Android Developers Blog

Helping users discover apps for all their devices from their phone

27 September 2022

Posted by Marcus Leal, Product Manager, Google Play Over the years, Android has evolved to support more devices such as watches, tablets, TVs, and even cars. Apps and games are a critical part of this ecosystem as they power many of the unique digital experiences that we all enjoy and rely on. As a way to make it easier for users to find your great apps across all Android devices, we are making changes to the Google Play Store, enabling users to more easily discover and install apps on other devices directly from their phone. Updates to the Google Play Store phone app We recently introduced three updates to the Play Store phone app that will help your users’ devices work better together: homepages for non-phone devices, a device search filter, and the ability to remotely install an app to another device. Homepages for other devices Users with a Wear OS watch, Android TV OS, or car with Android Automotive can navigate to the Play Store “Other devices” page on their phone app to see app and game recommendations, and editorials tailored to their non-phone devices.

Users can go to the “Other devices” page to get recommendations of apps and games optimized for non-phone devices.

Search device filtersUsers can also find apps and games for their devices with the new device filter on the Play Store search page. Using the filter, the search results will only include apps and games that are compatible with their selected device.

Users can use the device filters to easily find apps and games optimized for their Wear watch, Android TV, or Android Auto-enabled devices.

Remote install to other devices

Users can remotely install apps and games to their other devices from the Play Store on their phone.

Changes to the Play Store websitePlay Store website

Users can access the Play Store website on their computer or non-Android phone to browse, search, and remotely install your apps and games to their Android devices.

These changes were designed to give developers new opportunities to showcase their multi-device app experiences, driving more engagement across the Android ecosystem.

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Just launched: Apply for support from Google Play’s $2M Indie Games Fund in Latin America

22 September 2022

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing

announced
Today, we are launching the Indie Games Fund in Latin America. We will be awarding $2 million dollars in non-dilutive cash awards, in addition to hands-on support, to selected small games studios based in LATAM, to help them build and grow their businesses on Google Play.

The program is open to indie game developers who have already launched a game - whether it’s on Google Play or another mobile platform, PC or console. Each selected recipient will get between $150,000 and $200,000 dollars to help them take their game to the next level, and build successful businesses.

Check out all eligibility criteria and apply now. Priority will be given to applications received by 12:00 p.m. BRT, 31 October, 2022.

For more updates about all our programs, resources and tools for indie game developers, follow us on Twitter @GooglePlayBiz and Google Play business community on LinkedIn.

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Android Studio Dolphin

15 September 2022

Posted by Yuri Blaise, Product Manager, Android

Jetpack ComposeWear OSWear OS 3 devicesdownloadDevelopment tools

Intellij 2021.3 Platform Update - Android Studio Dolphin includes the Intellij 2021.3 release, which has features such as an improved Find Usages flow, Kotlin debugger updates, constant conditions inspection for Kotlin, improved code intentions previews and more. Learn More.

Gradle Managed Virtual Devices - If you've wanted to automate your app testing using emulators, but found it cumbersome to coordinate, and setup, then Gradle Managed Virtual Devices is for you. Just describe the virtual devices you need for your automated tests as a part of your build, and let Gradle take care of the rest. From SDK downloading, to device provisioning and setup, to test execution and teardown, Gradle manages the lifecycle of your virtual devices during instrumentation tests. Gradle further optimizes your test execution with new features that enable snapshot management, test caching, and test sharding to ensure your tests run efficiently, quickly, and consistently.

Gradle Managed Virtual Devices also introduces a completely new type of device, called the Automated Test Device, which is optimized for automated tests, resulting in significant reduction in CPU and memory usage during test execution. Learn more.

Gradle Managed Virtual Devices

Jetpack Compose

Compose Animation Inspector - You can now see all supported animations at once and coordinate them with the Animation Preview inspector. You can also freeze a specific animation or scrub through an entire animation frame-by-frame. Animation Preview currently supports animations built with updateTransition and AnimatedVisibility.

Compose Animation Inspector

Compose Multipreview Annotations - Instead of copying and pasting the same @Preview code everywhere across your app, you can define an annotation class that includes multiple preview definitions; that new annotation generates all those previews at once, allowing you to preview multiple devices, fonts, and themes at the same time without repeating those definitions for every single composable. Learn more.

Multipreview annotations

Compose Recomposition Counts in Layout Inspector - To help debug your Jetpack Compose UI, you can now view recomposition counts for a Compose app in the Layout Inspector. With this tool, you can understand if your UI is updating too often, or just as you expect. For easier usage, recomposition counts and skip counts can optionally be shown in the Component Tree and Attributes panels. Learn more.

Compose Recomposition Counts

Wear OS

Wear OS Emulator Pairing Assistant - the Wear OS Emulator Pairing Assistant allows you to see Wear OS devices in the Device Manager, pairing one or more watch emulators with a single phone without having to navigate through multiple ADB commands and device combinations. As a bonus, you also don't have to re-pair devices as often because Android Studio remembers pairings after it closes. Learn more.

Wear OS Emulator Pairing Assistant

Wear OS Emulator Toolbar - The Android Emulator toolbar now has new buttons and interactions that align to Wear OS physical devices; use it to trigger actions such as the palm gesture or to simulate tilting the device. To learn more, see common actions in the emulator.

Wear OS Emulator Side Toolbar

Wear OS Direct Surface Launch - When deploying your WearOS app, it can be tricky at times to get your app to the right state, especially if you are working on features like Watch Face complications. With Android Studio Dolphin, you can create Run/Debug configurations for Wear OS tiles, watch faces, and complications that can be launched directly from Android Studio. Learn more.

New Wear OS Run/Debug configuration types

To recap, Android Studio Dolphin includes these new enhancements and features:

Development Tools

Intellij 2021.3 Platform Update
Gradle Managed Virtual Devices

Jetpack Compose Tools

Compose Animation Inspector
Compose MultiPreview Annotations
Compose Recomposition Counts in Layout Inspector

WearOS

Wear OS Emulator Pairing Assistant
Wear OS Emulator Toolbar
Wear OS Direct Surface Launch

Check out the Android Studio release notes, Android Gradle plugin release notes, and the Android Emulator release notes for more details.

Getting Started

Download

Download the latest version of Android Studio Dolphin from the download page. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio at the same time. Learn more.

To use the mentioned Android Emulator features make sure you are running at least Android Emulator v31.3.0 downloaded via the Android Studio SDK Manager.

We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team on Twitter and on Medium.

Learn Jetpack Compose at a Compose Camp near you!

13 September 2022

Posted by Kat Kuan, Developer Relations Engineer, Android

Jetpack Compose is Android's modern toolkit that simplifies Android UI development. It's already used by thousands of apps around the world such as Twitter, Airbnb and Google Play; if you're not already using it, it's a great time to start. To make learning Compose even easier, we are launching Compose Camp, a series of in-person and virtual sessions where you can learn how to build Android apps with Jetpack Compose alongside your peers. Grab your “camping gear” and see how you can participate in a Compose Camp near you!

Jetpack Compose accelerates app development by enabling you to use and maintain less code, giving you intuitive & powerful APIs so you can leverage the best of Android when building compelling experiences for your users. Google is committed to increasing opportunities for anyone to learn Android development, so we're making learning the latest best practices more accessible in ways that suit different learning styles. We’ve heard how enjoyable and impactful it can be to learn in a group setting from many of you, which is why we’re launching Compose Camp around the world. You can learn how to build Android apps with Compose with the support of peers and “camp leaders” to guide you along the way.

Compose Camp is for beginners and experienced developersIf you’re new to Android development or just getting started with programming, check out the Beginner track where you’ll learn basic programming concepts and fundamentals of app development, including how to build user interfaces with Jetpack Compose.

If you’re an Android developer who wants to learn how to migrate from Views to Compose or are looking to learn more about building UI using advanced features, then the Experienced track is for you. You’ll start with the essentials of Jetpack Compose, and then dive deep into various Compose topics.

Learning in a group can be more effective and fun

Many of you have told us that you enjoy learning alongside others because of the support and help you get within the context of a community. Google developer communities are a great way to connect with students and peers in your industry, tackle technical challenges together, and learn skills from each other that you can apply directly to your projects. They will be hosting Compose Camps around the world over the next few months, so look for one near you!

You can lead your own Compose Camp

This is also a great opportunity to build your expertise through leading and teaching others; you can become a “Camp Leader.” We have everything you need to lead your own Compose Camp including materials to help you facilitate learning, guidance on how to run a session, sample slides, and materials to recruit a group of peers.

Learn Compose at your own pace

If “solo-camping” is more your style, check out these online courses that can be done at your own pace. The Android Basics with Compose course is recommended if you’re just getting started with Android development. If you already have some Android development knowledge, check out the Jetpack Compose for Android Developers course.

We hope these resources are helpful for your journey in learning Android development and Compose. Looking forward to seeing you at Compose Camp!

Optimize for Android (Go edition): Lessons from Google apps - Part 1

08 September 2022

Posted by Niharika Arora, Developer Relations Engineer

Privacy Sandbox: Developer Preview 5 is here!

07 September 2022

Posted by Fred Chung, Android Developer Relations
FLEDGE servicesmediationapp-to-web measurement

What’s in Developer Preview 5?

Developer Preview 5 includes additional functionality, data validation enhancements, and API signature changes across the privacy preserving APIs and the SDK Runtime. See the release notes for details.

Attribution Reporting API

Added support for cross app and web measurement and encrypted aggregatable reports.
Some source and trigger registration response headers have been consolidated for a more simplified design.

FLEDGE on Android API

To provide up-to-date data for auctions, you can set up a daily fetch URL to update custom audience AdData lists and other metadata.
This release incorporates various API signature changes and additional parameter validation to ensure robustness. Refer to the release notes for details. Be sure to update the sample code and your test projects using previous Developer Preview releases.

SDK Runtime

Apps get additional control on runtime enabled SDK lifecycle events, such as when the SDK is unexpectedly terminated by the platform. Implementing the SdkSandboxLifecycleCallback allows the app to take appropriate actions to recover.
After successfully loading an SDK, apps now have access to an IBinder interface to facilitate 2-way communications with the runtime-enabled SDK.

Topics API

Updated taxonomy for classification of mobile apps.

AdServices permissions

App developers must now declare AdServices permissions to access the privacy preserving APIs. Learn more.

In the coming months, we’ll continue to use the Developer Previews to innovate and implement new features. We’ll publish more details about the Beta and these future releases in the coming months.

Get started with Developer Preview 5

With today’s Developer Preview release, we hope to continue working with the industry and developers to get prepared for Privacy Sandbox on Android. The release provides the resources you need to begin early testing of features and share feedback. To get started developing, see instructions to set up the SDK and system images on the emulator or supported Pixel devices.

For more information on the Privacy Sandbox on Android Developer Preview, visit the developer site and sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates.

#WeArePlay | Meet Sam from Chicago. More stories from Peru, Croatia and Estonia.

07 September 2022

Posted by Leticia Lago, Developer Marketing

A medical game for doctors, a language game for kids, a scary game for horror lovers and an escape room game for thrill seekers! In this latest batch of #WeArePlay stories, we’re celebrating the founders behind a wonderful variety of games from all over the world. Have a read and get gaming!
To start, let’s meet Sam from Chicago. Coming from a family of doctors, his Dad challenged him to make a game to help those in the medical field. Sam agreed, made a game and months later discovered over 100,000 doctors were able to practice medical procedures. This early success inspired him to found Level Ex - a company of 135, making world-class medical games for doctors across the globe. Despite his achievements, his Dad still hopes Sam may one day get into medicine himself and clinch a Nobel prize.

Aldo and Sandro from Peru - founders of Dark Dome. They combine storytelling and art to make thrilling and chilling games, filled with plot twists and jump scares.

Vladimir, Tomislav and Boris from Croatia - founders of Pine Studio. They won the Indie Games Festival 2021 with their game Cats In Time.

Kelly, Mikk, Reimo and Madde from Estonia - founders of ALPA kids. Their language games for children have a huge impact on early education and language preservation.

Check out all the stories now at g.co/play/weareplay and stay tuned for even more coming soon.

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Helping users discover apps for all their devices from their phone

Just launched: Apply for support from Google Play’s $2M Indie Games Fund in Latin America

Android Studio Dolphin

Learn Jetpack Compose at a Compose Camp near you!

Optimize for Android (Go edition): Lessons from Google apps - Part 1

Privacy Sandbox: Developer Preview 5 is here!

#WeArePlay | Meet Sam from Chicago. More stories from Peru, Croatia and Estonia.

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