Scrolling screenshots are in the works for Android R says Dave Burke

Ben Schoon | May 17 2019 - 11:47 am PT

There are tons of Android features that show up first on OEM skins and eventually make their way to native Android. Today, Android VP Dave Burke mentioned on Twitter that scrolling screenshots are in the works for Android R.

A couple of months ago, a commit in AOSP called adding scrolling screenshots to Android “infeasible.” Later at Google I/O 2019, Dave Burke and members of the Android team were asked about this where they confirmed that the functionality was technically possible after all.

Now, Burke has mentioned that scrolling screenshots are “in the hopper” for Android R. Unfortunately, this isn’t a firm commitment to deliver the feature in Android R. For now, it’s just a “hopefully” that it can be ready in time for that release. Dan Sandler, a software engineer on the Android platform, also joined in on the thread to accept the challenge.

How much trust should we put in Burke’s tweet? There’s actually a track record at play here, as Burke previously used Twitter to confirm a complete reworking of Android’s share sheet. That later came to reality in Android Q. So while the timeline isn’t firm yet, it’s great to see Burke speaking out about this feature.

Further adding to this, Sandler re-opened and assigned the case. That’s a great sign.

We've added scrollable screenshots to the hopper for Android R and hopefully can land it in that release. Make it so @dsandler :)

— Dave Burke (@davey_burke) May 17, 2019

https://twitter.com/dsandler/status/1129451467004436480

Also notable is that this is the first time Google has talked about Android R explicitly, not that the attached letter should come as a surprise.