Apps to become more interactive with App Slicing in Android P

At Google I/O 2018 held at Mountain View, California, Google announced another feature coming in Android P, called "App Slices" that displays part of interactive app content or slices directly to the users in Google Search app. App Slices allow developers to define interactive snippets of their app UI that can be surfaced in different places on the operating system to get tasks done quickly right then and there in the Google Search app itself.

This feature is currently in the ground work and with Android P, Google is introducing App Slices first in the Google Search app and later in Google Assistant and Google launcher.

For example, if you want to take a ride to office and you type Lyft in Google Search, you can see Slices of Lyft app right down there in the Google Search. For this, the app needs to be already installed in your phone.

Here, Lyft is using Slice APIs to provide Slices of their app in the search result. Also, the Slices are interactive, showing fare, distance of your trip and lets you directly book rides from there.

If you Google Search a place you visited like Huawei, you can see Slices from Google Photos showing your vacation pictures.

These Slice templates are dynamic and versatile, helping developers to provide Slices from online booking to even playing a game. Developers can even customize App Slices layout with new colors, text, images to match the look and feel of your app's design and add more control options like toggles and sliders.

App slices is built into Android Jetpack which is a collection of libraries and tools that help in making more interactive and rich UI apps and App Slices will surely increase the usage of apps and at the same time, provide quicker ways to get things done without going to the main app.

Image Source: Google I/O, 2018