Google releases a new update to Android every year. As always, Google is gearing up to launch its Android 15 this year. This year, it is expected to launch Android 15 along with new hardware at Google I/O 2024 on May 14. It’s still early in the development cycle, so here’s a look at some of the interesting Android 15 features that Google revealed in the developer previews.
Android 15 Name & Release Date
Android 15, codenamed Vanilla Ice Cream, will arrive on May 14 at Google I/O 2024 or later this year. These details may be officially announced at Google I/O 2024. As with all Android versions, Android 15 will be available through the Android Beta Program in April. Anytime after that, the update will be available to the public, and you will get a notification to download Android 15 if your phone supports it.
Are new features coming in Android 15? How do they work? Details
Connectivity
- Satellite Connectivity Support: Android 15 expands platform support for satellite connectivity and includes some UI elements to provide users with a consistent experience on satellite connectivity.
- Update to NFC: Furthermore, Android 15 is working to make the payment experience faster and more reliable while supporting Android’s robust NFC app ecosystem.
Privacy
- Feature to detect screen recording: With the new upcoming Android 15, you can detect when your apps are recording. That means, you can sense if someone is recording the information of the apps you are using.
- Partial screen sharing feature: Android 15 supports partial screen sharing, which means users can share or record only the required app window and not the entire device’s screen. First introduced in Android 14 QPR2, this feature includes media projection callbacks that allow your app to customize the partial screen sharing experience.
Camera and Media
- New camera control features: Android 15 adds new updates for more control over the camera hardware and its algorithms on supported devices, such as controlling the camera from within the app.
- Android 15 lets you set the HDR headroom you want to achieve a balance between SDR and HDR content via HDR Headroom Control.
- New Media Features: Loudness control, Android 15 introduces the Loudness Codec Controller API based on the CTA-2075 loudness standard. That is, this API helps you manage audio loudness inconsistencies to ensure users don’t have to constantly adjust the volume when switching between content or apps.
- Android 15 expands UMP support for virtual MIDI 2.0 devices, allowing composition apps to control a USB MIDI 2.0 device and synthesizer apps to act as virtual MIDI 2.0 devices.
Introducing New Productivity Tools
- PDF Improvements: Android 15 Developer Preview 2 contains an early preview with significant updates to the PDF Renderer APIs.
- Automatic language switching: Android 15 adds an additional feature to help apps tune automatic language switching.
Battery and Performance
- Application Start Info API feature: The ApplicationStartInfo API in Android 15 helps provide complete details about app startup, including app startup status, time spent in initialization, how your app started when your application class was instantiated, and more.
- App’s full-size information: Android 15 adds Storage Stats .get App Bytes By Data Type([type]) API. It allows you to get details on how your app uses total storage, including APK file splits, AOT and speedup related code, dex metadata, libraries and guided profiles.
A new feature has also been brought in terms of security.
- Feature to protect files using fs-verity. Android 15’s FileIntegrity Manager includes new APIs that tap into the power of the fs-verity feature in the Linux kernel.