After several months of development, the release of 2 developer preview versions and 4 beta versions, The launch of the long-awaited new version of Android 15 has been announced, which comes packed with a large number of new features, improvements, changes and above all, great work done by the developers on security issues and improvements for devices with both large and foldable screens.
Android 15 will be available for a wide range of smartphones and compatible Pixels will be the first to receive the update in the coming weeks. It will then arrive on select devices from brands like Samsung, Lenovo, Motorola, Xiaomi, and others in the coming months.
Main news of Android 15
Large and foldable screens
During the development of Android 15, something that the work team had very clear was the issue of devices with large screens and also foldable screens and in this new version Added the ability to use a taskbar to quickly switch between applications and set shortcuts to the most frequently used ones. This makes it easier to work simultaneously with multiple applications on devices with large screens.
For folding screens, It is now possible to use applications on secondary screens, like those found on foldable devices, to take calls, reply to messages or control the camera without having to open the device. In addition, applications are displayed in edge-to-edge mode by default, using the entire visible area of the screen, including behind the system panels, which are now displayed in a translucent manner.
Security
As part of the security improvements that were made in Android 15, users have now been given the ability to define a private section for applications which only appear after additional authentication. These apps are stored in a separate profile and are suspended when access is blocked, thus protecting the privacy of content and notifications.
On NFC-enabled devices, mobile payment security has been improved by now allowing the NFC adapter to accept requests and send them to a specific process without transmitting data.
In addition, they have been introduced New tools for application profiling and encryption key management End-to-End (E2EE) and security filters on attempts have been greatly improved, with expanded intent request filtering capabilities and increased protection against malicious background activity.
Improvements
Android 15 introduces various improvements ranging from memory which now has Support for devices with 16KB memory pages (which improves performance in memory-intensive applications), as well as the implementation of a system that allows archiving infrequently used applications to free up storage space without losing important data.
Also Apps can now offer widgets with custom thumbnails And by default, the system now includes animations that prompt the user about upcoming actions when navigating using gestures, such as swiping left to minimize an app.
The handling of services that remain active without user interaction has been optimized, limiting execution to 6 hours in data synchronization or media processing tasks.
Have been introduced New interface elements to unify the use of satellite communication channels, and applications can determine if satellite channels are being used using the method ServiceState.isUsingNonTerrestrialNetwork(). Support for SMS/MMS via satellite has also been improved.
Showtimes:
As for optimizations and improvements in internal system functions, Android 15 introduces improvements in handling PDF files, as rendering capabilities have been expanded to include support for password-protected files, form editing, and optimizations that reduce resource consumption.
Has Improved account management and authentication for individual applications, allowing the user to authenticate without passwords using biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or facial recognition.
In addition to this, in Android 15 eThe graphics subsystem now supports the Matrix44 class for 2D to 3D coordinate transformation and the clipShader function for overlaying clips with specific shaders. Also, support has been added for the CTA-2075 standard that defines volume normalization capabilities to avoid abrupt changes in volume level between different contents.
Camera and Audio
Have been added options to improve brightness in low light conditions and adjust the intensity of the photographic flash, and now allows the use of spatial audio for multi-channel audio if the device supports it, replacing the Virtualizer class with Spatializer.
On Android 15, it is possible to create applications that act as virtual MIDI devices, compliant with the MIDI 2.0 specification and continued API enhancements to manage dynamic performance, monitor power consumption, and prioritize energy efficiency in power-intensive applications
Of the other changes that stand out of this new version:
- An OpenGL ES implementation has been prepared that uses the ANGLE layer on top of the Vulkan graphics API. This implementation improves compatibility and, in some situations, performance for OpenGL applications. ANGLE is available as an option in the “Developer Options/Experimental” and is expected to be the default interface in 2025, and the only supported one in 2026.
- The dav1d library has been added for decoding video in AV1 format on devices that do not have hardware acceleration support. This library, developed by VideoLAN and FFmpeg, offers significantly better performance than previous decoders.
- Now, by holding down the Home button, the search interface allows you to search for music that is playing nearby or in some application
- The photo selection interface now allows you to tag only recently selected photos and videos, making it easier to quickly access frequently used content.
- Advanced options for language switching during speech recognition, including the ability to control how often and when languages are switched.
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