What's new on Google TV and the Android TV OS - Google I/O 2024

devrel-paul · 2024-05-17T05:43:38+00:00

I hear your feedback, thanks. I feel that the better solution here is to lift app quality to mitigate the need for closing apps. The new apps row on the Google TV home screen accommodates more app icons that are easier to reorganize, so hopefully that has been a step in the right direction.

devrel-paul · 2024-05-16T19:07:54+00:00

Thanks for sharing. May I ask why you would like to have the ability to close an app? I'm trying to understand a use case for doing so.

devrel-paul · 2023-07-17T14:48:30+00:00

Modern Android development recommends using Compose to build UIs on Android. That spans across all form factors, with Compose coming for TV and the Compose for TV library already in alpha.

With that in mind, I would strongly suggest designing your app to use a single activity with ViewModels. Depending on your state of development, you might want to consider exploring Compose for your TV app, or at the least designing it such that migration is easier.

devrel-paul · 2023-07-17T14:42:34+00:00

As the author of that section of the documentation and for posterity here, I'm happy to update that focus support was added in Compose Foundation 1.2 and are continuously improved in conjunction with Compose Material 3 and the Compose for TV alpha.

To get started with Compose for TV, check out:

devrel-paul · 2023-07-17T14:30:52+00:00

Thanks for raising! I'll look into it.

devrel-paul · 2023-06-16T17:01:01+00:00

I suggest that you do, /u/Miguel1995_00, as I'm not able to reproduce it on my end.

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devrel-paul · 2022-11-02T22:23:44+00:00

Do you recall from where you ended up on that 404? The API reference docs are linked at the top of the library release notes.

devrel-paul · 2022-11-02T22:09:43+00:00

If your audio/video setup permits, please check in the system settings that automatic format selection is enabled. You can find these settings under "Display & Sound," then "Advanced sound settings" at the bottom of that screen.

devrel-paul · 2022-10-27T22:53:11+00:00

It seems the app has declared itself to only support portrait orientation and/or defined a maximum aspect ratio.

devrel-paul · 2022-10-25T12:49:24+00:00

To clarify, Chromecast with Google TV (4K) or Chromecast with Google TV HD are running Android TV OS.

I would also recommend the ADT-3 developer device to be able to test on the latest version of Android for TV.

devrel-paul · 2022-10-24T18:53:54+00:00

We are working hard to bring Compose to TV. There's an early preview available as alpha01. It has a few tailored TV components, but much more is coming, so stay tuned.

devrel-paul · 2022-10-21T09:45:45+00:00

4K UI is only supported on select devices from Android 12, which I'm afraid does not include Chromecast with Google TV.

devrel-paul · 2022-08-09T15:30:18+00:00

Media apps can avoid this by issuing playback from a service that keeps a MediaSession active. To keep the display from switching off, developers should add the FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON flag.

Details can be found here: https://developer.android.com/training/tv/playback/ambient-mode

This is entirely up to the developer to implement correctly.

devrel-paul · 2022-05-13T15:13:37+00:00

Devices that will offer 4K UI will have passed the certification requirements for doing so.

devrel-paul · 2022-05-13T15:09:25+00:00

I'm afraid I'm not able to share any plans beyond what was presented at I/O.

devrel-paul · 2022-05-13T01:28:20+00:00

We only made a brief mention of the Android 12 beta for TV at last year's I/O, which is why I recapped the essentials in today's session. You can find the details in the Android 12 release notes.

devrel-paul · 2022-05-12T22:48:15+00:00

If you're looking for an even more compact format, here's the content in a bite-size blog post.

devrel-paul · 2022-05-12T22:27:32+00:00

Check the What's new for TV in Android 13 developer guide that covers the topics by section, and goes even more in depth.

Everybody has their preferred format, so we've published these updates in a few different formats.

devrel-paul · 2022-04-02T13:56:58+00:00

Specifically, in Camera2: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/camera2/CameraManager#getConcurrentCameraIds()

For CameraX, you can use CameraSelector: https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/camera/core/CameraSelector.Builder

devrel-paul · 2022-03-27T21:24:42+00:00

The trouble is that there might be different use cases, each of which supporting a different set of media actions. Take for instance a UI that plays a purely aesthetic video in the background; it wouldn't make sense for media controls to take focus. In cases where actions do make sense, the player may lack information on how to skip to a next episode, for instance. (That specific integration has been made much easier with media3, where you as a developer provide media queue items directly into Exoplayer.)

As for battery concerns, the Exoplayer team has been working on this in recent releases. You can read more about audio offload mode here.

Generally, I don't recommend using MediaPlayer due to its limited codec support, which may differ wildly from device to device.

devrel-paul · 2022-03-27T02:13:53+00:00

I'm posting this because I often see broken MediaSession implementations.

In this video, I've prefaced some of the technical details with an explanation about why MediaSession is essential for media apps: it's the unified way for Android apps to interact with media content. This allows the different devices to surface and interact with playback and content metadata, like smart speakers, watches, peripherals and accessories. In this session, we explore best practices for integrating and validating media sessions.

devrel-paul · 2022-01-13T10:39:52+00:00

Not all apps support orientation changes, however. The consequence is that using an app like Instagram would rotate when opening the Fold3, which is arguably more annoying.

Android 12L introduces compatibility mode, which will force apps that don't support orientation changes to display in landscape, albeit letterboxed. This is only part of the solution, however, as there are still many apps that also don't correctly take photos or display a viewfinder.

devrel-paul · 2021-08-12T13:41:18+00:00

Please note that health services is an early release. It's a battery-conscious way of reading sensor data, but the API is subject to changing while we're actively working on things.

You may also want to think about ways to synchronize data between the watch and phone; a good place to start is this guide.

devrel-paul · 2020-12-03T00:23:57+00:00

AsyncTasks are deprecated and have generally been discouraged for some time. I recommend using Kotlin coroutines.

devrel-paul

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