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MobilePro #170: Android UI overhaul leaks, Flutter’s 80+ updates, Play Store cleanup, Android adds digital ID support—and more…

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Hi ,

Welcome to the 170th edition of MobilePro! This week’s updates reflect a pivotal moment for both Android and iOS ecosystems—from sweeping UI overhauls and Flutter’s big commits to legal reckonings and credentialing breakthroughs. Here’s what’s moving the mobile world:

🎨 Android’s biggest UI refresh in years is coming: Leaks point to a major Material 3 Expressive redesign, including a sleeker lock screen, blurrier backgrounds, revamped Quick Settings, and more—just ahead of Google I/O 2025.
🧱 Flutter pushes 80+ changes live: The latest batch introduces long-awaited widgets like CupertinoCollapsible and CupertinoExpansionTile,plus improvements to sliders, outlines, and UI fidelity, all thanks to a bustling contributor base.
📉 Google Play sees 47% drop in total apps: From 3.4M to just 1.8M apps in 2024, Android’s store is shrinking fast—possibly signaling better quality control and less spam, while iOS apps have slightly grown to 1.64M.
🪪 Android now supports digital ID standards: With native integration of OpenID4VP and OpenID4VCI, Android’s Credential Manager lets users store and present official IDs—ushering in the next era of secure, app-based identity sharing.
🗣️ Tim Cook explains delays in personalized Siri features: Tim Cook confirmed more development time is needed for Siri’s smarter, more contextual capabilities—like in-app actions and on-screen awareness—with no firm release date yet.
⚖️ Apple faces court-ordered App Store reforms: A federal judge ruled Apple violated a 2021 injunction on third-party payments. Now forced to overhaul App Store policies, Apple is appealing while preparing to comply.

And in What’s Happening in AI?—Microsoft is integrating advanced AI capabilities into Microsoft 365 applications through its Copilot initiative. As always, stick around for our Developer Tip to boost your workflow, and don’t miss the Did You Know? segment!

Let’s dive in!

P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, or would like us to feature your project on a particular subject, please write to us. Just respond to this email!

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📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?

If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.

Android’s UI will soon see a massive change: A few new leaks indicate that Google is overhauling Android soon, keeping in line with the Material 3 Expressive theme. Changes that have leaked include a compact lock screen, blurrier backgrounds, new designs for the notifications and Quick Settings panel, among others. This comes just in time as Google’s I/O 2025 ramps up, so we will hear more about this soon.
Flutter issues over 80 changes in recent commit: Thanks to its various contributors, Flutter managed to issue over 80 changes in its most recent commit. Highlights include the much requested CupertinoCollapsible/CupertinoExpansionTile, a fix to make discrete Slider and RangeSlider thumb padding, as well as tiny things like fixing the outline appearing over a child.
Google Play saw a 47% decline in apps from the start of 2024: From 3.4 million apps worldwide at the beginning of 2024 to just around 1.8 million now, the Google Play store has seen a massive reduction. Apple’s iOS App Store, on the other hand, went from hosting 1.6 million apps to around 1.64 million apps. This could result in increased visibility as well as less spammy and poor-quality apps on Android going forward.
Android now supports OpenID4VP and OpenID4VCI for digital credential presentation and issuance: Android has introduced native support for digital credentials through Credential Manager's DigitalCredential API, enabling secure storage and presentation of verifiable IDs like driver's licenses and passports. This integration utilizes open standards such as OpenID4VP and OpenID4VCI, allowing users to manage and share their digital credentials across various apps and services seamlessly.
Apple CEO Tim Cook addresses the delay of personalized Siri features: At a recent earnings call at Apple, Tim Cook stated that more time is needed to ensure enhancements to personalize Siri, which include personal context, in-app actions, and on-screen awareness, meet Apple's high-quality standards. However, the company has not mentioned when these features would be available, other than saying they could make an appearance “in the coming year.”
Google announces a special episode of the Android Show just before Google I/O: Google is set to unveil major Android updates at the upcoming Android Show: I/O Edition on May 13, 2025, including a new desktop mode, enhanced AI features, and a refreshed Material 3 Expressive design. These innovations aim to enhance user experience across devices, with further details expected during the event.

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💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?

What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share? MobilePro brings them to you all in one place.

Apple to make changes to App Store post ruling by a federal court: A U.S. judge ruled that Apple violated a 2021 injunction by restricting developers from linking to external payment options and imposing a 27% fee, prompting orders for immediate App Store policy changes. The case has been referred for possible criminal contempt, and Apple plans to appeal while complying in the interim.
A list of conferences for mobile developers in 2025/26: Bookmark this link to keep track of conferences pertaining to mobile developers in 2025/26, taking place around the world, whether Tokyo, Munich, New York, Paris, or Las Vegas. The topics of these conferences range from Flutter and Java to Swift and iOS.
How does Android Studio know your code is broken before you do: Qamar A. Safadi writes on how Android Studio detects code issues before execution by parsing your code into a structured tree using the Program Structure Interface, enabling it to identify syntax and logic errors in real-time. This mechanism underpins features like linting and code inspections, providing immediate feedback as you write code.

🤖 What’s Happening in AI?

AI is evolving fast—are you keeping up? MobilePro brings you key discussions, trends, and expert takes in one place.

Microsoft 365 plans to integrate AI Copilot to transform productivity across apps: In an interview, Aparna Chennapragada, Microsoft’s chief product officer of experiences and devices, revealed that Microsoft is integrating advanced AI capabilities into Microsoft 365 applications through its Copilot initiative, aiming to enhance productivity by automating tasks like drafting emails, generating presentations, and analyzing data. These AI features are being incorporated into tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, leveraging large language models to assist users in real-time.
Google opens AI Mode in Labs to everyone in the US: Google has expanded its AI Mode in Search Labs to all U.S. users, enabling more natural, conversational queries powered by a custom Gemini 2.0 model. New features include follow-up question support, product and place snapshots, and multimodal search enhancements for more helpful, context-rich results.
Google's Ironwood TPU revolutionizes AI inference with unprecedented performance: Google has unveiled Ironwood, its seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), engineered specifically for AI inference workloads. Ironwood delivers over 24 times the compute power of the world's largest supercomputer, when scaled to 9,216 chips per pod.

📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from Packt

MobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.

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.NET MAUI Cookbook

Buy now at $44.99 $35.99!
Use the code DOTNETMAUI20 at checkout

Mobile App Development Tutorial — **Excerpt from iOS 18 Programming for Beginners by Ahmad Sahar**

Simulatoris downloaded and installed after you install Xcode. It provides a simulated iOS device so that you can see what your app looks like and how it behaves, without needing a physical iOS device. It can model all the screen sizes and resolutions for both iPad and iPhone so you can test your app on multiple devices easily. In this excerpt from Ahmad Sahar’s iOS 18 Programming for Beginners, you will learn how to run your app in Simulator.

Running your app in Simulator

You will implement multiple types of text-related views and modifiers. Each step in this excerpt applies minor changes to the view, so note the UI changes that occur after each step. Let's get started:

Click the Destination pop-up menu to view a list of simulated devices. Choose iPhone SE (3rd generation) from this menu:

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In your own projects, you should pick whichever simulator you require. That said, if you want to match the screenshots in this book exactly, use the iPhone SE (3rd generation) simulator. This simulator also has a home button, so it is easier to get to the home screen.

Click the Run button to install and run your app on thecurrently selected simulator. You can also use the Command + R keyboard shortcut.

Simulator will launch and show a representation of an iPhone SE (3rd generation). Your app displays a white screen, as you have not yet added anything to your project:

Switch back to Xcode and click on the Stop button (or press Command + .) to stop the currently running project.

You have just created and run your first iOS app in Simulator! Great job!

The destination menu has a section showing physical devices connected to your Mac and a Build section. You may be wondering what they are used for. Let's look at them in the next section.

***

There are plenty more such recipes, which you can read in iOS Programming for Beginners.

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iOS 18 Programming for Beginners

Buy now at$44.99

💡️ Developer Tip

This article’s headline makes a bold proclamation about it being the last article you’ll ever need to read about loading data correctly on Kotlin. Does it succeed? Tell us.

In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.

❓ Did You Know?

Just a couple weeks ago, the European Commission found Apple and Meta guilty of breaches in the Digital Markets Act and have fined them accordingly.

Sourced from the European Commission website .

👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!

Cheers,

Runcil Rebello,

Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro