Behavior changes: all apps

The Android 15 platform includes behavior changes that might affect your app. The following behavior changes apply to all apps when they run on Android 15, regardless of targetSdkVersion. You should test your app and then modify it as needed to support these properly, where applicable.

Make sure to also review the list of behavior changes that only affect apps targeting Android 15.

Core functionality

Android 15 modifies or expands various core capabilities of the Android system.

Changes to package stopped state

The intention of the package FLAG_STOPPED state (which users can engage in AOSP builds by long-pressing an app icon and selecting "Force Stop") has always been to keep apps in this state until the user explicitly removes the app from this state by directly launching the app or indirectly interacting with the app (through the sharesheet or a widget, selecting the app as live wallpaper, etc.). In Android 15, we are updating the behavior of the system to be aligned with this intended behavior. Apps should only be removed from the stopped state through direct or indirect user action.

To support the intended behavior, in addition to the existing restrictions, the system will also cancel all pending intents when the app enters the stopped state on Android 15. When the user's actions remove the app from the stopped state, the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast will be delivered to the app providing an opportunity to re-register any pending intents.

You can call the new ApplicationStartInfo.wasForceStopped() method to confirm whether the app was put into the stopped state.

Support for 16 KB page sizes

Historically, Android has only supported 4 KB memory page sizes, which has optimized system memory performance for the average amount of total memory that Android devices have typically had. Beginning with Android 15, Android supports devices that are configured to use a page size of 16 KB (16 KB devices). If your app uses any NDK libraries, either directly or indirectly through an SDK, then you will need to rebuild your app for it to work on these 16 KB devices.

Devices with larger page sizes can have improved performance for memory-intensive workloads. As device manufacturers continue to build devices with larger amounts of physical memory (RAM), many of these devices will adopt 16 KB (and eventually greater) page sizes to optimize the device's performance. Adding support for 16 KB page size devices enables your app to run on these devices and helps your app benefit from the associated performance improvements. We plan to make 16 KB page compatibility required for app uploads to the Google Play store next year.

As device manufacturers continue to build devices with larger amounts of physical memory (RAM), many of these devices will likely be configured with 16 KB (and eventually greater) page sizes to optimize the device's performance. Adding support for 16 KB devices enables your app to run on these devices and helps your app benefit from the associated performance improvements.

To help you add support for your app, we've provided guidance on how to check if your app is impacted, how to rebuild your app (if applicable), and how to test your app in a 16 KB environment using emulators (including Android 15 system images for the Android Emulator).

Benefits and performance gains

Devices configured with 16 KB page sizes use slightly more memory on average, but also gain various performance improvements for both the system and apps:

  • Lower app launch times while the system is under memory pressure: 3.16% lower on average, with more significant improvements (up to 30%) for some apps that we tested
  • Reduced power draw during app launch: 4.56% reduction on average
  • Faster camera launch: 4.48% faster hot starts on average, and 6.60% faster cold starts on average
  • Improved system boot time: improved by 1.5% (approximately 0.8 seconds) on average

These improvements are based on our initial testing, and results on actual devices will likely differ. We'll provide additional analysis of potential gains for apps as we continue our testing.

Check if your app is impacted

If your app uses any native code, then you should rebuild your app with support for 16 KB devices. If you are unsure if your app uses native code, you can use the APK Analyzer to identify whether any native code is present.

If your app only uses code written in the Java programming language or in Kotlin, including all libraries or SDKs, then your app already supports 16 KB devices. Nevertheless, we recommend that you test your app in a 16 KB environment to verify that there are no unexpected regressions in app behavior.

Required changes for some apps to support private space

Private space is a new feature in Android 15 that lets users create a separate space on their device where they can keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication. Because apps in the private space have restricted visibility, some types of apps need to take additional steps to be able to see and interact with apps in a user's private space.

All apps

Because apps in the private space are kept in a separate user profile, similar to work profiles, apps shouldn't assume that any installed copies of their app that aren't in the main profile are in the work profile. If your app has logic related to work profile apps that make this assumption, you'll need to adjust this logic.

Launcher apps

If you develop a launcher app, you must do the following before apps in the private space will be visible:

  1. Your app must be assigned as the default launcher app for the device—that is, possessing the ROLE_HOME role.
  2. Your app must declare the ACCESS_HIDDEN_PROFILES normal permission in your app's manifest file.

Launcher apps that declare the ACCESS_HIDDEN_PROFILES permission must handle the following private space use cases:

  1. Your app must have a separate launcher container for apps installed in the private space.
  2. The user must be able to hide and show the private space container.
  3. The user must be able to lock and unlock the private space container.
  4. While locked, no apps in the private space container should be visible or discoverable through mechanisms such as search.
  5. If the user locks the device while the private space container is unlocked, the private space container should also be locked.

App store apps

The private space includes an "Install Apps" button that launches an implicit intent to install apps into the user's private space. In order for your app to receive this implicit intent, declare an <intent-filter> in your app's manifest file with a <category> of CATEGORY_APP_MARKET.

Increased minimum target SDK version from 23 to 24

Android 15 builds on the the changes that were made in Android 14 and extends this security further. In Android 15, apps with a targetSdkVersion lower than 24 can't be installed. Requiring apps to meet modern API levels helps to ensure better security and privacy.

Malware often targets lower API levels in order to bypass security and privacy protections that have been introduced in higher Android versions. For example, some malware apps use a targetSdkVersion of 22 to avoid being subjected to the runtime permission model introduced in 2015 by Android 6.0 Marshmallow (API level 23). This Android 15 change makes it harder for malware to avoid security and privacy improvements. Attempting to install an app targeting a lower API level results in an installation failure, with a message like the following one appearing in Logcat:

INSTALL_FAILED_DEPRECATED_SDK_VERSION: App package must target at least SDK version 24, but found 7

On devices upgrading to Android 15, any apps with a targetSdkVersion lower than 24 remain installed.

If you need to test an app targeting an older API level, use the following ADB command:

adb install --bypass-low-target-sdk-block FILENAME.apk

Camera and media

Android 15 makes the following changes to camera and media behavior for all apps.

Direct and offload audio playback now invalidates previously open direct or offload audio tracks when resource limits are reached

Before Android 15, if an app requested direct or offload audio playback while another app was playing audio and the resource limits were reached, the app would fail to open a new AudioTrack.

Beginning with Android 15, when an app requests direct or offload playback and the resource limits are reached, the system invalidates any currently open AudioTrack objects which prevent fulfilling the new track request.

(Direct and offload audio tracks are typically opened for playback of compressed audio formats. Common use-cases for playing direct audio include streaming encoded audio over HDMI to a TV. Offload tracks are typically used to play compressed audio on a mobile device with hardware DSP acceleration.)

User experience and system UI

Android 15 includes some changes that are intended to create a more consistent, intuitive user experience.

Predictive back animations enabled for apps that opted in

Beginning in Android 15, the developer option for predictive back animations has been removed. System animations such as back-to-home, cross-task, and cross-activity now appear for apps that have opted in to the predictive back gesture either entirely or at an activity level. If your app is affected, take the following actions:

  • Ensure that your app has been properly migrated to use the predictive back gesture.
  • Ensure that your fragment transitions work with predictive back navigation.
  • Migrate away from animation and framework transitions and use animator and androidx transitions instead.
  • Migrate away from back stacks that FragmentManager doesn't know about. Use back stacks managed by FragmentManager or by the Navigation component instead.

Deprecations

With each release, specific Android APIs might become obsolete or need to be refactored to provide a better developer experience or support new platform capabilities. In these cases, we officially deprecate the obsolete APIs and direct developers to alternative APIs to use instead.

Deprecation means that we've ended official support for the APIs, but they will continue to remain available to developers. To learn more about notable deprecations in this release of Android, see the deprecations page.