Android Developers Blog

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering The next maintenance release for Android Nougat -- 7.1.2 -- is just around the corner! To get the recipe just right, starting today, we're rolling out a public beta to eligible devices that are enrolled in the Android Beta Program , including Pixel and Pixel XL, Nexus 5X, Nexus Player, and Pixel C devices. We're also preparing an update for Nexus 6P that we expect to release soon. Android 7.1.2 is an incremental maintenance release focused on refinements, so it includes a number of bugfixes and optimizations, along with a small number of enhancements for carriers and users. If you'd like to try the public beta for Android 7.1.2, the easiest way is through the Android Beta Program . If you have an eligible device that's already enrolled, you're all set -- your device will get the public beta update in the next few days and no action is needed on your part. If your device isn't enrolled, it only takes a moment to visit andro...

Posted By Tamzin Taylor, Partner Development at Google Play Major sporting, cultural, political events present an opportunity to re-engage users if you can find a relevant and unique way to serve them information. For example, The Guardian was able to substantially increase user engagement with its mobile app during the recent US election by using new notifications functionality in Android 7.0 Nougat. While notifications themselves are nothing new, The Guardian used innovative techniques and design elements to give their users a rich, real time update on the election results as they happened. How The Guardian innovated with notifications Users who opted-in received a single, continuously updating notification which was persistent on their lock screen as results came in on election night. The notification used avatars of the candidates and a progress bar to bring the information to life. The notification showed the most up-to-date numbers of electoral votes won and states called, an in...

Posted by David Yin, Business Development Manager, Indonesia, Google Play. It is a great time to be a mobile game developer on Android with the opportunity reaching more than a billion global users on Google Play. At the same time, developers in fast growing mobile markets like Indonesia have an additional opportunity in the form of a huge local audience that is hungry for local content. We have already seen thousands of Indonesian developers launch high quality, locally relevant games for this new audience, such as " Tahu Bulat " & " Tebak Gambar ". In our continuous quest to discover, nurture growth, and showcase the best games from Indonesia, we are really happy to announce Indonesia Games Contest . This contest celebrates the passion and great potential of local game developers, and provides an opportunity to raise awareness of your game with global and local industry experts, together with gamers, from across Indonesia. It's also a chance to showcase...

Posted by Hoi Lam , Developer Advocate  Cross platform support by Telegram Messenger Today, we are releasing the fifth and final developer preview for Android Wear 2.0. In this release, we have added iOS support and included a number of bug fixes and enhancements. Apps compiled with this preview are now ready for final submission to the Google Play Store, so it's time to publish your apps . As Android Wear 2.0 approaches its final release in early February, we would like to thank you for your continued feedback during the developer preview program. Your input has helped us uncover bugs as well as drive critical product decisions. Thank you! iOS Support Since 2015 , you've been able to pair Android Wear watches with iPhones, and now you can distribute your apps to iPhone-paired watches as well. To do so, just set the standalone=true flag in your watch app manifest. This lets the Play Store know that your watch app doesn't require an Android phone app, and therefore can appea...

Posted by Aurash Mahbod, Software Engineer, Google Play Android Instant Apps was previewed at Google I/O last year as a new way to run Android apps without requiring installation. Instant Apps is an important part of our effort to help users discover and run apps with minimal friction. We’ve been working with a small number of developers to refine the user and developer experiences. Today, a few of these Instant Apps will be available to Android users for the first time in a limited test, including apps from BuzzFeed, Wish, Periscope, and Viki. By collecting user feedback and iterating on the product, we’ll be able to expand the experience to more apps and more users. To develop an instant app, you’ll need to update your existing Android app to take advantage of Instant Apps functionality and then modularize your app so part of it can be downloaded and run on-the-fly. You’ll use the same Android APIs and Android Studio project. Today, you can also take some important steps to be ...

Posted by Rahul Mishra, Android Security Program Manager In April 2016, the Android Security team described how the Google Play App Security Improvement (ASI) program has helped developers fix security issues in 100,000 applications . Since then, we have detected and notified developers of 11 new security issues and provided developers with resources and guidance to update their apps. Because of this, over 90,000 developers have updated over 275,000 apps! ASI now notifies developers of 26 potential security issues. To make this process more transparent, we introduced a new page where developers can find information about all these security issues in one place. This page includes links to help center articles containing instructions and additional support contacts. Developers can use this page as a resource to learn about new issues and keep track of all past issues. Make sure to check out our new Security for Android Developers page, which highlights the latest security posts, securi...

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Developer Marketing, Google Play Wallapop is a mobile app developer based in Barcelona, Spain. The app provides a platform to users for selling and buying things to others nearby in a virtual flea market by using geolocalization. Wallapop now has over 70% of their user base on Android. Watch Agus Gomez, Co-Founder & CEO, and Marta Gui, Growth Hacking Manager, explain how using store listing experiments has increased their conversion rate by 17%, and has allowed them to optimize organic installs. Learn more about store listing experiments . Get the Playbook for Developers app to stay up-to-date with more features and best practices that will help you grow a successful business on Google Play. How useful did you find this blogpost? ★ ★ ★ ★ ★                                                             ...

Posted by Francesca Di Felice, Developer Marketing at Google Play At Playtime 2016, Google Play's series of developer events, we met with top app and game developers from around the world to share learnings on how to build successful businesses on Google Play. Several startups, including game developer Peaklabs and audio platform SoundCloud, presented on stage their own best practices for growth, which you might find helpful. Testing for growth, by Peak Hear from Kevin Shanahan, Product Manager from Peak , a brain training app, on how to grow sustainably. Test lots of ideas: You can't be sure of what will work and what won't, so you need to test lots of ideas. Peak ran four different tests to try to increase conversions to Pro (their subscriber offering): Made the ability to replay games a Pro feature Reduced price of Pro by 25% in top 2 markets Bundled add-on modules from partners into Pro Showed a preview of Pro-only content           One of these tests ...

Posted by Vineet Tanwar, Business Development Manager, Google Play Indie game developers bring high quality, artistic, and innovative content to Google Play and raise the bar for all developers in the process. In fact, they also make up a large portion of our 'Editor's Choice' recommended titles. Southeast Asia, in particular, has a vibrant indie game developer ecosystem, and we've been working closely with them to provide tools that help them build successful businesses on Google Play. Today, we're sharing stories from three Indie developers based in Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia, who joined us at our 'Indie Game Developers Day' workshops in May 2016 and all of whom have experienced significant growth since. Inzen Studio from Singapore learned how to use store listing experiments and has improved the conversion rate of their newly launched game Dark Dot by 25%. Indonesia based studio, Niji Games, creator of Cute Munchies , implemented 'Saved Games...

Posted by Megan Ruthven, Software Engineer In Android Security, we're constantly working to better understand how to make Android devices operate more smoothly and securely. One security solution included on all devices with Google Play is Verify apps . Verify apps checks if there are Potentially Harmful Apps (PHAs) on your device. If a PHA is found, Verify apps warns the user and enables them to uninstall the app. But, sometimes devices stop checking up with Verify apps. This may happen for a non-security related reason, like buying a new phone, or, it could mean something more concerning is going on. When a device stops checking up with Verify apps, it is considered Dead or Insecure (DOI). An app with a high enough percentage of DOI devices downloading it, is considered a DOI app. We use the DOI metric, along with the other security systems to help determine if an app is a PHA to protect Android users. Additionally, when we discover vulnerabilities, we patch Android devices with ...

Posted by Matteo Vallone, Google Play Games Business Development Back in November, we launched the Google Play Indie Games Contest for developers from 15 European countries, to celebrate the passion and innovation of the indie community in the region. The contest will reward the winners with exposure to industry experts and players worldwide, as well as other prizes that will showcase their art and help them grow their business on Android and Google Play. Thank you to the nearly 1000 of you who submitted high quality games in all types of genres! Your creativity, enthusiasm and dedication have once again impressed us and inspired us. We had a very fun time testing and judging the games based on fun, innovation, design excellence and technical and production quality, and it was challenging to select only 20 finalists: Meet the 20 finalists (In alphabetical order) Blind Drive (coming soon) Lo-Fi People Israel Causality (coming soon) Loju United Kingdom Crap! I'm Broke: Out of Po...