Google releases Android cross-device SDK developer preview to easily build rich multi-device experiences

At the I/O 2022 Developer Conference, Google detailed a way to build cross-device Android app experiences - such as Nearby Share. On Friday, Google officially announced the developer preview of the software development kit (SDK) in an Android developer blog. Officials claim that the SDK helps developers use a set of simple and intuitive application programming interfaces (APIs) to build rich multi-device experiences.

(Source: Android Developers Blog)

Since Google takes care of discovery, authentication, and connection protocols (Bluetooth/Wi-Fi/UWB), developers can focus on building delightful user experiences and deploying them on a variety of devices and platforms.

Here are three key points of this Developer Preview:

● Device Discovery: Easily find nearby devices, authorize peer-to-peer communication, and launch the target application on the receiving device.

● Secure Connections: Enables encrypted, low-latency, two-way data sharing between authorized devices.

● Multi-device sessions: Supports transferring or extending the user experience of an application across multiple devices.

For developers, the SDK also makes it easy to enable compelling cross-device experiences such as:

● Discover and authorize communications with nearby devices.

● Share your current state to the same app on another device.

● Launch the app on the secondary device without keeping it in the background on the primary device.

● Establish secure inter-communication links for devices.

● Enable task handoff so users can start a task on one device and easily continue it on another.

Finally, the Android cross-device SDK developer preview is available today and is available for Android smartphones, tablets, TVs, cars, Wear OS, ChromeOS, as well as iOS and Windows apps.

In terms of compatibility, the SDK supports all the way to Android 8, and Google has also promised to open it to more platforms.