I'm excited to see how Android XR pans out, but I'm disappointed that Google and Meta can't come to an agreement on a partnership. Without knowing the exact terms they discussed, it's hard to say who's really at fault for things not working out.

You can't deny that Meta is committed wholeheartedly to XR. Meta's platform hasn't exactly been as open as they proclaim, but Google's commitment to XR is questionable. I can understand why many are taking Meta's side here.

The launch of Android XR is poised to fragment the Android on XR headset market, but whether that's Google's fault or Meta's is hard to say. Whoever you blame, Apple still wins out in the end. I don't want the future of XR to be one where you have to own Apple hardware to participate 😭

This is somewhat related to the whole Meta/Google partnership (or rather, lack thereof), but back in December, an engineer at Meta Reality Labs submitted patches to add OpenXR support into AOSP.

OpenXR, to quote, "is a royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)—collectively known as XR—platforms and devices."

Many Android-based VR headsets already support OpenXR loaders, but according to one dev I've spoken to, it's a bit of a fragmented mess right now where different headsets may have slightly different OpenXR loaders. This makes it difficult to create a single APK that works between multiple headsets.

By adding OpenXR support to AOSP, apps could target a common library and the loader would just load whatever driver is provided by the vendor.

It took over a month and a half for someone from Google to even respond to one of the patches, though, so it seems like this is going nowhere?

Google has published the Android Security Bulletin (ASB) for March 2024, detailing the vulnerabilities addressed in the 2024-03-0X security patch level (SPL). Patches are available for Android 12-14. Android 11 is no longer receiving security patch backports.

This month, there's 1 RCE and 1 EoP vulnerability in AOSP's Bluetooth stack with a severity rating of "critical". There are no security issues addressed by Google Play System Updates this month.

Also, Android 14 QPR2 will be released later today, so stay tuned for that!

The March 2024 Pixel Feature Drop is here, bringing new features to Pixel phones, the Pixel Tablet, and the first-gen Pixel Watch. Here’s what’s new:

Pixel phones:

1) Circle to Search is coming to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro! This was previously exclusive to the Galaxy S24 series and the Pixel 8 series.

2) Next-gen Call Screen (Pixel 6 and newer) is adding a “hello” chip that gets the Google Assistant to prompt the caller to speak. This can be useful if the caller is silent. If you aren’t available, the Assistant will let the caller know to wait.

3) You can now share Ultra HDR photos to Instagram or 10-bit HDR videos to Reels from your Pixel phone (Pixel 7, 7 Pro, 8, 8 Pro, and Fold)!

Pixel Tablet:

1) Gboard’s new Voice Toolbar for tablets minimizes the digital keyboard when voice input is activated in order to optimize screen space.

Pixel phones and Pixel Tablet:

1) Android’s Connected Devices settings page now lets you access Bluetooth accessories you previously set up through Fast Pair (Pixel 5a and later)..

2) Google Docs Markups lets you add handwritten annotations to a document using only your finger or stylus. (This was announced last week at MWC 2024 and is available on any device running Android 8.0+).

Pixel Watch:

1) First-gen Pixel Watch is finally getting automatic workout detection! This works for running, walking, elliptical, spinning, outdoor biking, treadmill, and rowing.

2) You can now set a goal pace during an exercise with your first-gen Pixel Watch. This lets you know when you’re within your target and get notifications for when you fall outside of it.

3) You can now track the time you spend in each heart rate zone to optimize and guide your training on your first-gen Pixel Watch, and you can set up notifications to alert you when you move between zones.

4) Fitbit Relax App now guides you through breathing exercises to help you relax.

The update also brings Android 14 QPR2 with the March 2024 security patches. QPR2 introduces several new Android features including an expandable Bluetooth QS tile, faster seamless updates, partial screen recording and screen casting, a search bar in the taskbar’s app drawer, a revamped privacy indicator dialog, a new shortcut to share your Wi-Fi network, and other minor changes.

Android's first trunk stable release is dropping today! If you build AOSP, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on all the build changes once Google uploads the source code for Android 14 QPR2.

Oh wow, Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)!

The Amazon Appstore on Windows and all apps and games dependent on WSA won't be supported starting March 5, 2025.

Any apps or games you installed prior to today will still be available through the deprecation date.

Google has shared details on its new external offers program, the program they created to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Google announced yesterday they would launch a program that would allow "developers of Play-distributed apps to directly lead users in the EEA outside the app, including to promote offers."

Today, a help center article detailing this program has gone live. Here are the key details:

- If you develop an app for mobile, tablet, Chrome OS, Android TV, or Wear OS that's distributed to users in the European Economic Area via Google Play, you can now opt into the external offers program, provided you meet the program requirements. There's a bunch of requirements you need to comply with listed on the help center article, but some of the more notable ones include:

a) Integrating the external offers API to direct users outside the app so Google can show the info screen and get reported of applicable transactions.

b) Provide customer support, refund methods, and a process to dispute unauthorized transactions for users completing external transactions.

c) Clearly inform the user about the destination page and purpose, with a URL that doesn't have additional parameters. You also cannot pre-populate data from your app.

d) Pay Google any applicable fees for transactions that are concluded outside the app following the external offer. This is the biggest point.

There are two separate fees associated with this program:

Initial acquisition fee: 5% for auto-renewing subnoscriptions and 10% for other offers of in-app digital features or services. This is a time-limited fee lasting two years to "reflect that Play is charging only for value it provided in facilitating the initial acquisition of the user through Play" (see below for more info).

Ongoing services fee: 7% for auto-renewing subnoscriptions and 17% for other offers of in-app digital features and services

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Two years after initial acquisition period, developers can choose to discontinue Play's ongoing services for their app so long as the user consents. User consent is required because opting out means that ongoing services provided by Play such as "parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention, and continuous app updates" will no longer be available for that app, however the associated fees won't apply to those users. Developers will still be responsible for reporting transactions for users who do not opt out on receiving ongoing services from Play.

Google says that these fees reflect the value provided by Android and Play to developers. Google argues that their service fees are not mere payment processing fees, as Play provides additional features and tools for developers and users.

- You can continue to use Google Play's billing system while participating in the external offers program.

Attached to this post is a chart from Google that demonstrates how a hypothetical app that uses both Google Play's billing system and the external offers program might be impacted.

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Since Android 11 is no longer receiving security patch backports, the LineageOS team has decided to sunset LineageOS 18.1 (which is based on Android 11).

Manually backporting security patches can be tough to do, and there's even a chance that in writing a new patch, they could introduce new vulnerabilities.

Unfortunately, some devices with LineageOS 18.1 builds available don't have an upgrade path to newer releases. This is because Android 12 made it a requirement to support in-kernel eBPF, a feature that isn't supported (officially or through backports) on Linux kernel versions 3.18 and older.

Check out LineageOS 21 if it's available for your device, though. There are lots of cool new features!

Google is upgrading TTS (text-to-speech) on smartwatches running Wear OS 4 to be faster and more reliable. This can be helpful for things like accessibility services, coaching cues in exercise apps, navigation cues, and reading aloud alerts through the speaker or connected headphones.

Google's new TTS engine for Wear OS 4 uses "decreased prosody ML models" to enable faster synthesis on smartwatches. By default, the Wear OS TTS supports English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese, but OEMs can preload a different set of languages.

For developers, the TTS APIs remain the same, though it's worth noting that it takes about 10 seconds for the synthesis engine to be ready after the user interacts with it for the first time following a device boot. If you want it to be ready immediately, you can pre-warm the TTS engine before any synthesis requests come in.