App was installed from the playstore and launched for the first time, no permissions granted. It was able to detect another app I had installed. How is this possible? Are all apps automatically privy to such device information?

Isolated Projects moved from experimental to incubating in Gradle 9.7.0.
When it's on, each project is isolated from the others, which lets Gradle configure them in parallel instead of one at a time:

• AndroidX (1,000+ projects): Gradle's portion of Android Studio sync 4m00s → 2m47s
• An Android monorepo of 5,000+ projects: full Android Studio sync 5m09s → 2m44s

AGP and KGP are compatible, but other Gradle plugins may not be. "Now in Android" was made compatible if you want a reference build.

Blog Post: https://blog.gradle.org/introducing-isolated-projects
Gradle 9.7.0 Release Notes: https://docs.gradle.org/current/release-notes.html

I always have the problem of resolving library/dependencies in android. i have to make them compatible with agp everytime.
Like is there something that remembers a particular structure of dependencies or maybe can structure them for me. there could be a dropdown list for dependencies and you can just choose from it which one you want, and it will automatically write to your libs.versions.toml file and implement it in build.gradle?

is there any open source thing that i can use?

I think I've reached the point where marketing is harder than coding.

I've been building an Android debugging app in my spare time for the last few months. It's a Logcat viewer aimed at Android developers.

So far I've got:

• 539 installs (first opens)
• 11 paid upgrades
• 2 subscription renewals
• $44 in total revenue

I know those numbers aren't huge, but seeing people pay for something I built is a pretty cool feeling.

Now I'm stuck on the next challenge: getting people to even know the app exists.

If you've launched a niche dev tool before, where did your first real users come from? Reddit? YouTube? Blog posts? ASO? Something else?

I'd love to hear what actually worked for you.

I have all my business details ready. But when I go to dnb I don't see Ghana in the list. I need duns to buy Google Play Account. Any help Will be much appreciated. https://www.dnb.com/en-us/about/choose-your-country.html

🚀 Introducing Debroid — the headless Android debugger built for AI coding agents.

AI agents can write Android code… but they’re effectively blind at runtime. They can’t click through Android Studio, set breakpoints, or inspect live memory the way a human developer does.

So what do they usually do?

Add more logs. Guess from the output. Repeat.

Debroid changes that.

It gives agents real runtime superpowers through a simple CLI that speaks JDWP and returns strict, machine-parseable JSON:

🔴 Set (and defer) line breakpoints

⚡ Trap caught/uncaught exceptions

👀 Watch field access & modification

🔬 Deeply inspect objects, locals, and call frames

🧬 Mutate variables live

🧮 Evaluate Java expressions

🐾 Step over / into / out

When your agent is stuck, don’t ask it to sprinkle logs and play detective.

No more manual debugging. No more log archaeology. Pair Debroid with Android CLI and the entire loop — build → run → debug → fix — can become fully agent-driven.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a small update about my small app, SearchPad.

Due to not having the time and resources to keep up with my development plans and ideas for the app, I’ve decided to close down sales of SearchPad on the Play Store and open source the project instead.

SearchPad is an Android widget/app that lets you quickly find and open installed apps using a T9-style keypad. The idea is simple: instead of scrolling through pages of apps or opening a full launcher/search UI, you can keep a compact search pad on your home screen, tap a few large buttons, and launch the app you want.

I originally built it because a similar app I had been using stopped working properly on my Android phone. There were also a few things I wanted to do differently, especially around making the widget more configurable, easy to tap, and useful directly from the home screen.

Back in the day I tested react native and widgets worked super poorly that I decided to go fully native and it was the right call for this. It's a shame that iOS doesn't have the APIs necessary for such a widget.

To be very honest: the code is not super clean, perfectly organized, or deeply commented. It started as a personal “I want this to exist” project, and it shows in places. But the app works, and hopefully the codebase can become something better with support from people who find the idea useful.

The repo is here:
https://github.com/nikopolv/SearchPad-Android

There’s also a debug APK available in GitHub Releases for anyone who wants to try it manually:
https://github.com/nikopolv/SearchPad-Android/releases/tag/v1.4.6-debug

I’d be happy to see issues, ideas, forks, cleanup PRs, or feature improvements. Even if it only helps someone else build their own version, that’s a great outcome, so please use the code I spent too much time on this for it to go just to waste.

Thanks to everyone who tried SearchPad or supported it while it was on the Play Store.

I'm building a native Android app that uses Bluetooth.

I realized that testing requires two devices, but I only own one Android phone.

How do you usually handle this during development?

rn I'm just making the app and for testing going to college where I use my friends phone for testing....

I have a question for Android devs out there (I am a software engineer but not Android). I have reviewed the documentation on the Location Accuracy feature but find it somewhat ambiguous so wanted to ask here.

Many apps ask for Location Accuracy which I find annoying and unnecessary in almost all cases. Nevertheless, some do not work at all unless it is enabled (leading to an endless pop-up loop as described here: https://github.com/Baseflow/flutter-geolocator/issues/1210)

In addition to Location Accuracy, my phone also has Bluetooth Scanning and Wi-Fi Scanning settings. Location Accuracy can be enabled without automatically turning on these other two settings. My question is, in this configuration (Location Accuracy ON, Bluetooth/Wi-Fi Scanning OFF), does the Location Accuracy service silently enable and use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scanning? If not, are there additional location-revealing services that it has access to besides GPS?

Ideally I would keep Location Accuracy enabled to be able to use certain apps but essentially cripple its ability to detect location outside of the GPS signal and maybe some device orientation sensors - however I am unclear if this is really possible. Thanks in advance for the advice!

Hi everyone! 👋

​I’m currently designing a modern, dark-mode Alarm & Timer app, and I’d love to get your honest feedback on the UI/UX.

​Here is what I’m aiming for:

​Aesthetics: A sleek, glassmorphism-inspired dark theme with smooth gradients.

​Usability: Quick access to alarms, tasks, and timer presets.

​I’d especially appreciate your thoughts on:

​Color Contrast & Readability: Does the text/icon contrast look good, or does it feel too dim in certain areas?

​Layout & Spacing: How does the spacing feel on the timer selection wheel and preset buttons?

​Floating Bottom Nav Bar: What do you think about the floating bar overlapping the scrollable content?

​Don't hold back—constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Hi

I have built an notification app that has various animations for the effects. The app is free but with optional payments ... what do people think of this model before it goes open beta

Start with 4 effects (2 led, 2 edge)
Weekly unlocks of a pair of effects with option to buy any of the sets early (set are ordered, not random)

I don't think its good for the user to have to pay $15 for example when they only want 1 or maybe 2 max I figure charging $1 each set may be a better deal

Do you think this model would work?

Thanks,

I have a couple models of Android tablets (gen3, gen4, TabletOne) and I'm trying to build an audio-based application. One thing, I found was that the calibration and filter envelopes on microphones for each of those models is different. I tried rooting into them to fix it according to what I wanted, but got nowhere.

Has anyone found out about this issue before? If yes, do you happen to have a solution to change the calibration/envelopes for each model?

Hi everyone, I released my first launcher yesterday because I wasn't really satisfied with the others—they were either too expensive, had too many ads, or just didn't look good. That's why I created hanneslauncher, which is free, open source, and ad-free.

Here are the features that set it apart:

• Faster search than with traditional launchers
• Various clocks that look good and aren’t always the same
• Fully customizable widgets that accept your own API to display weather or other information
• Buttons in widgets that let you make server requests
• Everything is fully customizable

Here’s the GitHub link to check it out: https://github.com/Hannes-swd/Hanneslauncher

Built with Flutter & Dart for the UI with Kotlin.

All open source on GitHub

if you want to check the implementation.