Google has announced the release of Android Instant Apps SDK 1.1. Android Instant Apps is the company’s way to run Android apps without any installation.
The latest release features include improved NDK support, configuration APKs, and a new API to maintain user context when switching from an instant app to an installed one.
According to the company, developers will be now able to isolate resources and native libraries into independent configuration APKs. Applications that use these configuration APKs will only load the resources and libraries needed by the user’s device, which will result in smaller app sizes. The company says there has been an average reduction of 10% in the size of binaries loaded when supporting configuration APKs for display density, CPU architecture, and language.
Android Oreo provides the internal storage of instant versions of apps to the installed version of that app. With this new update, that information will also be available on older versions of the Android Framework, such as Lollipop, Marshmallow, and Nougat. Installed apps can get a ZIP file of the instant app’s storage by calling InstantAppsClient.getInstantAppData() using the Instant Apps Google Play Services API.
Developers can begin building instant apps on the latest SDK by opening the SDK Manager in Android Studio and updating the Instant Apps Development ASK to 1.1.0.
