Pebblebee and Chipolo announced today that they’re set to deliver their Find My Device network-compatible item locator accessories that they announced last year! These accessories are also compatible with the unwanted tracker alerts feature.

Pebblebee’s Card, Clip, and Tag devices for Android are rechargeable and are equipped with LED indicator lights and melody alerts. They’re available for pre-order now on their website and will ship in late May. They’ll also be available in stores in late May and on the Google Store in June 2024. Each item costs $29.99 individually but you can also order a 2- or 4-pack.

Chipolo’s ONE Point and CARD Point trackers feature long-lasting batteries (1 year and 2 year respectively), loud audio alerts (120dB and 105dB respectively), and an IPX5 rating. They’ll be available from May 27 on Chipolo’s website. They’ll also be available on Amazon and select retailers from July onwards. The ONE Point costs $28 while the CARD Point costs $35 for a 1-pack, but both can be bought in a 2- or 4-pack bundle.

Studio Bot, Google's AI-powered coding companion for Android developers, is being rebranded as Gemini in Android Studio!

With the rebranding, Google is updating the AI companion's underlying large language model to Gemini 1.0 Pro. The functionality is the same, but you'll now get higher quality code generations, code completions, and responses to questions.

Gemini in Android Studio is currently available for free in over 180+ countries and territories in Android Studio Jellyfish. It's only available if you log in and opt in, only uses your conversation history (not your code) by default, and supports excluding certain files and folders (when you want to share code context) through an .aiexclude file.

The first Android 15 beta is HERE! Android 15 Beta 1 is rolling out today to users enrolled in the Android beta program. Supported devices include the Pixel 6 and newer, as well as the Pixel Tablet and Pixel Fold.

Here’s what’s new in Android 15 Beta 1, according to Google:

* As I first reported, apps targeting Android 15 are now displayed edge-to-edge by default when running on Android 15! This means apps won’t have to call the edge-to-edge APIs to show content behind system bars in Android 15, though they should call those APIs to do so in earlier releases. To assist app developers in supporting edge-to-edge, many Material 3 composables handle insets for you.

* Another Android 15 feature I first reported on is app archiving, which went live in DP2 but Google is now choosing to highlight in Beta 1. Android 15 includes OS level support for app archiving and unarchiving, making it easier for third-party app stores to support it (Google Play already does since last year). App store developers should check out the new PackageInstaller APIs while launcher developers should check out the new LauncherApps APIs to learn how to handle archived apps.

* The TalkBack accessibility service in Android 15 now supports Braille displays that use human interface devices over USB and Bluetooth.

* There’s also now an OS-level API for E2EE of contact keys so users can securely manage and verify other people’s contact information, enhancements to the NFC observe mode to allow apps to register a fingerprint so they can be notified of polling loop activity, inter-character text justification support, a new ProfilingManager class to collect profiling info from within apps, and additional changes to prevent malicious background apps from bringing other apps to the foreground.

Android 15 Beta 1 is the first of 4 planned beta releases. Beta 2 will very likely be unveiled at Google I/O on May 14, while Beta 3 will happen sometime in June and Beta 4 sometime in July. Beta 3 is when Platform Stability will be reached.