“Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media and AI experiences, take advantage of device form factors, minimize battery impact, maximize smooth app performance, and protect user privacy and security, all on the most diverse lineup of devices,” Matthew McCullough, VP of product for Android Developer, wrote in a blog post. 

One of the updates available in Android 15 Beta 3 is an improved user experience for passkeys, which is a password alternative that allows users to sign in with a fingerprint, facial recognition, or screen lock. Using a passkey on Android used to require going through two screens and it’s now been condensed to one. 

The team has also added a fallback UI to help when a user accidentally dismissed the prompt to use a passkey. Passkey sign-in will now show up alongside other Credential Manager suggestions in autofill areas. 

Credential Manager itself also received some updates in this release. Credential providers can now transfer the user authentication mechanism to the system UI by using new APIs in Jetpack’s androidx.credentials library. 

Developers can also now associate a Credential Manager request with a specific view, such as username or password fields.  When one of those fields is in focus, Credential Manager gets a request and then the autofill fallback UI displays the resulting credentials. 

Another important thing to note in this release is that the setDatabaseEnabled and getDatabaseEnabled WebSettings are now deprecated. These were associated with WebSQL support on Android, which has now been removed from Chrome and deprecated on Android Webview. Within the next 12 months these methods will not work anymore. The Android development team recommends that apps that need web databases adopt Web Storage API technologies, such as IndexedDB.  

The Android development team recommends using the most recent version of Android Studio Koala to do things like try out new features and APIs, test app compatibility, and update apps using the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant. 

“The Android 15 developer site has lots more information about the beta, including how to get it on devices and the release timeline. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think, and thank you in advance for your continued help in making Android a platform that works for everyone,” McCullough wrote. 

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The project was formed by five mobile development companies: Amaze, BharOS, Futurewei, Meetkai, and Squid. 

Open Mobile Hub will release several open-source SDKs and tools, including the Login & Authentication SDK, Maps & Location SDK, Storage SDK, and Core Gradle Plugin. 

Extensibility is also a main goal of the project; Third-party developers will be to create their own plugins for Open Mobile Hub, which will allow for more flexibility in the development process. 

Preston Lau, technical steering committee chair of the project, explained that, for example, the OMH Maps API abstracts away the features of mapping services to allow developers to easily switch between Google Maps, Azure Maps, Mapbox, and OpenStreetMap without having to write too much code to make the change.

“I’m excited to welcome OMH to Linux Foundation Europe, as the formation of this project represents a crucial step towards addressing the fragmentation and inefficiencies in mobile app development,” said Gabriele Columbro, general manager of Linux Foundation Europe. “By bringing together industry leaders in an open mobile ecosystem, we aim to create a unified solution that simplifies the development process, ultimately leading to a better cross-platform user experience. Additionally, we see the potential to democratise another critical area of technology, characterised by a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape in the EU and beyond.”

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Users describe their business and what features they have in mind and the AI will generate a complete app. The generated app can then be customized by the user, who can change components like sections, widgets, designs, themes, and more. 

In an example the company gave, a user simply tells the AI that their company sells “high-quality sports shoes and sneakers” and it returns a ready-to-publish app tailored to the business and their target audience.

Wix provides a preview of the app that users can view before they decide to publish it to the Apple App Store or Google Play. 

The new AI capabilities are available now, only for customers of the premium Branded App plan, which starts at $99 per month. 

“Users can now create a custom native mobile app using the AI chat experience by simply describing their goals and visions and AI does the work,” said Noa Eiland, head of mobile apps at Wix. “We’re thrilled to expand our suite of AI tools to mobile with the launch of AI to our native mobile app builder.”

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It was designed to give full coverage of all the unique functionalities of varying mobile devices and their operating systems.

With this new new offering, tests are created through a low-code interface, meaning that developers can create tests for their mobile apps in a matter of minutes and non-developers can also utilize the platform. According to the company, this makes testing more accessible and will help to build a culture of quality throughout the organization.

Tests can be executed in parallel across multiple devices, ensuring that testing teams are able to get results faster.  

The platform also offers capabilities designed to increase trust in test results by minimizing the occurrence of flaky tests, which are tests that return both passing and failing results. These include things like auto-healing, which is when tests rewrite themselves to adapt to code changes, and Intelligent Wait, which tailors testing wait times to the normal pace of the application. 

In addition to offering a low-code interface, mabl’s mobile testing capabilities also utilize AI to help make testers even more productive by reducing manual selector tests, speeding up test creation, automatically discovering gaps in test coverage, and identifying performance degradation issues. 

“Ensuring  the  highest  quality  software  across  the  entire  user  experience  is  critical  for organizations  today.  End  user  transactions  globally  occur  primarily  on  smartphones,  yet  the mobile  app  testing  and  deployment  process  has  failed  to  catch  up  to  the  pace  of  change,  and largely  continued  to  be  arcane,  time-intensive,  and  highly  piecemeal  in  its  focus  on  the  testing experience,”  said  Dan  Belcher,  cofounder  at  mabl.  “In  this  climate,  organizations  that  don’t  put mobile  quality  front  and  center  will  fail  to  attract  and  maintain  their  user  base.  At  mabl,  we’ve seen  firsthand  that  organizations  that  embrace  AI-powered,  automated  testing  solutions  have  a competitive  advantage,  by  democratizing  mobile  app  testing  and  accelerating  time  to  market.”

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The satellite communication functionality has been updated with new UI elements to provide a better user experience. Apps can also now use ServiceState.isUsingNonTerrestrialNetwork() to detect when a device is connected via satellite, and there is also now support for sending and receiving messages through SMS/MMS or RCS applications over satellite. 

The NFC experience was also updated; Apps can now request a device go into a mode where they listen to NFC readers but don’t send a response. 

PdfRenderer APIs have also been updated with advanced features like rendering password-protected files, annotations, form editing, searching, and selection. The APIs have also moved to a different module where they can now be updated using Google Play system updates, allowing updates to be separated from the platform release.

Audio recognition was also improved, with more fine-tuned capabilities for automatic switching between languages. The hope is that this will cut down on dropped words when switching, which has been an issue since the feature was introduced in the previous version of Android. EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_INITIAL_ACTIVE_DURATION_TIME_MILLIS keeps switching to the beginning of an audio session, and EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_MATCH_SWITCHES lets developers limit the number of times the language is switched in a session. 

Other new developer features added in this preview release include:

• Granular line break controls with TextView
• Support for more precise IntentFilter resolution
• Expanded OpenJDK API support
• The ability to show applications on the cover screen of flippable devices
• Screen record detection
• The ability for apps to customize Do Not Disturb rules

For efficiency updates, the team released the ApplicationStartInfo API, which gives details on whether an app had been started by a broadcast, content provider, job, backup, boot complete, alarm, or activity. 

Other updates include improvements to the Stopped State function of the PackageManager, more detailed app size information, the introduction of the mediaProcessing Foreground Service type, and new SQLite APIs. 

This release also introduces several media improvements, such as the ability to control the HDR headroom for images, automatic adjustments to volume to compensate for differences in volume between media, and deprecation of the Virtualizer class. 

“Android continues to add features enabling your apps to take advantage of premium device hardware, including the latest telecommunications features, high-end media capabilities, dazzling displays, foldable/flippable form factors, and AI processing,” Dave Burke, VP of engineering for Android, wrote in a blog post. 

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Tricentis just published its State of Mobile Application Quality Report 2024, where it found that 48% of testing professionals said that AI is already part of their mobile testing strategy. A further 21% plan to implement testing tools over the course of the next six months.

The company estimates that AI can save testers an average of 40 hours per month and save 76-100% of a company’s budget per year. 

According to Tricentis, companies that don’t incorporate AI into their mobile testing strategy may face challenges like lack of talent, resources, and upskilling. 

In addition to helping testers work faster, AI can help them get more done. For example, the company found that those who use AI as part of their strategy have more of their company’s information and services accessible on mobile than those that don’t. 

“For organizations looking to implement artificial intelligence to boost their business objectives, testing is a fantastic place to start,” said David Colwell, vice president of AI and ML at Tricentis. “Mobile application testing is a great use case for AI because not only does it have multiple benefits – including significant time and cost savings, as well as quality improvement and risk reduction – but also its impact can be accurately measured.” 

Despite the adoption of AI, the report found that about half of respondents are still using manual testing, though 38% believe that they would save about 51-75% of their company budget by fully automating their testing practice.

Another finding was that only 27% of respondents believe that their company’s test strategy exceeds expectations. 

And finally, a majority of respondents (90%) believe that they lose up to $2.49 million in lost revenue every year due to mobile quality issues. 

For the report, Tricentis surveyed 1,028 senior IT leaders from small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises in December 2023.

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“Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media experiences, minimize battery impact, maximize smooth app performance, and protect user privacy and security all on the most diverse lineup of devices out there,” Dave Burke, VP of engineering for Android, wrote in a blog post.

Android 15 will include the latest version of Privacy Sandbox, which is Google’s effort to develop new technologies that preserve user privacy while still allowing personalized experiences and ads. 

Also, the fitness and health tracking service Health Connect by Android is being updated with new data types. 

The FileIntegrityManager will be getting new APIs that utilize Linux’ fs-verity feature, which allows files to be protected with cryptographic signatures. In the context of Android, this allows them to protect user devices against malware or unauthorized file modifications.

Android 15 also adds support for partial screen sharing, which allows users to share or record a specific app window, rather than having to use the entire screen. 

The camera is being updated with enhancements for photos taken in low light conditions and improved flash intensity settings. 

Performance improvements in the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) include a power-efficiency mode for hint sessions, adjustment of GPU and CPU frequencies to meet workload demand, and thermal headroom thresholds. 

Developers looking to test out Android 15 can do so on Pixel 6, 7, or 8 phones, or the Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet. Outside of those devices, developers can also use the Android Emulator in Android Studio. 

“Your feedback on the Android 15 Developer Preview and QPR beta program plays a key role in helping Android continuously improve. The Android 15 developer site has more information about the preview, including downloads for Pixel and detailed documentation about changes. This preview is just the beginning, and we’ll have lots more to share as we move through the release cycle. Thank you in advance for your help in making Android a platform that works for everyone,” Burke said.

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Additionally, 75% said that mobile apps represent at least a quarter of their companies’ revenue, which highlights the fact that slow releases may threaten the viability of their business, not just their bottom line. 

When asked how frequently they release mobile app updates, 38% said weekly, 27% said monthly, 20% said daily, 14% said quarterly, and 1% said less than once per quarter. 

In terms of what is causing delays, limited financial resources are the culprit for 50% of organizations. Forty-seven percent also cited inefficient development and QA processes and 40% cited a lack of skilled development and QA labor. 

To combat some of these challenges, many companies are turning to test automation and other AI-based technologies. Manual tests take at least three days for 61% of companies, while automated tests can be completed in a matter of hours.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents claimed it took 1-3 hours to run automated tests, 32% said it takes 3-6 hours, 21% said it takes 6-9 hours, and 8% said it takes more than 10 hours. Eleven percent of respondents can complete their automated tests in under an hour. 

For those that have moved from manual to automated tests, time to market decreased by 25-50% for 37% of respondents and more than 50% for 18% of respondents.  

At the time of the survey, 48% of the respondents were automating 10 to 24% of their tests and 22% were automating 25 to 49% of their tests. Ideally, about half of respondents reported they would like to automate more than 50% of their tests. 

Some of the top strategies companies are following to increase their test automation coverage include providing training to enhance automation skills, hiring more automation engineers, using low-code/no-code automation tools, and building automation scripts using iOS and Android Native frameworks.

When asked how generative AI is playing into their testing strategy, 47% said they are using it to generate test scripts, 60% are using it to update scripts or code, and 55% are using it to analyze test results. Only 8% of respondents said they have not used generative AI at all. 

Looking ahead to the future, respondents said the most useful AI capabilities would be the ability to predict potential defects (51%), using generative AI to create test cases and data (45%), natural language processing for better test case documentation (44%), image recognition for UI testing (36%), and self-healing test strategies (36%).

“Witnessing firsthand the transformative power of AI tools in the realm of mobile app development and testing for our customers has been a remarkable journey,” said Frank Moyer, CTO of Kobiton. “By enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and enabling professionals to focus on more strategic tasks, AI is fundamentally reshaping the industry’s landscape. As these tools continue to evolve, I anticipate a profound and accelerated embrace of AI-driven methodologies.”

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Earlier this year, Google had announced that developers would now need to meet new verification requirements before publishing their apps.  In acknowledgment of the fact that differently sized teams would need varying amounts of time to implement changes, Google is now allowing developers to choose their own deadline for meeting the requirements.

The deadlines will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis, according to Google, which means that developers should apply as soon as possible in order to get the date they desire. Developers who don’t opt to choose a deadline before February 29, 2024 will be assigned one automatically. 

The next change is that new personal developer accounts will be required to have 20 people test their applications for a minimum of two weeks before they can be published. According to Google, apps that use Google Play’s testing tools have “on average 3 times the amount of app installs and user engagement compared to those that don’t.”

Google also revealed that its global review teams will be spending more time assessing new apps. This might result in longer review timelines for certain types of apps, such as those designed for children or those that request certain device permissions. “These deeper reviews help ensure that users are engaging in safe and trusted experiences through Google Play,” Kobi Gluck, director of product management for Google Play, wrote in a blog post.

The company is also trying to reward developers who focus on quality by making their apps more easily discoverable. Users are now given information on whether an app will perform well on their specific device and Google Play also now surfaces local and regional content if it is high quality. 

Next year Google will also add more signifiers to store listings, including a badge that denotes an app is an official government app.

“All of these changes are designed to help connect people with safe, high-quality, useful, and relevant experiences they’ll love, wherever they are and on whatever device they’re using,” Gluck wrote.

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“We have been relentlessly committed to addressing all the pain points for mobile testing in a simplified, seamless way,” said Mav Turner, Chief Technology Officer of DevOps, Tricentis. “And we believe Tricentis Mobile makes it easier to test in a complete and comprehensive way previously not possible.”

Tricentis Mobile enables teams to test apps on thousands of real and virtual devices from Apple, Samsung, Google, smartphones to tablets, mobile browsers and more. Together with Tricentis Device Cloud, the Virtual Mobile Grid provides Tricentis Mobile greater flexibility and coverage of mobile applications. Teams can author mobile tests faster and more easily, run using real devices or virtual devices, and gain essential insights across all stages of the development cycle—all from within a single platform.

Tricentis Mobile brings together Tricentis Testim Mobile, Tricentis Tosca Mobile, and the Tricentis Device Cloud as part of a single platform. The Virtual Mobile Grid was developed using technology acquired from Waldo and is now available in Testim Mobile with plans to add to Tosca Mobile in a future release.

“Organizations today face immense pressure to release high-quality mobile apps faster to stay competitive. If the user experience suffers, organizations stand to lose money, reputation, and revenue. Tricentis Mobile meets this challenge by enabling businesses to provide optimal mobile experiences from anywhere, and on any device. Removing manual processes, reducing maintenance costs, and achieving better test coverage improves overall application quality,” Turner said.

Tricentis Mobile’s advanced capabilities include:

• The ability to seamlessly test on real and virtual devices in the cloud: Organizations can now test end to end at every layer (desktop, web, API and mobile) across thousands of iOS and Android devices to ensure consistency across business processes.
• AI-enabled analytics to pinpoint mobile failures rapidly: Neural network technology provides the ability to intuitively see and understand mobile interfaces (objects, images, video, audio) to detect critical mobile failures while also optimizing for native features, performance, and platform-specific UX.
• End-to-end mobile testing solution for accelerated app delivery: Teams can now build and run no-code tests to identify and resolve critical UX and performance issues through real-time tracking of 130+ KPIs related to network, location, response time, CPU, and more.
• Codeless, SaaS-based test automation for accelerated high-quality releases: Author and execute mobile tests faster using a wide range of iOS simulators and Android emulators to increase user satisfaction and application performance.

Additional Resources

• Webinar: Tricentis introduces Virtual Mobile Grid for integrated mobile test execution at scale on October 18, 2023
• Blog: Tricentis Mobile: An all-in-one solution for high-quality, high-performing mobile apps
• Press release: Tricentis Adds Tricentis Device Cloud to its Growing Mobile Testing Portfolio
• Press release: Tricentis Acquires Codeless Mobile Test Automation Platform Waldo

About Tricentis

Tricentis is a global leader in continuous testing and quality engineering. The Tricentis AI-based, continuous testing portfolio of products provide a new and fundamentally different way to perform software testing. An approach that’s totally automated, fully codeless, and intelligently driven by AI. It addresses both agile development and complex enterprise apps, enabling enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation by dramatically increasing software release speed, reducing costs, and improving software quality. Widely credited for reinventing software testing for DevOps, cloud, and enterprise applications, Tricentis has been recognized as a leader by all major industry analysts, including Forrester, Gartner, and IDC. Tricentis has more than 3,000 customers, including the largest brands in the world, such as McKesson, Allianz, Telstra, Dolby, and Vodafone. To learn more, visit https://www.tricentis.com.

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