Google Wants to Improve Its Social Media Reputation With Android 17

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Google has been beta testing Android 17 since February, and, so far, it's been a pretty small update. Based on the existing beta versions, the new version of Android will introduce "app bubbles," which present apps in floating, easy-to-dismiss windows, as well as a new way to remap game controller buttons across Android. But with the exception of some quality-of-life updates, Android 17 has been shaping up to be a pretty minor update.

It seems, however, that Google was saving some of its biggest features for The Android Show: I/O Edition. While the company announced a number of new features across the board, including Gemini Intelligence, 3D emoji, and "Googlebooks," its Android 17 announcements mostly revolved around one thing: social media.

Instagram uploads should look better on Android 17

For years, Android hasn't had the best reputation when it comes to social media uploads. Google wants to change that now: With Android 17, Google says it has partnered with Meta to offer new features for Instagram. That includes Ultra HDR support, for image capture and playback, built-in video stabilization to reduce the shakiness of your uploads, and Night Sight integration, which should brighten your Instagram updates when captured in dark environments.

But the criticisms were never just about the lack of internal tools. Instagram for Android has been accused of reducing the quality of posts when uploaded, especially when using the in-app camera. Google says this shouldn't be the case with Android 17: The company "optimized the capture-to-upload pipeline" to retain details when posting from Android. Google even claims that videos captured and uploaded from "flagship" Android devices score similar or better on the Universal Video Quality (UVQ) model than the "leading competitor." (It doesn't say this specifically, but I think we all know that means the iPhone.)

Android 17 gets its own Edits app features

Instagram's Edits app is a video editing tool meant for cutting clips for Instagram. The app is available on both iOS and Android, but, according to Google, the Android version is getting some exclusive new features for Android 17.

First, there's "Smart enhance," which uses on-device AI to upscale photos and videos. There's also a new "Sound separation" feature that displays all of the sounds in your video on different tracks. If there's something in the video you don't want to hear (wind, noise, extraneous music, etc.) it should be easy enough to isolate it and remove it from the finished video.

Instagram is coming to Android tablets

Instagram made waves in September when it released a dedicated iPad app for the first time. After nearly 15 years of small-screen exclusivity, Meta launched an app optimized for the iPad's display.

According to Google, these same benefits are now coming to Android tablets, but the company doesn't seem particularly focused on the consumer angle here. Instead, Google says that vloggers and filmmakers can now use the new optimized experience to edit their videos on a "larger canvas." As video editing continues to go mobile—especially for short-form video content—it makes sense that Google would want to offer tools to users who want a larger display to work, but still want a touch-screen experience.

Adobe Premiere is coming to Android this summer

As part of these announcements, Google revealed that Adobe Premiere is finally coming to Android. The app has been available on iOS since August, but Google says the Android version will have exclusive templates and effects, meant for posting directly to YouTube Shorts. It's not clear whether you'll need to be running Android 17 to use Premiere on Android, but Google did fold the news into its Android 17 announcements.

The fact that Google dedicated its Android 17 announcements to social media says a lot. It tells me that Google is feeling behind Apple in this race, as more users associate iPhones with social media and short-form video uploads. I'm not sure if these features will kickstart a new wave of Android users posting to platforms like Instagram and YouTube Shorts, but perhaps it's time. After all, there was once a time when it seemed like the Mac would never catch up to the PC.