Google has started working on its next version of the operating system – Android 15, which will arrive with bundles of prominent offerings and one among them could be the updatable PDF viewer. Google already offers a PDF Viewer, but with Android 15 the firm seems to be making this feature more evolved.
According to the information of Mishaal Rahman, Google is working on a new Android Jetpack library that lets apps add PDF viewing support. It means, Android 15 will have a native, updatable PDF viewer that apps can integrate via new platform APIs, while older devices can still be supported via this new Jetpack library.
This PDF Viewing support will natively come to devices through an update to the MediaProvider Mainline module which will now include a PDF viewer and it will render the PDF as images that you then display as pages. While older devices can still be supported via this new Jetpack library.
However, this new addition will offer users a more satisfying and optimized experience, because most developers either don’t bother with adding PDF viewing support and just prompt the user to open the document in another app or they integrate a third-party library like Barteksc/AndroidPdfViewer or PSPDFKit’s Android PDF Library.
