Google has today made its Android 4.2 SDK platform available to developers. The new SDK is available for download immediately and includes access to the new features introduced in the new edition like lock screen widgets and improved GPU rendering.
The new Android SDK is set as API level 17 and includes a bunch of new toys for developers. The major notes include the fact that Renderscript computation is run directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, which Google says is a first for ‘any mobile computation platform. This should help to speed the performance of graphics-intensive applications in both 2D and 3D.
Developers now also have access to the new lock screen widgets and Google says that with a small tweak, they can adapt any current widget to run on the lock screen. Developers can now also create Daydream content in the form of interactive screensavers.
Apps can now target content to any number of external displays attached to an Android device as well. The 4.2 SDK opens up the multiple user support on tablets too, which is one of the key improvements of 4.2.
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Google had this to say about international support:
To help you create better apps for users in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, Android 4.2 includes native RTL support, including layout mirroring. With native RTL support, you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users with minimal extra work. Android 4.2 also includes a variety of font and character optimizations for Korean, Japanese, Indic, Thai, Arabic and Hebrew writing systems.
You can grab the new SDK via the Android SDK Manager now and see all of the details in the API overview.
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