Android Developers Blog

Google Play Coffee break with Creatrip | Setting up your business for global reach

28 November 2022

Posted by Aditya Swamy, Director, Google Play Partnerships

I sat down for a “virtual coffee” with Haemin Yim, founder and CEO of Creatrip, from Korea to discuss starting on the web, setting up the company for global reach, and tips for startups looking to grow. In Haemin’s words “Creatrip is an app that provides a gateway to authentic Korean trends and cultures.” Last year, they took part in the ChangGoo program, an initiative that supports Korean app startups in partnership with the South Korean government. The Creatrip team applied the learnings of the program to continue to grow and now have users from over 100 countries.Here are my key takeaways from our conversation:

illustration of three people in a rowboat at sea during a storm. The person at the helm is looking at weather related data

Expanding the app's value proposition to address challenges Despite having a great idea for an app, Haemin shared with me that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. After gaining significant brand awareness and with increasing travel bookings across the app, the pandemic sent the travel industry into disarray. As with many businesses, this had significant implications for Creatrip. However, Haemin and the team used their strong understanding of the people using their app to quickly expand their offering. With the knowledge that people often wanted to visit South Korea because of their interest in K-trends and culture; Haemin adapted the business to provide K-products to those who were unfortunately unable to travel during that period. This led Haemin to grow the business beyond just a travel app and into a global e-commerce platform. Creating new content to fuel app growth Creatrip started as an app that provided travel content. It quickly expanded to provide people with in-app booking features, local currency exchange rates that weren’t previously digitized, and even a global e-commerce platform providing access to popular ‘K-items’. However, content is the key element that draws users into the app. My top advice for businesses looking to continue to evolve their content is to expand their content creator pipeline. For example, by encouraging South Korean locals to contribute, Creatrip could gain a richer and more diverse range of content, showcasing Korea through the eyes of many different people. Haemin and the team are already in the process of building a new feature that allows people to create their own content on the app. Think about short form video apps. By allowing people to become their own content creators, it enables them to have a much wider repository of content and encourages users to spend more time on the app. Now more people want to be creators and make their own content as seen on YouTube. This is fueling growth in watchtime, and adding more users.

illustration of two people receiving global information on shopping, popular items, trends, data, and people via their laptop and phone screen

Going global from the start Something I found particularly interesting from my chat with Haemin, was how she prepared the business for global reach from the start. Haemin believes that despite requiring a bit more time and effort, preparing for global reach from the beginning can actually allow for exponential growth, as you start to target the right markets and reach a global fan base. It is wonderful to see how Haemin brings her passion for all things Korean, to people all around the world. The team’s first step towards going global was by listening to and understanding the needs of the people already using Creatrip. The team at Creatrip have definitely brought a lot of unique ideas to the app. With 90% of their users having started on the website, the team had an ingenious idea to bring people over to mobile. They listened to their global users and saw that people were keen to find out the currency exchange rates being provided at local stores in Seoul. They created a mobile-only feature that shows local currency rates from local stores. This required the team to actually go to the stores twice a day, however it led to a large increase in people using the mobile app - all by providing information that was previously unavailable to people from outside of Seoul. Planning for the future It’s amazing to see how much Creatrip is flourishing; the app has grown from 100k monthly users up to 1.5 million. There are many factors that helped Creatrip grow over the past few years, but some notable takeaways from my chat with Haemin include:

Taking the time to understand the people using their apps and their needs

Launching app only features to drive people from web to the app

Using content as a means to get new users and increase engagement

As a final thought I couldn't let Haemin go without asking her favorite K trends. She mentioned that fusion fine dining was a top trend in Korea, NewJeans were a trending K-pop band, and South Korean blankets were a top K-product. Do you have any questions for Creatrip? What are your own tips for other app or game businesses? Let us know on Twitter.

Per-App Language Preferences - Part 1

22 November 2022

Posted by Neelansh Sahai Android Developer Relations Engineer (on Twitter and LinkedIn)

What if you have a set of users who are quite fluent in English, Hindi, and Spanish, and they have a news app on their phones and prefer to read the news in Hindi? For their texting app, they prefer Spanish as they have some friends and family who they text with in Spanish. But for ease of access, they still prefer their device to be in English. Now there are many such use-cases where the users might want their app languages to be different from their system language. Interesting! Starting with Android 13, we have included one of the most-requested features from users, Per-App Language Preferences. It lets users switch app languages from System settings, providing users with better control over their language choices for different apps, irrespective of the system language.

A cellphone screen displaying App language preferences in system settings for the YouTube app

Build for your multilingual users This blog focuses on how to integrate the Per-App Language Preferences API in your app to provide your users the flexibility to choose different languages for different apps.1. Users can change the language settings from system settings by selecting: Settings → System → Languages & Input → App Languages → [Select the desired App] → [Select the desired Language]

NOTE: Only those apps that have opted in for the feature by specifying the locale_config.xml file (more on this below), will appear in system settings.

A cellphone screen demonstrating finding the language settings from system settings by selecting Settings → System → Languages & Input → App Languages → [Select the desired App] → [Select the desired Language]

2. If your app already has an in-app language picker, you can integrate the Per-App Language Preferences API to leverage the full platform support. For pre-Android 13 users, the system settings won’t be visible, but developers can still provide an in-app language picker.

A cellphone screen demonstrating integrating the Per-App Language prefences API for an app which already has an in-app language picker

How to integrate this feature in your app?

There are 5 steps that need to be followed while working on the Per-App Language Preferences feature, listed here →

1. Create locale_config.xml file

Create a new file in values/xml/ directory and name it as locale_config.xml. This file should contain a list of all the locales that are supported by the app. The list element should be a string containing a locale tag.

NOTE: The locale tags must follow the BCP47 syntax, which is usually {language subtag}–{script subtag}–{country subtag}. Anything other than that will be filtered out by the system and won't be visible in the system settings.

locale_config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<locale-config xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
...

<locale android:name="en"/>

<locale android:name="ja-JP"/>

<locale android:name="zh-Hans-MO"/>

<locale android:name="zh-Hant-TW"/>
...
</locale-config>

2. Add the locale_config in the AndroidManifest.xml
locale_config.xmlAndroidManifest.xml
AndroidManifest.xml

3. Add the libraries

Use the latest version of AppCompat Library

build.gradle (app)

def latestAppCompatVersion = “1.6.0-rc01”

dependencies {
...
implementation "androidx.appcompat:appcompat:$latestAppCompatVersion"
implementation "androidx.appcompat:appcompat-resources:$latestAppCompatVersion"
...
}

4. Use AndroidX APIs

Use the APIs in your code to set and get the app locales.

MainActivity.kt

val appLocale: LocaleListCompat = LocaleListCompat.forLanguageTags("xx-YY")

// Call this on the main thread as it may require Activity.restart()
AppCompatDelegate.setApplicationLocales(appLocale)

// Call this to get the selected locale and display it in your App
val selectedLocale = AppCompatDelegate.getApplicationLocales()[0]

NOTE: These APIs are also backward compatible, so even if the app is being used on Android 12 or lower, the APIs would still behave the same, and no additional checks for OS versions are required in your code.

5. Delegate storage to AndroidX

Let AndroidX handle the locale storage so that the user's preference persists.

AndroidManifest.xml

Steps 3, 4, & 5 above demonstrate the minimum components needed to create an in-app language picker.

And with this, your app can now support locale switching.

Additional things to take care of while migrating to the API

Earlier, developers had to handle the user's preferences on their own, either by using SharedPreferences, storing the data on a server, or other app logic. With the new APIs, there is no need to handle this separately. So when you are using these APIs, AndroidX is already taking care of the storage part, but what happens when the app is opened for the first time after a user updates their device to Android 13 or higher?

In this case, the system won’t be aware of the user’s preferences for the app language and thus it will map the app to the default system language. To avoid this, developers need to add some one-time migration logic so that their users don’t have to set the language again when they update the app.

// Specify the constants to be used in the below code snippets

companion object {

// Constants for SharedPreference File
const val PREFERENCE_NAME = "shared_preference"
const val PREFERENCE_MODE = Context.MODE_PRIVATE

// Constants for SharedPreference Keys
const val FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION = "first_time_migration"
const val SELECTED_LANGUAGE = "selected_language"

// Constants for SharedPreference Values
const val STATUS_DONE = "status_done"
}

// Utility method to put a string in a SharedPreference
private fun putString(key: String, value: String) {
val editor = getSharedPreferences(PREFERENCE_NAME, PREFERENCE_MODE).edit()
editor.putString(key, value)
editor.apply()
}

// Utility method to get a string from a SharedPreference
private fun getString(key: String): String? {
val preference = getSharedPreferences(PREFERENCE_NAME, PREFERENCE_MODE)
return preference.getString(key, null)
}

// Check if the migration has already been done or not
if (getString(FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION) != STATUS_DONE) {

   // Fetch the selected language from wherever it was stored. In this case it’s SharedPref
   // In this case let’s assume that it was stored in a key named SELECTED_LANGUAGE
getString(SELECTED_LANGUAGE)?.let { it →

      // Set this locale using the AndroidX library that will handle the storage itself
val localeList = LocaleListCompat.forLanguageTags(it)
AppCompatDelegate.setApplicationLocales(localeList)

      // Set the migration flag to ensure that this is executed only once
putString(FIRST_TIME_MIGRATION, STATUS_DONE)
}
}

What flexibility does the feature provide to the users and developers?

Here are a few things that might prove to be beneficial for you users.

All devices running Android 13 or higher will have a common place for users to discover and change the language of their apps.
Although the system settings are limited to the devices running Android 13 or higher, the AndroidX APIs are backwards compatible. Thus, there is no requirement to add OS Version checks in your code while building for your multilingual users.
Developers do not need to handle configuration changes separately or worry about storing the user's selected language every time. The API handles configuration changes and stores the language preferences for you.
Works with other Android features like Backup and restore. If a user switches to a new device and restores the previously backed up data, your app will retain the user’s last preferred language, thus providing your users with a better and more seamless experience.

Recap

With that, most parts of the feature are covered. So let’s have a quick recap on what we discussed in today’s read.

A quick read on what Per-App Language Preferences offer to multilingual users and app developers.
What end users will see on their devices.
How to migrate your app to the Per-App Language Preferences APIs.
A few things that need to be taken care of while migrating to the APIs to ensure a better user experience.
Lastly, the benefits that end users and developers can leverage from this feature.

References

App Bundles for Google TV and Android TV

21 November 2022

Posted by Josh Wentz, Product Management, Google TV

TLDR: Google TV and Android TV will be requiring Android App Bundles that are archivable starting in May 2023 to save storage for users. Over the past few decades, TV has transformed from linear channel surfing to on-demand content with multi-app experiences. Today, over 10,000 apps are available on Android TV OS. While software has grown exponentially, TV hardware has remained limited in capacity compared to its phone counterparts. In 2022, smartphones often have a minimum storage size of 64GB, but smart TVs have an average of just 8GB. Less storage results in users having to uninstall apps, hindering their overall TV experience. To help with this problem and others, Android introduced App Bundles in Nov 2020.
What are Android App Bundles? “Android App Bundles” (AABs) are the standard publishing format on Google Play (phones, tablets, TVs, etc) that have replaced “Android Package Kits” (APKs). App Bundles are smaller, faster, fresher, and better than its precursor. Key benefits include:

Smaller Download/Storage Size - App Bundles create an average of 20% total size savings compared to its equivalent APK counterpart by optimizing for each device.

Less Likely to Uninstall - Since App Bundles enables users with the option to archive (which reclaims ~60% of app storage), users can keep these and more apps on their TV despite limited storage. A quick archive/unarchive user interface is built-in to the TV. Developers can also maintain state for a frictionless later return.

Applicable to All Android Surfaces - App Bundles are helpful for all Android surfaces using the Google Play store including TV, phone, tablet, watch, auto, & more.

Streamlined Delivery & Security - For easier delivery, a single artifact with all of your app's code & resources allows Play store to dynamically serve an optimized app for each device configuration. For greater security, developers can also reset the upload key if it’s lost or compromised.

What is new for TV? With TV storage confined and users having an increasing appetite for more apps, Google TV and Android TV will be requiring App Bundles starting in May 2023. While this provides about 6-months to transition, we estimate that in most cases it will take one engineer about 3-days to migrate an existing TV app from Android Package Kit (APK) to Android App Bundle (AAB). While developers can configure archiving for their mobile apps, TV apps are required to be archivable so that all users and developers can benefit on storage-constrained TVs. For TV apps not transitioned in time, Google may hide such apps from the TV surface. If you’re working on a brand new TV app, be sure to use Android App Bundles from the start!
How can TV apps transition? Visit our Developer Guide to learn more about how to migrate to an Android App Bundle (AAB).

Explore the AAB format, find steps to build & test an AAB, and see FAQ. This example and video may help as well.

App Bundles are fully supported for Android 5.0 (API Level 21) and above. Certain App Bundle features are not compatible for Android versions before Android 5.0 (Lollipop).

Many TV apps have been developed with Android 5.0 (API Level 21) or higher. For context, Google TV launched on Android 10 (API Level 29) in 2020.

All told, App Bundles bring a delightful experience to both you as developers and your users, especially in the living room. Thank you for your partnership in creating immersive content and entertainment experiences for the future of TV.

Google Play Coffee break with Creatrip | Setting up your business for global reach

Per-App Language Preferences - Part 1

App Bundles for Google TV and Android TV

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