Android 17 has officially reached platform stability today with Beta 3. That means that the API surface is locked; you can perform final compatibility testing and push your Android 17-targeted apps to the Play Store. In addition, Beta 3 brings a host of new capabilities to help you build better, more secure, and highly integrated applications.
Get your apps, libraries, tools, and game engines ready!
If you develop an SDK, library, tool, or game engine, it's even more important to prepare any necessary updates now to prevent your downstream app and game developers from being blocked by compatibility issues and allow them to target the latest SDK features. Please let your downstream developers know if updates are needed to fully support Android 17.
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Testing involves installing your production app or a test app making use of your library or engine using Google Play or other means onto a device or emulator running Android 17 Beta 3. Work through all your app's flows and look for functional or UI issues. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. Each release of Android contains platform changes that improve privacy, security, and overall user experience, and these changes can affect your apps. Here are some changes to focus on:
- Resizability on large screens: Once you target Android 17, you can no longer opt out of maintaining orientation, resizability and aspect ratio constraints on large screens.
- Dynamic code loading: If your app targets Android 17 or higher, the Safer Dynamic Code Loading (DCL) protection introduced in Android 14 for DEX and JAR files now extends to native libraries. All native files loaded using System.load() must be marked as read-only. Otherwise, the system throws UnsatisfiedLinkError.
- Enable CT by default: Certificate transparency (CT) is enabled by default. (On Android 16, CT is available but apps had to opt in.)
- Local network protections: Apps targeting Android 17 or higher have local network access blocked by default. Switch to using privacy preserving pickers if possible, and use the new ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK for broad, persistent access.
Media and camera enhancements
Photo Picker customization options
Android now allows you to tailor the visual presentation of the photo picker to better complement your app’s user interface. By leveraging the new PhotoPickerUiCustomizationParams API, you can modify the grid view aspect ratio from the standard 1:1 square to a 9:16 portrait display. This flexibility extends to both the ACTION_PICK_IMAGES intent and the embedded photo picker, enabling you to maintain a cohesi