Android Studio getting more Gemini to help app development

Besides providing an initial Android 16 timeline today, Google has a number of developer updates across Android Studio and the Play Store.

After launching in April, Gemini in Android Studio is getting more capable at “every stage of the development lifecycle”:

• Gemini Code Transforms: Modify and refactor your code within the editor
• Commit message generation: Automatically generate commit messages with Gemini
• Rethink and Rename: Get help renaming your classes, methods, and variables  
• Prompt library: Save and recall your most commonly used prompts
• Compose Preview Generation: Generate previews for your composables with Gemini
• Generate documentation: Have Gemini help you document your code
• Unit test scenario generation: Generate unit test scenarios
• Build / sync error insights: Ask Gemini for help in troubleshooting build and sync errors
• App Quality Insights: Insights on how you can fix crashes from Android Vitals and Firebase Crashlytics

These features are currently in the Android Studio canary channel and scheduled to hit stable in late December with the Ladybug Feature Drop.

Meanwhile, on the distribution side, Google Play is adding a fullscreen portrait video player to store listings. There’s a prominent “Install” button and app details at the bottom. 

Our early results are promising: portrait videos drive +7% increase in total watch time, a +9% increase in video completion count,  and a +5% increase in conversions.

Google has been “proactively” encouraging users to set up payment methods during Google Account creation, Android device setup, and within the Play Store. This has resulted in double the number of purchase-ready accounts this year with over half a billion users. Google is also encouraging users to set-up biometric authentication to verify purchases.

In 2024, we have seen adoption triple, as more users choose bioauth to make their first purchase.

Meanwhile, in the US, you’ll be able to use Cash App eWallet.  End users can also expect to see inline “Still interested?” reminders:

… if a user is browsing a product in your game but hasn’t yet made a decision to purchase, we’ll remind them about the product when they are later browsing the Play Store. 

On the security front, Google will soon let developers “opt-in to improved Play Integrity API verdicts backed by hardware security and other signals on Android 13+ devices.”

This means faster, more reliable, and more privacy-friendly app and device verification, making it significantly harder and more costly for attackers to bypass.