A blog post writes that Google has released a new cross-device software development kit (SDK) that includes the tools developers need to make their apps work well on Android devices and non-Android phones, tablets, TVs, and more.
What does the developer preview offer?
The SDK is supposed to allow developers to do three important things with their apps: discover nearby devices, establish secure connections between devices, and host an app’s experience across multiple devices. Thus, Google is trying to make it easier for developers to create Android apps that somehow connect between various devices.
Device discovery: Easily find nearby devices, authorize peer-to-peer communication, and start the target application on receiving devices.
Secure connections: Enable encrypted, low-latency bi-directional data sharing between authorized devices.
Multi-device Sessions: Enable transferring or extending an application’s user experience across multiple devices.
In turn, this will allow you to build compelling cross-device experiences by enabling and simplifying the following use cases:
- Discovering and authorizing communication with nearby devices.
- Sharing an app’s current state with the same app on another device.
- Starting the app on a secondary device without having to keep the app running in the background.
- Establishing secure connections for devices to communicate with each other.
- Enabling task handoff where the user starts a task on one device, and can easily continue on another device.
Google provides some examples to show in which areas this android SDK might work. It can save you from hovering your phone around the room when creating a group food order, by allowing multiple users on separate devices to select items from a menu. It can also allow you to pick up where you left off in an article when switching from your phone to a tablet, and even allow passengers in a car to share a specific map location with the vehicle’s navigation system.
According to Google, the cross-device SDK uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ultra-wideband to enable multi-device connectivity. Starting today with a Developer Preview for Android phones and tablets, the Cross-device SDK will be available later for other Android surfaces and non-Android OSs.
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