Android Developers Blog

Posted by Paul Bankhead, Director, Product Management, Google Play  Mobile gaming is more popular than ever. Over the past year, we saw breakout hits, including Pokemon GO , Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes , Clash Royale and Reigns introduce new, high quality gaming experiences on Google Play. Gamers around the world were also able to access Google Play more easily than ever before, helping developers reach a larger audience and grow their businesses. In 2016, nearly 300 million new (30 day active) users adopted Android devices from emerging markets such as India, Brazil, and Indonesia. And last year, more than 100 million new users were able to access locally relevant forms of payments (such as direct carrier billing or gift cards) helping more people globally access and buy their favorite apps and games on Google Play. We've also focused heavily on polishing our software and hardware offerings to improve the overall gaming experience on Android. The release of Nougat delivered hig...

Posted by Agustin Fonts, Product Manager, Android Support Library It's important to keep current when you're dealing with technology. That’s why we're constantly working to improve the quality of our software, particularly libraries that are linked into your apps, such as the Support Library .  The Support Library is a suite of libraries that provides backward compatibility along with additional features across many Android releases. We have just released version 25.2 of the Support Library.  If you're making use of the android.support.v7.media.MediaRouter class in revision 25.1.1 or 25.1.0, we strongly recommend that you update due to a known issue.  If you haven't updated recently, you've missed out on some great bug fixes such as these: 25.2: Corrected a severe mediarouter issue in which using an A2DP Bluetooth device and media routing APIs could cause the device to become unresponsive, requiring a reboot Showing a slide presentation with screen mirroring no...

Posted by Kobi Glick, Product Manager, Google Play Publishing a new app, or app update, is an important and exciting milestone for every developer. In order to make the process smoother and more trackable, we're announcing the launch of a new way to publish apps on Google Play with some new features. The changes will give you the ability to manage your app releases with more confidence via a new m anage releases page in the Google Play Developer Console . Manage your app updates with clarity and control The new manage releases page is where you upload alpha, beta, and production releases of your app. From here, you can see important information and the status of all your releases across tracks. The new manage releases page. Easier access to existing and new publishing features Publishing an app or update is a big step, and one that every developer wants to have confidence in taking. To help, we've added two new features. First, we've added a validation step that highlights...

Posted by  Takeshi Hagikura, Developer Programs Engineer At Google I/O last year we announced ConstraintLayout , which enables you to build complex layouts while maintaining a flat view hierarchy. It is also fully supported in Android Studio's Visual Layout Editor . At the same time, we open sourced FlexboxLayout to bring the same functionalities of the CSS Flexible Layout module to Android. Here are some cases where FlexboxLayout is particularly effective. FlexboxLayout can be interpreted as an advanced LinearLayout because both layouts align their child views sequentially. The significant difference between LinearLayout and FlexboxLayout is that FlexboxLayout has a feature for wrapping. That means if you add the flexWrap="wrap" attribute, FlexboxLayout puts a view to a new line if there is not enough space left in the current line as shown in the picture below. One layout for various screen sizes With that characteristic in mind, let's take a case where you ...

Posted by Matteo Vallone, Google Play Games Business Development Today, at Saatchi Gallery in London, we hosted the final event of the first Google Play Indie Games Contest in Europe. The 20 finalists, selected from nearly 1000 submissions , came from 12 countries to showcase their games to an excited room of gamers, industry experts and press. Selected based on the votes of the attendees and the Google Play team, the Top 10 pitched in front of a jury of industry experts who chose the top winners. Stay tuned for more pictures and a video of the event. Without further ado, join us in congratulating the winners! Winner & Unity prize winner: Reigns , by Nerial, from the United Kingdom You are the King. For each decision, you only have two choices. Survive the exercise of power and the craziness of your advisors... as long as you can. Runners up: The Battle of Polytopia , by Midjiwan AB, from Sweden A turn based strategic adventure. It's a game about ruling the world, fighting...