Get Ready for Android 15: Must-Have Testing Strategies for Effective Updates

Google has recently released the fourth and final version of Android 15 beta, also known by the internal codename of Vanilla Ice Cream. This update introduces enhanced privacy, intuitive gestures, and seamless smart home integration. Google is also prioritizing performance, battery life, and AI-powered features for a personalized user experience.

While the official release date remains unannounced, it’s expected to arrive between September and October, following the timeline of last year’s Android 14 launch. 

With the fourth beta now stable, developers should begin testing their apps for compatibility. This will ensure a smooth experience for users when they upgrade to Android 15. Any future updates, if any, will primarily focus on bug fixes.

This article will guide you through the essential testing strategies to prepare your app for Android 15’s official launch.

Supported Devices

To receive over-the-air updates for Android 15 beta, developers must enroll their devices in the Android Beta for Pixel program. Before enrolling, back up your device's data. Once enrolled, you cannot revert to a stable public version of Android without wiping all locally saved data. Android 15 beta is now supported by a range of Google Pixel devices, namely:

• Pixel 6 and 6 Pro
• Pixel 6a
• Pixel 7 and 7 Pro
• Pixel 7a
• Pixel Fold
• Pixel Tablet
• Pixel 8 and 8 Pro
• Pixel 8a

Google has partnered with several device manufacturers to enable Android 15 beta testing on other devices. Visit partner websites for specific models and installation instructions. For example, Honor supports beta testing only on the Magic 6 Pro and Magic V2.

Here’s a list of partner devices supporting Android 15 beta:

• Honor
• iQOO
• Lenovo
• Nothing
• OnePlus
• OPPO
• realme
• Sharp
• TECNO
• vivo
• Xiaomi

Why It’s Important to Test Early

Developers should begin testing and adapting their Android apps for Android 15 well ahead of its official release. With its extensive features and changes list, Android 15 will impact a wide range of apps. Testing your app on a beta OS is a proven strategy for enhancing your QA practices and avoiding costly bugs and brand damage. Let’s examine the key problems that Android products may encounter if not tested and adapted for Android 15.

Compatibility Issues

New Android versions often introduce changes to APIs, permissions, and system behavior. Without early testing, your app may encounter crashes, errors, or functional issues on the new OS.

For example, Android 15 no longer supports PNG-based emoji fonts. Older apps using these fonts may experience incorrect or missing emoji displays. Accessibility apps relying on PNG-based emojis might need to update scaling algorithms to work with vector graphics for optimal clarity. Social media apps using emoji-based notification icons or buttons may require UI asset updates to maintain consistency with the new vector format. These are just a few potential scenarios.

UI/UX Problems

Changes in Android 15’s system UI elements or design guidelines could make your app’s interface look outdated, glitchy, or difficult to use.

For example, Android 15’s edge-to-edge enforcement is a breaking change. This means apps using the full screen, extending content to the display edges (near the status and navigation bars), might be affected.

Games using full-screen modes could have on-screen controls hidden or difficult to interact with due to system bars or gestures. Video streaming apps or media players might encounter issues with obscured content or unresponsive touch controls if they don’t handle edge-to-edge enforcement properly.

Poor Performance

If your app isn’t optimized for Android 15, users may experience lag, unresponsiveness, or excessive battery consumption. These issues can frustrate users and lead to negative reviews or uninstalls.

Android 15’s introduction of 16 KB page sizes represents a major change in memory management. While this can improve efficiency, developers, especially those using native code, must rebuild and thoroughly test their apps to ensure compatibility and optimal performance.

Android 15 introduces several new features and APIs for performance and battery management. For example, detailed app size information helps developers identify and optimize storage-intensive parts of their app.

The ProfilingManager class allows developers to collect profiling data within their app, understand resource usage, and optimize performance across various devices.

Additionally, Android Dynamic Performance Framework enhancements, SQLite database improvements, and ApplicationStartInfo API insights provide valuable information for app optimization.

Loss of Market Share

If your app doesn’t function well on the latest Android version, users may switch to better-optimized competitors. This can lead to market share loss, especially if competitors have adapted early and offer a superior user experience.

Android 15’s privacy features include screen recording detection, private space, and partial media file access. Not integrating these features could make your app less appealing to privacy-conscious users.

Other exciting features include PDF improvements, loudness control, low light boost, and enhanced large-screen multitasking.

Increased Development Pressure

Delayed testing until after Android 15’s release can increase development pressure. The need to quickly fix issues and release updates might lead to hurried updates and unintended bugs. This can create a cycle of ongoing fixes that could have been avoided through early testing.

What Functionalities Are Affected and Need Retesting

When preparing for Android 15, certain features and areas of the app should be thoroughly retested to address potential issues caused by changes in the platform. Here’s a detailed guide on what features Android developers should retest and why.

NFC

Near-field communication (NFC) is a technology that enables devices to communicate by touching or holding them close together. NFC is widely used for contactless payments, data transfer, and other applications. Android 15 aims to improve the NFC payment experience while maintaining support for Android’s robust NFC app ecosystem.

Verify that your app’s NFC-based payment functionality works correctly on Android 15 devices. Ensure that transactions are processed smoothly and securely.

Test the speed of NFC payments on Android 15. Verify that the transaction time is comparable to or faster than previous Android versions.

Test the reliability of NFC payments. Ensure that transactions are successful even in challenging environments, such as when the device is held at an angle or when there is interference from other devices.

Camera and Media Handling

Camera and media functionality are essential for many Android apps. Ensure your app interacts correctly with the camera, microphone, and media files on Android 15. 

Verify your app’s ability to access the device’s gallery for importing and exporting media. We always test with a variety of media files, including HDR videos, large files, and different file formats. Check if your app can seamlessly capture photos, videos, and audio directly within the app. Finally, ensure your app requests and handles necessary permissions for accessing and modifying media files.

While Android 15 introduces mostly new features (like low light boost, improved in-app camera controls, and HDR headroom control) rather than breaking changes, testing functionalities that interact with core phone features is an absolute must-have. 

New Foreground Service

Android 15 introduces a new “mediaProcessing” foreground service for apps that handle time-consuming media tasks like transcoding or format conversion. This service ensures these operations continue uninterrupted, even when your app goes into the background.

However, there’s a limit: mediaProcessing services are capped at a total of 6 hours within a 24-hour window. After reaching this limit, the service receives a timeout notification and has a few seconds to stop itself. This time limit applies to all your app’s mediaProcessing services combined.

For example, if an app uses mediaProcessing for 4 hours on one task and then starts another, the second task only has 2 hours remaining. But, if the user brings the app back to the foreground, the timer resets, granting another 6 hours.

This is important for apps that support media processing, such as video editors that apply filters or export videos in different formats. Any app that allows uploading media files for in-app processing needs to consider this functionality, especially for scenarios where processing might occur in the background. 

Background Processing

Android 15 introduces significant changes to background tasks and app privacy. Developers must ensure their apps can perform background tasks without affecting the user experience.

Ensure that data synchronization is reliable and that there are no inconsistencies between the app's local data and the server data. Verify that your app receives push notifications promptly and accurately, even when the app is in the background or minimized.

Android 15 has stricter controls on background activity launches. This improves security by preventing malicious apps from abusing the system. Developers must thoroughly test their apps to ensure compliance with these new restrictions. 

Private space, an Android 15’s privacy feature, can stop apps in that space from running foreground or background activities, including showing notifications. That’s why developers of critical apps, such as medical, should review how this might impact their product. Consider informing users not to install the app in private space to avoid disrupting vital features.

Audio and Video Playing

Ensure your app plays audio and video files smoothly, both locally stored and streamed. This includes testing playback controls (play, pause, stop, volume) for a seamless user experience.

Starting with Android 15, be aware of how your app handles direct or offload playback (techniques for high-performance audio). These methods can be interrupted by the system if resources are limited, potentially causing audio to stop abruptly. Consider scenarios like music apps queuing songs —  if resources are low, the currently playing song might be stopped to fulfill a new request.

In Android 15, apps need to meet stricter requirements to request audio focus, which allows them to control audio output without interference. Only the top app or running a foreground service can request audio focus. This means background audio apps like music streaming or podcasts need to utilize a foreground service to maintain audio playback when not actively being used. Otherwise, they risk losing audio focus and getting interrupted when other apps request it.

File Import and Export

Test your app’s ability to export data or files to the device’s internal storage. Verify correct file placement and accessibility by other apps or the user. If your app supports SD cards, test external storage export. Ensure the app can detect SD cards and handle permissions appropriately.

For cloud storage integration (like Google Drive and Dropbox), test file export to these services. Similarly, test file import functionality. Ensure the app restricts access to authorized users or apps.

Sharing Capabilities

Thoroughly test your app’s ability to share content with other apps and services on the device. This includes sharing text, images, videos, or links. Ensure the sharing feature invokes the appropriate system dialogs for sharing and allows users to select from a variety of sharing options, such as email, messaging apps, and social media platforms.

Location Services

If your app uses location tracking in the background, test how it handles background location updates and battery consumption. Ensure that the app complies with Android’s background location restrictions.

In apps with location-based search, test its ability to return relevant results based on the user’s current location. If your app delivers personalized content based on location, test its ability to tailor content to the user’s current location.

Offline Functionality

If your app supports offline mode, test whether your app's core features are still accessible offline. Ensure that the app provides clear feedback to users when offline mode is active and guides them through offline features. If your app synchronizes data with a server, test how it handles data synchronization when offline.

Verify that users can access previously loaded content, such as articles, videos, or maps, even when offline. Also, the cached content should be updated when the app reconnects to the network.

Localization

Check if your app’s language features work correctly on Android 15. Some changes in the OpenJDK API might affect your app. This includes how strings are formatted and how languages are identified.

Make sure your app uses the correct formatting for dates, numbers, and currencies in different languages. This will help prevent errors. When using language codes, use the newer codes (he, yi, id) for Hebrew, Yiddish, and Indonesian. Don’t use the old ones (iw, ji, in).

Notifications

Verify that your app receives push notifications promptly and accurately, even when the app is in the background or minimized. Test whether push notifications can trigger actions within the app, such as opening a specific screen or updating content.

Test how the app responds to different notification settings, such as Do Not Disturb mode, priority channels, and notification sounds.

If your app uses OTP (one-time password) authentication, test how the sensitive notifications feature affects OTP notifications. Verify that OTP codes from SMS or email are not exposed.

Final Thoughts

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Failing to test your app early for Android 15 can have serious consequences. By starting your testing now, you can identify and fix critical bugs before the official release. Timely testing will also help you ensure a smooth user experience when Android 15 launches and maintain a competitive edge in the market. Start testing today to keep your app relevant.