Google inaugurated its 2021 virtual I/O conference with a dynamic keynote featuring multiple cameras, set outdoors on the Googleplex campus in Mountain View, CA. The event brought forth several announcements aimed at developers.

A prominent highlight among the developer-centric revelations was the beta release of the latest version of the Android Studio IDE, Arctic Fox (2020.3.1). Notable in this update is the incorporation of Google’s native UI toolkit, Jetpack Compose, with its 1.0 release scheduled for July.

Jetpack Compose, a Kotlin-based declarative design framework applicable to Android, desktop, and web development (managed by the IntelliJ IDEA IDE), enables the creation of previews in various configurations. It allows developers to navigate code with Compose Preview, test in isolation with Deploy Preview to Device, and inspect the entire app using Layout Inspector. Facilitating iterative development, developers can swiftly edit strings and numbers with immediate updates. Additionally, the Accessibility Scanner in the Layout Editor audits View-based layouts for accessibility issues. Importantly, Jetpack Compose seamlessly integrates with existing code and can be added to pre-existing applications.

Google also introduced the alpha release of Jetpack Macrobenchmark, aiding developers in analyzing startup and animation lag issues within apps.

The Kotlin programming language received attention at the conference, with the announcement of a stable release of a new annotation processor API, Kotlin Symbol Processing. Google claimed this API is up to two times faster than its predecessors, offering increased efficiency. The Kotlin DataStore, positioned as a Kotlin-first alternative to SharedPreferences, has entered the beta phase.

Arctic Fox extends support for Live Editing of literals, allowing developers using Compose to edit literals (strings, numbers, Booleans) and witness immediate results without waiting for compilation. This feature aims to enhance productivity by displaying code changes nearly instantaneously in previews, emulators, or physical devices.

The release also introduces support for Google’s Wear OS, Google TV, and Android Auto through new emulators and system images, including compatibility with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.

Furthermore, Arctic Fox brings a major update to the IntelliJ IDEA IDE (v2020.3), allowing developers to test their apps with new features in Android 12, enhance app performance with an updated UI for Memory Profiler, understand background task relationships with WorkManager Inspector, and utilize Non-Transitive R classes IDE Refactoring to boost build speed.

Regarding version numbering, Arctic Fox follows the IntelliJ 2020.3 platform release, aligning with Google’s revised versioning scheme. This includes a code name, with Arctic Fox being the first in alphabetical order, followed by Bumblebee, currently in the canary stage.