Build intelligent Android apps' series introduced @Generable annotations for type-safe structured output via KSP, and a new genai-speech-recognition 1.0.0-alpha1 library. Here's the integration guide: setup, data class annotations, streaming transcription, and how to go from 13-second receipts parsing to under 2 seconds. https://bytevikas.com/blog/google-play-age-signals-api-global.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/google-play-age-signals-api-global.html Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Policy Google's Play Age Signals API expands to Australia and Canada in mid-August, then globally by year-end. Integration guide with AgeSignalsManager, the four default age tiers, testing with FakeAgeSignalsManager, and the strict policy restrictions that govern what you can actually do with the data. https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-17-security-behavior-changes.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/android-17-security-behavior-changes.html Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Security Seven security and privacy behavior changes in Android 17 that aren't in the other posts: ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK permission for LAN access, banned static-final reflection, enforced ECH and Certificate Transparency, stricter native DCL, Contacts Provider 2 PII removal, and more. https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-material3-1-5-alpha25-api-renames-expressive-graduation.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/compose-material3-1-5-alpha25-api-renames-expressive-graduation.html Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Design Alpha25 lands six API renames and two deprecations as M3 Expressive hardens toward stable — trailingIcon becomes trailingContent, TonalToggleButton becomes FilledTonalToggleButton, SplitButtonLayout is deprecated, and ComponentOverride is removed entirely. Plus alpha24's new material3-ripple artifact for inset focus rings. https://bytevikas.com/blog/navigation3-1-2-alpha07-backstack-matcher-deep-link-serializer.html https://bytevikas.com/blog/navigation3-1-2-alpha07-backstack-matcher-deep-link-serializer.html Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0530 Nav Alpha07 adds BackStackMatcher — a declarative way to build a synthetic back stack when handling deep links — plus DeepLinkSerializer for complex argument types, five targeted bug fixes, and Navigation3 1.1.5 stable on the same day.