Posted by Jolanda Verhoef, Android Developer Relations Engineer
Posted by Sachiyo Sugimoto, Android Partner Engineering
Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing
Posted by Fred Chung, Android Developer Relations
The Privacy Sandbox on Android aims to develop new solutions that preserve user privacy and enable effective, personalized advertising experiences for apps. Since our first developer preview, we've shared progress updates and continue to engage the industry on everything from the Developer Preview timeline, to Topics taxonomy, to SDK version management. We appreciate your feedback!
Today, we’re releasing Developer Preview 3, which includes APIs and developer resources for conversion measurement and remarketing use cases. In addition to the preview of SDK Runtime and Topics APIs released earlier, you can for the first time begin testing and evaluating impact on all key APIs for Privacy Sandbox on Android.
These APIs allow developers to measure when an ad click or view event leads to a conversion, such as the download of a new game. They support key use cases for attribution across apps and the web, and improve user privacy by removing reliance on cross-party user identifiers.
This release includes a developer guide and sample apps to help you understand client- and server-side set up and interactions for key parts of the attribution reporting workflow, including:
To help facilitate testing, the release also supports ADB commands to override reporting time windows. Refer to the API reference to learn more about the Android client APIs.
Part of FLEDGE for Android, these APIs provide the building blocks to serve customized ads to users based on previous app engagement, without third-party data sharing. You’ll be able to:
To learn more, refer to the Custom Audience and Ad Selection API reference pages, as well as the release notes.
If you’re just starting to explore the Developer Preview, please also review the supported features described in the SDK Runtime and Topics API developer guides.
If you need a refresher on key technologies for the Privacy Sandbox on Android, we recommend watching this overview video and reviewing the design proposals.
Today’s Developer Preview 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.
Posted by Tom Grinsted - Group Product Manager, Google Play
Here at Google Play, we’re always working on new ways to help developers grow their businesses, whether that’s by increasing installs, improving engagement, or boosting monetization. So in case you missed it, here are the top 3 new ways to grow your business that we announced at this year’s Google I/O:
Custom store listings have gotten a major update, giving you new ways to make a great first impression by showing the right message to each person.
You can now generate unique deep links to your custom listings, so you can show different listings to users depending on which channel or site they come from. And because Play Console provides analytics for each of your custom listings, you can see how effective each variation is and optimize them over time.
All developers can create up to 50 custom store listings, so you can create more tailored narratives for your users than ever before. With up to 5 experiments per listing, the opportunities for optimization are huge!
Custom store listings have gotten a major update, giving you new ways to improve your conversion rate.
LiveOps are self-service merchandising units in the Play Store that promote limited-time events, offers, and major updates for your game or app. Developers in our beta can submit content to help inspire installs, increase engagement, and drive sales.
Plus, they can now use deep links to drop users directly into the most relevant part of their app or game, then measure success with the new LiveOps reporting dashboard in Play Console. These reports give a granular view of the performance metrics of each event, displaying the results over time and by outcome – whether that’s acquisitions, opens, or updates.
Learn more about LiveOps and express interest in our beta program here.
Developers in our LiveOps beta can submit content to be featured on the Google Play Store.
As subscription business models evolve, many developers have asked us for more flexibility and less complexity in how they sell subscriptions. In a major update, we launched new subscription capabilities, allowing you to configure multiple base plans and offers for each subscription. Acquire new subscribers, incentivize upgrades, and retain existing subscribers, by creating multiple offers supporting different stages of the subscription lifecycle, all while significantly reducing the cost and complexity of managing an ever-increasing number of SKUs.
For each subscription, you can now configure multiple base plans and offers, without needing to manage an ever-increasing number of SKUs.
Plus, you can now offer prepaid plans that give users access for a fixed amount of time, and make a great option for regions where pay-as-you-go is standard or for users not ready to commit to an auto-renewing plan. Users can easily extend their access period at any time before plan expiration, with a top-up in your app, or right on the Play Store subscription screen.
That was just three launches from a whole bunch of great updates to help you grow and thrive with Play. Want to see more? Be sure to catch the full playlist on Google Play from Google I/O.
Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering
Today we’re releasing the third Beta of Android 13, taking us into the final phase of our cycle where we’re focusing on polish and performance. With Android 13, we’ve built on our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, and tablet and large screen support.
There’s a lot to explore in Android 13, from privacy features like the new notification permission and photo picker, to productivity features like themed app icons and per-app language support, as well as modern standards like HDR video, Bluetooth LE Audio, and MIDI 2.0 over USB. We’ve also extended the newer updates we made in 12L, giving you better tools to take advantage of the 270+ million tablet and large screen devices in active use.
Beta 3 takes Android 13 to Platform Stability, which means that the developer APIs and all app-facing behaviors are now final. We’re thankful for all the feedback you’ve shared to help us get to this point! For developers, the focus is now on compatibility testing and quality as you prepare your apps for the official release later in the year!
You can get Beta 3 on your Pixel device by enrolling here for over-the-air updates. If you previously enrolled, you’ll automatically get today’s update. You can also try Android 13 Beta on select devices from several of our partners - learn more at android.com/beta. Read on for a quick look at how to get your app ready, and visit the Android 13 developer site for details.
With Beta 3, Android 13 reaches Platform Stability, a milestone that means all app-facing behaviors and APIs, including the official API Level 33 SDK and NDK APIs, are now final. So from Beta 3, you can confidently develop and release your compatibility updates knowing that the platform won’t change.
We’re asking all app and game developers to start your final compatibility testing now and prepare to publish your compatibility updates as soon as possible ahead of the final release.
For all SDK, library, tools, and game engine developers, it’s even more important to start testing now and release your compatible updates as soon as possible -- your downstream app and game developers may be blocked until they receive your updates. So when you’ve released a compatible update, be vocal and let your developers know!
App compatibility means that your app runs as intended on a new version of the platform. With each release, we make integral changes to the platform that improve privacy and security and the overall user experience across the OS. These can affect your apps, so it’s important to test your app now, make any updates needed, and publish a compatible update to your users ahead of the final release. It’s a basic but critical level of quality that your users will appreciate as they explore what’s new in Android 13.
To test your app for compatibility, just install your production app from Google Play or other source onto a device running Android 13 Beta 3. Work through all of the app’s flows and watch for functional or UI issues. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. Here are some changes to watch for:
Also remember to test the libraries and SDKs in your app for compatibility. If you find any issues, try updating to the latest version of the library or SDK or reaching out to the developer for help.
Once you’ve published the compatible version of your current app, you can start the process to update your app's targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes for apps targeting Android 13 and use the compatibility framework to help you detect issues quickly. Here are some of the changes to test for (these apply only to apps with targetSdkVersion set to API 33 or higher):
NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES
READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
BODY_SENSORS_BACKGROUND
Android 13 builds on the tablet optimizations introduced in 12L, so as part of your testing, make sure your apps look their best on tablets and other large-screen devices. You can test with the large screens features by setting up an Android emulator in Android Studio, or you can use a large screen device from our Android 13 Beta partners. Here are some areas to watch for:
You can read more about the tablet features in Android 13 and what to test here.
Today’s Beta release has everything you need to test your app and try the Android 13 features. Just enroll your Pixel device to get the update over-the-air. To get started, set up the Android 13 SDK.
You can also test your app with Android 13 Beta on devices from several of our partners. Visit android.com/beta to see the full list of partners, with links to their sites for details on their supported devices and Beta builds, starting with Beta 1. Each partner will handle their own enrollments and support, and provide the Beta updates to you directly. For even broader testing, you can try Android 13 Beta 3 on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device, you can test on the Android Emulator.
For complete details on Android 13, visit the Android 13 developer site.
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