The latest Android and Google Play news for app and game developers.
Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Wear OS by Google
Today we are announcing a new initiative to improve Wear app quality and their presentation in the Google Play Store. The Wear app review process, which has been in place since the launch of Android Wear 2.0, is currently optional. It will become mandatory for apps to be listed on the Wear OS by Google version of the Google Play Store from the following dates:
The review process for mobile apps remains unchanged, and is independent of the Wear app review. Mobile app updates will not be blocked if they fail the Wear app review.
We hope this lightweight app review process will improve the quality of Wear app experiences across the wide range of devices available to your users. In addition, since screenshots are required for the Wear app review, this will improve the discovery and presentation of your Wear apps in the Google Play Store.
See a comprehensive list of review criteria here. The following are common issues we see during Wear app reviews:
We understand that some developers need to experiment with their Wear apps in the early stages of app development, and a Wear app review at this stage might not be appropriate. In this case, developers have two options:
Please note that the open test and closed test channels will be subject to Wear app review to help front-load the quality assurance process and to avoid leaving reviews to the last minute.
Thank you for your continuing support of Wear OS by Google.
Posted by Purnima Kochikar, Director, Google Play, Apps & Games
On Monday we released Android 9 Pie. As we continue to push the Android platform forward, we're always looking to provide new ways to distribute your apps efficiently, help people discover and engage with your work, and improve the overall security of our ecosystem. Google Play has had a busy year so far with some big milestones around helping you reach more users, including:
Google Play is dedicated to helping you build and grow quality app businesses, reach the more than 2 billion Android devices globally and provide your users with better experiences. Here are some of the important areas we're prioritizing this year:
We've added more testing tools to the popular Play Console to help developers de-risk app launches with internal and external test tracks and staged rollouts to get valuable early feedback. This year we've expanded the Start on Android program globally that provides developers new to Android additional guidance to optimize their apps before launch. Google Play Instant remains a huge bet to transform app discovery and improve conversions by letting users engage without the friction of installing. We're seeing great results from early adopters and are working on new places to surface instant experience, including ads, and making them easier to build throughout the year.
Google Play plays an important role helping developers understand and fix quality and performance issues. At I/O, we showcased how we expanded the battery, stability and rendering of Android vitals reporting to include app start time & permission denials, enabling developers to cut application not responding errors by up to 95%. We also expanded the functionality of automated device testing with the pre-launch report to enable games testing. Recently, we increased the importance of app quality in our search and discovery recommendations that has resulted in higher engagement and satisfaction with downloaded games.
Over the last year we've rolled out more editorial content and improved our machine learning to deliver personalized recommendations for apps and games that engage users. Since most game downloads come from browsing (as opposed to searching or deep linking into) the store, we've put particular focus on games discovery, with a new games home page, special sections for premium and new games, immersive video trailers and screenshots, and the ability to try games instantly. We've also introduced new programs to help drive app downloads through richer discovery. For example, since launching our app pre-registration program in 2016, we've seen nearly 250 million app pre-registrations. Going forward, we'll be expanding on these programs and others like LiveOps cards to help developers engage more deeply with their audience.
Google Play now collects payments in 150 markets via credit card, direct carrier billing (DCB), Paypal, and gift cards. Direct carrier billing is now enabled across 167 carriers in 64 markets. In 2018, we have focused on expanding our footprint in Africa and Latam with launches in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Peru & Colombia. And users can now buy Google Play credit via gift cards or other means in more 800,000 retail locations around the world. This year, we also launched seller support in 18 new markets bringing the total markets with seller support to 98. Our subscription offering continues to improve with ML-powered fraud detection and even more control for subscribers and developers. Google Play's risk modeling automatically helps detect fraudulent transactions and purchase APIs help you better analyze your refund data to identify suspicious activity.
Google Play Protect and our other systems scan and analyze more than 50 billion apps a day to keep our ecosystem safe for users and developers. In fact, people who only download apps from Google Play are nine times less likely to download a potentially harmful app than those who download from other sources. We've made significant improvements in our ability to detect abuse—such as impersonation, inappropriate content, fraud, or malware—through new machine learning models and techniques. The result is that 99% of apps with abusive content are identified and rejected before anyone can install them. We're also continuing to run the Google Play Security Rewards Program through a collaboration with Hacker One to discover other vulnerabilities.
We are continually inspired by what developers build—check out #IMakeApps for incredible examples—and want every developer to have the tools needed to succeed. We can't wait to see what you do next!
Posted by Vineet Tanwar, Business Development Manager, Google Play
In June, we announced the Indie Games Accelerator, a new four month program to help indie game startups from India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia supercharge their growth on Android. We have been truly impressed by the overwhelming responses we have received, and the creativity that indie game developers from these regions have to offer.
We had a great time going through the applications and playing the games which were submitted for review. Now, it's finally time to announce the inaugural class of startups selected for the program who we will mentor and coach over the next few months. Here they are:
Congratulations to the selected participants and a huge thanks to everyone that applied! Find out more about the program or express your interest in joining next class of Indie Games Accelerator.
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Posted by Tom Greenaway, Senior Partner Developer Advocate
Last year we announced that starting from August 2018 Google Play will require all new apps and games to target a recent Android API level – set to API level 26 (Android 8.0 Oreo), or higher. Additionally, this requirement will extend to updates for existing apps and games starting from November 2018.
Every new Android version introduces changes that bring significant security and performance improvements – and enhance the user experience of Android overall. Updating your games to target the latest API level ensures that your users can benefit from these improvements, while still allowing your games to run on older Android versions.
Simple next steps:
Significant changes to be aware of:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
Moving ahead
Remember, updating the target API level is just the first step – make sure your game is compatible with the behavior changes between your current target API level and API level 26. Check out further guidance on the changes in past versions of Android to help in your migration process. These policy changes are important for moving the Android ecosystem forward and keeping it healthy for our users – and yours.
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Join us in congratulating the latest apps and games entering the Android Excellence program on Google Play. This diverse group of apps and games is recognized for their high quality, great user experience, and strong technical performance. Whether you're interested in learning meditation or a new language, or are looking for a game about butterflies or warships, we're excited to dive in to these new collections.
Check out a few of our highlighted apps.
Test your skills with these highlighted games.
See the full list of Android Excellence apps and games.
Explore other great apps and games in the Editors' Choice section on Google Play and discover best practices to help you build quality apps and games.
At Google I/O we shared how Google's own apps make use of Google Play for successful launches and updates and introduced the new Google Play Developer Publishing API Version 3.
The Publishing API enables you to integrate publishing operations into your existing release process or automated workflows by providing the ability to upload APKs and roll out releases. Here's an overview of some of the improvements you can now take advantage of in Version 3 of the API.
Releases in the API
The Publishing API now uses the release model you are familiar with from the Play Console.
{ "track": "production", "releases": [ { "name": "Release One", "versionCodes": ["100"], "status": "completed" } ] }
This gives you full control over releases via the API allowing a number of operations which were previously available only in the Play Console. For example, you can now control the name of releases created via the API, and we have now relaxed the constraints on what can be rolled out via the API to match the Play Console.
Additional testing tracks
The API now supports releasing to any of the testing tracks you have configured for your application as well as the production track. This makes it possible to configure your continuous integration system to push a new build to your internal test track as soon as it's ready for QA.
Staged rollout
Staged rollouts are the recommended way to deploy new versions of your app. They allow you to make your new release available to a small percentage of users and gradually increase this percentage as your confidence in the release grows.
Staged rollouts are now represented directly in the API as inProgress releases.
{ "track": "production", "releases": [ { "versionCodes": ["100"], "status": "completed" }, { "versionCodes": ["200"], "status": "inProgress", "userFraction": 0.1 } ] }
You can now halt a staged rollout via the API by changing its status to halted. This makes it possible to automatically respond to any problems you detect while performing a rollout. If it turns out to be a false alarm, the API now also allows you to resume a halted release by changing its status back to inProgress.
Release notes
Release notes are a useful way to communicate to users new features you have added in a release. In V3 we have simplified how these are specified via the API by adding the releaseNotes field to release.
{ "track": "production", "releases": [ { "versionCodes": ["100"], "status": "completed", "releaseNotes": [ { "language": "en-US", "text": "Now it's easier to specify release notes." }, { "language": "it-IT", "text": "Ora è più semplice specificare le note sulla versione." } } ] }
Draft releases
We know that while many developers are comfortable deploying test builds automatically, they like using the Play Console when rolling out to production.
So, in the V3 API we have added the ability to create and manage Draft Releases.
{ "track": "production", "releases": [ { "name": "Big Launch", "versionCodes": ["200"], "status": "draft" } ] }
This allows you to upload APKs or App Bundles and create a draft release from your continuous integration system, and then have your product manager log in, check that everything looks good, and hit "Confirm and Rollout".
We hope you find these features useful and take advantage of them for successful launches and updates with Google Play. If you're interested in some of the other great tools for distributing your apps, check out the I/O sessions which have now been posted to the Android Developers YouTube Channel.
Posted by Anuj Gulati, Developer Marketing Manager, Google Play and Sami Kizilbash, Developer Relations Program Manager, Google
Emerging markets now account for more than 40% of game installs on Google Play. Rapid smartphone adoption in these regions presents a new base of engaged gamers that are looking for high quality mobile gaming experiences. At Google Play, we are focused on helping local game developers from these markets achieve their full potential and make the most of this opportunity.
Indie Games Accelerator is a new initiative to support top indie game startups from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam who are looking to supercharge their growth on Android. This four month program is a special edition of Launchpad Accelerator, designed in close collaboration with Google Play, featuring a comprehensive gaming curriculum and mentorship from top mobile gaming experts.
Successful participants will be invited to attend two all-expense-paid gaming bootcamps at the Google Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, where they will receive personalized mentorship from Google teams and industry experts. Additional benefits include Google Cloud Platform credits, invites to exclusive Google and industry events, and more.
Visit the program website to find out more and apply now.
Posted by Larry Yang and Angela Ying, Product Managers, Google Play
Subscriptions on Google Play continue to see huge growth, with subscribers growing over 80% year over year. At I/O 2018, we announced several improvements we're making to the user experience to reduce barriers to subscription sign-up, and more tools to let you manage your business the way you want to.
While users derive a lot of value from their subscriptions, our research shows their fears of being "trapped" in a subscription without the ability to cancel or worry they'll lose track of how much they're spending create a hindrance to users signing up for your subscription apps. To address these fears, we recently launched a new subscriptions center, a one-stop shop for users to manage their subscriptions on Google Play.
Through the subscriptions center, users can:
In addition, if a user cancels a subscription, we will now trigger a cancellation survey to give developers feedback as to why the user is cancelling. Currently you can see the data from the cancellation survey by querying our server side API.
The new subscriptions center also has a "Get Started" link in the empty state that lets users discover subscription apps through curated and localized collections.
With the launch of the subscriptions center, we're also launching new deep links you can use to direct your users to manage their subscriptions from your app, over email or via the web. To implement, use the package name and SKU to construct the deep link, and then add the deep link as a button or link from anywhere in your app. View the Android Developers website for more information.
In addition to creating a better experience for users, we're also rolling out new tools that give you more flexibility in managing your business. One of the features we've heard requested most is price changes. Coming soon, you can easily ask users to accept a price change via the Google Play Console without having to set up a completely new SKU. Google Play will notify users of the change via emails, push notifications and in-app messaging, and if by renewal date the user hasn't agreed, we'll cancel their subscription. Sign up here if you are interested in participating in the early access program.
Other features we launched at I/O that help you better manage your subscription business include the ability to:
This is in addition to faster test renewals and flexible intro pricing we announced earlier this year.
To easily implement all of these, make sure you are using the Google Play Billing Library, which launched version 1.1 at I/O. The billing library is an abstraction layer on top of the AIDL file, and API updates are automatically picked up when you update your build dependency file the next time you compile your app. Price changes and upgrade/downgrade with the same expiration date are only available through the billing library. This will be the case for future launches as well.
We strongly believe that by building a great user experience, we build a high quality subscriber base. And by giving you tools and insights to better manage your business, you have the flexibility to do what is best for your business and your customers.
In December last year we announced that we would be making updates to app security to help verify product authenticity from Google Play. We are now adding a small amount of security metadata on top of APKs to verify that the APK was distributed by Google Play.
One of the reasons we're doing this is to help developers reach a wider audience, particularly in countries where peer-to-peer app sharing is common because of costly data plans and limited connectivity.
In the future, for apps obtained through Play-approved distribution channels, we'll be able to determine app authenticity while a device is offline, add those shared apps to a user's Play Library, and manage app updates when the device comes back online. This will give people more confidence when using Play-approved peer-to-peer sharing apps.
This also benefits you as a developer as it provides a Play-authorized offline distribution channel and, since the peer-to-peer shared app is added to your user's Play library, your app will now be eligible for app updates from Play.
No action is needed by developers or by those who use your app or game. We're adjusting Google Play's maximum APK size to take into account the small metadata addition, which is inserted into the APK Signing Block. In addition to improving the integrity of Google Play's mobile app ecosystem, this metadata will also present new distribution opportunities for developers and help more people keep their apps up to date.
Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Developer Marketing, Platforms & Ecosystems
The Android developer ecosystem is made up of exceptional individuals with different backgrounds, interests, and dreams. To celebrate the people who make up our community, starting today, and over the coming months, we'll be meeting with developers, founders, product managers, designers, and others from around the world to hear more about their passions and discover what they do when they step away from their computers.
Watch stories featuring adventurer Niek Bokkers from Polarsteps (Netherlands), artist Faith Ringgold from Quiltuduko (USA) and chair restorer Hans Jørgen Wiberg from Be My Eyes (Denmark). You can also read more about them and their apps on g.co/play/imakeapps.
We'd love to hear from you too. Use the hashtag #IMakeApps on your social channels, sharing the app or game you work on, your role in its creation, and an image that best depicts who you are outside of work. We will regularly select and share some of our favorites on our channels.
If you also want to get featured in an upcoming #IMakeApps film, tell us more about yourself and your app or game, by completing this self-nomination form.
Stay tuned for more #IMakeApps stories by following us on Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Posted by Purnima Kochikar, Director, Apps and Games Business Development, Google Play
This year's Google Play Awards will take place on Monday, May 7th, kicking off the week of Google I/O. Celebrating our third year, we're excited to highlight nine categories; some you may recognize from previous years, along with new additions highlighting growth areas and trends we're focused on, such as building for emerging markets.
Each year, the Google Play Awards recognize top apps and games on Google Play. They represent some of the best experiences available on Android, with an emphasis on overall quality, strong design, technical performance, and innovation. The nominees were selected by various teams across Google, and all meet criteria thresholds covering high star rating, Android vitals, and have had a launch or major update since April 2017.
Congratulations to this year's nominees below and don't forget to check them out on the Google Play store at g.co/play/gpa2018.
Standout Well-Being App
Apps empowering people to live the best version of their lives, while demonstrating responsible design and engagement strategies
Best Accessibility Experience
Apps or games enabling device interaction in an innovative way that serves people with disabilities or special needs
Best Social Impact
Apps or games that create a positive impact in communities around the world (focused on health, education, crisis response, refugees, financial health & fundraising functions)
Standout Indie
Games from indie developers that focus on artistic design, gameplay mechanics, and overall polish
Best Community Building Game
Games built to connect gamers, encouraging social interaction and community building
Best AR or VR Experience
Apps or games offering highly engaging and immersive experiences with optimal use of ARCore or Daydream UI
Standout Build for Billions Experience
Apps or games with optimized performance, localization, and culturalization for emerging markets
Standout Startup
Apps from new developers that offer a unique experience while achieving strong organic install growth.
Best Breakthrough Hit
New apps or games with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement and retention, and strong organic install growth
Check out the winners, and make sure to try out some of these great apps and games on Google Play at g.co/play/gpa2018.
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Congratulations to the latest apps and games featured in the Android Excellence program on Google Play. As a reminder, these collections are refreshed every three months and recognize apps and games that set the bar for high quality, great user experience, and strong technical performance.
If you're looking for some new apps, here are a few highlights.
Here are a few of our favorite new games joining the collection.
Dashlane
Holstelworld
iCook
Keeper Password Manager
Keepsafe Photo Vault
Mobisystems OfficeSuite
PhotoGrid
Runtastic Results
Seven - 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge
SoloLearn: Learn to Code for Free
Tube Map
WPS Office
Azur Lane アズールレーン
CodyCross
Into the Dead 2
Little Panda Restaurant
MARVEL Contest of Champions
Orbital 1
Rooms of Doom
Sky Dancer Run
Sling Kong
Soul Knight
We hope you're enjoying the first developer preview of Android P. We wanted to specifically call out some backward-incompatible changes we plan to make to the cryptographic capabilities in Android P, which you can see in the developer preview.
Starting in Android P, we plan to deprecate some functionality from the BC provider that's duplicated by the AndroidOpenSSL (also known as Conscrypt) provider. This will only affect applications that specify the BC provider explicitly when calling getInstance() methods. To be clear, we aren't doing this because we are concerned about the security of the implementations from the BC provider, rather because having duplicated functionality imposes additional costs and risks while not providing much benefit.
getInstance()
If you don't specify a provider in your getInstance() calls, no changes are required.
If you specify the provider by name or by instance—for example, Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS7PADDING", "BC") or Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS7PADDING", Security.getProvider("BC"))—the behavior you get in Android P will depend on what API level your application targets. For apps targeting an API level before P, the call will return the BC implementation and log a warning in the application log. For apps targeting Android P or later, the call will throw NoSuchAlgorithmException.
Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS7PADDING", "BC")
Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS7PADDING", Security.getProvider("BC"))
NoSuchAlgorithmException
To resolve this, you should stop specifying a provider and use the default implementation.
In a later Android release, we plan to remove the deprecated functionality from the BC provider entirely. Once removed, any call that requests that functionality from the BC provider (whether by name or instance) will throw NoSuchAlgorithmException.
In a previous post, we announced that the Crypto provider was deprecated beginning in Android Nougat. Since then, any request for the Crypto provider by an application targeting API 23 (Marshmallow) or before would succeed, but requests by applications targeting API 24 (Nougat) or later would fail. In Android P, we plan to remove the Crypto provider entirely. Once removed, any call to SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG", "Crypto") will throw NoSuchProviderException. Please ensure your apps have been updated.
SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG", "Crypto")
NoSuchProviderException
We have just wrapped up the second edition of the Google Play Indie Games Contest in Europe! The iconic Saatchi Gallery in London welcomed 20 developers, from 12 countries, who showcased their games to the audience of gamers, industry experts, and journalists.
The finalists' games were on show to the public, who spent three hours trying out their games and voting for their favourites, alongside the Google Play team. The top 10 finalists were then selected, and went on to pitch their games, and compete for the big prizes in front of our jury.
Please join us in congratulating the winners! They will be bringing home a well-deserved diploma, along with a prize package that will help them reach more gamers worldwide; including premium placement on the Google Play Store, marketing campaigns of up to 100,000 EUR and influencer campaigns of up to 50,000 EUR, the latest Google hardware, tickets to Google I/O, and much more.
It's really inspiring to see the excitement around this second edition, and great to see the new wave of indie games coming from Europe. We are already looking forward to playing the games that will be developed in 2018!
Check out the main winners and the other finalists on the Google Play Store!
Bury me, my love
Playdius
France
A reality-inspired interactive fiction designed for mobile phones. It tells the story of Nour, a Syrian woman trying to reach Europe in hope of a better life.
Old Man's Journey
Broken Rules Interactive Media GmbH
Austria
A story game about life's precious moments, broken dreams, and changed plans.
Yellow
Bart Bonte
Belgium
A puzzle game for you! A love letter to a marvelous colour and to the little wonder called touchscreens. Warning: very yellow!
Captain Tom Galactic Traveler
Picodongames
An open world platformer and space exploration game. Embark on an exploratory mission, discover planets, collect oxygen, play with gravity.
I Love Hue
Zut!
United Kingdom
A minimalist, ambient puzzle game influenced by mindfulness apps and abstract art. Players arrange shuffled mosaics of coloured tiles into perfectly ordered palettes.
Jodeo
Gamebra.in
Turkey
Jodeo is a 2D jelly critter. There's something it's curious about: what if 3D objects and 2D physics are in the same game? How can 2D objects interact with 3D objects?
Kami 2
State of Play
The calming yet addictive puzzle game is back! With over 100 handcrafted puzzles, it takes you on a mind-twisting journey that combines logic and problem-solving.
Kenshō
FIFTYTWO
Russia
A tile sliding puzzle with a wonderful soundtrack. Mysterious things happen in a ruined room. Doors inside that room lead to different worlds and beautiful landscapes.
No More Buttons
Tommy Søreide Kjær
Norway
A hand-drawn platformer where the buttons are part of the environment.
The Big Journey
Catfishbox
Ukraine
Designed for kids and adults alike, this a beautiful, casual adventure. Tilt to roll around and explore a beautiful world with Mr. Whiskers.
What happens to app usage and accessibility when people get new phones? The feedback we've had is that people want apps to work straight out of the box, just like on their old phones.
Developers of successful apps might also be used to thinking about user activation in a model borrowed straight from web. On the web, people register new accounts, activate by finding great features, then become retained when they experience value, and come back repeatedly to use your web page.
The story is much the same on mobile. People register to create new accounts, activate by using your great features, then become retained when they find value and repeatedly launch your app. However, there's one big difference. Android apps typically store more information compared to your average web session. You usually never have to re-enter your password for an Android app for years, post account creation, that is until the moment you get a new phone.
Getting a new phone can be a rare event for many people - some going years between upgrading devices. However, overall a large proportion of those who use your app will get a new phone every year. We have several tools to help you keep people logged in, engaged, and happy when they use your app on a new phone.
Auto Backup for apps should be configured for every application. This feature does exactly what it says - automatically backs up your app data. So when people get a new phone, their app data is automatically restored before your app launches.
To configure Auto Backup for your app you need to setup include/exclude rules:
AndroidManifest.xml
<application ... android:fullBackupContent="@xml/autobackup">
xml/autobackup.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <full-backup-content> <include domain="sharedpref" path="."/> <exclude domain="sharedpref" path="device.xml"/> </full-backup-content>
When configuring include/exclude rules it's important to avoid storing sensitive user data in Auto Backup, although it's a great place to store user specific settings and other app content!
To implement tracking for Auto Backup register a BackupAgent and listen for onQuotaExceeded(long, long) callback. If your app exceeds the 25MB backup limit, this callback will be your notification of failure. In a well configured app this will never happen, so you can track it as a crash report.
Learn more about Auto Backup for apps.
When we talk to people about the experiences they want on their new phones they're very clear; they want your app to remember who they are, and they don't want to re-enter a password. There are several ways you can accomplish this as a developer:
<TextView android:id="@+id/username" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:autofillHints="username" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/password" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:autofillHints="password" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/captcha" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:importantForAutofill="no" />
android:id="@+id/username" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:autofillHints="username" />
If you haven't already, try the Auto Backup for Android Codelab, and SmartLock Codelab.
Improving retention on Android for many people will involve trying to overcome the friction of device switches. With a rich toolbox at your disposal to transfer settings with Auto Backup, and to improve the login experience with Google Sign-In, Smart Lock for Passwords, Autofill, and Account Transfer API, you have the opportunity to deliver a great user story: your app works on people's new phones, just like it did on their old phones.
Play Console
