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've updated 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 also cancels all pending intents when the app enters the
stopped state on a device running Android 15. When the user's actions remove the
app from the stopped state, the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED
broadcast is 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, AOSP 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.
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. Without recompiling, apps won't work on 16 KB devices in future Android releases.
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 8% (approximately 950 milliseconds) 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 and then check the alignment of ELF segments for any shared libraries that you find. Android Studio also provides features that help you to automatically detect alignment issues.