Android SDK 4.27.0 adds caption styling and positioning APIs, fullscreen exit reasons, and new offline DRM capabilities. This release also improves offline-download reliability, upgrades AndroidX Media3 to 1.10.1, and fixes issues affecting captions, Chromecast, fullscreen playback, advertising, and media controls.

New Features

• New CaptionsConfig APIs let you customize caption font, size, text color, background and window colors, edge style, and placement.
• New caption positioning options let you configure caption box width, horizontal position, alignment, and vertical placement.
• FullscreenExitReason lets apps identify how fullscreen was exited.
• Offline DRM now supports process-scoped MediaDrmCallback registration, retrieving the remaining duration of an offline license, refreshing renewable licenses without re-downloading media, and improved license handling when downloads are removed or replaced.
• AndroidX Media3 has been upgraded from version 1.10.0 to 1.10.1.

Bug Fixes

• Captions no longer appear too small in letterboxed portrait layouts.
• Offline downloads no longer crash on Android 14 and later and now resume after a requirements wait, process restart, or reboot when supported by the Android version.
• Fixed potential crashes when selecting captions shortly after connecting to Chromecast or requesting fullscreen after the player had been destroyed.
• Fixed advertising issues affecting Google DAI pause and resume events, fullscreen VAST playback, and mid-roll playback after seeking while paused.
• The lock-screen scrubber no longer advances while playback is paused.
• Improved Picture-in-Picture and media-button broadcast receiver handling.
• Added missing consumer rules for optional dependencies that could cause minified host-app builds to fail.

Offline downloads on Android 14 and later

Apps using offline downloads and targeting API level 34 or later must declare android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE and android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_DATA_SYNC.

For additional technical details, see the Android Changelog.

You can now connect ad performance to the content, placements, and player experiences that generate impressions and revenue.

New Feature

JWX Ad Server customers can now analyze ad performance using additional media, placement, and player dimensions in Ad Serving analytics.

The following dimensions are available in Custom Reports and Ad Serving Sessions Data Sharing datasets:

• Media and Placement to analyze ad performance by content and inventory placement
• Player Name and Experience Type to compare performance across player experiences
• Ad Slot Type to analyze impressions and revenue by ad position

These dimensions are available in Data Sharing at daily and monthly granularity. Media dimensions use the same content fields as Playback Analytics, making it easier to connect content performance with monetization data.

Player Name is unavailable for Strategy Rules inventory. Ad Slot Type is null when the slot type cannot be determined.

Learn more about Ad Serving Data.

iOS SDK 4.27.0 adds configurable live playback latency. This release also upgrades the Google IMA SDK and improves ad reporting, player reconfiguration, playback controls, casting, lock-screen controls, and iOS 26 interface behavior.

New Features

• A new liveSyncDuration property lets you configure how far behind the live edge playback targets.
• The Google IMA SDK has been upgraded from version 3.22.1 to 3.32.0. Integrations using Google IMA must use version 3.28.10 or later.

Bug Fixes

• IMA prerolls are correctly reported as PRE instead of MID when playback is reloaded after a context switch on iOS 26.
• Calling loadPlayerConfiguration during an active IMA ad no longer prevents onAdImpression from firing for the new preroll.
• Standard IMA ad requests now include vpmute and vpa values that reflect the player’s mute and autoplay state.
• DAI configurations now correctly apply maxRedirects, debugMode, ppid, and sessionID from the configured DAI settings.
• Consecutive playback-rate changes now preserve the most recently requested value.
• The progress bar no longer briefly displays a completed state before autostart playback begins.
• Video descriptions now appear in the portrait controls overlay on initial load on iOS 26.
• The Chromecast interface now displays the correct position and duration after disconnecting from a paused casting session.
• Viewers can now scrub through VOD content from the lock screen or Control Center. Scrubbing remains disabled for live streams and during ad breaks.

Android SDK 4.26.0 adds configurable live playback latency and modernizes core playback and advertising components. This release also improves playlist replay, Picture-in-Picture, DAI, Chromecast, and caption behavior.

New Features

• A new PlaylistItem.liveSyncDuration property lets you configure how far behind the live edge playback targets.
• The core playback architecture has been upgraded to AndroidX Media3 (ExoPlayer) 1.10.0, including media source creation, and side-loaded caption handling.
• The Google IMA SDK has been upgraded to version 3.39.0, with added timeout protection for ad requests.

Bug Fixes

• Playlist items configured with startTime now apply the value only to initial playback. Repeated playback begins from the start of the item.
• The player UI is correctly hidden when the system automatically enters Picture-in-Picture mode.
• Content can automatically enter Picture-in-Picture mode when an app is backgrounded on Android 12 and later.
• Skipping a playlist item during a DAI ad no longer causes the player to crash.
• Captions remain available after connecting to a Chromecast device and can be disabled during casting.

We’ve added new JWX Ad Server settings to the Advertising tab in Vertical Video, giving you more flexibility over which ad formats and placements are enabled.

New Feature

When JWX Ad Server is selected as the ad client, you can now choose the ad format for carousel ads and single player ads: display ads, video ads, or both.

Learn more about these advertising settings.

We’ve expanded creative support in the ad server with Media asset creatives and added display ad demand integrations.

New Features

• You can now upload media files directly when creating a creative using .mp4, .flv, and .mkv formats.
• Display ads are supported for Prebid, Amazon TAM, and Smart Server Bidding (SSB) creative types.
• The ad server supports TTD OpenPath (OpenPath) creative types. Contact your JWX representative for more details.

We’ve redesigned the Advertising tab in Vertical Video to make ad setup clearer, faster, and easier to manage.

New Feature

Advertising settings are now organized by ad placement, giving you more direct control over where ads appear.

The Advertising tab now includes three configurable ad types:

• Carousel ads — display ads placed between carousel videos
• Interstitial ads — ads placed between videos in full-screen
• Sidebar ads — ads shown on the right rail in full-screen desktop viewing

Learn more about these advertising settings.

Use this new dataset to gain insights about ad serving performance over large time periods.

New Feature

You can now easily access monthly aggregates of your ad serving data through a single dataset: Ad Serving Monthly Aggregates.

Use these new datasets to gain more insights about line item and creative performance.

We’ve added a JSON Editor to Strategy Rules, giving you direct access to the underlying settings for Advertising, Media Curation, and Player UX configurations.

New Feature 

The JSON Editor provides visibility into how strategies are defined and gives advanced users greater control when dashboard fields do not cover a specific use case:

• View the full configuration structure
• Modify supported fields not exposed as dashboard controls
• Apply precise adjustments for advanced scenarios 

Learn more about using the JSON Editor in Advertising, Media curation, and Player UX configurations.