Top 3 Updates with Compose across Form Factors at Google I/O ’24

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Posted by Chris Arriola – Developer Relations Engineer

Google I/O 2024 was filled with lots of updates and announcements around helping you be more productive as a developer. Here are the top 3 announcements around Jetpack Compose and Form Factors from Google I/O 2024:

#1 New updates in Jetpack Compose

The June 2024 release of Jetpack Compose is packed with new features and improvements such as shared element transitions, lazy list item animations, and performance improvements across the board.

With shared element transitions, you can create delightful continuity between screens in your app. This feature works together with Navigation Compose and predictive back so that transitions can happen as users navigate your app. Another highly requested feature—lazy list item animations—is also now supported for lazy lists giving it the ability to animate inserts, deletions, and reordering of items.

Jetpack Compose also continues to improve runtime performance with every release. Our benchmarks show a faster time to first pixel of 17% in our Jetsnack Compose sample. Additionally, strong skipping mode graduated from experimental to production-ready status further improving the performance of Compose apps. Simply update your app to take advantage of these benefits.

Read What’s new in Jetpack Compose at I/O ‘24 for more information.

#2 Scaling across screens with new Compose APIs and Tools

During Google I/O, we announced new tools and APIs to make it easier to build across screens with Compose. The new Material 3 adaptive library introduces new APIs that allow you to implement common adaptive scenarios such as list-detail, and supporting pane. These APIs allow your app to display one or two panes depending on the available size for your app.

Watch Building UI with the Material 3 adaptive library and Building adaptive Android apps to learn more. If you prefer to read, you can check out About adaptive layouts in our documentation.

We also announced that Compose for TV 1.0.0 is now available in beta. The latest updates to Compose for TV include better performance, input support, and a whole range of improved components that look great out of the box. New in this release, we’ve added lists, navigation, chips, and settings screens. We’ve also added a new TV Material Catalog app and updated the developer tools in Android Studio to include a new project wizard to get a running start with Compose for TV.

Finally, Compose for Wear OS has added features such as SwipeToReveal, an expandableItem, and a range of WearPreview supporting annotations. During Google I/O 2024, Compose for Wear OS graduated visual improvements and fixes from beta to stable. Learn more about all the updates to Wear OS by checking out the technical session.

Check out case studies from SoundCloud and Adidas to see how apps are leveraging Compose to build their apps and learn more about all the updates for Compose across screens by reading more here!

#3 Glance 1.1

Jetpack Glance is Android’s modern recommended framework for building widgets. The latest version, Glance 1.1, is now stable. Glance is built on top of Jetpack Compose allowing you to use the same declarative syntax that you’re used to when building widgets.

This release brings a new unit test library, Error UIs, and new components. Additionally, we’ve released new Canonical Widget Layouts on GitHub to allow you to get started faster with a set of layouts that align with best practices and we’ve published new design guidance published on the UI design hub — check it out!

To learn more about using Glance, check out Build beautiful Android widgets with Jetpack Glance. Or if you want something more hands-on, check out the codelab Create a widget with Glance.

You can learn more about the latest updates to Compose and Form Factors by checking out the Compose Across Screens and the What’s new in Jetpack Compose at I/O ‘24 blog posts or watching the spotlight playlist!