Best of Android — February 2026

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    Article
    Avatar of ezh33lu6a37km1sfscwixVladislav Siumbeli·10w

    Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned

    Deploying Expo apps to Google Play is mostly straightforward with minimal code changes required. Key challenges include adjusting font sizes for Android's rendering differences using a platform-specific scaling function, configuring keystores and Firebase integration with google-services.json, and finding testers through communities like Reddit and specialized testing apps. The Google Play review process proved smoother than iOS, with Firebase automatically handling Google Authentication setup for connected projects.

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    Article
    Avatar of react_nativeReact Native·9w

    Hermes V1 by Default · React Native

    React Native 0.84 makes Hermes V1 the default JavaScript engine, delivering automatic performance improvements and reduced memory usage. The release enables precompiled iOS binaries by default to speed up build times, continues removing Legacy Architecture code from both platforms, and requires Node.js 22.11 minimum. Additional updates include React 19.2.3, ESLint v9 Flat Config support, enhanced accessibility features, improved URL API compliance, and support for additional image formats like HEIC and HEIF.

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    Video
    Avatar of veronicaexplainsVeronica Explains·7w

    GrapheneOS can help you retake your privacy, right now.

    A personal account of nearly three years using GrapheneOS as a daily driver on Pixel devices, covering why it's a compelling privacy-focused Android alternative. GrapheneOS strips out Google Play Services by default, leaving a minimal 14-app experience that can be selectively expanded. Sandboxed Google Play is available for those who need banking or travel apps, while a fully de-Googled setup is viable for users willing to use alternatives like Signal, F-Droid, and Obtainium. Key trade-offs include no tap-to-pay support, reduced push notification reliability without Google Play, and some GPS app limitations. Standout features include a duress PIN, PIN scrambling, storage scopes, and dramatically improved battery life. The author also candidly criticizes the GrapheneOS team's combative social media behavior while still endorsing the project as the best privacy option on Android.

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    Article
    Avatar of whitespectreWhitespectre·10w

    FlashList vs. FlatList: Understanding the Key Differences for React Native Performance

    FlashList offers significant performance improvements over FlatList for complex React Native lists through cell recycling instead of virtualization. In a real-world project with nested lists and animations, switching to FlashList and optimizing properties like estimatedItemSize, getItemType, and overrideItemLayout resulted in 54% FPS improvement (36.9 to 56.9), 82% CPU reduction, and eliminated out-of-memory crashes on low-end Android devices. The article provides practical implementation tips including data reorganization and proper configuration strategies.

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    Article
    Avatar of androiddevAndroid Developers Blog·9w

    Prepare your app for the resizability and orientation changes in Android 17

    Android 17 removes the developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screens (>600dp). Apps targeting API level 37 must adapt to various display sizes and orientations, with manifest attributes like screenOrientation and maxAspectRatio being ignored. The post provides practical solutions for common issues including camera preview distortion (using CameraX or CameraViewfinder), stretched UI elements (using widthIn modifiers), inaccessible buttons (adding vertical scrolling), and state preservation during configuration changes. Google Play will require API level 37 targeting by August 2027.

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