Version 4.6.x introduces significant updates, including a reorganization of the project structure to facilitate debugging and development. It also addresses issues with the automatic SDK installation on Windows and ensures easier integration of app examples with Android Studio.
Version 4.5.x brings the restoration of the VR library by bundling the latest Google VR packages, implementation of the eye() function for AR, and several fixes including camera permission requests in AR and issues with downloading system images for watch emulators. This version also introduces new default icons and targets SDK 33.
Version 4.1.x brings support for AR apps! Based on ARCore. Check the AR samples under the Android Examples/Libraries/AR, and also the tutorial in this site.
Please note that sketches created with Android mode 4.1x are incompatible with 4.0.x due to updates in the Android SDK.
Version 4.0 brings several improvements to the Android mode, incuding new functionality for creating live wallpapers, watch faces, and VR apps. You will find more on how to use this functionality in the tutorials and the reference pages of this site.
If you have sketches that you created with version 3.x of the Android mode, you will need to manually delete the AndroidManifest.xml file in the sketch folder, so the mode will create a new compatible manifest. Remember to set the permissions requried by your app again using the permission selector in the PDE.
The Android mode now uses Gradle as its build system, after ant was deprecated in the Android SDK. When running your sketches from Processing, besides seeing different messages in the console when building the code, you should not notice any difference. However, this has implications when exporting your project. Before, the export was an ant project you could import into Eclipse with the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin. ADT is no longer supported by Google, with Android Studio being the default development environment for Android. The export project option in the PDE will now create a Gradle project that you can build directly from the command line using the included Gradle Wrapper, or import into Android Studio.