android.media.projection allows screen recording on Android 5

There are several applications on Google Play that are used to record the screen of an Android. All of them without exception, including this application, need root permissions to be able to do this. You can record the screen without root with the help of the PC, but this is another matter.

With Android 5.0 Lollipop you will no longer have to root your phone or tablet to be able to record the screen. This version of Android comes with a new “API” that will allow developers to create applications that no longer need superuser permissions to record the device screen on video.

Going to the more technical part of this matter, it’s the new API android.media.projection and specifically the MediaProjection class, which will allow developers to capture in video everything that happens on the screen, with the exception of content that is safe or sensitive. This API will not allow to record the audio directly, but apparently application developers will be able to integrate the audio coming through the microphone into the video. This means that, if the application allows it, we can have a complete video, including audio, without being root.

Any application that is going to record the screen using this API will have to ask for the user’s authorization through a confirmation screen. Here you will no longer have to worry that this app is capturing the screen silently.

Apparently a specific icon (similar to Chromecast) will appear while the screen is recording.

If your phone has Android 5.0 Lollipop, screen recording will no longer be a reason to root, something that was necessary in KitKat and all previous versions of Android. Of course, we will have to wait for developers to create applications with this feature or update existing ones. If an app asks for root permissions on Lollipop to perform this task, immediately consider it suspicious and look for other alternatives. There are already a couple of them right now, like Lollipop Screen Recorder The ilos Screen Recorder (although it is installed on Android 4.0.3+ it only works on Android 5.0) but they are quite basic. Another very popular one is AZ Screen Recorder, too. available on Google Play.

More information: Android Developers

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