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The Android 16 platform includes behavior changes that might affect your app.
The following behavior changes apply to all apps when they run on Android 16,
regardless of targetSdkVersion. You should test your app and then modify
it as needed to support these changes, where applicable.

Make sure to also review the list of behavior changes that only affect apps
targeting Android 16.

Core functionality

Android 16 includes the following changes that modify or
expand various core capabilities of the Android system.

JobScheduler quota optimizations

Starting in Android 16, we’re adjusting regular and expedited job execution
runtime quota based on the following factors:

• Which app standby bucket the application is in: in
  Android 16, active standby buckets will start being enforced by a generous
  runtime quota.
• If the job starts execution while the app is in a top state: in Android
  16, Jobs started while the app is visible to the user and continues after
  the app becomes invisible, will adhere to the job runtime quota.
• If the job is executing while running a Foreground Service: in Android
  16, jobs that are executing while concurrently with a foreground service
  will adhere to the job runtime quota. If you’re leveraging jobs for user
  initiated data transfer, consider using user initiated data transfer
  jobs instead.

This change impacts tasks scheduled using WorkManager, JobScheduler, and
DownloadManager. To debug why a job was stopped, we recommend logging why your
job was stopped by calling WorkInfo.getStopReason() (for
JobScheduler jobs, call JobParameters.getStopReason()).

For more information on battery-optimal best practices, refer to guidance on
optimize battery use for task scheduling APIs.

We also recommend leveraging the new
JobScheduler#getPendingJobReasonsHistory API introduced in
Android 16 to understand why a job has not executed.

Testing

To test your app’s behavior, you can enable override of certain job quota
optimizations as long as the app is running on an Android 16 device.

To disable enforcement of “top state will adhere to job runtime quota”, run the
following adb command:

adb shell am compat enable OVERRIDE_QUOTA_ENFORCEMENT_TO_TOP_STARTED_JOBS APP_PACKAGE_NAME

To disable enforcement of “jobs that are executing while concurrently with a
foreground service will adhere to the job runtime quota”, run the following
adb command:

adb shell am compat enable OVERRIDE_QUOTA_ENFORCEMENT_TO_FGS_JOBS APP_PACKAGE_NAME

To test certain app standby bucket behavior, you can set the app standby bucket
of your app using the following adb command:

adb shell am set-standby-bucket APP_PACKAGE_NAME active|working_set|frequent|rare|restricted

To understand the app standby bucket your app is in, you can get the app standby
bucket of your app using the following adb command:

adb shell am get-standby-bucket APP_PACKAGE_NAME

Fully deprecating JobInfo#setImportantWhileForeground

The JobInfo.Builder#setImportantWhileForeground(boolean)
method indicates the importance of a job while the scheduling app is in the
foreground or when temporarily exempted from background restrictions.

This method has been deprecated since Android 12 (API level 31). Starting in
Android 16, it no longer functions effectively and calling this method will be
ignored.

This removal of functionality also applies to
JobInfo#isImportantWhileForeground(). Starting in Android
16, if the method is called, the method returns false.

Ordered broadcast priority scope no longer global

Android apps are allowed to define priorities on broadcast receivers to control
the order in which the receivers receive and process the broadcast. For
manifest-declared receivers, apps can use the
android:priority attribute to define the priority and for
context-registered receivers, apps can use the
IntentFilter#setPriority() API to define the priority. When
a broadcast is sent, the system delivers it to receivers in order of their
priority, from highest to lowest.

In Android 16, broadcast delivery order using the android:priority attribute
or IntentFilter#setPriority() across different processes will not be
guaranteed. Broadcast priorities will only be respected within the same
application process rather than across all processes.

Also, broadcast priorities will be automatically confined to the range
(SYSTEM_LOW_PRIORITY + 1,
SYSTEM_HIGH_PRIORITY – 1). Only system components will be
allowed to set SYSTEM_LOW_PRIORITY, SYSTEM_HIGH_PRIORITY as broadcast
priority.

Your app might be impacted if it does either of the following:

1. Your application has declared multiple processes with the same broadcast
   intent, and has expectations around receiving those intents in a certain
   order based on the priority.
2. Your application process interacts with other processes and has expectations
   around receiving a broadcast intent in a certain order.

If the processes need to coordinate with each other, they should communicate
using other coordination channels.

ART internal changes

Android 16 includes the latest updates to the Android Runtime (ART) that improve
the Android Runtime’s (ART’s) performance and provide support for additional
Java features. Through Google Play System updates, these improvements are also
available to over a billion devices running Android 12 (API level 31) and
higher.

As these changes are released, libraries and app code that rely on internal
structures of ART might not work correctly on devices running Android 16, along
with earlier Android versions that update the ART module through Google Play
system updates.

Relying on internal structures (such as non-SDK interfaces) can
always lead to compatibility problems, but it’s particularly important to avoid
relying on code (or libraries containing code) that leverages internal ART
structures, since ART changes aren’t tied to the platform version the device is
running on and they go out to over a billion devices through Google Play system
updates.

All developers should check whether their app is impacted by testing their apps
thoroughly on Android 16. In addition, check the known issues to
see if your app depends on any libraries that we’ve identified that rely on
internal ART structures. If you do have app code or library dependencies that
are affected, seek public API alternatives whenever possible and request public
APIs for new use cases by creating a feature request in our issue
tracker.

User experience and system UI

Android 16 includes the following changes that are intended
to create a more consistent, intuitive user experience.

Deprecating disruptive accessibility announcements

Android 16 deprecates accessibility announcements, characterized by the use of
announceForAccessibility or the dispatch of
TYPE_ANNOUNCEMENT accessibility events. These can create
inconsistent user experiences for users of TalkBack and Android’s screen reader,
and alternatives better serve a broader range of user needs across a variety of
Android’s assistive technologies.

Examples of alternatives:

The reference documentation for the deprecated
announceForAccessibility API includes more details about
suggested alternatives.

Support for 3-button navigation

Android 16 brings predictive back support to the 3-button navigation for apps
that have properly migrated to predictive
back. Long-pressing the
back button initiates a predictive back animation, giving you a preview of where
the back swipe takes you.

This behavior applies across all areas of the system that support predictive
back animations, including the system animations (back-to-home, cross-task, and
cross-activity).