Recently, Google revealed the logo for Android 17, and after a short delay in the release of Android 17 Beta 1 update, the company has now finally released the beta update.
The First Beta of Android 17 is here!
Check out the updates ⬇️🧵 pic.twitter.com/dJKSwwkBwJ
— Android Developers (@AndroidDev) February 13, 2026
The beta update includes significant enhancements to camera and media capabilities, new tools for optimising connectivity, and expanded profiles for companion devices. With this release, Google highlights a fundamental shift in the way it is bringing new releases to the developer community, from the traditional Developer Preview model to the Android Canary program.
The new “always-on” Canary channel offers three benefits:
- Features and APIs land in Canary as soon as they pass internal testing, rather than waiting for a quarterly release.
- Early “battle-testing” in Canary results in a more polished Beta experience with new APIs and behaviour changes that are closer to being final.
- Canary supports OTA updates, and as a separate update channel, more easily integrates with CI workflows and gives you the earliest window to give immediate feedback on upcoming potential testing.
Android 17 schedule
Following the beta release in February, the Platform Stability milestone is targeted for March. At this milestone, the company will deliver final SDK/NDK APIs and largely final app-facing behaviours. Android 17 is said to get updates in a series of quarterly releases- in Q2 planned app will be introduced, breaking behaviour changes, and a minor SDK release in Q4 with additional APIs and features.
Android 17 Beta 1 update
Orientation and resizability restrictions
Android 17 (API level 37) removes the developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screen devices (sw>600 dp).
Key changes for SDK 37:
- The system will ignore manifest attributes and runtime APIs that restrict orientation or aspect ratio on screens sw>600 dp.
- Exemptions & User control: These changes are specific to large screens; they do not apply to screens smaller than sw600dp. Apps categorised as games (based on the android:appCategory flag) are exempt from these restrictions. Users can explicitly opt-in/out of using an app’s default behaviour via the system’s aspect ratio settings.
- Updates to configuration changes: Starting with Android 17, the system will no longer restart activities by default for specific configuration changes that typically do not require a UI recreation.
Performance
- Lock-free MessageQueue: In Android 17, apps targeting SDK 37 or higher will receive a new implementation of android.os.MessageQueue, where the implementation is lock-free. This improves performance and reduces missed frames, but may break clients that reflect on MessageQueue private fields and methods.
- Generational Garbage Collection: Android 17 introduces generational garbage collection to ART’s Concurrent Mark-Compat collector. This optimisation introduces more frequent, less resource-intensive young-generation collections alongside full-leap collections, aiming to reduce the overall garbage collection CPU cost and time.
- Static final fields: Starting from Android 17, apps targeting Android 17 or later won’t be able to modify static final fields, allowing the runtime to apply performance optimisations more aggressively.
- Custom notification view restrictions: To reduce memory usage, Google has restricted the size of custom notification views. This update closes a loophole that allows apps to bypass existing limits using URIs.
- New performance debugging ProfilingManager triggers: Several new system triggers have been introduced to ProfilingManager to help developers collect in-depth data to debug performance issues.
Media and Camera
- Dynamic Camera Session updates: Google has introduced updateOutputConfigurations () to CameraCaptureSession. This allows developers to dynamically attach and detach output surfaces without the need to reconfigure the entire camera capture session. This enables seamless transition between modes (eg, Photo to video) without the latency of reconfiguring the entire session.
- Logical multi-camera device metadata: Developers can now request additional metadata from all active physical cameras involved in the capture using the LOGICAL_MULTI_CAMERA_ADDITIONAL_RESULTS key.
- Versatile Video Coding (VVC) support: Android 17 adds support for the Versatile Video Coding standard. This includes defining the video/vvc MIME type in MediaFormat, adding new VVC profiles in MediaCodecInfo, and integrating support into MediaExtractor.
- Constant Quality for Video Recording: Google has added setVideoEncodingQuality() to MediaRecorder, which allows developers to configure a constant quality (CQ) mode for video encoders.
- Background audio hardening: Starting in Android 17, the audio framework will enforce restrictions on background audio interactions, including audio playback, audio focus requests, and volume change APIs to ensure that these changes are started initially by the user.
Privacy and Security
- Deprecation of Cleartext Traffic Attribute: The android:usesCleartextTraffic attribute is now deprecated. If your app targets Android 17 or higher without a corresponding Network Security Configuration, it will default to disallowing cleartext traffic.
- HPKE Hybrid Cryptography: A public Service Provider Interface (SPI) is introduced for an implementation of HPKE Hybrid cryptography, enabling secure communication using a combination of public key and symmetric encryption.
Connectivity and Telecom
- Enhanced VoIP Call History: Google has introduced user preference management for app VoIP call history integration.
- WiFi Ranging and Proximity: WiFi Ranging has been enhanced with new Proximity Detection capabilities, supporting continuous ranging and secure peer-to-peer discovery.
Developer Productivity and Tools
Google has introduced two new profiles to the CompanionDeviceManager: Medical devices and fitness trackers to improve device distinction and permission handling.
Availability
You can enrol Pixel 6 and above models in the beta programme to get this and future Android Beta updates over the air. Or you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio.
