Google announced a new cross-device Software Development Kit (SDK) at I/O2022, which will allow developers to make apps easily accessible for Android and non-Android devices.
Google provides developers with the advantage to build “rich multi-device experiences” with “intuitive set of APIs” through the new SDK. Google said in a blogpost that the new SDK will extract the complexities involved with Bluetooth, WiFi, and Ultra-wide band (UWB), so app developers can focus on “building delightful user experiences and connecting these experiences across a variety of form factors and platforms”.
Features in SDK developer preview
The release contains a set of rich APIs centered around the core functionality such as:
Device discovery: Easily find nearby devices, authorise peer-to-peer communication, and start the target application on receiving devices.
Secure connections: Enable encrypted, low-latency bi-directional data sharing between authorised devices.
Multi-device sessions: Enable transferring or extending an application’s user experience across multiple devices.
Google SDK will help developers to ease their way out of following use cases:
- Discovering and authorising communication with nearby devices.
- Sharing an app’s current state with the same app on another device.
- Starting the app on a secondary device without having to keep the app running in background.
- Establishing secure connections for devices to communicate with each other.
- Enabling task handoff where the user starts a task on one device, and can easily continue on another device.