Google has officially announced the launch of the Android 15 Developer Preview 2. While the first dev preview focused on privacy and security, preview 2 promises to bring improvements to various communication-related functions. This includes at least a few features that revolve around NFC including tap to pay. As well as extended platform support for satellite connectivity.
Google says that this extended platform support also includes improvements to UI elements. These are meant to “ensure a consistent user experience across the satellite connectivity landscape.” There are other changes in the second preview as well, but it’s worth remembering that this is still just a developer preview. And the keyword there is “developer.” Most or all of these changes aren’t intended for end users. But that doesn’t mean what’s included won’t give you a glimpse at what to expect from the software down the road. Say, during the beta.
For starters, the satellite support is being updated to provide better awareness of when a device is connected to a satellite network. In this preview, this isn’t necessarily something you would see on the front end. But Google says it’ll provide apps the ability to use the non-terrestrial network to detect when a device is connected to a satellite.
Android 15 will also allow connection to satellite networks for SMS/MMS apps and RCS apps. Once this is fully online, it would enable those apps to send messages via satellite connections. Again though, this is something that app developers would need to implement. Still, it will eventually give users an avenue of staying in communication when they might otherwise have no network connection.
The Android 15 Developer Preview 2 launch will improve tap to pay
Another main change with this preview is the improvements to NFC services. Google specifically highlights tap to pay here. Stating that it aims to make tap to pay “more seamless and reliable.” The idea is to essentially make using the tap to pay at checkouts more efficient and thereby faster. Google says that in many cases, these updates can result in a one tap transaction.
“On supported devices, apps can request the NfcAdapter enter observe mode, where the device will listen but not respond to NFC readers, sending the app’s NFC service PollingFrame objects to process. The PollingFrame objects can be used to auth ahead of the first communication to the NFC reader, allowing for a one tap transaction in many cases.”
Think about all the times you use tap to pay at stores with your phone. Then think about any times you may have had to tap the phone more than once to complete the transaction. By the sounds of it, Android 15 aims to lessen the number of times this might happen.
Expanding support for app visibility to more screens
This change will be big for users who own flippable devices, such as the Galaxy Z Flip 5 for example. With Android 15, developers can “declare a property” that Android 15 uses to allow apps or activities to be displayed on smaller cover screens. Like that of the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Google says these screens are too small to be considered compatible targets for apps to run on. Android 15 will change this a bit though, and allow developers to opt their apps into support for these screens. This means that some of your favorite apps might soon have more of a presence on these smaller cover displays.
