Tiramusu Thoughts

2 years ago

Tiramusu Views

Leaks about what will be coming up Android 13 / Android T / Tiramusu are creating
the rounds, in areas like XDA Builders
and Android Police. Some of what
is mentioned will have minimal affect on developers. Other points will be your
common “double-edged sword” of possibility and agony.

So, let us slice some tiramisu with a sword.

Notification Permission

It appears as however currently being able to increase notifications will call for a runtime
authorization. XDA has screenshots
showing “Notifications” as a authorization together with other conventional runtime permissions
like “Camera” and “Contacts”. This indicates that there will be a new risky
permission for notifications.

Nonetheless, “notifications” is a alternatively wide bucket. App developers are going to have to
do a honest bit of work to teach users about how the app works by using notifications ahead of
presenting the authorization. Probably that instruction method by yourself will support to get corporations
to lower again on the amount of superfluous notifications that are introduced.

My most significant problem listed here, though, is what occurs when the permission is declined by the
person. Usually, with these permissions, that triggers a SecurityException when you
attempt to use an API tied to the authorization. So, in this circumstance, maybe notify() on NotificationManager
would toss a SecurityException.

My honest hope is that either this does not come about or it is something we can opt out of
(e.g., by using StrictMode). Ideally, this is a tranquil failure, logging messages to Logcat
but not crashing the app.

Google went out of their way, for a better element of a ten years, to shove notifications
down the throats of builders. With really a great deal all the other hazardous permissions,
Google just produced APIs readily available, then limited them later. In the scenario of notifications,
even though, Google proactively took steps to try out to convince developers to rely on
notifications. Declaring that “OK, now what we told you to do is at chance of crashing your app”
is just plain impolite.

We also have to deal with precise notification situations. For instance, does this permission indicate that
foreground companies are extremely hard if people decrease the authorization? What transpires if
libraries increase notifications? And so on.

Of all the proposed alterations, this 1 scares me the most, just in conditions of how Google
might go about applying it and the impacts it can have on developers.

TARE: The Android Useful resource Economic system

XDA also talks about TARE: The Android Useful resource Economy.

The strategy that buyers could possibly have some way of offering great-grained information on what
they want to make it possible for apps to do in the history is appealing. The UI revealed in that
XDA report is dreadful (WTAF is a “satiated balance”?), but the idea has some benefit.

Having said that, every yr Google goes in and alterations the principles as part of The War on Background Processing
that has been heading on for 6+ decades. Combine that with
company-unique alterations and developers are wholly
dropped as to what we can and can not do on any presented system. That in change qualified prospects end users to presume
that apps or devices are broken, just due to the fact builders simply cannot maintain apace with documented
and undocumented regulations.

IOW, it would be really relatively wonderful if Google caught with a system for far more than a year and
took methods (e.g., CDD regulations) to get brands to stick with that exact program.

For each-Application Locale Settings

For a prolonged time, developers have resorted to hacks to let a single app to assist
several languages, by messing with Locale. While this seems to have held up improved
than I would have expected above the several years, there are nevertheless really serious gaps. The biggest
is any UI that will come from other processes, these types of as notification dialogs — those
processes will not have the customized Locale and will exhibit their contents in the
default language specified for the system as a whole.

By a “panlingual” function,
Android 13 could possibly allow for customers to pick a locale for each application via Options.

On the one particular hand, this appears to be wonderful.

On the other hand…

  • Where does the language improve conclude? It will be fascinating to see how they distinguish
    “showing the process file UI by way of Action_Open_Doc” and “launching Snapchat”.
    The former, in concept, ought to comply with the language preferred for the application that would make
    the ask for the latter ought to follow the language of the app that is began. Nonetheless, in
    both equally situations, the requesting app is just contacting startActivity() or startActivityForResult().

  • Will Google provide Compat code that will combine the new Android 13 functionality
    with Google-supported sorts of Locale switching for older equipment? If yes, how will
    they manage manufacturers that fail to assistance the Intent for permitting buyers to change a language?
    If no, how will Google advise developers on supporting both of those the new method and the old
    hacks in the very same app?

These are early leaks. The factors demonstrated in these leaks may possibly not ship, or they may possibly ship in considerably
distinct form. And Android 13 is possible to have numerous more new functions than these,
such as some that effect builders. With luck, all my concerns will vanish in the
breeze and it will flip out that anything is brilliant.

I’m a Murphy, however, so I’m not counting on that.