Android
Articles on Android performance, Kotlin optimization, Gradle builds, and building responsive Android apps.
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Android 17 Stable
Released
Android 17 Beta 1 is now available for development and testing on select Pixel devices and the Android Emulator.
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Version history →Android engineering articles 1–30 of 942
Agentic and Flexible: A next era of Android development
Matthew McCullough from Google just dropped the biggest Android development shift in years. If you're still coding the old way, you're already behind.
Your favorite agents are now integrated in Android Studio
Matthew Warner from Google just dropped Android Studio Rabbit 2, and it's a game-changer: you can now plug in any AI coding agent you want. No more vendor lock-in for your dev workflow.
What's new in Android developer tools and performance at Android Dev Summit
Adarsh Fernando from Google just dropped a massive tooling update that fundamentally changes how developers build Android apps. AI agents can now access real physical devices, render Compose previews from the t...
Multi-Ratio Video Resizing for Mobile Feed and Marketing
Netflix just solved a problem every mobile team faces: how do you turn cinematic 16:9 video into vertical formats without losing the story? Their answer involves neural networks, active speaker detection, and a...
A more reliable way to add and edit contacts on Android
Roxanna Aliabadi Walker from Google reveals a major shift in Android contact management. If your app uses WRITE_CONTACTS permission, you'll need to refactor before the next Android release—or face SecurityExcep...
How to Integrate Deferred Deep Linking in Flutter
Bartek Krasoń and Mateusz Turbański from Software Mansion tackle one of mobile's trickiest UX problems: getting users to the right screen after they install your app from a link. Their solution using Detour eli...
Grab Reduces ANRs by 32% and improves startup time by 35% with R8 and Profile guided optimization
Nguyen Van Minh from Grab reveals how they turned a 10-year-old, 10-million-line codebase into a performance powerhouse. The results? A 32% drop in ANRs and 35% faster startup times.
Bring 3D to Life in Flutter with flutter_scene and Flutter GPU
Amorn Apichattanakul built a 3D hotel tour in Flutter and discovered the hard truth: one demo ran at 120fps, the other barely hit 25fps. Here's what actually works for 3D in production apps.
You Don't Need a Rewrite: Expo's New Brownfield React Native Story
Darin Wilson from Infinite Red reveals how Expo just eliminated the biggest barrier to adopting React Native: you can now integrate it into existing native apps without a rewrite, and it takes just five words t...
Amper Is Now the Kotlin Toolchain: Moving to the Kotlin Blog
Joffrey Bion announces a major evolution: Amper isn't going away, it's becoming something bigger. The experimental build tool is now the Kotlin Toolchain, marking a shift toward a unified entry point for Kotlin...
How We Built a Virtual Device Farm for Android E2E Tests
İbrahim Süren from Trendyol reveals how they ditched job-local emulators and built their own virtual device farm. The result? Predictable Android E2E tests at scale without the resource contention nightmares.
Guide to Show Your App Notifications on Android Devices
Pavithra Chamod J breaks down why 70% of Android notification implementations fail. The culprit? A permission introduced in Android 13 that most developers overlook.
Why Expo is a great fit for new and existing React Native apps
Keith Kurak from Expo makes a bold claim: AI coding agents don't eliminate the need for cross-platform frameworks. They actually make the case stronger.
Engineering Real-Time Mobile Personalization Across iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter
Sneha Singla from Salesforce tackled what seemed impossible: building one real-time personalization system that works flawlessly across iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter without breaking layouts or requir...
Kotlin Toolchain 0.12: Multiplatform Library Publishing, Wasm Apps, and More
Joffrey Bion just dropped Kotlin Toolchain 0.12, and it's bringing the multiplatform publishing workflow developers have been waiting for. Plus, Wasm apps just got a whole lot more practical.
WebView vs Server-Driven UI vs Code Push
Shorebird explores three approaches to shipping mobile updates faster. Which one actually delivers on the promise of speed without sacrificing native performance?
React Native Callkeep Alternatives in 2026
Paweł Gadomski from Software Mansion just solved one of React Native's messiest problems: getting WhatsApp-style incoming calls to actually work when your app is killed. The solution? Stop treating it as a libr...
Gesture Handler's Touchable: Button We Wish We Had Sooner
Jakub Piasecki from Software Mansion just solved React Native's button problem. After shipping 9 different button components, they built one to replace them all.
How we moved 1,500 Android screenshot tests to Roborazzi
Zachary Wander from Thumbtack just migrated 1,500 screenshot tests off Firebase Test Lab. The migration wasn't smooth, but the payoff in speed and developer experience made it worth every debugging session.
General Availability of Mobile Platform Support Arrives in Discord Social SDK Version 1.10
Colin Feo from Discord reveals how mobile gaming's retention problem just got a social solution. Discord's Social SDK v1.10 brings full iOS and Android support, and early partners are already seeing lapsed play...
Flutter 3.32 Support and Review
Flutter 3.32 just dropped, and Shorebird has already rolled out full support. If you're shipping Flutter apps, this integration promise is bold: under 5 minutes to get started.
Protect your Flutter iOS apps with Shorebird Obfuscation
Shorebird just launched obfuscation for Flutter iOS apps. If you're shipping sensitive code or worried about reverse engineering, this changes the game.
Squircles, Styles, and Spacing: How Your Feedback is Helping Improve Mobile
Discord's Design Systems Team just shipped a masterclass in cross-platform consistency. Their mobile redesign proves that listening to user feedback can drive meaningful UX improvements at scale.
Android 17: What Every Android Developer Should Know in 2026
Anjuka Koralage breaks down Android 17's biggest shift: Google is forcing developers to stop ignoring tablets and foldables. No more opt-outs for resizable windows.
Flutter Too Slow for Images? Rush It With Rust
Amorn Apichattanakul from KBTG just shattered a common Flutter myth: it's not the language that's slow, it's the codec. His benchmark results are eye-opening.
The Mistake That Taught Me to Use Flutter Flavors
Abdelrahman Khalil accidentally shipped a production app pointing to staging servers. That painful mistake led him to master Flutter Flavors—and he's breaking down exactly how to avoid the same fate.
How AI Learned to Investigate Mobile Build Failures Like an Experienced Support Engineer
Archana Indran's team at Salesforce turned years of mobile debugging expertise into AI that investigates build failures like a senior engineer. Eight people now support 60+ repositories with less firefighting.
Tuning Android build nodes for maximum throughput
Wealthfront's Android team cut their CI build times by rethinking how Gradle uses resources on AWS EC2 instances. Turns out, more workers doesn't always mean faster builds.
Building Arrive's Confetti in React Native with Reanimated
Joel Besada from Shopify reveals how they built a delightful confetti animation in React Native that runs at 60 FPS without blocking the JavaScript thread. The secret? Declarative animations that execute entire...
How a Kotlin compiler plugin cut Android time to first render by 30%
Łukasz Kosmaty from Expo just shipped a compiler plugin that cuts Android app startup time by 30%. No code changes required for developers.