[RockerC]

FYI, Android Studio v1.3 Developer Preview brings code editing and debugging for C/C++ code in apps that uses the NDK

http://android-developers.blogspot.se/20...tools.html

Android Studio v1.3 Preview - To help take advantage of the M Developer Preview features, we are releasing a new version of Android Studio. Most notable is a much requested feature from our Android NDK & game developers: code editing and debugging for C/C++ code. Based on JetBrains Clion platform, the Android Studio NDK plugin provides features such as refactoring and code completion for C/C++ code alongside your Java code. Java and C/C++ code support is integrated into one development experience free of charge for Android app developers. Update to Android Studio v1.3 via the Canary channel and let us know what you think.



The M Developer Preview includes an updated SDK with tools, system images for testing on the official Android emulator, and system images for testing on Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player devices. We are excited to expand the program and give you more time to ensure your apps support M when it launches this fall. Based on your feedback, we plan to update the M Developer preview system images often during the developer preview program. The sooner we hear from you, the more feedback we can integrate, so let us know!

https://code.google.com/p/android-developer-preview/

To get started with the M Developer Preview and prepare your apps for the full release, just follow these steps:

1. Update to Android Studio v1.3+ Preview
   
2. Visit the M Developer Preview site for downloads and documentation.
   
3. Explore the new APIs & App Permissions changes
   
4. Explore the Android Design Support Library and Google Play Services 7.5 APIs
   
5. Get the emulator system images through the SDK Manager or download the Nexus device system images.
   
6. Test your app with your supported Nexus device or emulator
   
7. Give us feedback
   

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/28/...abilities/

[I/O 2015] Android Studio v1.3 Developer Preview Adds C/C++ Support With Refactoring, Code Completion, And Debugging Capabilities

Google I/O is first and foremost a developer conference. New products may be announced at the keynote, but just about everything is really meant for the people that build the apps. For Android developers, there are few things that matter more than their tools. Today, a fresh release of Android Studio hit the Canary channel, and it brings one of the most often requested features: C/C++ support.

Android apps, as most people think of them, are usually written in Java and have a runtime environment that imposes some additional overhead on execution. Games and other performance-critical software are usually built with C or C++ and the Native Development Kit (NDK) so that they can avoid most of that overhead.

The new capability comes care of JetBrains Clion (pronounced "sea-lion"), a product already dedicated to C/C++ development. Of course, JetBrains is also the developer responsible for IntelliJ, the IDE Android Studio is based on.

Both editing and debugging are supported, along with many advanced features like code completion and refactoring. Since most of the functionality comes directly from an existing product, the feature set is already quite extensive. A more detailed talk along with demonstrations was held today at Google I/O during the "What's New In Android Development Tools" session.

If you're eager to give it a try, install Android Studio and set it to update from the Canary channel, then check for updates. Remember, you can have multiple copies of Android Studio installed, so it's always possible to keep one version on Stable or Beta while checking out new features on Canary.

[RockerC]

The released Android M (Marshmallow?) preview images & SDK also announced several new API extensions for additional Audio and Video features as well as other new APIs that might be interesting for Kodi or the Kode remote

http://developer.android.com/preview/api-overview.html

App Linking

This preview enhances Android’s intent system by providing more powerful app linking. This feature allows you to associate an app with a web domain you own. Based on this association, the platform can determine the default app to use to handle a particular web link and skip prompting users to select an app. To learn how to implement this feature, see App Linking.

Voice Interactions

This preview provides a new voice interaction API which, together with Voice Actions, allows you to build conversational voice experiences into your apps. Call the android.app.Activity.isVoiceInteraction() method to determine if your activity was started in response to a voice action. If so, your app can use the android.app.VoiceInteractor class to request a voice confirmation from the user, select from a list of options, and more. To learn more about implementing voice actions, see the Voice Actions developer site.

4K Display Mode

The platform now allows apps to request that the display resolution be upgraded to 4K rendering on compatible hardware. To query the current physical resolution, use the new android.view.Display.Mode APIs. If the UI is drawn at a lower logical resolution and is upscaled to a larger physical resolution, be aware that the physical resolution the Display.Mode.getPhysicalWidth() method returns may differ from the logical resolution reported by getSize().

You can request the system to change the physical resolution in your app as it runs, by setting the WindowManager.LayoutParams.preferredDisplayModeId property of your app’s window. This feature is useful if you want to switch to 4K display resolution. While in 4K display mode, the UI continues to be rendered at the original resolution (such as 1080p) and is upscaled to 4K, but SurfaceView objects may show content at the native resolution.

Audio Features

This preview adds enhancements to audio processing on Android, including:

1. Support for the MIDI protocol, with the new android.media.midi APIs. Use these APIs to send and receive MIDI events.
   
2. New android.media.AudioRecord.Builder and android.media.AudioTrack.Builder classes to create digital audio capture and playback objects respectively, and configure audio source and sink properties to override the system defaults.
   
3. API hooks for associating audio and input devices. This is particularly useful if your app allows users to start a voice search from a game controller or remote control connected to Android TV. The system invokes the new android.app.Activity.onSearchRequested() callback when the user starts a search. To determine if the user's input device has a built-in microphone, retrieve the InputDevice object from that callback, then call the new InputDevice.hasMic() method.
   
4. New android.media.AudioDevicesManager class which lets you retrieve a list of all attached source and sink audio devices. You can also specify an android.media.OnAudioDeviceConnectionListener object if you want your app to be notified when an audio device is connected or disconnected.
   

Video Features

This preview adds new capabilities to the video processing APIs, including:

1. New android.media.MediaSync class which helps applications to synchronously render audio and video streams. The audio buffers are submitted in non-blocking fashion and are returned via a callback. It also supports dynamic playback rate.
   
2. New MediaDrm.EVENT_SESSION_RECLAIMED event, which indicates that a session opened by the app has been reclaimed by the resource manager. If your app uses DRM sessions, you should handle this event and make sure not to use a reclaimed session.
   
3. New MediaCodec.CodecException.ERROR_RECLAIMED error code, which indicates that the resource manager reclaimed the media resource used by the codec. With this exception, the codec must be released, as it has moved to terminal state.
   
4. New MediaCodecInfo.CodecCapabilities.getMaxSupportedInstances() interface to get a hint for the max number of the supported concurrent codec instances.
   
5. New MediaPlayer.setPlaybackParams() method to set the media playback rate for fast or slow motion playback. It also stretches or speeds up the audio playback automatically in conjunction with the video.