New APIs allow you to use Android apps when it’s being updated

At the Android Developers Summit today, Google announced a significant feature improvement, you can continue to use Android apps when you update.

For issues that require urgent fixes (such as security vulnerability), developers will have two new options to speed up the application’s forced update:

“You’ll have two options with this API; the first is a full-screen experience for critical updates when you expect the user to wait for the update to be applied immediately. The second option is a flexible update,which means the user can keep using the app while the update is downloaded. You can completely customize the update flow so it feels like part of your app.”

For less critical updates, Google will also allow apps to perform in-app updates, “the In-App Updates API will also allow users to continue using the app normally while the update is being downloaded in the background, with the new version applied on the next startup.”