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Kotlin Reaches 2.1.0, Bringing New Language Features, Compiler Updates, and More
Kotlin 2.1.0 introduces new syntax, including guard conditions, non-local break and continue, and multi-dollar string interpolation. Additionally, it extends its multiplatform capabilities and improves the K2 compiler.
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Google Introduces Gemini AI Features to Android Studio
Google has released a set of updates to Gemini in Android Studio, aiming to enhance the developer productivity through AI-powered features. This release is designed to bring AI to every stage of the development lifecycle, such as AI-assisted coding, refactoring, generating documentation, analyzing and test code, and suggesting fixes.
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Kotlin HTTP Toolkit Ktor 3.0 Improves Performance and Adds Support for Server-Sent Events
Ktor, Kotlin's native framework to create asynchronous HTTP server and client applications, has reached version 3. It adopts kotlinx-io, which brings improved performance albeit at the cost of breaking changes, and adds support for Server-Sent events, CSFR, serving static resources from ZIP files, and more.
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Vertex AI in Firebase Aims to Simplify the Creation of Gemini-powered Mobile Apps
Currently available in beta, the Vertex AI SDK for Firebase enables the creation of apps that go beyond the simple chat model and text prompting. Google has just made available a colab to help developers through the steps required to integrate it into their apps.
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Compiler Explorer Provides Insights into Low-Level Android App Optimization
Android engineers at Google added support for the Java and Kotlin programming languages to Compiler Explorer, an open source tool aimed at exploring how compilers work by compiling code in real-time. Using Compiler Explorer, Android engineers can optimize the performance of their apps by observing how the compiler works under the hood instead of using a set of pre-defined best practices.
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Android 15 Brings Desktop-Like Windowing UX on Tablets
The latest Beta 2 for the upcoming Android 15 release introduces desktop windowing for tablets as a developer preview. The new feature makes it possible to manage "freeform windows" that users can create to display multiple apps and resize or move around similarly to what they would do on a desktop computer.
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Jetpack Compose Embraces Adaptive UIs with Compose Material 3 Adaptive
Compose Material 3 Adaptive, a library meant to create adaptive UIs able to adapt themselves automatically according to the current window size or device orientation, has reached 1.0 and is ready to be used in production apps.
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Android 15 Beta 4 Now Available for Developers to Bring their Apps Up to Date
Google released the last scheduled Android 15 beta, which brings stable developer APIs and allows developers to update their apps and publish them on Google Play before non-beta users get access to the official Android version.
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.NET 9 MAUI Preview 5: New Blazor Project Template, Android 15 Beta 2 Support
Microsoft released .NET 9 Preview 5 on June 11th 2024. This update brings a .NET MAUI Blazor Hybrid and Web App project template, Android API 35 Beta 2 support, and some performance and app size optimizations on the Android platform.
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Kotlin 2.0 Launched with New, Faster, More Flexible K2 Compiler
JetBrains has released Kotlin 2.0 along with the new K2 compiler. While the language itself introduces no new syntax, the K2 compiler brings several benefits, including faster builds, extended analysis capabilities with smart casts, and multiplatform support out of the box.
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Jetpack Compose Extends Transitions and Animations, and Improves Performance
The latest release of Jetpack Compose, announced at Google I/O 2024, brings several extensions, including support for shared element transitions, lazy list item animations, improved performance, and more.
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Android 15 Beta Brings Loudness Control, Improvements for Satellite Connectivity, and More
Google has released Android 15 Beta. This version brings loudness control, screen recording detection, edge-to-edge apps by default, improvements for satellite connectivity and OpenJDK core libraries, new SQLite Apis, and more.
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Wear OS Gets New, More Efficient Text-to-Speech Engine
Google has announced a new text-to-speech engine for Wear OS, its Android variant aimed at smartwatches and other wearables, supporting over 50 languages and faster than its predecessor thanks to using smaller ML models.
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Android Fused Orientation Provider Aims to Improve Device Orientation Management
The Fused Orientation Provider (FOP) is a new Android API that uses signals from motion sensors embedded in a smartphone to provide consistent and reliable device orientation. FOP is distributed through Google Play Services and is available on all devices running Android 5, independently from their manufacturers.
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Android Studio Iguana Brings Crashlytics Integration, Compose UI Check, Baseline Profiles Wizard
The latest version of Android Studio, dubbed Iguana, brings several new features, including better integration with Crashlytics; Compose UI Check, a new tool to verify Compose UI design and behavior; improved rendering for Compose views; a wizard to create baseline profiles, and more.