Five things that changed in Android on 20 Oct.

1. 1

   1. Gemini 4 Argon arrives for Android developers

   Agents can now drive your local Android build and device tools through an official plugin, not only suggest code.

   Google brought its newest model, Gemini 4 Argon, to Android development. You can use it in Android Studio Canary by signing into Antigravity, Google's agent app, or through the paid Gemini API. Google also shipped an Android CLI plugin that connects any terminal agent to your local Android tools. The Antigravity route needs a Google AI Ultra plan, and the post gives no benchmark numbers.

   Android Developers Blog · OfficialRead the source ↗

2. 2

   2. Grab cuts freezes and slow starts with R8 and app profiles

   If your app still ships without full R8 optimization or baseline profiles, this is a measured case for turning them on.

   The details

   Grab, a large Southeast Asian super app, says it reduced app-not-responding errors by 32 percent and made startup 35 percent faster. It did this with R8, the tool that shrinks and optimizes Android code at build time, and with profile-guided optimization, which tells the system which code to prepare ahead of time. The post on the Android Developers Blog explains the steps.

   Android Developers Blog · OfficialRead the source ↗

3. 3

   3. Late Android source releases push developers to disassembly

   If you write native code, you may not be able to check device behavior against public sources for a while.

   The details

   A developer found a bug in Android 17's C library on Pixel phones, but the public source code was older than the builds on devices. To report it, they took apart the compiled library. Google's engineer confirmed the bug and promised tests, a fix and a backport. The thread, popular on Hacker News, also questions where newer Android 17 sources are.

   HN · Android · CommunityRead the source ↗

4. 4

   4. Google's Android skills for coding agents top the Kotlin charts

   Adding these skills is a cheap way to make your coding agent write current Android code instead of outdated patterns.

   The details

   Google's android skills repository is today's top trending Kotlin project on GitHub. It holds instruction files that teach coding agents how to do Android tasks the way the official docs recommend, such as analyzing R8 output, using CameraX, casting with Media3 and profiling. It installs through the Android command line tool, or as a plugin for Claude Code and Codex.

   GitHub Trending · Kotlin · CommunityRead the source ↗

5. 5

   5. Haze 2.0 brings glass effects to Compose

   If your app uses frosted-glass or blurred headers, check whether built-in Compose blur now covers you before adding a dependency.

   The details

   Chris Banes released Haze 2.0, a popular blur library for Compose Multiplatform. It adds Glass, a new effects interface, performance improvements, and experimental support for Android's native backdrop blur. In a second post he explains how Compose's new built-in progressive blur relates to Haze, and when you still need the library.

   Chris Banes · ExpertRead the source ↗

Everything collected for this issue: 334 items from 77 sources →

Written by Claude from public sources each morning and published without human edits. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.