fidzu : Android

Not everyone has 20/20 sight, those of us with impaired vision might be familiar with the TalkBack app that aids smartphone navigation with its spoken feedback. The app has just received an update, and as it so often does, Google has also decided to rename the TalkBack app to the Android Accessibility Suite in the […]

Come comment on this article: Google updates the TalkBack app and renames it to Android Accessibility Suite

22 Jun 2018 2:46pm GMT

Did you want a SNES Classic but couldn't find any in stock over the holidays? Don't worry, we've got your back. We're giving away one of Nintendo's retro consoles through Talk Android Deals, and it's incredibly simple to enter the contest. This console includes a ton of classic games, including hits like The Legend of […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] We're giving away a SNES Classic Edition through Talk Android Deals!

22 Jun 2018 2:00pm GMT

Listening to music when you are out and about is one of life's greatest pleasures. And whether it's hip-hop, rock, or even some trashy euro hits, you can count on Anker having the earphones or speakers to suit your every need as well as your budget with savings of up to 43%. As with all Anker-branded […]

Come comment on this article: [Deal] Save up to 43% on these Earphones and Bluetooth Speakers from Anker

22 Jun 2018 2:00pm GMT

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Starting today, you can download Android Studio 3.2 Beta. Previewed at Google I/O 2018, the latest release of the official Android IDE is focused on helping onboard you to all the new features launched around Google I/O -- Android JetPack, Android P Developer Preview, and the new Android App Bundle format. There are also several other exciting new features included in Android Studio 3.2 to accelerate your app development, such as Emulator Snapshots and the Energy Profiler.

As the usage of Android Studio has grown in the 3.5 years since version 1.0, we have also become increasingly obsessed with quality. We continue to invest in quality because we know that millions of app developers spend almost everyday in Android Studio and need a reliable set of tools. Stability, build times, and other quality work will be the primary focus for our next release once we finish Android Studio 3.2. We also did not want to wait, so we have made checkins to address memory leaks and performance issues as well as fixed more than 450 bugs. Thank you for the continued feedback and please keep it coming so we can focus on the areas you care about most in the next version of Android Studio. If want to try out the latest features, and assess the improvements in quality, you can download Android Studio on the beta release channel.

What is inside of Android Studio 3.2

Building on the canary release of Android Studio 3.2, the Beta release includes:

• Android App Bundle support - The Android App Bundle is a new publishing format that uses the Google Play's Dynamic Delivery, which delivers a smaller, optimized APK that only contains the resources needed for a specific device. Without any code changes, you can take advantage of the app size savings of an Android App Bundle by navigating to Build → Build Bundle / APK or Build → Generate Signed Bundle / APK.

Build Android App Bundle

• Emulator Snapshots - With Android Studio 3.2 you can create snapshots at any emulator state and then start a snapshot in under 2 seconds. You can pre-configure an Android Virtual Device (AVD) snapshot with the apps, data and settings that you want and then repeatedly go back to the same snapshot. Learn more.

Android Emulator Snapshots

• Energy Profiler - The new Energy Profiler in the performance profiler suite can help you understand the energy impact of your app on an Android device. You can now visualize the estimated energy usage of system components, plus inspect background events that may contribute to battery drain.

Energy Profiler

Check out the full write-up of all the major features organized by development flow listed below and on the canary blog:

Develop Navigation Editor AndroidX Refactoring Sample Data Material Design Update Android Slices CMakeList editing What's New Assistant New Lint Checks Intellij Platform Update Build Android App Bundle D8 Desugaring R8 Optimizer

Test Android Emulator Snapshots Screen Record in Android Emulator Virtual Scene Android Emulator Camera ADB Connection Assistant Optimize Energy Profiler System Trace Profiler Sessions Automatic CPU Recording JNI Reference Tracking

Sessions at Google I/O '18

With the release of Android Studio 3.2 at Google I/O '18, the Android Studio team also presented a series of sessions about Android Studio. Watch the following videos to see the latest features in action and to get tips & tricks on how to use Android Studio:

• What's new in Android development tools

  An overview of all the recent features in Android Studio for Android app developers. The session includes demos and a tour de force presentation of relevant features that will accelerate developers' workflow on the latest Android APIs.

• What's new with the Android build system

  A deep dive into the new features of the Android build system.

• What's new with ConstraintLayout and Android Studio design tools

  This session covers the new features in ConstraintLayout 2.0, as well as the latest functionality added in Android Studio design tools, highlighting how to effectively take advantage of them for designing, prototyping, and building a graphical user interface application.

• Improve app performance with Android Studio Profilers

  This talk demonstrates how to diagnose and troubleshoot performance problems with your app using Android Studio Profilers. It covers examples of how to use the CPU, memory, network profilers, and highlight what's new.

• Best practices using compilers in Android Studio

  This session discusses in-depth what is happening to the various compilers used in Android: Java 8 language feature desugaring, the new dexer (D8) and shrinker (R8), and work done on the Kotlin compiler for Android use.

• Android Jetpack: manage UI navigation with Navigation Controller

  This session discusses how to use the Navigation Editor in Android Studio, XML or the Java API to define your navigation graph, and how that simplifies navigating around your app and handling deep linking.

Download & Feedback

Download the latest version of Android Studio 3.2 from the beta channel download page. If you are using a previous versions of Android Studio, make sure you update to Android Studio Beta 1 or higher. If you also want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and beta release versions of Android Studio at the same time. Learn more.

To use the mentioned Android Emulator features make sure you are running at least Android Emulator v27.3+ downloaded via the Android Studio SDK Manager.

Please note, to ensure we maintain product quality, some of the features you saw in the canary channel like Navigation Editor are not enabled by default. To turn on canary release channel features go to File → Settings → Experimental → Editor → Enable Navigation Editor.

If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Connect with us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on our Google+ page or on Twitter.

21 Jun 2018 11:53pm GMT

Posted by Wayne Piekarski, Developer Advocate for IoT +WaynePiekarski @WaynePiekarski

We're releasing a client library to make it easy to use Google Cloud IoT Core from Android Things devices. With just a few lines of code, you can easily connect to the IoT Core MQTT bridge, authenticate the device, publish device telemetry and state, subscribe to configuration changes, and handle errors and network outages.

What is Cloud IoT Core?

Cloud IoT Core is a fully managed service on Google Cloud Platform that allows you to easily and securely connect, manage, and ingest data from millions of globally dispersed devices. Cloud IoT Core, in combination with other services which make up Google's Cloud IoT platform, provides a complete solution for collecting, processing, analyzing, and visualizing IoT data in real time, to support improved operational efficiency, compliance, or revenue management. Android Things is designed to support everything from collecting telemetry data to powerful computer vision, audio processing, and machine learning applications, all on device, and using Cloud IoT Core, push your data into Google Cloud Platform for further analysis.

Cloud IoT Core client library

The Cloud IoT Core client library was designed to enable Android Things developers to get started with just a few lines of code. The client library handles the networking, threading, and message handling, implementing best practices for authentication, security, error handling, and offline operation.

Cloud IoT Core maintains a device registry that keeps track of approved devices, and each device uses a public key to authenticate with the server. Android Things provides many features to support secure IoT applications, including a hardware-backed Android Keystore that ensures cryptographic key material is protected. The client library supports both RSA and ECC keys, and implements the generation of JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for authentication with Cloud IoT Core.

Once the connection is established, devices can publish their telemetry data to one or more buckets in the telemetry topic, as well as report their internal state to a separate device state topic. The device state is intended to store information such as software versions or the number of working sensors. The telemetry messages are for all other data from the device, such as actual sensor measurements. Devices can also subscribe to configuration changes published from Cloud IoT Core.

Because IoT devices operate in the real world with poor wireless conditions, the client library provides extensive support for handling errors, and for caching and retransmitting events later. For developers requiring custom offline behavior, the library's queue is configurable and even replaceable. This provides detailed control over which events to save and the order in which they are sent when back online.

Device provisioning and authentication with Android Things

The Cloud IoT Core client library is part of our overall vision for device provisioning and authentication with Android Things. To learn more about this, watch the video of our presentation from Google I/O 2018:

Sample code

Getting started with the Cloud IoT Core client library is simple. You can simply add the following to the build.gradle file in your Android Things project:

implementation 'com.google.android.things:cloud-iot-core:1.0.0'

The library is also available as open source on GitHub if you prefer to build it yourself. We also have a sample that shows how to implement a sensor hub on Android Things, collecting sensor data from connected sensors and publishing them to a Google Cloud IoT Pub/Sub topic.

It is easy to start using the client library in your own code. The following Kotlin example demonstrates how to create a new configuration and client based on your project.

var configuration = IotCoreConfiguration.Builder().
                         .setProjectId("my-gcp-project")
                         .setRegistry("my-device-registry", "us-central1")
                         .setDeviceId("my-device-id")
                         .setKeyPair(keyPairObject)
                         .build()

var iotCoreClient = IotCoreClient.Builder()
              .setIotCoreConfiguration(configuration)
              .setOnConfigurationListener(onConfigurationListener)
              .setConnectionCallback(connectionCallback)
              .build()

iotCoreClient.connect()

Next, you can publish telemetry information or device state, using the following Kotlin examples.

private fun publishTelemetry(temperature: Float, humidity: Float) {
    // payload is an arbitrary, application-specific array of bytes
    val examplePayload = """{
        |"temperature" : $temperature,
        |"humidity": $humidity
        |}""".trimMargin().toByteArray()
    val event = TelemetryEvent(examplePayload, topicSubpath, TelemetryEvent.QOS_AT_LEAST_ONCE)
    iotCoreClient.publishTelemetry(event)
}

private fun publishDeviceState(telemetryFrequency: Int, enabledSensors: Array<String>) {
    // payload is an arbitrary, application-specific array of bytes
    val examplePayload = """{
        |"telemetryFrequency": $telemetryFrequency,
        |"enabledSensors": ${enabledSensors.contentToString()}
        |}""".trimMargin().toByteArray()
    iotCoreClient.publishDeviceState(examplePayload)
}

Additional resources

You can learn more about building for Android Things at the developer site. For more information about getting started with Cloud IoT Core, visit the information page and documentation. Finally, join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+ to let us know what you're building with Android Things and Cloud IoT Core!

21 Jun 2018 9:13pm GMT

Amazon's Prime devices are cheaper ways to get new devices, and now that they've removed all the intrusive lock screen advertisements it ends up being a really great deal, if you're a Prime subscriber. The next two devices to join the part are both from Motorola, so if you've been thinking about grabbing a Moto […]

Come comment on this article: Amazon and Motorola add the Moto G6 Play and Z3 Play to the Prime family

21 Jun 2018 7:00pm GMT

When AT&T launched DirecTV Now it turned into one of the most compelling options for OTT streaming, if you wanted a ton of channels like a traditional cable package. It's hard to argue with the massive lineup on DirecTV Now, but that means that its base package starts at just $35 per month, barring any discounts. So […]

Come comment on this article: AT&T debuts their skinny Watch TV service to fend off Sling TV

21 Jun 2018 5:15pm GMT

Posted by Vishwath Mohan, Security Engineer

To keep users safe, most apps and devices have an authentication mechanism, or a way to prove that you're you. These mechanisms fall into three categories: knowledge factors, possession factors, and biometric factors. Knowledge factors ask for something you know (like a PIN or a password), possession factors ask for something you have (like a token generator or security key), and biometric factors ask for something you are (like your fingerprint, iris, or face).

Biometric authentication mechanisms are becoming increasingly popular, and it's easy to see why. They're faster than typing a password, easier than carrying around a separate security key, and they prevent one of the most common pitfalls of knowledge-factor based authentication-the risk of shoulder surfing.

As more devices incorporate biometric authentication to safeguard people's private information, we're improving biometrics-based authentication in Android P by:

• Defining a better model to measure biometric security, and using that to functionally constrain weaker authentication methods.
• Providing a common platform-provided entry point for developers to integrate biometric authentication into their apps.

A better security model for biometrics

Currently, biometric unlocks quantify their performance today with two metrics borrowed from machine learning (ML): False Accept Rate (FAR), and False Reject Rate (FRR).

In the case of biometrics, FAR measures how often a biometric model accidentally classifies an incorrect input as belonging to the target user-that is, how often another user is falsely recognized as the legitimate device owner. Similarly, FRR measures how often a biometric model accidentally classifies the user's biometric as incorrect-that is, how often a legitimate device owner has to retry their authentication. The first is a security concern, while the second is problematic for usability.

Both metrics do a great job of measuring the accuracy and precision of a given ML (or biometric) model when applied to random input samples. However, because neither metric accounts for an active attacker as part of the threat model, they do not provide very useful information about its resilience against attacks.

In Android 8.1, we introduced two new metrics that more explicitly account for an attacker in the threat model: Spoof Accept Rate (SAR) and Imposter Accept Rate (IAR). As their names suggest, these metrics measure how easily an attacker can bypass a biometric authentication scheme. Spoofing refers to the use of a known-good recording (e.g. replaying a voice recording or using a face or fingerprint picture), while impostor acceptance means a successful mimicking of another user's biometric (e.g. trying to sound or look like a target user).

Strong vs. Weak Biometrics

We use the SAR/IAR metrics to categorize biometric authentication mechanisms as either strong or weak. Biometric authentication mechanisms with an SAR/IAR of 7% or lower are strong, and anything above 7% is weak. Why 7% specifically? Most fingerprint implementations have a SAR/IAR metric of about 7%, making this an appropriate standard to start with for other modalities as well. As biometric sensors and classification methods improve, this threshold can potentially be decreased in the future.

This binary classification is a slight oversimplification of the range of security that different implementations provide. However, it gives us a scalable mechanism (via the tiered authentication model) to appropriately scope the capabilities and the constraints of different biometric implementations across the ecosystem, based on the overall risk they pose.

While both strong and weak biometrics will be allowed to unlock a device, weak biometrics:

• require the user to re-enter their primary PIN, pattern, password or a strong biometric to unlock a device after a 4-hour window of inactivity, such as when left at a desk or charger. This is in addition to the 72-hour timeout that is enforced for both strong and weak biometrics.
• are not supported by the forthcoming BiometricPrompt API, a common API for app developers to securely authenticate users on a device in a modality-agnostic way.
• can't authenticate payments or participate in other transactions that involve a KeyStore auth-bound key.
• must show users a warning that articulates the risks of using the biometric before it can be enabled.

These measures are intended to allow weaker biometrics, while reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

BiometricPrompt API

Starting in Android P, developers can use the BiometricPrompt API to integrate biometric authentication into their apps in a device and biometric agnostic way. BiometricPrompt only exposes strong modalities, so developers can be assured of a consistent level of security across all devices their application runs on. A support library is also provided for devices running Android O and earlier, allowing applications to utilize the advantages of this API across more devices .

Here's a high-level architecture of BiometricPrompt.

The API is intended to be easy to use, allowing the platform to select an appropriate biometric to authenticate with instead of forcing app developers to implement this logic themselves. Here's an example of how a developer might use it in their app:

Conclusion

Biometrics have the potential to both simplify and strengthen how we authenticate our digital identity, but only if they are designed securely, measured accurately, and implemented in a privacy-preserving manner.

We want Android to get it right across all three. So we're combining secure design principles, a more attacker-aware measurement methodology, and a common, easy to use biometrics API that allows developers to integrate authentication in a simple, consistent, and safe manner.

Acknowledgements: This post was developed in joint collaboration with Jim Miller

21 Jun 2018 4:53pm GMT

Amazon announced its latest addition to its range of streaming devices, the Fire TV Cube, just a couple of weeks ago. Marrying up Alexa, 4K streaming as well as the usual Fire TV functions into a single device, the Fire TV Cube promises to clear up the clutter beneath your TV. You can use the Fire […]

Come comment on this article: Amazon's Fire TV Cube is officially on sale

21 Jun 2018 3:00pm GMT

Streaming services are great, but sometimes you don't have a reliable connection or you just really want your videos offline. That can be hard to do without knowing what you're doing, but that's where PullTube comes in. Right now we're offering a lifetime license for PullTube, a program that will effortlessly save your favorite videos […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Download your favorite videos with a discounted PullTube license!

21 Jun 2018 2:49pm GMT

After its recent announcement at E3, Pokémon Quest has made its appearance on the Play Store in the form of a pre-registration page. Pokémon fans won't have too long to wait because it is scheduled for a June 16 launch, just a few days away from now. Pokémon Quest, if you were wondering, is a free-to-play […]

Come comment on this article: Pokémon Quest pre-registration page is live on the Play Store

21 Jun 2018 2:00pm GMT

This past weekend OnePlus announced they were rolling out a small but important update the OxygenOS operating system for the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T smartphones. Although the update is small, it does include an important security update. According to OnePlus, the update brings OxygenOS up to version 5.1.3. The security issue OnePlus addresses […]

Come comment on this article: OxygenOS update rolling out for OnePlus 5 and 5T

21 Jun 2018 1:00pm GMT

Even though it is a mid-range phone, Motorola is off to a strong start with keeping the Moto X4 up to date with Android updates. On Wednesday they started rolling out the Android 8.1 Oreo update today for unlocked and Amazon Prime versions of the phone. These versions join the Android One variant that got […]

Come comment on this article: Motorola Moto X4 getting Android 8.1 Oreo update

21 Jun 2018 12:00pm GMT

Google is rolling out a new feature for the Google Home family that will pair the smart speaker with Tasty recipes, helping you to fully cook meals completely hands free. It's a pretty literal take on the Assistant part of Google Assistant, but hey, you can use all the kitchen help you can get. Google […]

Come comment on this article: Let your Google Home help you cook with Tasty recipes

21 Jun 2018 4:40am GMT

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.

More control for subscribers

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:

• View all of their subscriptions to see details and status
• Manage and update payment methods, including setting up a backup payment method
• Renew a subscription
• Restore a cancelled subscription
• Cancel a subscription

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.

More control for you

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:

• Upgrade a subscription without changing the user's expiration date
• Issue a partial refund from the Play Console
• Refund specific subscription renewals, not just the latest one
• Use order IDs with the server-side API
• Use the Refund API with the Google Play Developer API

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.

Better for everyone

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.

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20 Jun 2018 5:00pm GMT

It's around three and a half months since Samsung launched its Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones at MWC 2018, garnering a solid reception with our very own Jared Peters said in his review that it was "arguably the most complete package on the market." If you are looking to buy the Galaxy S9 or S9+ […]

Come comment on this article: Galaxy S9 and S9+ available to buy in Sunrise Gold from June 24

20 Jun 2018 4:30pm GMT

Whether it's topping up your smartphone's battery, recording the road ahead on your drive home, or protecting your phone from the elements, Anker's latest deals have you covered with savings from $3 to $20 when buying from your favorite online retailer. Join us after the break for more details. Anker, Eufy, ZOLO, and Roav products all […]

Come comment on this article: [Deal] Save up to $20 on these accessories from Anker

20 Jun 2018 3:45pm GMT

If you do any kind of creative work, you most likely know how popular Adobe's programs are. They're basically the standard for tons of hobbies and careers at this point, and we want to help you fully master some of those programs with the CC Training bundle. This bundle includes courses and lessons for several […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Master Adobe's Creative Cloud with this CC training bundle

20 Jun 2018 2:50pm GMT

Google recently rolled out YouTube Music, their latest attempt at a cohesive streaming service. It brought some changes from the original YouTube Music app and YouTube Red but also deviates from Google's previous music streaming app, Google Play Music. So what exactly is the difference between these two? Let's find out. Interface If you've seen […]

Come comment on this article: YouTube Music vs Google Play Music: Everything you need to know

20 Jun 2018 2:00pm GMT

Posted by James Bender, Product Manager, Google Play

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.

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19 Jun 2018 4:55pm GMT

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.

Share your story

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.

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18 Jun 2018 8:00am GMT

Posted by David Brazdil and Nicolas Geoffray, Software Engineers

In Android, we care immensely about providing the best experience to our users and our developers. With each OS release, new features enable you to provide amazing experiences for users; however, we noticed that some app developers have been using non-SDK interfaces, which leads to increased crashes for users and emergency rollouts for developers. We want to do better and need your help to ensure that Android is stable with each new OS.

Three months ago, we announced our plans to start restricting the usage of non-SDK interfaces in Android P. We know these restrictions can impact your release workflow, and we want to make sure you have the tools to detect usage of non-SDK interfaces, as well as time in your planning for adjusting to the new policies and for giving us feedback.

In the Developer Preview and Beta 1, we have provided ways for you to see the impact of these restrictions on your app. In the Developer Preview, use of restricted APIs show up in logs and toast messages, and in Beta 1, we provided a StrictMode policy that allows you to programmatically find these restrictions and do your own logging. For example:

We understand there can be multiple reasons apps want to use non-SDK interfaces, and ensuring your app will continue to work in Android P is important to us. Many of you have explained your use cases through our issue tracker (thank you!), and for most of these requests, we have lifted the restrictions on specific non-SDK interfaces for Android P by adding them to the greylist. In addition, our team has conducted static analysis on millions of apps and processed thousands of automated reports from internal and external beta testers. Through this analysis, we have identified additional non-SDK interfaces that apps rely on and added them to the greylist. For everything on the greylist, we will be investigating public SDK alternatives for future releases. However, it's possible we may have missed some non-SDK interface uses, so we have made the majority of them available for apps whose target SDK is Android Oreo or below.

In summary, apps running on Android P will be subject to restricted usage of non-SDK interfaces. If you are targeting Android P, the greylist shows the non-SDK interfaces that will still be available, while all other non-SDK interfaces will not be accessible. If you are targeting Android Oreo or below, most restrictions will not apply, but you will get logcat warnings if you are accessing non-SDK interfaces that are not in the greylist (note that users don't see such warnings).

Try out our new Beta 2 release and use StrictMode to detect your non-SDK interfaces usage. You should expect Beta 2 to closely match what the final release will implement for restricting non-SDK interface usages. Also, please take a look at our new FAQ, which we hope will answer any questions you have around the feature. If not, let us know!

12 Jun 2018 4:10pm GMT

Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Wear OS by Google

From the outset of the Wear OS by Google developer preview, battery life has been a major focus area. When we talked to the developer community, the update that attracted the most feedback was the disabling of alarms and jobs for background apps. After listening to developer feedback and reviewing the battery statistics, we are reversing this change. This should be reflected in all connected Wear OS preview devices, so there is no need to reflash your device.

App Standby Buckets

The decision came as we reviewed the feedback and saw that a strict on/off setting prevents reasonable usage and promotes anti-patterns. Going forward, we plan to leverage the App Standby Buckets feature in Android P to fine-tune a suitable setting for Wear OS devices. The exact setting for alarms and jobs for background apps is still being iterated on. Developers are advised to follow the best practices to make sure their apps behave well, whichever bucket the apps are in.

Input and data privacy in background apps

Another area that developers should pay attention to is the strengthening of input and data privacy for background apps in Android P. Depending on an app's requirements, developers may need to use a foreground service to enable access to the device sensor throughout the day.

Please give us your feedback

We expect to provide more updates to this preview before the final production release. Please submit any bugs you find via the Wear OS by Google issue tracker. The earlier you submit them, the higher the likelihood that we can include the fixes in the final release.

11 Jun 2018 6:47pm GMT

Posted By Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Four weeks ago at Google I/O we released the first beta version of Android P, putting AI at the core of the operating system and focusing on intelligent and simple experiences.

We talked about some of Android's newest features in the keynotes and went deep on the developer APIs during the breakouts. If you missed the livestream, make sure to check out the full playlist of Android talks.

Today we're releasing Android P Beta 2, an update that includes the final Android P APIs, the latest system images, and updated developer tools to help you get ready for the consumer release coming later in the summer.

You can get Android P Beta 2 on Pixel devices by enrolling here. If you're already enrolled and received the Android P Beta 1 on your Pixel device, you'll automatically get the update to Beta 2. Partners that are participating in the Android P Beta program will be updating their devices over the coming weeks.

Enhance your app with Android P features and APIs

Android P Beta 2 is the latest update of our upcoming Android P platform and includes the final APIs (API level 28) as well as the official SDK. You can get started building with the Android P features and APIs today. Here are a few we want you to try -- head over to the features overview for more.

Machine learning at the core

We partnered with DeepMind on a feature we call Adaptive Battery that uses machine learning to prioritize system resources for the apps the user cares about most. If your app is optimized for Doze, App Standby, and Background Limits, Adaptive Battery should work well for you right out of the box. Make sure to check out the details in the power documentation to see how it works and where the impacts could be, and test your apps to make sure they are ready.

App Actions is a new way to help you raise the visibility of your app and help drive engagement. Actions take advantage of machine learning on Android to surface your app to the user at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and the user's context. Actions work on Android P and earlier versions of the platform and they'll be available soon for you to start using. Sign up here to be notified when Actions are available.

Slices are a new way to surface rich, templated content in places like Google Search and Assistant. They're interactive, and through Android Jetpack they're compatible all the way back to KitKat. Check out the Getting Started guide to learn how to build with Slices -- you can use the SliceViewer tool to see how your Slices look. Over time we plan to expand the number of places that your Slices can appear, including remote display in other apps.

Simplicity, polish

Android P adds platform support for screens with display cutouts, and we've added new APIs to let you deliver a rich, edge-to-edge experience on the latest screens. Cutout support works seamlessly for apps, with the system managing status bar height to separate your content from the cutout. If you have immersive content, you can use the display cutout APIs to check the position and shape of the cutout and request full-screen layout around it.

All developers should check out the docs to learn how to manage the cutout area and avoid common compatibility issues that can affect apps. Make sure to test your app on a device that has a display cutout, such as one of the Android P Beta devices.

Apps with immersive content can display content fullscreen on devices with a display cutout.

If your app uses messaging notifications, take advantage of the changes in MessagingStyle that make notifications even more useful and actionable. You can now show conversations, attach photos and stickers, and even suggest smart replies. You'll soon be able to use ML Kit to generate smart reply suggestions your app.

MessagingStyle notifications with conversations and smart replies [left], images and stickers [right].

Security

With a range of biometric sensors in use for authentication, we've made the experience more consistent across sensor types and apps. Android P introduces a system-managed dialog to prompt the user for any supported type of biometric authentication. Apps no longer need to build their own dialog -- instead they use the BiometricPrompt API to show the standard system dialog. In addition to Fingerprint (including in-display sensors), the API supports Face and Iris authentication.

If your app is drawing its own fingerprint auth dialogs, you should switch to using the BiometricPrompt API as soon as possible.

More

If your app uses the device camera, try the new multi-camera APIs that let you access streams simultaneously from two or more physical cameras. On devices with dual cameras, you can create innovative features not possible with a single camera -- such as seamless zoom, bokeh, and stereo vision. You can get started today using any of the Android P Beta devices that offers a dual camera.

Audio apps can use the Dynamics Processing API for access to a multi-stage, multi-band dynamics processing effect to modify the audio coming out of Android devices and optimize it according to the preferences of the listener or the ambient conditions. Take a look at the Android P features overview for a complete list of the new features and APIs.

Get started in a few simple steps

First, make your app compatible and give your users a seamless transition to Android P. Just install your current app from Google Play on a Android P Beta device or emulator and test -- the app should run and look great, and handle Android P behavior change for all apps properly. After you've made any necessary updates, we recommend publishing to Google Play right away without changing the app's platform targeting.

If you don't have a supported device, remember that you can set up an Android Virtual Device on the Android Emulator as your test environment instead. If you haven't tried the emulator recently, you'll find that it's incredibly fast, boots in under 6 seconds, and even lets you model next-gen screens -- such as long screens and screens with display cutout.

Next, update your app's targetSdkVersion to 28 as soon as possible, so Android P users of your app can benefit from the platform's latest security, performance, and stability features. If your app is already targeting API 26+ in line with Google Play's upcoming policies, then changing to target 28 should be a small jump.

It's also important to test your apps for uses of non-SDK interfaces and reduce your reliance on them. As noted previously, in Android P we're starting a gradual process to restrict access to selected non-SDK interfaces. Watch for logcat warnings that highlight direct uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces and try the new StrictMode method detectNonSdkApiUsage() to catch accesses programmatically. Where possible, you should move to using public equivalents from the Android SDK or NDK. If there's no public API that meets your use-case, please let us know.

When you're ready, dive into Android P and learn about the new features and APIs to extend your apps. To build with the new APIs, just download the official API 28 SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.1, or use the latest version of Android Studio 3.2. Then update your project's compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion to API 28.

Visit the Developer Preview site for details and documentation. Also check out this video and the Google I/O Android playlist for more on what's new in Android P for developers.

Publish to Google Play alpha, beta, or production channels

Starting today you can publish your APK updates that are compiled against, or optionally targeting, API 28. Publishing an update to Google Play during the preview lets you push updates to users to test compatibility on existing devices, including devices running Android P Beta 2.

To make sure that your updated app runs well on Android P as well as older versions, a common strategy is to use Google Play's beta testing feature to get early feedback from a small group of users -- including Android P Beta 2 users - and then do a staged rollout to production.

How to get Android P Beta 2

For Pixel devices, you can enroll your device in the Android Beta program and you'll automatically receive the update to Android P Beta 2 over-the-air. If you're already enrolled and received Beta 1, watch for the update coming your way soon. Partners that are participating in the Android P Beta program will be updating their devices over the coming weeks.

You can see the full list of supported partner and Pixel devices at android.com/beta. For each device you'll find specs and links to the manufacturer's dedicated site for downloads, support, and to report issues.

Thanks for all of your feedback so far. Please continue to share feedback or requests as we work towards the consumer release later this summer. Feel free to use our hotlists for platform issues, app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues.

We're looking forward to seeing your apps on Android P!

06 Jun 2018 5:05pm GMT

Posted by Giles Hogben, Privacy Engineer and Milinda Perera, Software Engineer

Developers already use HTTPS to communicate with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). The channel between FCM server endpoint and the device is encrypted with SSL over TCP. However, messages are not encrypted end-to-end (E2E) between the developer server and the user device unless developers take special measures.

To this end, we advise developers to use keys generated on the user device to encrypt push messages end-to-end. But implementing such E2E encryption has historically required significant technical knowledge and effort. That is why we are excited to announce the Capillary open source library which greatly simplifies the implementation of E2E-encryption for push messages between developer servers and users' Android devices.

We also added functionality for sending messages that can only be decrypted on devices that have recently been unlocked. This is designed to support decrypting messages on devices using File-Based Encryption (FBE): encrypted messages are cached in Device Encrypted (DE) storage and message decryption keys are stored in Android Keystore, requiring user authentication. This allows developers to specify messages with sensitive content, that remain encrypted in cached form until the user has unlocked and decrypted their device.

The library handles:

• Crypto functionality and key management across all versions of Android back to KitKat (API level 19).
• Key generation and registration workflows.
• Message encryption (on the server) and decryption (on the client).
• Integrity protection to prevent message modification.
• Caching of messages received in unauthenticated contexts to be decrypted and displayed upon device unlock.
• Edge-cases, such as users adding/resetting device lock after installing the app, users resetting app storage, etc.

The library supports both RSA encryption with ECDSA authentication and Web Push encryption, allowing developers to re-use existing server-side code developed for sending E2E-encrypted Web Push messages to browser-based clients.

Along with the library, we are also publishing a demo app (at last, the Google privacy team has its own messaging app!) that uses the library to send E2E-encrypted FCM payloads from a gRPC-based server implementation.

What it's not

• The open source library and demo app are not designed to support peer-to-peer messaging and key exchange. They are designed for developers to send E2E-encrypted push messages from a server to one or more devices. You can protect messages between the developer's server and the destination device, but not directly between devices.
• It is not a comprehensive server-side solution. While core crypto functionality is provided, developers will need to adapt parts of the sample server-side code that are specific to their architecture (for example, message composition, database storage for public keys, etc.)

You can find more technical details describing how we've architected and implemented the library and demo here.

05 Jun 2018 5:00pm GMT

Posted by Christina Chiou Yeh, Google Registry

On May 1 we announced .app, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry. It's now open for general registration so you can register your desired .app name right now. Check out what some of our early adopters are already doing on .app around the globe.

We begin our journey with sitata.app, which provides real-time travel information about events like protests or transit strikes. Looks all clear, so our first stop is the Caribbean, where we use thelocal.app and start exploring. After getting some sun, we fly to the Netherlands, where we're feeling hungry. Luckily, picnic.app delivers groceries, right to our hotel. With our bellies full, it's time to head to India, where we use myra.app to order the medicine, hygiene, and baby products that we forgot to pack. Did we mention this was a business trip? Good thing lola.app helped make such a complex trip stress free.

We hope these apps inspire you to also find your home on .app! Visit get.app to choose a registrar partner to register your domain.

01 Jun 2018 7:24pm GMT

Posted by Shawn Willden, Staff Software Engineer

Our smart devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, contain a wealth of personal information that needs to be kept safe. Google is constantly trying to find new and better ways to protect that valuable information on Android devices. From partnering with external researchers to find and fix vulnerabilities, to adding new features to the Android platform, we work to make each release and new device safer than the last. This post talks about Google's strategy for making the encryption on Google Pixel 2 devices resistant to various levels of attack-from platform, to hardware, all the way to the people who create the signing keys for Pixel devices.

We encrypt all user data on Google Pixel devices and protect the encryption keys in secure hardware. The secure hardware runs highly secure firmware that is responsible for checking the user's password. If the password is entered incorrectly, the firmware refuses to decrypt the device. This firmware also limits the rate at which passwords can be checked, making it harder for attackers to use a brute force attack.

To prevent attackers from replacing our firmware with a malicious version, we apply digital signatures. There are two ways for an attacker to defeat the signature checks and install a malicious replacement for firmware: find and exploit vulnerabilities in the signature-checking process or gain access to the signing key and get their malicious version signed so the device will accept it as a legitimate update. The signature-checking software is tiny, isolated, and vetted with extreme thoroughness. Defeating it is hard. The signing keys, however, must exist somewhere, and there must be people who have access to them.

In the past, device makers have focused on safeguarding these keys by storing the keys in secure locations and severely restricting the number of people who have access to them. That's good, but it leaves those people open to attack by coercion or social engineering. That's risky for the employees personally, and we believe it creates too much risk for user data.

To mitigate these risks, Google Pixel 2 devices implement insider attack resistance in the tamper-resistant hardware security module that guards the encryption keys for user data. This helps prevent an attacker who manages to produce properly signed malicious firmware from installing it on the security module in a lost or stolen device without the user's cooperation. Specifically, it is not possible to upgrade the firmware that checks the user's password unless you present the correct user password. There is a way to "force" an upgrade, for example when a returned device is refurbished for resale, but forcing it wipes the secrets used to decrypt the user's data, effectively destroying it.

The Android security team believes that insider attack resistance is an important element of a complete strategy for protecting user data. The Google Pixel 2 demonstrated that it's possible to protect users even against the most highly-privileged insiders. We recommend that all mobile device makers do the same. For help, device makers working to implement insider attack resistance can reach out to the Android security team through their Google contact.

Acknowledgements: This post was developed in joint collaboration with Paul Crowley, Senior Software Engineer

31 May 2018 5:01pm GMT

Melissa Daniels, Program Manager for Android Things

Android Things enables you to build and maintain IoT devices at scale. We recently released Android Things 1.0 with long-term support for production devices, so you can easily take an IoT device from prototype to commercial product.

We packed Google I/O this year with Android Things content to inspire and empower the developer community, from talks and codelabs to interactive demos and a scavenger hunt. Here's a closer look at the fun stuff we had on display that you won't see on the shelves of retail stores.

Demos

We introduced a handful of new interactive Android Things demos across I/O, showcasing the AI and ML capabilities of the platform, so if you didn't get an opportunity to attend this year, here's a few of our favorites-- perfect for exploring from wherever you are in the world!

Smart Flowers: Flos Mobilis

What do you get when you combine machine learning, Android Things and robotics? Flos Mobilis, a continuum robot where each flower is backed by an i.MX7D development board and a camera to run an embedded neural net model that controls the motion of the flower. This is all done offline with no data stored or transmitted.

Smart Flowers: Flos Affectus

What if a robot could respond to the way you feel? Flos Affectus is a cluster of robotic flowers that "bloom" and "un-bloom" depending on the expression detected on the user's face. The 4 broad expressions Flos Affectus is trained to detect are: happy, sad, angry, surprised. Using a camera embedded in the head of the alpha flower, the flower cluster is able to detect the user's face and infer the facial emotion. The flower cluster runs offline with no data stored or transmitted and demonstrates movement capabilities and on-device machine learning models.

Rosie the Android

Initially designed by a team of Google engineers for the annual Grace Hopper conference, Rosie the Android is a 5 foot selfie-taking Android, complete with machine-learning capabilities. Inspired by Rosie the Riveter, she's a fully controllable robot that can take photos, respond to commands, wheel around and interact with those around her.

Did you take a selfie with Rosie at I/O? Redeem your unique access code at g.co/rosie

Smart Projector

Smart Projector is built on Lantern, an Android Things project exploring the relationship between surfaces and content - augmenting real-world objects and environments with glanceable, meaningful data. It leverages the Google Experiments project known as Quick Draw, using the world's largest doodling data set that has been shared publicly to help with machine learning research.

To learn more about Lantern or to start building your own, start here.

3D Printer

This modified Printrbot Smalls 3D Printer uses a real-time subsystem that showcases the flexibility of Android Things-- a microcontroller does the low-latency motor control, while Android Things handles OpenGL rendering. By keeping most of the logic on a high-level platform like Android you make development and debugging much easier, thanks to Android's great tooling.

The future of 3D printing? Making real-time control as easy and portable as the rest of Android Things.

Codelabs

Phew! That was just the tip of the demo iceberg. With so many demos and so many ways to use Android Things, it's easy to start imagining all the things you can build! At I/O, we helped a lot of developers get started building their first Android Things device using the Android Things Starter Kit. We're making these codelabs available, so you can get to them whenever you need, or build your own.

Videos

Missed the I/O talks? Catch the recordings of each Android Things talk, so you can start, pause, and rewind at your own leisure. Or, just lean back and watch them all.

What's new in Android Things

Build effective OEM-level apps on Android Things

Build real consumer devices with Android Things

Electronic design for Android Things System on Modules

Women Techmakers panel: experiences developing on Android Things

Product design: how to build better products with Android Things

Device provisioning and authentication with Android Things

Update production devices in the field with the Android Things Console

Start building!

On top of all the resources we just mentioned, we have a corpus of information on our developer documentation, and our new community website where you can see more inspiring projects and even submit your own. So, what are you waiting for? Pick up an Android Things Starter Kit and start building something today!

25 May 2018 5:27pm GMT

Posted by Sai Deep Tetali, Software Engineer, Google Play Protect

At Google I/O 2017, we introduced Google Play Protect, our comprehensive set of security services for Android. While the name is new, the smarts powering Play Protect have protected Android users for years.

Google Play Protect's suite of mobile threat protections are built into more than 2 billion Android devices, automatically taking action in the background. We're constantly updating these protections so you don't have to think about security: it just happens. Our protections have been made even smarter by adding machine learning elements to Google Play Protect.

Security at scale

Google Play Protect provides in-the-moment protection from potentially harmful apps (PHAs), but Google's protections start earlier.

Before they're published in Google Play, all apps are rigorously analyzed by our security systems and Android security experts. Thanks to this process, Android devices that only download apps from Google Play are 9 times less likely to get a PHA than devices that download apps from other sources.

After you install an app, Google Play Protect continues its quest to keep your device safe by regularly scanning your device to make sure all apps are behaving properly. If it finds an app that is misbehaving, Google Play Protect either notifies you, or simply removes the harmful app to keep your device safe.

Our systems scan over 50 billion apps every day. To keep on the cutting edge of security, we look for new risks in a variety of ways, such as identifying specific code paths that signify bad behavior, investigating behavior patterns to correlate bad apps, and reviewing possible PHAs with our security experts.

In 2016, we added machine learning as a new detection mechanism and it soon became a critical part of our systems and tools.

Training our machines

In the most basic terms, machine learning means training a computer algorithm to recognize a behavior. To train the algorithm, we give it hundreds of thousands of examples of that behavior.

In the case of Google Play Protect, we are developing algorithms that learn which apps are "potentially harmful" and which are "safe." To learn about PHAs, the machine learning algorithms analyze our entire catalog of applications. Then our algorithms look at hundreds of signals combined with anonymized data to compare app behavior across the Android ecosystem to find PHAs. They look for behavior common to PHAs, such as apps that attempt to interact with other apps on the device, access or share your personal data, download something without your knowledge, connect to phishing websites, or bypass built-in security features.

When we find apps exhibit similar malicious behavior, we group them into families. Visualizing these PHA families helps us uncover apps that share similarities to known bad apps, but have yet remained under our radar.

After we identify a new PHA, we confirm our findings with expert security reviews. If the app in question is a PHA, Google Play Protect takes action on the app and then we feed information about that PHA back into our algorithms to help find more PHAs.

Doubling down on security

So far, our machine learning systems have successfully detected 60.3% of the malware identified by Google Play Protect in 2017.

In 2018, we're devoting a massive amount of computing power and talent to create, maintain and improve these machine learning algorithms. We're constantly leveraging artificial intelligence and our highly skilled researchers and engineers from all across Google to find new ways to keep Android devices safe and secure. In addition to our talented team, we work with the foremost security experts and researchers from around the world. These researchers contribute even more data and insights to keep Google Play Protect on the cutting edge of mobile security.

To check out Google Play Protect, open the Google Play app and tap Play Protect in the left panel.

Acknowledgements: This work was developed in joint collaboration with Google Play Protect, Safe Browsing and Play Abuse teams with contributions from Andrew Ahn, Hrishikesh Aradhye, Daniel Bali, Hongji Bao, Yajie Hu, Arthur Kaiser, Elena Kovakina, Salvador Mandujano, Melinda Miller, Rahul Mishra, Damien Octeau, Sebastian Porst, Chuangang Ren, Monirul Sharif, Sri Somanchi, Sai Deep Tetali, Zhikun Wang, and Mo Yu.

24 May 2018 5:15pm GMT

Posted by Aleks Haecky, Training Developer & Word Artist, Google+, LinkedIn, Medium

The Kotlin Bootcamp Udacity course is a free, self-paced online course that teaches you the basics of the Kotlin programming language. This introduction to Kotlin was created by Google experts in collaboration with Udacity and is for people who already know how to program.

The Kotlin language lets you create apps in less time, writing less code, and with fewer errors.

This modern object-oriented language offers a strong type system, type inference, null safety, properties, lambdas, extensions, coroutines, higher-order functions, and many other features. Kotlin is so concise that you can create complete data classes with a single line of code.

Kotlin is officially supported for building Android apps, fully interoperates with the Java programming language and libraries, and is included with IntelliJ and Android Studio.

In this course you will learn everything you need to program in Kotlin, including:

1. Basics: Write Kotlin statements and expressions in the IntelliJ REPL Kotlin interpreter using nullable and non-nullable variables, data types, operators, and control structures.
2. Functions: Create a main() function, create and call functions with default and variable arguments, pass functions as arguments to filters, program simple lambdas, function types, and compact single-expression functions.
3. Classes: Create a class with methods and properties. Implement constructors and init(). Learn about inheritance, interfaces, and abstract classes. Use the special purpose classes data, object, enum, and sealed.
4. Beyond the Basics: Dive deeper into Pairs, collections, and constants. Learn how to write extensions, implement generics, apply annotations, and use labeled breaks.
5. Functional Manipulation: Explore more about lambdas, higher-order functions, and inline.

You'll learn how to use extension functions to add helpful functionality to existing classes.

Extend built-in types:

fun Int.print() = println(this)
5.print() // prints 5

Extend Android classes:

fun Context.toast(text: CharSequence, duration: Int = Toast.LENGTH_SHORT): Toast {
   return Toast.makeText(this, text, duration).apply { show() }
}
toast("Hello Toast")

Extend your own classes:

class AquariumPlant(
       val color: String)

fun AquariumPlant.print() =
       println("Pretty Aquarium Plant")

val plant = AquariumPlant("green")
plant.print()
// prints -> Pretty Aquarium Plant

When you've completed the course, you will be able to create programs in Kotlin, taking advantage of the features and capabilities that make Kotlin unique.

The course is available free, online at Udacity; take it in your own time at your own pace.

Go learn how to build apps with less code at https://www.udacity.com/course/ud9011.

21 May 2018 4:59pm GMT

Posted by Gerardo Capiel and Varouj Chitilian, Google Pay

Today's customers want to get things done faster than ever, whether they're ordering groceries or shopping for a new pair of shoes. With Google Pay, we want to ensure checkout doesn't slow them (or your conversions) down, while enhancing the customer experience at every step of the way.

Last week at Google I/O, we announced some exciting new features that do just that. We also shared the latest ways developers can use Google Pay to offer the best experiences at checkout and beyond-all available for free with our APIs. Here are some of the highlights and how you can make the most of them.

More places for customers to check out online

We've started rolling out support for checking out with Google Pay regardless of your browser or device. This means customers can pay with Google Pay on most major browsers from any device.

Enabling this functionality within your apps and sites is simple. Watch Google Pay software engineer Tony Chen do a website integration live on stage, then try it yourself using our developer docs.

But making checkout easier for your customers doesn't just apply to how they pay. Chrome Autofill helps customers fill in forms automatically, so they can speed through the entire checkout process without getting bogged down by typing. To ensure your shoppers are getting the fastest checkout experience with Chrome Autofill, we recommend you check out our new best practices guide.

We'll also be making it easier for customers to manage their payment methods in Google Pay by adding this functionality to our iOS and desktop experiences as well. The new functionality will allow people to add cards and see transactions whenever and wherever it's most convenient for them, giving you access to a new group of customers who will be able to use Google Pay within your apps and sites. It also means that customers who add cards from a laptop can use those cards with Google Pay on an iOS device. (Try it for yourself at g.co/pay/demo.)

This new functionality will be launching soon, and you can learn more about it in our Build with Google Pay session.

Mobile tickets and passes with the Google Pay API for Passes

Building off our newly-launched support for prepaid transit passes, we're now also supporting a new way for you to save and manage passes through our Google Pay API for Passes. This lets you create mobile event tickets and boarding passes that your customers can save to the Google Pay Android app. We've piloted this feature with Southwest, Fortress GB, and Ticketmaster, with more partners coming soon. Want to get on board? Sign up for more information.

Transactions come to Actions on Google

Actions on Google lets developers engage billions of users across the Google Assistant and soon Google Search, Android, and other surfaces by developing Actions and linking them with our ever-growing intents catalog. One of our sessions shows you how you can enable Google Pay in your Actions so your customers can make purchases with their Assistant across multiple surfaces, including mobile devices, Google Home, and soon, Smart Displays. Transactions are now available in Australia, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. (We'll be bringing them to Brazil, India, Italy, and Spain soon.)

Plus, we're starting a developer preview where you can now enable transactions to sell digital content on the Google Assistant. That includes in-app purchases, subscriptions, games, experiences, and premium content.

We can't wait to see all of the creative ways you use Google Pay to amplify your business and build better checkout experiences for your customers. Be sure to check out all of our I/O sessions for more ideas, tools, and tips. In the meantime, we'll be hard at work on new features to keep making Google Pay the best experience possible-for you and your customers.

17 May 2018 3:50pm GMT

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