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Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop is stable
Posted by Adarsh Fernando, Group Product Manager

Today, we’re excited to announce the stable release of Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop (2024.3.2)!

This release brings a host of new features and improvements designed to boost your productivity and enhance your development workflow. With numerous enhancements, this latest release helps you build high-quality Android apps faster and more efficiently: streamlined Jetpack Compose previews, new Gemini capabilities, better Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) integration, improved device management, and more.

Read on to learn about the key updates in Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, and download the latest stable version today to explore them yourself!

Developer Productivity Enhancements

Analyze Crash Reports with Gemini in Android Studio

Debugging production crashes can require you to spend significant time switching contexts between your crash reporting tool, such as Firebase Crashlytics and Android Vitals, and investigating root causes in the IDE. Now, when viewing reports in App Quality Insights (AQI), click the Insights tab. Gemini provides a summary of the crash, generates insights, and links to useful documentation. If you also provide Gemini with access to local code context, it can provide more accurate results, relevant next steps, and code suggestions. This helps you reduce the time spent diagnosing and resolving issues.

Gemini helps you investigate, understand, and resolve crashes in your app much more quickly in the App Quality Insights tool window.

Generate Unit Test Scenarios with Gemini

Writing effective unit tests is crucial but can be time-consuming. Gemini now helps kickstart this process by generating relevant test scenarios. Right-click on a class in your editor and select Gemini > Generate Unit Test Scenarios. Gemini analyzes the code and suggests test cases with descriptive names, outlining what to test. While you still implement the specific test logic, this significantly speeds up the initial setup and ensures better test coverage by suggesting scenarios you might have missed.

Gemini helps you generate unit test scenarios for your app.

Gemini Prompt Library

No more retyping your most frequently used prompts for Gemini! The new Prompt Library lets you save prompts directly within Android Studio (Settings > Gemini > Prompt Library). Whether it’s a specific code generation pattern, a refactoring instruction, or a debugging query you use often, save it once from the chat (right-click > Save prompt) and re-apply it instantly from the editor (right-click > Gemini > Prompt Library). Prompts that you save can also be shared and standardized across your team.

The prompt library saves your frequently used Gemini prompts to make them easier to use.

You have the option to store prompts on IDE level or Project level:
Compose and UI Development

Themed Icon Support Preview

Ensure your app’s branding looks great with Android’s themed icons. Android Studio now lets you preview how your existing launcher icon adapts to the monochromatic theming algorithm directly within the IDE. This quick visual check helps you identify potential contrast issues or undesirable shapes early in the workflow, even before you provide a dedicated monochromatic drawable. This allows for faster iteration on your app’s visual identity.

Themed icon support in Preview helps you visually check how your existing launcher icon adapts to monochromatic theming.

Compose Preview Enhancements

Iterating on your Compose UI is now faster and better organized:
Compose previews render more smoothly and make it easier to hide previews you’re not focused on.

Build and Deploy

KMP Shared Module Integration

Android Studio now streamlines adding shared logic to your Android app with the new Kotlin Multiplatform Shared Module template. This provides a dedicated starting point within your Android project, making it easier to structure and build shared business logic for both Android and iOS directly from Android Studio.

The new Kotlin Multiplatform module template makes it easier to add shared business logic to your existing app.

Updated UX for Adding Devices

Spend less time configuring test devices. The new Device Manager UX for adding virtual and remote devices makes it much easier to configure the devices you want from the Device Manager. To get started, click the ‘+’ action at the top of the window and select one of these options:
It’s now easier to configure virtual devices that are optimized for your workstation.

Google Play Deprecated SDK Warnings

Stay more informed about SDKs you publish with your app. Android Studio now displays warnings from the Google Play SDK Index when an SDK used in your app has been deprecated by its author. These warnings include information about suggested alternative SDKs, helping you proactively manage dependencies and avoid potential issues related to outdated or insecure libraries.

Play deprecated SDK warnings help you avoid potential issues related to outdated or insecure libraries.

Updated Build Menu and Actions

We’ve refined the Build menu for a more intuitive experience:
The Build menu includes behavior and naming changes to simplify and streamline the experience.

Standardized Config Directories

Switching between Stable, Beta, and Canary versions of Android Studio is now smoother. Configuration directories are standardized, removing the “Preview” suffix for non-stable builds. We’ve also added the micro version (e.g., AndroidStudio2024.3.2) to the path, allowing different feature drops to run side-by-side without conflicts. This simplifies managing your IDE settings, especially if you work with multiple Android Studio installations.

IntelliJ platform update

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop (2024.3.2) includes the IntelliJ 2024.3 platform release, which has many new features such as a feature complete K2 mode, more reliable Java** and Kotlin code inspections, grammar checks during indexing, debugger improvements, speed and quality of life improvements to Terminal, and more.

For more information, read the full IntelliJ 2024.3 release notes.

Summary

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop (2024.3.2) delivers these key features and enhancements:
Getting Started

Ready to elevate your Android development? Download Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop and start using these powerful new features today!

As always, your feedback is crucial. Check known issues, report bugs, suggest improvements, and connect with the community on LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, or X. Let’s continue building amazing Android apps together!

^**Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
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06/05/2025
Concurrency & Networking in Android

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06/05/2025
OpenAI Says It Will Stay Under Nonprofit Control

Months after publicly stating its intention to shake up its corporate structure, OpenAI has reversed course and decided that its nonprofit arm will keep controlling its for-profit business.

According to an OpenAI blog post published Monday, the company’s board of directors decided that OpenAI will continue to rely on the oversight and control of its nonprofit division moving forward.

“OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit,” OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor wrote in the blog post. “Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit.”

The company’s for-profit LLC, which has lived under the nonprofit since 2019 and will continue doing so, will become a public benefit corporation (PBC). A PBC is a for-profit business that must consider the public good in addition to profit in its decisions. The nonprofit division of OpenAI will control and be the biggest shareholder in the PBC.

“Our mission remains the same,” Taylor noted. OpenAI’s mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

Related: Everyone Wants to Buy Google’s Chrome Browser — Including OpenAI, According to a Top ChatGPT Executive

In December, OpenAI publicly indicated in a blog post that it was thinking about making its for-profit section a PBC, but one that had complete control over OpenAI’s operations and business. The non-profit side would not oversee the for-profit, but would instead be in charge of charitable initiatives.

Taylor wrote on Monday that OpenAI chose to reverse course and have the nonprofit retain control over the for-profit business after talking to civic leaders and with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California.

More than 30 civic leaders, former OpenAI staffers, and Nobel laureates delivered letters to the offices of the attorneys general last month to ask that they stop OpenAI’s effort to break from its non-profit governance.

^{OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

OpenAI has recently been embroiled in a legal battle with Elon Musk, who helped co-found the company and left in early 2018 following a failed bid to take it over. Musk has since filed lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of breaking OpenAI’s founding agreement and working to maximize profits for Microsoft instead of humanity as a whole. Microsoft has invested close to $14 billion in OpenAI.

Musk even led an unsolicited offer to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion in February, which Altman quickly shot down on X. As of press time, Musk had yet to comment.

Related: OpenAI Is Creating AI to Do ‘All the Things That Software Engineers Hate to Do’

OpenAI started as a nonprofit in 2015 and transitioned to a “capped profit” company in 2019, meaning that the company’s profits were limited to a certain amount, with excess profits given to the nonprofit parent organization. The for-profit arm raised $1 billion from Microsoft in 2019, alongside a $100 million initial fundraising round.

In November 2022, OpenAI launched its AI chatbot ChatGPT, which was used by 500 million global weekly users as of March, up from 400 million in February.

OpenAI closed a $40 billion funding round in March, the biggest private tech deal ever, which valued the company at $300 billion.

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06/05/2025
Beginning iOS & Swift | Kodeco

We understand that circumstances can change, and if you need to withdraw from the bootcamp, your options will vary depending on your billing cycle:

– If you enrolled with a monthly plan, you can cancel your future billing with your membership and you will not be renewed on your next billing date OR you can pause your membership for up to three months, then you can pick up your studies again at that time.

– If you enrolled with a one-time payment, you will be eligible for a full refund within the first 14 days of your enrollment into the bootcamp.

*Please note: if you’ve accessed a significant portion of program materials, this might affect your eligibility for a full refund.

Please email support@kodeco.com for further assistance on the withdrawal process.

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06/05/2025
Signal Clone Used by Waltz Suspends Service After ‘Security Incident’

The application that the Trump White House has been using to collect and securely stores messages sent on popular commercial encrypted apps has temporarily suspended service in the wake of a security breach, the application’s owner said on Monday.

The application, TeleMessage, is owned by Smarsh, a company based in Portland, Ore., which provides tools for governments to comply with record-keeping regulations and laws. Last week, a Reuters photograph of Mike Waltz, then the national security adviser, showed that he was using the application to read Signal messages on his phone.

On Sunday, 404 Media reported that a hacker had breached the Israeli company that makes TeleMessage and stolen the contents of some direct messages and group chats sent using its Signal clone, as well as modified versions of WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat.

Smarsh declined to answer questions, but in a statement, a spokeswoman said that it was investigating “a recent security incident” and that, “Out of an abundance of caution, all TeleMessage services have been temporarily suspended.”

The use of Signal by Trump administration officials came to light after Mr. Waltz created a chat on the platform to discuss strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen, but inadvertently added a journalist from The Atlantic to the group.

It is not clear when Mr. Waltz started using TeleMessage. A federal judge ordered the messages from the original Signal chat be preserved, but government lawyers later told a court in a different case that messages from the original Signal chat had been deleted from one participant’s phone, that of John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director.

Security experts have raised concerns about the service, noting that installing such an application to archive encrypted messages creates numerous security vulnerabilities. WhatsApp and other messaging companies are actively attempting to ban TeleMessage.

The use of the TeleMessage system is something of a contradiction. Many people use encrypted apps like Signal so that information is sent securely and then automatically deleted. But U.S. government rules require officials to preserve their communications — driving some government lawyers to push for officials to use the TeleMessage clone.

While the company claims not to decrypt the messages and to archive them securely, the hack on TeleMessage as reported by 404 Media raised questions about the company’s security protocols.

Security experts have said the U.S. government should aggressively audit TeleMessage before continuing to use the service to archive Signal or other messages.

In its statement on Monday, Smarsh said it had hired an “external cybersecurity firm” to assist in its investigation of the TeleMessage breach.

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06/05/2025
Celebrate a Decade of Rusty Lake With The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show

The Rusty Lake series is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and to celebrate the developers behind the popular games have unveiled The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show.

Step up and enjoy the incredible Mr. Rabbit and has mysterious magic shows. It’s filled with dark secrets, illusions, and a huge twist. There are 20 bizarre acts bound to rest your ability to determine what’s real and what’s not.

The game also features a magical soundtrack, great sound effects, and unexpected voice actors.

The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show is a free download now on the App Store. It’s for the iPhone and all iPad models.

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06/05/2025
There’s good and bad news about the Z Fold and Flip 7 batteries- Android Authority
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
TL;DR

The batteries for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 have received UL Demko certification.

The Z Fold 7 would have a total battery capacity of 4,272mAh, while the Z Flip 7 gets 4,174mAh.

Both devices may have 25W wireless charging speeds, up from the 15W of previous generations.
As we get closer to summer, Samsung’s next generation of foldables is looming just over the horizon. We’re anticipating Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked event in the first half of July, which may be held in New York for the first time in three years. Here, we should see the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 devices, and leaks continue to give us a good idea of what to expect.

What appear to be the batteries for both the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 have received UL Demko certification, which follows their earlier BIS certification, according to TheTechOutlook. Because of this, we now have some solid expectations for the capacities of both batteries.

For the Galaxy Z Fold 7, we’re looking at possible battery model numbers of EB-BF966ABE and EB-BF967ABE, while these got certificate numbers of DK–163799-UL and DK–163657-UL. These are Li-ion batteries with capacities of 2,126mAh and 2,146mAh, which means 4,272mAh total for the rated capacity. As a comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 packs in 2,355mAh and 1,918mAH batteries, which brings its rated total to 4,273mAh. In terms of marketing, since the Z Fold 6 has a typical 4,400mAh capacity, we should expect something similar for the Z Fold 7 as well.

Regarding the Z Flip 7, we’ve got model numbers EB-BF766ABE and EB-BF767ABE for the potential batteries here, with certification numbers DK–163399-UL and DK–163928-UL. On this one, the capacities of the batteries are 1,189mAh and 2,985mAh, which would be a total of 4,174mAh. For reference, the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s components were rated at 2,790mAh and 1,097mAh, which is a total of 3,887mAh capacity. The typical capacity for the Z Flip 6 is 4,000mAh, so Samsung may be thinking of positioning this be as 4,300mAh for the Z Flip 7.

From these new certification listings, those who prefer the larger Galaxy Z Fold series could see a negligible drop in battery capacity, while the Z Flip fans are likely due a more substantial increase. Of course, actual battery life depends on what you do with your device all day, so these numbers may or may not have a big impact. We’ll find out when the phones launch and we try them out ourselves.

But there is some good news for both, thankfully. It appears the the next-generation of foldables should support 25W wireless charging, according to their listings in China’s 3C certification database as spotted by TheTechOutlook. However, we also saw that both the Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 might only have 25W wired charging speeds as well, which isn’t as impressive as some of Samsung’s other flagships, and even mid-range devices with 45W.

We also expect the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 to have Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC and at least 12GB RAM. With just a couple more months before the release of Samsung’s next-generation foldables, we shouldn’t have a much longer wait and will likely see plenty more leaks in the coming weeks.

Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at news@androidauthority.com. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it’s your choice.
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05/05/2025
5 Best Apple TV Screensavers

From sunrises to sunsets and day to night, Magic Window Naturescapes lets you display breathtaking views on your Apple TV. With scenes from Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, and many more, you can enjoy the views along with music. The app has relaxing soundtracks and lets you listen to your own music as well, allowing you to create just the right feel for your home or office environment.

If you appreciate incredible nature scenes, then Magic Window Naturescapes is the screen saver for you. Select your playback speed, listen to your own music, and let those in the room experience an amazing view.

The app is $2.99.

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05/05/2025
Opinion | DeepSeek. Temu. TikTok. China Tech Is Starting to Pull Ahead.

China’s top leaders did not appear to fully grasp the power of artificial intelligence in July 2023, when one of us, Eric, and Henry Kissinger met them. Economic malaise hung in the air. But when the other of us, Selina, returned to China just 19 months later, the optimism was palpable.

Dinner conversations were dominated by DeepSeek and other A.I. chatbots. Electric cars whizzed by, while apps offered drone food delivery. Unitree humanoid robots danced and spun handkerchiefs onstage during the “Spring Festival Gala,” China’s most-watched TV program, making the company a household name overnight.

This is the country we’re dealing with. China is at parity or pulling ahead of the United States in a variety of technologies, notably at the A.I. frontier. And it has developed a real edge in how it disseminates, commercializes and manufactures tech. History has shown us that those who adopt and diffuse a technology the fastest wins.

So it’s no surprise that China has chosen to forcefully retaliate against America’s recent tariffs. To win the race for the future of technology, and in turn the war for global leadership, we must discard the belief that America is always ahead.

For a long time, China was slower to the game. In 2007, the year Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s first iPhone, the internet revolution had barely begun across the Pacific: Only about 10 percent of China’s population was online, while the tech giant Alibaba was still seven years away from listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The A.I. race appeared to follow the old pattern. The debut of ChatGPT in San Francisco in November 2022 led to a slew of copycat chatbots in China, most of which were estimated to be years behind. Yet, as with smartphones and electric vehicles, Silicon Valley failed to anticipate that China would find a way to swiftly develop a cheap yet state-of-the-art competitor. Today’s Chinese models are very close behind U.S. versions. In fact, DeepSeek’s March update to its V3 large language model is, by some benchmarks, the best non-reasoning model.

The stakes of this contest are high. Leading American companies have largely been developing proprietary A.I. models and charging for access, in part because their models cost hundreds of millions of dollars to train. Chinese A.I. firms have expanded their influence by freely distributing their models for the public to use, download and modify, which makes them more accessible to researchers and developers around the world.

Apps for the Chinese online retailers Shein and Temu and the social media platforms RedNote and TikTok are already among the most downloaded globally. Combine this with the continuing popularity of China’s free open-source A.I. models, and it’s not hard to imagine teenagers worldwide hooked on Chinese apps and A.I. companions, with autonomous Chinese-made agents organizing our lives, and businesses with services and products powered by Chinese models.

In the internet revolution, Western dominance of the market helped America’s digital economy swell to $2.6 trillion by 2022. That’s bigger than Canada’s entire G.D.P. For the United States to reap the benefits of the coming A.I. revolution, which is expected to have a larger impact than advent of the internet, the world needs to choose America’s computing stack — algorithms, apps, hardware — not China’s.

In a dozen years, China has gone from a “copycat nation” to a juggernaut with world-class products that have at times leapfrogged those in the West. Xiaomi — once best known as a maker of iPhone knockoffs — delivered 135,000 electric cars last year, while Apple gave up on its effort to produce an E.V. after burning $10 billion over a decade. China is now racing to deploy robots at scale, outlining plans for mass production of humanoids; in 2023, the country installed more industrial robots than all other nations combined. Along the way, the country also cultivated an abundance of STEM talent, robust supply chains, incredible manufacturing heft and a domestic ecosystem so brutally competitive that the only way to survive is to never stop iterating.

This China-dominated future is already arriving — unless we get our act together.

We should learn from what China has done well. The United States needs to openly share more of its A.I. technologies and research, innovate even faster and double down on diffusing A.I. throughout the economy.

Despite recent cuts in research funding, the United States continues to have remarkable strengths in university and private-sector innovation. Meanwhile, China is still playing catch-up on semiconductors. Additionally, the country faces significant headwinds of its own including a real estate crisis, mounting debt and weak consumer spending. That said, we wouldn’t underestimate the Chinese government’s resolve in tolerating near-term economic pain in pursuit of technological supremacy.

The United States imposed export controls on cutting-edge chips in order to stifle China’s A.I. progress. The country’s recent breakthroughs, however, illustrate that such sanctions instead fueled efforts by Chinese entrepreneurs to keep training and commercializing A.I.

At lunch during Selina’s trip to China, when U.S. export controls were brought up, someone joked, “America should sanction our men’s soccer team too so they will do better.” So that they will do better. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but Chinese tech has become better despite constraints, as Chinese entrepreneurs have found creative ways to do more with less. So it should be no surprise that the online response in China to American tariffs has been nationalistic and surprisingly optimistic: The public is hunkering down for a battle and think time is on Beijing’s side.

We’re no longer in the era when China is far behind us. If China’s capacity to innovate endures, if its A.I. companies continue to embrace openness, and if China stays on track to take over 45 percent of all global manufacturing by 2030, then the next chapter of the A.I. race will be an all-out dogfight on every axis possible. America will need every advantage it has.

Eric Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, is the chairman and chief executive of Relativity Space. Selina Xu leads China and A.I. research in the Office of Eric Schmidt.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.

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05/05/2025
5 Great Games for the Whole Family

These family games are easy to understand, and offer wide appeal for multiple family members to gather around and enjoy.

Marble Mixer for iPad

Marble Mixer includes three different game boards to shoot marbles on. Your marbles can collide with your opponent’s marbles, and there are great physics. Have fun shooting towards point buckets, mouths, and more.

Only for the iPad, the game is $1.99.

Get Marble Mixer for iPad in the App Store

Ticket to Ride

A classic board game is also available to play on your iPhone or iPad. Ticket to Ride is a railway adventure where you’ll try to be the quickest to link cities and reach destinations. You’ll travel the world from Europe to India and can try out different strategies to win.

The easy-to-play game is easy to learn and there is even a tutorial mode so everyone can learn how to play. Along with a local multiplayer option to try out with the family, you can also choose a single-player mode or online multiplayer.

Available for $8.99, you can unlock additional game modes with in-app purchases.

Get Ticket to Ride – Train Game in the App Store

Multiponk

When you mix pong and pinball, you get Multiponk. All it takes is one finger to control your paddle. Give your ball smooth effects and thwart the traps to win the game. Multiponk features solo mode, where you try to beat the computer, as well as a multiplayer mode that supports up to four players at once.

This game is pong mixed with pinball, challenging you to keep control of the ball while avoiding traps. You bounce the ball around, using a single finger to control your paddle. In solo mode, you play against the computer, but the real fun is when you get three friends circled around your iPad for a multiplayer game of Multiponk.

The game is $2.99 and also available on the iPhone.

Get Multiponk in the App Store

The Game of Life

Another board game adapted for the digital age, The Game of Life brings all the fun to your iOS device. You’ll attend. College, accept a job and play mini games. The different board piece characters look great as they will make their way through life in a 3D animated board.

In the local multiplayer mode, you can play with up to four people on the same device. There is also an online multiplayer option to match with others from around the world.

For the iPhone and iPad, the game is $4.99. In-app purchases are available to unlock additional game modes.

Get The Game of Life in the App Store

King of Opera

The opera is on, but the tenors all want to steal the spotlight. You and up to three other players each control a singer, trying to nudge and bump each other off the stage. When the fat lady drops into the action, though, who can steal the spotlight back and end the game as King of the Opera?

King of Opera challenges you to bump other tenors off the stage, sumo-style. The song goes on, but each singer battles for his own stage presence. If you can keep the spotlight on you the longest, you just might be crowned the King of Opera.

It’s the perfect game for a night in with a group of friends. Gather around the trusty iPad, and see who can keep the spotlight the longest. King of Opera is hilarious fun, with you and each of your friends vying for control of the stage.

For 1-4 players, the $2.99 game is also available for the iPhone.

Get King of Opera in the App Store

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05/05/2025