Android Developers Blog

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Developer Marketing, Google Play Based in Seattle, Big Fish Games was founded in 2002. Starting as a game studio, they quickly turned into a major publisher and distributor of casual games. Leading up to the launch of their hit time management game, Cooking Craze , the team ran an open beta on Google Play. Big Fish Games found that using open beta provided more than 10x the amount of user feedback from around the world, and also gave them access to key metrics and Android Vitals in the Play Console. The ability to monitor game performance metrics pre-launch allowed the team to focus on areas of improvement, which lead to a 21% reduction in crash rate. The larger sample size of beta testers also provided more insights on player behavior and helped achieve a +7% improvement in day 1, day 7, and day 30 retention rates. You can also learn more pre-launch best practices and strategies to improve performance post-launch at our Google Developer Day on Monday, March 19...

Posted by Andrew Ahn, Product Manager, Google Play Apps bring devices to life -- letting you book a ride instantly, connect and share memories with friends, be alerted about current events, play games with someone across the globe, and get work done in the office or on the road. Google Play is committed to providing a safe experience for billions of Android users to find and discover such apps. Over the years, this commitment has made Google Play a more trusted and safer place. Last year we've more than halved the probability of a user installing a bad app, protecting people and their devices from harm's way, and making Google Play a more challenging place for those who seek to abuse the app ecosystem for their own gain. In 2017, we took down more than 700,000 apps that violated the Google Play policies, 70% more than the apps taken down in 2016. Not only did we remove more bad apps, we were able to identify and action against them earlier. In fact, 99% of apps with abusive con...

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Developer Marketing, Google Play We're hosting another Google Developer Day at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) on Monday, March 19th. Join us for a full day, where we'll kick things off with a keynote to share our latest news for game developers, followed by three sessions focused on innovation & new platforms, pre-launch best practices, and strategies to improve performance post-launch. Each session will include mini-talks from different Google teams and developer partners sharing new tools, learnings and more. We'll also have a booth in Moscone South, Wednesday (March 21) through Friday (March 23), offering three days of additional talks from many Google teams and a chance for you to ask the experts any of your questions. Stop by to hear talks, meet experts, and try out exciting demos. These events are part of the official Game Developers Conference and require a pass to attend. Learn more about Google's activities throughou...

Posted by Hoi Lam , Lead Developer Advocate, Android Wear Today we launched the latest version of the Android Wear SDK (2.2.0) with several watch face related enhancements. These include the addition of an unread notification indicator for all watch faces, which is planned to be part of the upcoming consumer release of Android Wear. With the Wear SDK 2.2.0, you can customize the notification indicator or display your own. This feature is available to the developer community early, via the SDK and emulator, so you can verify that the indicator fits the design of your watch face. In addition, we are adding enhancements to the ComplicationDrawable class and publishing the final version of the Wear emulator based on Android Oreo. Introducing the unread notification indicator Notification is a vital part of the Wear experience. As a result, starting from the next consumer release of Wear (version 2.9.0), a dot-shaped indicator will be displayed by default at the bottom of the watch face if...

Posted by Mayank Jain and Scott Roberts of the Android Security team In June 2017, the Android security team increased the top payouts for the Android Security Rewards (ASR) program and worked with researchers to streamline the exploit submission process. In August 2017, Guang Gong ( @oldfresher ) of Alpha Team, Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. submitted the first working remote exploit chain since the ASR program's expansion. For his detailed report, Gong was awarded $105,000, which is the highest reward in the history of the ASR program and $7500 by Chrome Rewards program for a total of $112,500. The complete set of issues was resolved as part of the December 2017 monthly security update. Devices with the security patch level of 2017-12-05 or later are protected from these issues. All Pixel devices or partner devices using A/B (seamless) system updates will automatically install these updates; users must restart their devices to complete the installation. The Android Security t...

Posted by Adriana Puchianu, Developer Marketing Google Play Back in October we launched the 2nd edition of the href="https://events.withgoogle.com/indie-games-contest-2017/">Google Play Indie Games Contest in Europe , with the aim to identify, showcase and reward indie gaming talent from more than 30 countries. We were amazed by the innovation and creativity that indie developers from the region have to offer. Selecting just 20 finalists has once again been a huge challenge. We had a lot of fun playing the games that will go on to showcase at the href="https://events.withgoogle.com/indie-games-contest-2017/final-event/#content">Saatchi Gallery on February 13th in London. Without further ado, we are happy to announce the Top 20 finalists of this year's edition. Congratulations to the finalists and thanks to everyone else who has entered the contest. href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tuesdayquest.myplanet&e=-EnableAppDe...

Testing your in-app subscriptions is a critical step in ensuring you're offering your customers a high quality service. In order to make testing easier and faster, starting on February 20th , we are introducing shorter renewal intervals for test purchases made with license-test accounts. Currently, subscriptions by license-test accounts renew daily. The new changes will allow you to test an entire subscription cycle, including 6 renewals, in under an hour. We will also be shortening the testing time intervals of features such as grace period and account hold. Please be aware that these changes are coming so you can update your testing flows accordingly prior to the change. Also note that existing test subscriptions still active on February 20, 2018 will automatically be canceled at that time. Renewal times Renewal times will vary based on the subscription period: Subscription period Test subscription period 1 week 5 minutes 1 month 5 minut...

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Developer Marketing, Google Play Kicking off the new year, we're excited to welcome our latest group of Android Excellence href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/topic?id=campaign_editorial_3002b4f_android_excellence_apps&hl=en">apps and href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/topic?id=campaign_editorial_3002b50_android_excellence_games&hl=en">games . These awardees represent some of the best experiences and top performing apps and games on the Play Store and can be found with other great selections on the href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/topic?id=editors_choice&hl=en">Editors' Choice page. If you're looking for some new apps, below are a few highlights. href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.baseapp.eyeem&hl=en">EyeEm : A great photo editor app with a full suite of filters and tools to make your pictures shine. Learn style tips from their community an...

By Venkat Rapaka, Director of Product Management, Google The Android Things team has been working closely with our partners to create compelling, secure and thoughtful IoT products. During the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, a number of our OEM partners are announcing their first set of products powered by Android Things. These products are built on certified Android Things System-on-Modules (SoMs) from our silicon partners, benefit from regular feature and security updates from Google, and have the Google Assistant and Google Cast seamlessly built in. New voice-activated speakers powered by Android Things are being announced at CES, including the LG ThinQ WK7 and iHome iGV1. Turnkey hardware solutions based on the Qualcomm SD212 Home Hub Platform, MediaTek MT8516 and Rockchip RK3229 SoM are certified for the Assistant and Cast, and NXP i.MX 8M is coming soon. Three of our Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) partners, href="https://www.tymphany.com/">Tymphany ...