Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android
After nearly six months of development, Android Studio 3.4 is ready to download today on the stable release channel. This is a milestone release of the Project Marble effort from the Android Studio team. Project Marble is our focus on making the fundamental features and flows of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) rock-solid. On top of many performance improvements and bug fixes we made in Android Studio 3.4, we are excited to release a small but focused set of new features that address core developer workflows for app building & resource management.
Part of the effort of Project Marble is to address user facing issues in core features in the IDE. At the top of the list of issues for Android Studio 3.4 is an updated Project Structure Dialog (PSD) which is a revamped user interface to manage dependencies in your app project Gradle build files. In another build-related change, R8 replaces Proguard as the default code shrinker and obfuscator. To aid app design, we incorporated your feedback to create a new app resource management tool to bulk import, preview, and manage resources for your project. Lastly, we are shipping an updated Android Emulator that takes less system resources, and also supports the Android Q Beta. Overall, these features are designed to make you more productive in your day-to-day app development workflow.
Alongside the stable release of Android Studio 3.4, we recently published in-depth blogs on how we are investigating & fixing a range of issues under the auspices of Project Marble. You should check them out as you download the latest update to Android Studio:
The development work for Project Marble is still on-going, but Android Studio 3.4 incorporates productivity features and over 300 bug & stability enhancements that you do not want to miss. Watch and read below for some of the notable changes and enhancements that you will find in Android Studio 3.4.
Resource Manager
Jetpack Import Intentions
Layout Editor Properties Panel
Project Structure Dialogue
Android Emulator - Pixel 3 XL Emulator Skin
To recap, Android Studio 3.4 includes these new enhancements & features:
Develop
Build
Test
Check out the Android Studio release notes, Android Gradle plugin release notes, and the Android Emulator release notes for more details.
Download
Download the latest version of Android Studio 3.4 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 v28.0.22 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.
Posted by Anuj Gulati, Developer Marketing Manager and Sami Kizilbash, Developer Relations Program Manager
Last year we announced the Indie Games Accelerator, a special edition of Launchpad Accelerator, to help top indie game developers from emerging markets achieve their full potential on Google Play. Our team of program mentors had an amazing time coaching some of the best gaming talent from India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. We’re very encouraged by the positive feedback we received for the program and are excited to bring it back in 2019.
Applications for the class of 2019 are now open, and we’re happy to announce that we are expanding the program to developers from select countries* in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Successful participants will be invited to attend two gaming bootcamps, all-expenses-paid at the Google Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, where they will receive personalized mentorship from Google teams and industry experts. Additional benefits include Google hardware, invites to exclusive Google and industry events and more.
Find out more about the program and apply to be a part of it.
* The competition is open to developers from the following countries: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
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Posted by Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management, Android & Google Play
Thank you for all the feedback about updates we’ve been making to Android APIs and Play policies. We’ve heard your requests for improvement as well as some frustration. We want to explain how and why we’re making these changes, and how we are using your feedback to improve the way we roll out these updates and communicate with the developer community.
From the outset, we’ve sought to craft Android as a completely open source operating system. We’ve also worked hard to ensure backwards compatibility and API consistency, out of respect and a desire to make the platform as easy to use as possible. This developer-centric approach and openness have been cornerstones of Android’s philosophy from the beginning. These are not changing.
But as the platform grows and evolves, each decision we make comes with trade-offs. Everyday, billions of people around the world use the apps you’ve built to do incredible things like connect with loved ones, manage finances or communicate with doctors. Users want more control and transparency over how their personal information is being used by applications, and expect Android, as the platform, to do more to provide that control and transparency. This responsibility to users is something we have always taken seriously, and that’s why we are taking a comprehensive look at how our platform and policies reflect that commitment.
Earlier this year, we introduced Android Q Beta with dozens of features and improvements that provide users with more transparency and control, further securing their personal data. Along with the system-level changes introduced in Q, we’re also reviewing and refining our Play Developer policies to further enhance user privacy. For years, we’ve required developers to disclose the collection and use of personal data so users can understand how their information is being used, and to only use the permissions that are really needed to deliver the features and services of the app. As part of Project Strobe, which we announced last October, we are rolling out specific guidance for each of the Android runtime permissions, and we are holding apps developed by Google to the same standard.
We started with changes to SMS and Call Log permissions late last year. To better protect sensitive user data available through these permissions, we restricted access to select use cases, such as when an app has been chosen by the user to be their default text message app. We understood that some app features using this data would no longer be allowed -- including features that many users found valuable -- and worked with you on alternatives where possible. As a result, today, the number of apps with access to this sensitive information has decreased by more than 98%. The vast majority of these were able to switch to an alternative or eliminate minor functionality.
While these changes are critical to help strengthen privacy protections for our users, we’re sensitive that evolving the platform can lead to substantial work for developers. We have a responsibility to make sure you have the details and resources you need to understand and implement changes, and we know there is room for improvement there. For example, when we began enforcing these new SMS and Call Log policies, many of you expressed frustration about the decision making process. There were a number of common themes that we wanted to share:
In response, we are improving and clarifying the process, including:
We have also heard concerns from some developers whose accounts have been blocked from distributing apps through Google Play. While the vast majority of developers on Android are well-meaning, some accounts are suspended for serious, repeated violation of policies that protect our shared users. Bad-faith developers often try to get around this by opening new accounts or using other developers’ existing accounts to publish unsafe apps. While we strive for openness wherever possible, in order to prevent bad-faith developers from gaming our systems and putting our users at risk in the process, we can’t always share the reasons we’ve concluded that one account is related to another.
While 99%+ of these suspension decisions are correct, we are also very sensitive to how impactful it can be if your account has been disabled in error. You can immediately appeal any enforcement, and each appeal is carefully reviewed by a person on our team. During the appeals process, we will reinstate your account if we discover that an error has been made.
Separately, we will soon be taking more time (days, not weeks) to review apps by developers that don’t yet have a track record with us. This will allow us to do more thorough checks before approving apps to go live in the store and will help us make even fewer inaccurate decisions on developer accounts.
Thank you for your ongoing partnership and for continuing to make Android an incredibly helpful platform for billions of people around the world.
Posted by Daniel Schramm, Product Manager, Google Play
Since launching on Google Play nearly 7 years ago, subscriptions have proven to be an essential element in creating sustainable mobile app businesses; 89 of the top 100 highest grossing apps on Google Play in the US now provide subscription products. As the market matures, it is becoming increasingly important for subscription developers to optimize both subscriber conversion and retention in order to maintain growth. To help you do that, we're rolling out new insights available directly in the Play Console.
Subscription retention report
Example subscription retention report data in the Play Console. Source: Google Internal Data.
The recently updated subscription retention report shows how well you are retaining subscribers, along with how well subscribers convert from free trial, introductory price, and first to second payment.
You can configure two cohorts based on SKU, country, and subscription start date. This is particularly useful for evaluating the success of A/B tests; for example, to determine if changing the duration of a free trial has an impact on free trial conversion.
Example free trial conversion data in the Play Console. Source: Google Internal Data.
Cancellation survey results
Retaining your existing subscribers is just as important as acquiring new subscribers, so we have updated the subscription cancellations report to give more insight into voluntary and involuntary cancellations.
The launch of the subscriptions center last year introduced a cancellation survey allowing users to give developers feedback as to why they were cancelling, with results available through the Google Play Developer API. To make these results easier to access and monitor, we now surface daily aggregates directly within the Play Console, along with the ability to download written responses in a CSV.
Example cancellation survey responses in the Play Console. Source: Google Internal Data.
Recover more users
Involuntary cancellations, which occur when a user's form of payment fails, account for over a third of all cancellations. The new recovery performance cards in the cancellation report helps you understand how effectively you are recovering users with grace period and account hold, and the day the subscriptions were recovered to help you evaluate the effectiveness of recovery messaging.
Example account hold performance recovery card in the Play Console. Source: Google Internal Data.
Make sure you've set up grace periods and account hold for your apps! We've seen that developers who use both grace period and account hold see more than a 3x increase in decline recovery rate from 10% to 33%. Discover more information on grace period and account hold.
You can find the subscription retention and cancellation reports linked from the bottom of the Subscriptions page, in the Financial reports section of the Play Console. If you don't have access to financial reporting, ask your developer account owner for permission to view financial data.
We hope this new reporting gives you new insights to optimize your subscription business, and we look forward to sharing more with you at Google I/O in May.
Posted by Miguel Montemayor and Diana García Ríos
As of Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0 (included in Android Studio 3.4), we are starting the deprecation process of the feature plugin (com.android.feature) and instant app plugin (com.android.instantapp) as a way to build your instant app. When building your app, you will receive a warning flagging com.android.feature as deprecated. If you have an existing instant app built with the feature plugin, migrate your existing app to an instant-enabled app bundle as soon as possible.
com.android.feature
com.android.instantapp
Last year, we introduced Android App Bundles—a new way to build and publish your Android apps. App bundles simplify delivering optimized APKs, including instant delivery, by unifying uploads into a single artifact. Google Play handles distribution by serving the correct APKs to your instant and installed app users—this is called Dynamic Delivery. To learn more about app bundles, visit the documentation site.
Dynamic Delivery is based on the idea of shipping dynamic features (com.android.dynamic-feature) to app users when they need them and only if they need them. There are currently three delivery types, based on the different values you will give the dist:module tag attributes on the dynamic feature module’s manifest file:
com.android.dynamic-feature
dist:module
<dist:module dist:instant="..." dist:onDemand="..." ... </dist:module>
dist:instant="false"
dist:instant="true"
dist:onDemand="false"
dist:onDemand="true"
By migrating your instant app to an instant-enabled app bundle with dynamic features, you will be ready to leverage the full power of this new paradigm and you will be able to simplify your app’s modular design.
Previously, instant apps required creating a feature module that acted as the base module for your app. This base feature module contained the shared code and resources for both your instant and installed application. The rest of your codebase was comprised of:
With the new app bundle implementation, your base feature module takes the role as your app module (com.android.application), hosting the code and resources common to all features (instant and installed). You organize additional, modular features as one of three types of dynamic feature modules, based on when you want to deliver them to the user. The instant app module disappears, since the dist:instant attributes in the manifest are enough to identify which features will be included as part of the instant experience.
com.android.application
dist:instant
If you don’t have an instant experience added to your app and you’d like to create one, use Android Studio 3.3+ to create an instant-enabled app bundle.
Posted by Christiaan Prins and Max Gubin
Today we are announcing the release of two new features to ML Kit: Language Identification and Smart Reply.
You might notice that both of these features are different from our existing APIs that were all focused on image/video processing. Our goal with ML Kit is to offer powerful but simple-to-use APIs to leverage the power of ML, independent of the domain. As such, we are excited to expand ML Kit with solutions for Natural Language Processing (NLP)!
NLP is a category of ML that deals with analyzing and generating text, speech, and other kinds of natural language data. We're excited to start out with two APIs: one that helps you identify the language of text, and one that generates reply suggestions in chat applications. Both of these features work fully on-device and are available on the latest version of the ML Kit SDK, on iOS (9.0 and higher) and Android (4.1 and higher).
Generate reply suggestions based on previous messages
A new feature popping up in messaging apps is to provide the user with a selection of suggested responses, either as actions on a notification or inside the app itself. This can really help a user to quickly respond when they are busy or a handy way to initiate a longer message.
With the new Smart Reply API you can now quickly achieve the same in your own apps. The API provides suggestions based on the last 10 messages in a conversation, although it still works if only one previous message is available. It is a stateless API that fully runs on-device, so we don't keep message history in memory nor send it to a server.
textPlus app providing response suggestions using Smart Reply
We have worked closely with partners like textPlus to ensure Smart Reply is ready for prime time and they have now implemented in-app response suggestions with the latest version of their app (screenshot above).
Adding Smart Reply to your own app is done with a simple function call (using Kotlin in this example):
val smartReply = FirebaseNaturalLanguage.getInstance().smartReply smartReply.suggestReplies(conversation) .addOnSuccessListener { result -> if (result.status == SmartReplySuggestionResult.STATUS_NOT_SUPPORTED_LANGUAGE) { // The conversation's language isn't supported, so the // the result doesn't contain any suggestions. } else if (result.status == SmartReplySuggestionResult.STATUS_SUCCESS) { // Task completed successfully // ... } } .addOnFailureListener { // Task failed with an exception // ... }
After you initialize a Smart Reply instance, call suggestReplies with a list of recent messages. The callback provides the result which contains a list of suggestions.
suggestReplies
result
For details on how to use the Smart Reply API, check out the documentation.
Tell me more ...
Although as a developer, you can just pick up this new API and easily get it integrated in your app, it may be interesting to reveal a bit on how it works under the hood. At the core of Smart Reply is a machine-learned model that is executed using TensorFlow Lite and has a state-of-the-art modern architecture based on SentencePiece text encoding[1] and Transformer[2].
However, as we realized when we started development of the API, the core suggestion model is not all that’s needed to provide a solution that developers can use in their apps. For example, we added a model to detect sensitive topics, so that we avoid making suggestions in response to profanity or in cases of personal tragedy/hardship. Also, we included language identification, to ensure we do not provide suggestions for languages the core model is not trained on. The Smart Reply feature is launching with English support first.
Identify the language of a piece of text
The language of a given text string is a subtle but helpful piece of information. A lot of apps have functionality with a dependency on the language: you can think of features like spell checking, text translation or Smart Reply. Rather than asking a user to specify the language they use, you can use our new Language Identification API.
ML Kit recognizes text in 110 different languages and typically only requires a few words to make an accurate determination. It is fast as well, typically providing a response within 1 to 2 ms across iOS and Android phones.
Similar to the Smart Reply API, you can identify the language with a function call (using Kotlin in this example):
val languageIdentification = FirebaseNaturalLanguage.getInstance().languageIdentification languageIdentification .identifyLanguage("¿Cómo estás?") .addOnSuccessListener { identifiedLanguage -> Log.i(TAG, "Identified language: $identifiedLanguage") } .addOnFailureListener { e -> Log.e(TAG, "Language identification error", e) }
The identifyLanguage functions takes a piece of a text and its callback provides a BCP-47 language code. If no language can be confidently recognized, ML Kit returns a code of und for undetermined. The Language Identification API can also provide a list of possible languages and their confidence values.
identifyLanguage
und
For details on how to use the Language Identification API, check out the documentation.
Get started today
We're really excited to expand ML Kit to include Natural Language APIs. Give the two new NLP APIs a spin today and let us know what you think! You can always reach us in our Firebase Talk Google Group.
As ML Kit grows we look forward to adding more APIs and categories that enables you to provide smarter experiences for your users. With that, please keep an eye out for some exciting ML Kit announcements at Google I/O.
A few weeks ago we Introduced Android Q Beta, a first look at the next version of Android. Along with new privacy features for users, Android Q adds new capabilities for developers - like enhancements for foldables, new APIs for connectivity, new media codecs and camera capabilities, NNAPI extensions, Vulkan 1.1 graphics, and more.
Android's program of early, open previews is driven by our core philosophy of openness, and collaboration with our community. Your feedback since Beta 1 proves yet again the value of that openness - it's been loud, clear, and incredibly valuable. You've sent us thousands of bug reports, giving us insights and directional feedback, changing our plans in ways that make the platform better for users and developers. We're taking your feedback to heart, so please stay tuned. We're fortunate to have such a passionate community helping to guide Android Q toward the final product later this year.
Today we're releasing Android Q Beta 2 and an updated SDK for developers. It includes the latest bug fixes, optimizations, and API updates for Android Q, along with the April 2019 security patches. You'll also notice isolated storage becoming more prominent as we look for your wider testing and feedback to help us refine that feature.
We're still in early Beta with Android Q so expect rough edges! Before you install, check out the Known Issues. In particular, expect the usual transitional issues with apps that we typically see during early Betas as developers get their app updates ready. For example, you might see issues with apps that access photos, videos, media, or other files stored on your device, such as when browsing or sharing in social media apps.
You can get Beta 2 today by enrolling any Pixel device here. If you're already enrolled, watch for the Beta 2 update coming soon. Stay tuned for more at Google I/O in May.
As we shared at Beta 1, we're making significant privacy investments in Android Q in addition to the work we've done in previous releases. Our goals are improving transparency, giving users more control, and further securing personal data across platform and apps. We know that to reach those goals, we need to partner with you, our app developers. We realize that supporting these features is an investment for you too, so we'll do everything we can to minimize the impact on your apps.
For features like Scoped Storage, we're sharing our plans as early as possible to give you more time to test and give us your input. To generate broader feedback, we've also enabled Scoped Storage for new app installs in Beta 2, so you can more easily see what is affected.
With Scoped Storage, apps can use their private sandbox without permission, but they need new permissions to access shared collections for photos, videos and audio. Apps using files in shared collections -- for example, photo and video galleries and pickers, media browsing, and document storage -- may behave differently under Scoped Storage.
We recommend getting started with Scoped Storage soon -- the developer guide has details on how to handle key use-cases. For testing, make sure to enable Scoped Storage for your app using the adb command. If you discover that your app has a use-case that's not supported by Scoped Storage, please let us know by taking this short survey. We appreciate the great feedback you've given us already, it's a big help as we move forward with the development of this feature.
In Android Q we're adding platform support for bubbles, a new way for users to multitask and re-engage with your apps. Various apps have already built similar interactions from the ground up, and we're excited to bring the best from those into the platform, while helping to make interactions consistent, safeguard user privacy, reduce development time, and drive innovation.
Bubbles will let users multitask as they move between activities.
Bubbles help users prioritize information and take action deep within another app, while maintaining their current context. They also let users carry an app's functionality around with them as they move between activities on their device.
Bubbles are great for messaging because they let users keep important conversations within easy reach. They also provide a convenient view over ongoing tasks and updates, like phone calls or arrival times. They can provide quick access to portable UI like notes or translations, and can be visual reminders of tasks too.
We've built bubbles on top of Android's notification system to provide a familiar and easy to use API for developers. To send a bubble through a notification you need to add a BubbleMetadata by calling setBubbleMetadata. Within the metadata you can provide the Activity to display as content within the bubble, along with an icon (disabled in beta 2) and associated person.
We're just getting started with bubbles, but please give them a try and let us know what you think. You can find a sample implementation here.
As the ecosystem moves quickly toward foldable devices, new use-cases are opening up for your apps to take advantage of these new screens. With Beta 2, you can build for foldable devices through Android Q enhanced platform support, combined with a new foldable device emulator, available as an Android Virtual device in Android Studio 3.5 available in the canary release channel.
7.3" Foldable AVD switches between the folded and unfolded states
On the platform side, we've made a number of improvements in onResume and onPause to support multi-resume and notify your app when it has focus. We've also changed how the resizeableActivity manifest attribute works, to help you manage how your app is displayed on foldable and large screens. You can read more in the foldables developer guide.
To set up a runtime environment for your app, you can now configure a foldable emulator as a virtual device (AVD) in Android Studio. The foldable AVD is a reference device that lets you test with standard hardware configurations, behaviors, and states, as will be used by our device manufacturer partners. To ensure compatibility, the AVD meets CTS/GTS requirements and models CDD compliance. It supports runtime configuration change, multi-resume and the new resizeableActivity behaviors.
Use the canary release of Android Studio 3.5 to create a foldable virtual device to support either of two hardware configurations 7.3" (4.6" folded) and 8" (6.6" folded) with Beta 2. In each configuration, the emulator gives you on-screen controls to trigger fold/unfold, change orientation, and quick actions.
Android Studio - AVD Manager: Foldable Device Setup
Try your app on the foldable emulator today by downloading the canary release of Android Studio 3.5 and setting up a foldable AVD that uses the Android Q Beta 2 system image.
Following on the initial Sharing Shortcuts APIs in Beta 1, you can now offer a preview of the content being shared by providing an EXTRA_TITLE extra in the Intent for the title, or by setting the Intent's ClipData for a thumbnail image. See the updated sample application for the implementation details.
Android Q Beta 2 gives apps more control over audio capture through a new MicrophoneDirection API. You can use the API to specify a preferred direction of the microphone when taking an audio recording. For example, when the user is taking a "selfie" video, you can request the front-facing microphone for audio recording (if it exists) by calling setMicrophoneDirection(MIC_DIRECTION_FRONT).
Additionally, this API introduces a standardized way of controlling zoomable microphones, allowing your app to have control over the recording field dimension using setMicrophoneFieldDimension(float).
In Android Q we're continuing our long-term effort to move apps toward only using public APIs. We introduced most of the new restrictions in Beta 1, and we're making a few minor updates to those lists in Beta 2 to minimize impact on apps. Our goal is to provide public alternative APIs for valid use-cases before restricting access, so if an interface that you currently use in Android 9 Pie is now restricted, you should request a new public API for that interface.
Today's update includes Beta 2 system images for all Pixel devices and the Android Emulator, as well updated SDK and tools for developers. These give you everything you need to get started testing your apps on the new platform and build with the latest APIs.
First, make your app compatible and give your users a seamless transition to Android Q, including your users currently participating in the Android Beta program. To get started, just install your current app from Google Play onto a device or emulator running Beta 2 and work through the user flows. The app should run and look great, and handle the Android Q behavior changes for all apps properly. If you find issues, we recommend fixing them in the current app, without changing your targeting level. See the migration guide for steps and a recommended timeline.
With important privacy features that are likely to affect your apps, we recommend getting started with testing right away. In particular, you'll want to test against scoped storage, new location permissions, restrictions on background Activity starts, and restrictions on device identifiers. See the privacy checklist as a starting point.
Next, update your app's targetSdkVersion to 'Q' as soon as possible. This lets you test your app with all of the privacy and security features in Android Q, as well as any other behavior changes for apps targeting Q.
When you're ready, dive into Android Q and learn about the new features and APIs you can use in your apps. Here's a video highlighting many of the changes for developers in Beta 1 and Beta 2. Take a look at the API diff report for an overview of what's changed in Beta 2, and see the Android Q Beta API reference for details. Visit the Android Q Beta developer site for more resources, including release notes and how to report issues.
To build with Android Q, download the Android Q Beta SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.3 or higher, and follow these instructions to configure your environment. If you want the latest fixes for Android Q related changes, we recommend you use Android Studio 3.5 or higher.
It's easy - you can enroll here to get Android Q Beta updates over-the-air, on any Pixel device (and this year we're supporting all three generations of Pixel -- Pixel 3, Pixel 2, and even the original Pixel!). If you're already enrolled, you'll receive the update to Beta 2 soon, no action is needed on your part. Downloadable system images are also available. If you don't have a Pixel device, you can use the Android Emulator -- just download the latest emulator system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio.
As always, your input is critical, so please let us know what you think. You can use our hotlists for filing platform issues (including privacy and behavior changes), app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues. You've shared great feedback with us so far and we're working to integrate as much of it as possible in the next Beta release.
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