DAN GALPIN: Hi.
I'm Dan Galpin, Android developer advocate.
And we're here to talk about the Android 7.1 preview.
A couple of weeks ago, we announced
that a developer preview of Android 7.1 Nougat
was on the way.
And just in case you haven't noticed, it's available now.
There's a few differences between this preview
and others in the program.
Since 7.1 is already launched on Pixel,
we're delivering the initial developer preview
at beta quality for the Nexus lineup of devices.
The goal is to tease out any device-specific issues.
This means we've already finalized the new APIs as API
level 25, and we've opened up publishing
on Google Play for apps targeting the new API level.
So you can update your apps as soon as you're ready.
So what's new?
First of all, Android 7.1 features a few changes
specific to the launcher.
App shortcuts allow you to add both static and dynamic links
to key actions within your app.
Users simply long press your Apps Launcher icon
to reveal the app shortcuts, then
tap on a shortcut to jump to the associated action.
Each shortcut references an intent, each of which
launches a specific action or task.
And you can create a shortcut for any action
that you can express as an intent.
For example, you can create intents
for sending a new text message, making a reservation,
playing a video, continue game, loading a map
location, and much more.
You can create shortcuts for your app statically
by adding them to a resource file in the APK,
or you can add them dynamically at runtime.
Static shortcuts are ideal for common actions,
and dynamic shortcuts let you highlight
actions based on user's preferences,
behavior, location, and so on.
You can offer up to five shortcuts in each of your apps.
After your app adds shortcuts, they're
available on any launcher that supports them,
such as the Pixel Launcher, the default
launcher on Pixel devices, the Now Launcher, the default
launcher on Nexus devices, and other launchers that
provide support.
Any app can create shortcuts, and any launcher app
can add support for shortcuts.
Android 7.1 provides an API for apps
to register shortcuts and launchers
to read the registered shortcuts.
Apps can now define circular launcher icons which
are used on devices that support them, and much of this
happens automatically.
When a launcher requests an app icon,
the framework returns either Android colon icon
or Android colon round icon, depending on the device
build configuration.
You can use Image Asset Studio to design round icons.
You can test your circular icons on a Google Pixel device
or by running the Android emulator with the Google API's
emulator system image targeting API level 25.
Something that feels related to the launcher
is enhanced live wallpaper metadata.
In addition to the existing metadata attributes,
such as label, description, and author,
there are new attributes for a context URL and title
to link users to more information
about the wallpaper.
This allows for a better, richer user experience
when choosing live wallpapers.
Another 7.1 feature makes stickers and other rich content
available through soft keyboards, otherwise known
as input method editors or IMEs.
The 7.1 SDK includes the Commit Content API,
which provides a universal way to send images
and other rich content from an IME
directly to a text editor in an app.
The API i also available in the revision 25 version of the V13
support library.
With this API, you can build messaging apps
that accept rich content from any keyboard
as well as keyboards that can send rich content to any app.
There are two other cool things in 7.1
that you might want to consider taking advantage of.
The first of them is the storage manager intent.
Apps can now fire the action manage storage intent,
taking the user to the system's Free Up Space screen.
If your app requires more space than is currently available,
it can use this intent to let the user delete unneeded
apps and content to free up sufficient space.
Another thing you can take advantage of in your app
is checking to see if the device is running
as the demo user using the new user manager
is demo user method.
This allows your app to customize
the starting experience to a potential customer.
When running as a demo user, an app
might provide more assistance to the user
or explain its features in more detail.
There are a bunch of other features in 7.1,
such as support for additional Android Wear [INAUDIBLE]
and some important telephony features.
Check the Android 7.1 page out on developer.android.com
for all the details.
If you're already enrolled in the Android beta program,
then your eligible enrolled devices
will get the Android 7.1 developer preview update
right away.
No action is needed on your part.
If you aren't yet enrolled in Android beta,
the easiest way to get started is to visit Android.com/beta
and opt in your eligible Android phone or tablet.
You'll soon receive this and later
preview updates over the air.
If you have an enrolled device and do not
want to receive the update, just visit Android Beta
and unenroll the device.
You can also download in flash this update manually.
We welcome your feedback in the developer preview issue tracker
and preview developer community or Android beta community
as we work towards the consumer release in December.
[MUSIC PLAYING]