Issue #672

April 27th, 2025
Articles & Tutorials
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Anil Kumar Beesetti demonstrates how to implement an app-wide network status indicator in Jetpack Compose by leveraging Android's ConnectivityManager.
Summary: Ignacio Carrión introduces Kotlin 2.2.0's new context parameters, which allow implicit, type-safe context passing through function calls, replacing the deprecated context receivers and enhancing code clarity and maintainability.
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Darshan Bhanushali shows how to add localization in Compose Multiplatform using shared string resources, platform-specific changeLanguage functions, and CompositionLocalProvider for dynamic language switching.
Ioannis Anifantakis explains how to locally test Android and Kotlin Multiplatform libraries by publishing them with Gradle’s publishToMavenLocal or using Composite Builds, enabling faster iteration and validation without needing a full Maven Central release setup.
Shahinoor Shahin shares practical tips to reduce Android Studio’s memory usage, including adjusting IDE heap size, optimizing Gradle Daemon settings, and enabling parallel project builds to improve performance without sacrificing stability.
Vaibhav Jaiswal explains how to manage shared UI actions across multiple ViewModels by using interfaces with default functions, enabling clean, reusable, and overrideable behavior while retaining full access to ViewModel functionalities.
Ignacio Carrión explains how Kotlin Multiplatform's expect/actual mechanism enables shared code with platform-specific implementations, allowing developers to write common APIs while leveraging native features.
Ed Holloway-George explains how Android 16 adds official support for Certificate Transparency, helping apps better verify server certificates and improve security.
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News
Google announces the fourth and final beta of Android 16, marking platform stability with finalized APIs and app-facing behaviors, encouraging developers to complete compatibility testing and prepare apps, SDKs, and tools before the official Q2 2025 release.
Daniel Galpin summarizes key updates including Android 16 Beta 3 reaching platform stability, Gemini enhancements in Android Studio for businesses and multimodal inputs, expanded widget support with One UI 7, and gaming improvements like Vulkan adoption and new Android Vitals metrics at GDC 2025.
Google introduces new Android Vitals metrics starting with excessive wake locks in beta, helping developers identify and reduce resource-heavy behaviors to boost app performance and battery life, with additional metrics and Play Store integrations planned later in 2025.
Google reveals the Google I/O 2025 program, highlighting upcoming announcements on AI advancements with Gemini models, building adaptive Android apps, new web innovations, and livestreamed sessions from May 20–21, followed by on-demand content.
Google announces Jetpack Compose 1.8, introducing features like autofill integration, text auto-sizing, new text overflow options, visibility tracking with onLayoutRectChanged, automatic bounds animation with animateBounds, and significantly stabilizing experimental APIs.
Google announces new Play Console insights including a redesigned app dashboard focused on key developer objectives, enhanced notifications, new metrics like low memory kill rates and excessive wake locks, and quality tools to help developers improve app performance and user experience across devices.
Videos & Podcasts
Before diving into the Visitor Pattern, Dave Leeds takes a closer look at double dispatch—what it is, how it’s traditionally handled in single-dispatch languages, and how a few Kotlin language features can make it much simpler.
We're all doing things that end up not being ideal. Philipp Lackner shares mistakes made in the past which led to issues later on, so you don't have to make them.
Philipp Lackner shows how you can work with Ktor MockEngine to mock API calls for your tests. It also includes a guide on integration testing in general.
Jov Mit steps through a migration from Retrofit to Ktor
Meet Junie, JetBrains' new AI-powered agent designed to live right in your IDE. With guest Sebastian Aigner, explore what Junie can (and can’t) do for developers, how it works, and what it means for the future of AI-assisted coding.
The SDK Runtime is a new technology in Android 14 designed to build trust by isolating third party code in a secure environment—a sandbox. This video explains the development requirements for the SDK Runtime, including why and how they're used.
In this final part, take the final steps required when converting your native Android app to the web using Kotlin/Wasm and Compose Multiplatform.
Nicola Corti chats with Aayush Gupta, the maintainer of Aurora Store, a popular alternative to the Google Play Store.
Learn more about Android 16 beta 3, Gemini in Android Studio for Business and Multimodal, Android XR, Media and Camera updates, and much more.