Android 15 Beta 3 introduces improvements to passkey user experience

The Android development team has released Android 15 Beta 3 and also announced that Android 15 has now reached Platform Stability. This means that developer APIs and app-facing behaviors for the release are final and developers can now review them and integrate changes into their apps. 

“Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media and AI experiences, take advantage of device form factors, minimize battery impact, maximize smooth app performance, and protect user privacy and security, all on the most diverse lineup of devices,” Matthew McCullough, VP of product for Android Developer, wrote in a blog post. 

One of the updates available in Android 15 Beta 3 is an improved user experience for passkeys, which is a password alternative that allows users to sign in with a fingerprint, facial recognition, or screen lock. Using a passkey on Android used to require going through two screens and it’s now been condensed to one. 

The team has also added a fallback UI to help when a user accidentally dismissed the prompt to use a passkey. Passkey sign-in will now show up alongside other Credential Manager suggestions in autofill areas. 

Credential Manager itself also received some updates in this release. Credential providers can now transfer the user authentication mechanism to the system UI by using new APIs in Jetpack’s androidx.credentials library. 

Developers can also now associate a Credential Manager request with a specific view, such as username or password fields.  When one of those fields is in focus, Credential Manager gets a request and then the autofill fallback UI displays the resulting credentials. 

Another important thing to note in this release is that the setDatabaseEnabled and getDatabaseEnabled WebSettings are now deprecated. These were associated with WebSQL support on Android, which has now been removed from Chrome and deprecated on Android Webview. Within the next 12 months these methods will not work anymore. The Android development team recommends that apps that need web databases adopt Web Storage API technologies, such as IndexedDB.  

The Android development team recommends using the most recent version of Android Studio Koala to do things like try out new features and APIs, test app compatibility, and update apps using the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant. 

“The Android 15 developer site has lots more information about the beta, including how to get it on devices and the release timeline. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think, and thank you in advance for your continued help in making Android a platform that works for everyone,” McCullough wrote. 

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