Migrating from Google Mobile Vision

Google Mobile Vision was deprecated and we are asking developers to migrate to the ML Kit SDK which is its replacement. Migrating to the new SDK ensures you get the best performance, stability and latest features. In addition, ML Kit provides additional ML-powered APIs, not only for Vision, but also Natural Language use cases.

If you are using Mobile Vision’s barcode scanning, text recognition or face detection APIs in your app today, please migrate to the new ML Kit SDK, by following the ML Kit migration guide for Android and the ML Kit migration guide for iOS.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my app is using Mobile Vision?

On Android, check if your module (app-level) Gradle file (usually app/build.gradle) contains this dependency:

  • com.google.android.gms:play-services-vision:x.x.x

On iOS, check if you podfile contains one of these dependencies:

  • pod 'GoogleMobileVision/FaceDetector', '8.0.0'
  • pod 'GoogleMobileVision/BarcodeDetector', '8.0.0'
  • pod 'GoogleMobileVision/TextDetector', '8.0.0'

What benefits do I get from migrating to the ML Kit SDK?

Since the existing APIs offered by the Mobile Vision SDK are deprecated, they will no longer receive updates. Migrating to ML Kit ensures your application benefits from the latest bug fixes and improvements to the APIs, including updated ML models and hardware acceleration.

In addition, the ML Kit APIs offer some other benefits:

  • New bundled variants of the APIs on Android that allow you to statically link the ML Kit SDK with your appplication.

  • API specific improvements, for example:

  • Android Jetpack Lifecycle support is added to all APIs. You can now use addObserver to automatically manage the initiation and teardown of ML Kit APIs as the app goes through screen rotation or closure by the user / system. This makes integration with CameraX easier.

A full list of the latest changes can be found in the ML Kit SDK release notes.

Do the ML Kit APIs provide the same functionality as the Mobile Vision APIs?

The Barcode scanning, Text recognition and Face detection APIs provide the same functionality and capabilities as their Mobile Vision counter-parts.

An exception is that multi-detectors, multi-processors and focusing-processors in Mobile Vision are no longer supported in ML Kit. The same functionality can be implemented relatively easily by the developer if desired.

Getting help

If you run into any issues, check out our Community page where we outline the channels available for getting in touch with us.