Android 2025: Three Essential Updates for Building Adaptive Apps
Introduction
In 2025, Android has grown far beyond the phone. Developers now reach over 500 million active devices: foldables, tablets, XR headsets, Chromebooks, and compatible cars.
These screens represent a higher-value audience. Users who own both a phone and tablet spend 9x more on apps than phone-only users. Foldable owners? That jumps to 14x more.
The message is clear: goodbye mobile-only apps, hello Adaptive Apps.
Three Key Updates
1. Android 16: Adaptive Behavior by Default
Android 16 changes how apps handle orientation and resizability. On displays 600dp or larger, manifest and runtime restrictions are ignored. Apps can no longer lock to a specific orientation or size - they fill the entire window.
Your UI must scale seamlessly between portrait and landscape.
What this means:
- App context changes more frequently during use
- You must preserve UI state during configuration changes
- Android 16 offers a temporary opt-out for transition
- Android 17 (SDK37) makes this mandatory
Test today using the resizable emulator in Android Studio.
2. WindowManager 1.5.0: Beyond "Large" Screens
Our definition of "large" needed an upgrade. Released October 2025, WindowManager 1.5.0 supports very large screens and desktop environments.
The standard "Expanded" layout isn't enough anymore. On a 27-inch monitor, two panes look stretched and sparse.
New Window Size Classes:
| Size Class | Width Range |
|---|---|
| Large | 1200dp - 1600dp |
| Extra-large | 1600dp+ |
These breakpoints signal when to switch to high-density interfaces. Show three or four panes instead of stretching two.
Picture an email client displaying folders, inbox list, open message, and calendar sidebar - all visible at once.
Compose Material 3 adaptive (v1.2) now supports these size classes.
3. Navigation 3: Multi-Pane Made Simple
Building UI that morphs from phone to tablet used to mean complex state management. Navigation graphs designed for single destinations struggled with simultaneous views.
Jetpack Navigation 3 is now stable (announced at I/O 2025). It takes a fundamentally different approach:
- Built for Compose from scratch
- No monolithic graph structure
- Decoupled building blocks for back stack control
- Scenes API for multiple simultaneous panes
- Smooth transitions between compact and expanded views
Nav3 solves the single-source-of-truth problem in split-pane layouts without conflicting back stacks.
Building for the Adaptive Future
2025 delivered the essential tools:
- Android 16 - Flexible UI becomes the default
- WindowManager 1.5.0 - Granular control for large screens
- Navigation 3 - Simplified multi-pane navigation
Android 17 will continue pushing adaptive experiences across all form factors.
Learn more at d.android.com/adaptive-apps.
The tools are ready. The users are waiting. Build Adaptive Apps.