If you’re reading this on an Android device with a bigger screen, fixed or folding, the next version of Google’s mobile operating system will force your apps to better handle that screen real estate.
That’s the major news in Google’s announcement Wednesday of the first beta release of Android 17, due sometime in the second quarter of this year. App developers won’t be able to opt out of screen orientation and resizing features when running on devices with bigger screens.
“Users expect their apps to work everywhere—whether multitasking on a tablet, unfolding a device, or using a desktop windowing environment—and they expect the UI to fill the space and respect their device posture,” Google says in a blog post.
The rest of the post doesn’t offer much of a hint about what Android 17 will look like, mostly covering features and options that aren’t exposed to users. Among them:
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Improvements to inter-process messaging and memory management;
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Media refinements such as support for the Versatile Video Coding format on devices with sufficient processing power to handle that codec;
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Security upgrades that include making it harder for apps to send data in the clear;
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Easier handling of health and fitness devices and trackers.
Shockingly enough, the abbreviation “AI” appears nowhere in the text of the post.
Google outlines a relatively quick development schedule for Android 17, with the “platform stability” milestone estimated for sometime in March. It should be able to hit that mark, having done so with last year’s Android 16 on only a slightly longer schedule. The company posted the first beta on Jan. 23, reached platform stability March 13, and shipped the update on June 10.
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Non-Google vendors of Android phones will probably need additional months to ship Android 17 after Google makes it available to its own Pixel series, which run a stock configuration of Android. Samsung, for example, did not bring its version of Android 16, including an updated version of its One UI software, to its newest non-foldable phones until September. Motorola took even longer.
As with Android 16, Google plans to ship a secondary update to it sometime in Q4. That may make a bigger difference to your everyday experience of Android; the part of Android 16 that I notice most often on my own Pixel 9 Pro, AI-condensed app notifications, didn’t ship until that secondary release in December.
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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.
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