Support for Android Oreo Released
Support for the changes that were introduced in Android O
We are happy to announce the 1.10.0 release of our Android SDK with compatibility and support for new features in Android 8.0.
What's New
In this release, first and foremost, we've added support for the changes that were introduced in Android O.
Notification Channels
If your app is targeting Android O (SDK level 26), notifications will only be shown if they are assigned to a Notification Channel. These channels act as a preset for categories of notifications with different ways of displaying. Per channel, the app can define settings for sound, dots, importance, lock-screen visibility, etc. After your app has set up a channel, the user can then change their preferences at any time.
Our SDK provides you with methods to create a default channel or set your custom-created channel to be the default. The API as well as the new Dashboard will allow you to optionally set the channel you want the notification to be sent to.
There is one important caveat: once created, channels can not be removed from your app, only disabled. During development, you can remove them by totally uninstalling the app, but a strong word of advice here would be to plan the need for channels before creating them in your app.
To make sure users will see your notifications, make sure you set at least one channel. See our migration documentation for detailed information.
Notification Dots
Starting in Android O, the operating system will show notification dots on app icons in the launcher screen. This currently only works in the Google Pixel launcher, but other vendors will support it soon they release Android Oreo for their devices.
The dot on an icon will indicate that there are unread messages in the notification manager.
Long press on the app icon will show the latest unread notifications, together with the default behaviour of showing app shortcuts.
Background jobs
Android O is built to be nicer on your phone's battery life, that's why apps do not get unlimited background processing time anymore. This release makes sure things are handled in the background according to Android specifications so your apps will still receive notifications even when they are running in the background. The good news is that the AltBeacon library now also supports Android O, so for the time being we will stick with this library to provide beacon support until we are ready to move to Nearby.
Upcoming features
This release also prepares your apps for a couple of great features we are rolling out over the next months, so stay tuned to our blog for more updates.
What are you waiting for, download our SDK now!