Opening apps on your phone is not that hard but of course some people want it to be either more convenient or more unusual. It looks like Xiaomi wants to do a little of both as their MIUI beta is trying out something new for the Mi 9 device. They are bringing "3D Air Gestures" […]

26 Jun 2019 8:00pm GMT

Not many people may realize it but the Pixel series comes with an ambient display feature. It's more popular as the Always-on display feature on some phones. It's actually now a standard on most phones that have OLED displays. LCD screens can still have it but it looks better on OLED. The Pixel line comes […]

26 Jun 2019 7:00pm GMT

Posted by Oscar Rodriguez, Developer Advocate

When designing and developing an app or game, at some point you may ask yourself if you want to monetize it.

If you choose to do so by selling products via Google Play, you will most likely have a store screen that shows available items for sale, and use the Google Play Billing Library to display dialogs that allow your users to complete their purchase.

While there is a more detailed explanation in the documentation and in the Billing Library TrivialDrive samples, the general flow is as follows:

1. Call the launchBillingFlow() method from the UI thread to launch the Google Play purchase dialog.
2. If the purchase was successful, Google Play calls the onPurchasesUpdated() method to deliver the result of the purchase operation.
3. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
4. Acknowledge the purchase either with consumeAsync() for consumable items or with acknowledgePurchase() for non-consumable items.
5. Finally, grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

If your app is still using the Google Play Billing AIDL API, it is also possible to perform the same task. Keep in mind that the AIDL API is now deprecated, so we strongly recommend you migrate to the Google Play Billing Library as soon as possible.

If you are using the AIDL API, the flow is very similar:

1. Send a getBuyIntent() or getBuyIntentExtraParams() request to specify the item to purchase, and then call startIntentSenderForResult() to launch the Google Play purchase dialog.
2. When the purchase dialog finishes, Google Play sends a response Intent to your onActivityResult() method, where you can verify if the purchase was successful.
3. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
4. If the purchase was successful, call the getPurchases() method to retrieve a list of owned items that are still not consumed. For consumable items, call the consumePurchase() method to make the item available for purchase again.
5. Finally, grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

Nevertheless, just implementing the above mentioned flow is not enough to correctly handle all types of purchases. There are two main cases in which purchases will not be correctly handled by this flow.

The first case happens when the purchase flow is interrupted before it finishes. The app may have crashed, the user may have killed the app, or the user's Internet connection may have been lost. In any case, it is possible for the app not to have delivered the item to the user even though Google Play has already processed the payment. In this case, the item is in limbo, because Google Play will not allow an item to be re-purchased until it is consumed, but the app or game won't consume the item outside of the flow mentioned above.

The second case happens during alternative purchase flows, such as in-app promotions, the recently announced out-of-app subscription surfaces, promo codes for subscriptions, or other promotions in collaboration with Google. In these cases, a user gets an item directly on the Play Store app, while the target app or game may be paused, not running, or even not installed.

For these cases, the Google Play Billing Library and the Google Play Billing AIDL API offer a mechanism to detect purchases that are not acknowledged or consumed.

When using the Google Play Billing API, do the following:

1. In your app's onResume() callback, call the queryPurchases() method to retrieve a list of items, so you can determine which ones are unacknowledged.
2. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
3. If there are owned but unacknowledged items, acknowledge the purchase either with consumeAsync() for consumable items or with acknowledgePurchase() for non-consumable items.
4. Grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

For the Google Play Billing AIDL API, do the following:

1. In your app's onResume() callback, call the getPurchases() method to retrieve a list of owned items that are still not consumed.
2. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
3. For consumable items, call the consumePurchase() method to make the item available for purchase again.
4. Finally, grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

In either case, when you detect and process an unconsumed item in this manner, users will expect the app or game to communicate about it. We suggest that you display a dialog, message box, or notification that tells the user that they have successfully received their item.

Keep in mind that your app's onResume() callback will be called when its process is started, as well as when it is brought to the foreground, regardless of which screen the app or game was in before it was paused. For example, a game with a home screen, a store screen, and a game screen might get its onResume() called from any of those screens. For an optimal user experience, we suggest you make it so your app or game handles unacknowledged or unconsumed items regardless of the screen you display when onResume() gets called. Thorough testing of this process in each screen is crucial to deliver a great user experience.

Finally, there is one more case your app must handle: when a user acquires an item from the Play Store app, and both the Play Store app and your app are visible at the same time with multi-window mode.

To support this scenario with the Google Play Billing Library, do the following:

1. Google Play calls the onPurchasesUpdated() method to notify your app that there is a new pending item.
2. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
3. Acknowledge the purchase either with consumeAsync() for consumable items or with acknowledgePurchase() for non-consumable items.
4. Finally, grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

For the Google Play Billing AIDL API, do the following:

1. In your app's onResume() callback, register a PurchasesUpdatedListener to receive the com.android.vending.billing.PURCHASES_UPDATED intent. Also, in your app's onPause() callback, unregister the listener.
2. If your app has a server, we strongly recommend that you verify the purchase from your server by using the Subscriptions and In-App Purchases API.
3. Google Play calls your listener to notify your app that there is a new pending item. Inside it, call the getPurchases() method to retrieve a list of owned items that are still not consumed. For consumable items, call the consumePurchase() method to make the item available for purchase again.
4. Finally, grant entitlement to the purchased item inside the app.

Just as before, you should display a dialog, message box, or notification that tells the user that they have successfully received their item.

If you follow these steps, your app or game will be better prepared to robustly handle purchase flow interruptions and alternative purchase flows.

26 Jun 2019 5:31pm GMT

A new lawsuit filed in California alleges AT&T is charging customers more than their advertised rates. The additional amounts charged are in the form of an "Administrative Fee" that AT&T tacks on to customer bills after they sign up for service. Currently the fee is $1.99 per month. According to the complaint that was filed, […]

Come comment on this article: AT&T facing class action lawsuit over hidden fees

26 Jun 2019 5:16pm GMT

OnePlus has released a few open betas for the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T, bringing those phones to beta version 21 and 13, respectively. It's pretty much the same software for both phones, but like all betas, it may be a little less stable than a regular OTA update, so keep that in mind. The […]

Come comment on this article: OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T get new open beta builds with small performance tweaks

26 Jun 2019 5:15pm GMT

The mophie brand continues to come up with various products like external batteries and wireless charging pads to keep our mobile devices juiced up as a lot of people continue to always be on the go and always using their smartphone or tablet or laptop while moving. Their newest product is called powerstation hub and […]

26 Jun 2019 5:00pm GMT

After a user on reddit posted an image claiming they had received a major update to their Android Auto app in their vehicle, Google has responded to indicate that no such update is rolling out to users. Google said earlier this year that an overhaul of their vehicle interface system was in the works with […]

Come comment on this article: Google says not yet to claims that Android Auto update is available

26 Jun 2019 4:52pm GMT

The OnePlus 7 series is popular for a lot of reasons. It's the latest from the Chinese OEM. It's also the first from the brand with two variants released at once. There's the regular OnePlus 7 and the higher-specced OnePlus 7 Pro. We've mentioned the two phones, the Pro especially, several times since April when […]

26 Jun 2019 4:00pm GMT

One of the regulations applied to Verizon's use of their 4G spectrum was that they were unable to lock devices to their network, which has been in effect for over a decade at this point. It's generally been a pretty good move for consumers, despite Verizon trying to skirt around it a few times. But […]

Come comment on this article: Verizon gets the green light to start SIM locking phones for 60 days, per the FCC

26 Jun 2019 3:15pm GMT

Vivo is set to introduce new technologies that will help advance the mobile industry. The other day, we learned about the upcoming 120W Super FlashCharge can juice up 4000mAh battery in 13 minutes. The Chinese OEM has finally launched the latest 5G-ready innovations plus the said flash charge tech at the MWC Shanghai this week. […]

26 Jun 2019 3:00pm GMT

LTE tablets can be really handy if you rely on a bigger screen on the go, but they can also be pretty pricey to buy because of the added cost of cellular radios. Our current deal on Talk Android Deals makes that part a little bit easier, since we're discounting the price of an AT&T […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] This refurbished Galaxy Tab E 8″ LTE tablet is cheap right now (72% off)

26 Jun 2019 2:57pm GMT

Xiaomi has always been prolific when it comes to the mobile business. Even if Huawei took its crown a few years ago, the brand has remained busy, launching new phones here and there. It has also evolved into an important lifestyle brand with several smart home products and gadgets available for consumers. A couple of […]

26 Jun 2019 2:00pm GMT

The Samsung Galaxy A90 isn't out yet even after several rumors, renders, and teasers. No, there is no major issue as with the Galaxy Fold but it's only a matter of time. Samsung is doing some last minute preps for the A90 and now we have further details that may become a reality. The phone […]

26 Jun 2019 1:00pm GMT

Kudos to OnePlus developers for really not settling. The brand certainly lives up to its 'Never Settle' motto. It releases updates regularly for its several smartphones that there is no excuse why your OnePlus phone won't be updated. It's been working on different versions of OxygenOS for the OnePlus devices. The last one we reported […]

26 Jun 2019 12:00pm GMT

After hearing about the international 4G LTE data passes from T-Mobile, here we are learning that the Galaxy S10 5G is being released this week in the US. The new S10 variant joins the short list of 5G phones available in the market and it will be available soon in six cities in the country. […]

26 Jun 2019 10:00am GMT

We still have no idea when the Samsung Galaxy Fold will officially hit the market after all the delays caused by bad, early reviews. But since then we've been getting rumors that they have also been working on other versions of a foldable phone. A South Korean online news site is saying that one of […]

26 Jun 2019 9:00am GMT

Just in case you've been living under a rock, HMD Global has a very affordable phone in the Nokia 1. The brand's low-cost Android phone was first heard almost two years ago. We were told it would arrive as a new budget Android Go phone. An early APK teardown revealed the device's camera features. It […]

26 Jun 2019 8:01am GMT

The Android community promises to keep things safe and secure for all consumers. That is a nice promise but it's not that easy. The Android developers have been working to improve on security. There have been enhancements but the team still needs to check on many things. Rolling out monthly security updates and patch levels […]

25 Jun 2019 11:00pm GMT

The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G has been much slower to release to carriers than the regular Galaxy S10, partially because 5G just really isn't prevalent in the United States. Some carriers have turned on the improved network in a few places across the country, but generally, we're all stick rocking 4G. Therefore, the S10 5G […]

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile officially picks up the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, joining Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint

25 Jun 2019 10:02pm GMT

The Galaxy Note 10 is probably the most exciting phone Samsung has on the horizon, but that's not all the company is cooking up. In fact, now it looks like they might be breaking other ground with their otherwise mid-range Galaxy A series. After a bit of confusion with some naming schemes, OnLeaks on Twitter […]

Come comment on this article: Is Samsung going to get in the budget flagship game with a 5G phone?

25 Jun 2019 9:46pm GMT

Earlier this morning Nokia announced that the Nokia 1, their extremely affordable entry-level smartphones, is getting updated to Android Pie starting immediately. This means that you've got a Nokia phone running Android Pie in just about any price point you could want, solidifying Nokia as an excellent choice for almost anyone looking for a new […]

Come comment on this article: Android Pie comes to the ultra-affordable Nokia 1

25 Jun 2019 9:37pm GMT

The Nintendo Switch running Android is possible. It's still in the works but a number of mods and hacks allow gamers to try Android on the handheld gaming console. They're not official from Nintendo or Google. Not that there is a need for Android to run on the Switch but many people expect more from […]

25 Jun 2019 9:30pm GMT

It looks like 2020 is going to be weird, and will likely see both several new folding devices, plus a return to mobile for Microsoft. Both those things are related, too, since Microsoft's device is rumored to be a folding Microsoft Surface device that can run Android apps. Surface Phone? Finally? Maybe? Probably not. It's […]

Come comment on this article: Microsoft's return to mobile will be a dual-screen Surface that runs Android apps

25 Jun 2019 9:00pm GMT

While high-end Android smartphones may boast of arguably better mobile cameras as compared to iPhones, there is one aspect where Apple has been able to beat them. Generally, the newer iPhones are better able to capture a wider range of colors. But that may be changing once the Google Pixel 4 device comes out possibly […]

25 Jun 2019 8:00pm GMT

There's no argument that Android phones have made huge strides in the last few years, with heavy hitters from Samsung, Huawei, and Google's own Pixel line delivering phenomenal mobile photography. They all typically get really close to Apple's iPhone camera, if not beating it out entirely, but there's one area where Apple's cameras still do […]

Come comment on this article: Google will finally catch up to Apple's cameras with wide color support on the Pixel 4

25 Jun 2019 6:59pm GMT

Huawei might be in a mess with the impending trade ban looming, threatening to cut off access to Android's Play Store, which would put a damper on their growing smartphone dominance. But with all of the latest phone announcements and launches, you wouldn't think Huawei was worried about it in the slightest. Their latest technological […]

Come comment on this article: Huawei's newest Ark Compiler promises up to 60% improved Android app speeds

25 Jun 2019 6:41pm GMT

Xiaomi is busy working on several new smartphones. Next in line is the Xiaomi CC and Xiaomi CC9. The Redmi Note and Mi Max series will be discontinued but a new series, the CC will also launch. The former top Chinese OEM has always been prolific when it comes to smartphones. It introduces great innovations […]

25 Jun 2019 6:30pm GMT

If you feel like having a snack and a Slurpee in the middle of a concert, it's now possible to do so with 7-Eleven's new delivery app called 7NOW. Previously you could already have that delivered to your house or office with the 7-Eleven app but they're taking it another level higher by letting customers […]

25 Jun 2019 5:00pm GMT

Looking for a new set of wireless earbuds? There's an excellent deal on some xFryo ARIA earbuds right now on Talk Android Deals, knocking over half of the price off of some truly wireless buds with killer sound quality. No wires and no wallet busting. You're getting all the standard features of high-end wireless headphones […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] These totally wireless xFryo ARIA earbuds are over half off

25 Jun 2019 3:23pm GMT

Remember a few years back when every app and its grandma was ripping off Snapchat's disappearing photos idea? And you know that Slowpoke meme? If you combine those two, you've got Google's latest addition to Google Duo. Yep, now users with Google Duo will be able to send other users disappearing, temporary photos. The photos […]

Come comment on this article: Google Duo is the next app to copy Snapchat, just a few years too late

25 Jun 2019 2:45am GMT

The Google Play Store has had its fair share of problems and criticisms over the years, but unfortunately Google still hasn't quite fixed all of them. A recent survey done on Android apps has now found that there are quite a few counterfeit and clone apps available on Google's software store, some of which are […]

Come comment on this article: The Google Play Store has a copycat app problem that Google doesn't have an answer for

25 Jun 2019 2:28am GMT

If you go back a few years and checked out the most dominant operating system on the planet, it was Windows with absolutely no competition. Microsoft steamrolled literally everyone else in the PC space, including Apple. But then the smartphone happened, and Microsoft kinda sorta didn't really live up to the name that they had […]

Come comment on this article: Android beat Windows Phone, and Bill Gates really regrets it

25 Jun 2019 2:15am GMT

Posted by Sam Lin, Product Manager, Android

With Project Marble, the Android Studio team focused our efforts on making the fundamental features and flows of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) rock-solid. Performance is an underlying tenant to delivering a high quality IDE. To this end, we are sharpening our product focus and we will only support 64-bit operating systems going forward. Using Android Studio with an 64-bit operating systems enables efficient access to memory for both the IDE and the Android Emulator, and overall leads to a better development experience. While this change will not affect most Android Studio users, this change does have an impact if you use 32-bit versions of Microsoft^® Windows^®. To aid in this transition for those developers using 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, we want to give you details on the upcoming depreciation timeline plus steps to take to be ready for this upcoming change.

Timeline

To minimize the impact of this change towards exclusively supporting 64-bit operating systems, we will first deprecate the 32-bit version. During the depreciation phase, both Android Studio and the Android Emulator will continue to work but the products will not receive new feature updates. During this transition period you can still download the product from the Android Studio web site. After one year, we will officially end product support and will remove the 32-bit product version download links. Note, if you have the 32-bit version of Android Studio previously installed during this period then the product should continue to work, but we will not provide a link for you to re-download the product. The exact dates for the depreciation and end-of-support period are in the table below:

Advantages of a 64-bit development environment

There are a few advantages to using a 64-bit version of Android Studio, which include:

• Performance - The IDE can perform better because it can access more than 4GB of memory. The increase in memory especially provides a better experience when you are working on a large project.
• 64-bit App Support - You can build both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of apps if your app uses C/C++ native code. Testing on both architectures can help you to get ready for the 64-bit requirement on Google Play which starts on August 1st, 2019.
• Testing on Emulators - Both the 32-bit and 64-bit Android Emulator system images are supported by the 64-bit version of the Android Emulator. This flexibility makes it easier to test your app in different Android environments with one development machine.

Next steps

To recap, before ending support for the 32-bit version of Android Studio, we want to inform you in advance, provide guidance, and allow for a one-year lead time to help you migrate to a 64-bit operating system. You can still use 32-bit versions of Android Studio, but be mindful that these version will not receive future updates. Therefore, if you want to migrate we suggest you start planning early so that you can continue to get the latest product updates and take advantage of the performance improvements of a 64-bit development environment.

11 Jun 2019 6:12pm GMT

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Last month at Google I/O we talked about what's new for Android developers, from new features in Android Q to the latest in Kotlin and Jetpack.

With Android Q, we highlighted three themes: innovation, security and privacy, and digital wellbeing. We want to help you take advantage of the latest new technology -- 5G, foldables, edge-to-edge screens, on-device machine learning, and more -- while making sure users' security, privacy, and wellbeing are always a top priority.

We also talked about how we're going increasingly Kotlin-first, and continuing to expand Jetpack with new libraries like CameraX, Jetpack Security and Jetpack Compose -- a modern reactive-style UI toolkit for Android that takes advantage of Kotlin. If you missed the livestream for the keynotes or tech sessions, make sure to check out the full playlist of Android and Play sessions.

Today we're releasing Beta 4 with the final Android Q APIs and official SDK -- the time is now to get your apps ready for the final release later in the summer!

You can get Beta 4 today on Pixel devices by enrolling here. If you're already enrolled and received the Beta 3 on your Pixel device, you'll automatically get the update to Beta 4. Partners participating in the Android Q Beta program will also be updating their devices to Beta 4 over the coming weeks.

To get started with Android Q Beta, visit developer.android.com/preview.

What's in Beta 4?

The Beta 4 update includes the latest Android Q system images for Pixel and Android Emulator, along with the final Android Q developer APIs (API level 29), the official API 29 SDK, and updated build tools for Android Studio. Together, these give you everything you need to test your apps for compatibility with Android Q and build with Android Q features and APIs.

To get started, download the official API 29 SDK and tools into the stable release of Android Studio 3.4, or for the latest Android Q support update to Android Studio 3.5 Beta. Then follow these instructions to configure your environment, and see the release notes for known issues.

Make your apps compatible with Android Q!

With the developer APIs finalized and release candidate builds coming soon, it's critical for all Android developers to test their current apps for compatibility with Android Q. We recommend getting started as soon as possible.

Just install your current app from Google Play onto an Android Q Beta device or emulator, then test. As you work through the flows, your app should run and look great and handle all of the Android Q behavior changes properly. Watch for impacts from privacy changes, gestural navigation, changes to dynamic linker paths for Bionic libraries, and others.

Make sure that you test with the Android Q privacy features, such as the new location permissions, restrictions on background activity starts, changes to data and identifiers, and other key privacy features. See the privacy checklist to get started, and review the behavior changes doc for more areas to test.

You can use the updated Android Emulator to test your apps for compatibility.

If you plan to update your platform targeting to API 29, also make sure to test with scoped storage, location permission for wireless scans, and permission for fullscreen intents. You can read about other changes that could affect apps here.

It's also important to test for uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces and move to public SDK or NDK equivalents instead. Watch for logcat warnings that highlight these accesses and use the StrictMode method detectNonSdkApiUsage() to catch them programmatically.

Last, make sure to fully test the libraries and SDKs in your app to make sure they work as expected on Android Q and follow best practices for privacy, performance, UX, data handling, and permissions. If you find an issue, try updating to the latest version of the SDK, or reach out to the SDK developer for help. You can also report SDK compatibility issues here.

When you've finished your testing and made any updates, we recommend publishing your compatible app right away. This lets Android Beta users test the app now, and helps you deliver a smooth transition to users as they update to Android Q.

We realize that supporting these changes is an investment for you too, and we're working to minimize the impact on your apps and be responsive to your input as we move toward the final release in the coming months.

Enhance your app with Android Q features and APIs

When you're ready, dive into Android Q and learn about the new features and APIs that you can use in your apps. Android Q features can help you engage users, give them more control and security, and even improve your app's performance.

Android Q provides system-suggested replies and actions in notifications.

For example, you can deliver seamless, edge-to-edge experiences on today's innovative devices by optimizing for foldables and supporting gestural navigation in your app. To engage more users, try supporting Dark Theme, suggested replies and actions in notifications, sharing shortcuts, and settings panels.

Gestural navigation lets you offer an edge-to-edge experience in your apps.

If your app manages IoT devices over Wi-Fi, try the new network connection APIs for functions like configuring, downloading, or printing. If your app manages Wi-Fi internet connections, try the network suggestion APIs as an easier way to surface preferred Wi-Fi networks, without needing to request location permission.

If you use the camera, learn about dynamic depth format. For media, you can use AV1 for video streaming and HDR10+ for high dynamic range video. For speech and music streaming, you can use Opus encoding, and for musicians, a native MIDI API is available.

Dynamic Depth lets you offer specialized blurs and bokeh options in your app.

To support captioning or gameplay recording, enable audio playback capture -- it's a great way to reach more users and get your app noticed. If your app uses power intensively, try using the new thermal API to optimize app performance based on device temperature.

BiometricPrompt is now the preferred way to support fingerprint auth on modern devices, so all developers using fingerprint or other biometric auth should move to using this API as soon as possible. To make the transition easy, use the backwards-compatible BiometricPrompt API that we're providing in the AndroidX library. Android Q supports both standard and passive (no confirmation, for face and other passive modes) auth flows.

These are just a few of the many new features and APIs in Android Q -- to see them all, visit the Android Q Beta site for developers.

Publish your app updates to Google Play

Today with Android Q Beta 4 we're also opening up publishing on Google Play to apps that are compiled against, or optionally targeting, API 29. This means you can now push your updates to users now through Google Play to test your app's compatibility, including on devices running Android Q Beta 4.

How do I get Beta 4?

It's easy! Just enroll any supported Pixel device here to get the update over-the-air. If you're already enrolled, you'll receive the update soon and no action is needed on your part. Downloadable system images are also available here. Partners that are participating in the Android Q Beta program will be updating their devices over the coming weeks. See android.com/beta for details.

For even broader testing on supported devices, you can also get Android GSI images, and if you don't have a device you can test on the Android Emulator.

As always, your input is critical, so please continue to let us know what you think. You can use our hotlists for filing platform issues (including privacy and behavior changes), app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues. You've shared great feedback with us so far and we're working to integrate as much of it as possible in the next Beta release.

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

05 Jun 2019 5:08pm GMT

Posted by Vineet Tanwar, Business Development Manager, Google Play

In April we opened applications for the 2019 class of Indie Games Accelerator, a program to help top mobile game startups from emerging markets achieve their full potential on Google Play. We're truly awed by the response we have received with over 1,700 applications from developers across 37 countries*. We continue to be impressed by the innovation and creativity of game developers everywhere.

Now, it's time to introduce you to the developers selected for the class of 2019. Here they are:

Congratulations to the selected participants and we look forward to meeting you in Singapore!

Find out more about the program or express your interest in joining the next class of the Indie Games Accelerator.

* The competition is open to developers from the following countries: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela

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05 Jun 2019 6:00am GMT

Posted by Kosuke Suzuki, Product Manager, Google Play

Every month, more than 2 billion users from over 190 countries visit the Google Play Store to browse and discover new apps and games. As part of making Google Play a great discovery experience, we continue to increase our focus on quality. Over the coming weeks, we'll be updating our featuring and ranking logic to further prioritize high quality apps and games with strong technical performance and engaging content.

If you're looking for ways to improve your app quality, below are three key areas to focus on. Along with these suggestions, we've highlighted several tools available in the Google Play Console to help you better understand user behavior, monitor technical performance, and deliver the best in-app experience for users. Remember, app quality will impact where and how prominently you're eligible to surface in the store, so always look to create the most compelling and delightful experience possible.

Good in-app user experience

Have you thought about your UI and if your app has intuitive navigation, controls, and menu access? Do you have a good first-time-user experience, overall polished design, and enough content to keep users engaged for the long term?

Quality guidelines: meet user expectations and maximize your exposure opportunities by testing against the quality guidelines for different platforms.

Testing tracks: release early versions of your app to gather early user feedback and make improvements before full release.

Engaging content: build loyalty and sustainable app engagement by satisfying your users needs

Ad placement: for apps with ads integrated, ensure a good user experience by choosing the right ad format and placement throughout your app.

Strong app stability and technical performance

Have you considered whether your app has good overall technical performance, and if it is power-thrifty, responsive, efficient, and well-behaved? 42% of users who leave a 1-star review mention stability or bugs.

Android vitals: review the Android vitals dashboard to see how your app is performing on core vitals metrics including crash rate, ANR rate, excessive wakeups, and stuck partial wake locks in the background. Look at developer selected peer benchmarks to see how you measure up to others in your category. Exhibiting bad behavior in Android vitals will negatively affect the user experience in your app and could limit your exposure opportunities on Google Play.

Pre-launch reports: identify where your app has problems to ensure you're presenting the highest possible quality to users upon launch. The pre-launch reports use automated tests on real devices that can identify layout issues, provide crash diagnostics, locate security vulnerabilities, and more.

Effective store listing page

Last but not least, a quality app also means having an effective and accurate listing page. Does your store listing page make a great first impression? Does it clearly and accurately communicate the value and intended use cases of your app?

Best practices: use strong creative assets, including your app title, icon, screenshots and video, along with a clear and informative app description, that provide an accurate representation of your app. To improve discovery opportunities, we suggest all pages have a video (set to public or unlisted and non-monetized) to inform users about your app, and for game developers to provide three or more 16:9 aspect ratio screenshots.

New icon specification: create a more polished experience on the store by updating your icon before June 24th.

Ratings and reviews: monitor your user ratings and reviews and respond to negative reviews where possible. When receiving a reply from developers, users increase their rating by +0.7 stars on average. Paying attention to ratings and reviews will be increasingly important as we rollout the new rating score in August 2019. This will place more weight on your most recent ratings in the Google Play Store.

Store listing experiments: A/B test different versions of your listing page amongst actual Google Play users. Make sure to test each component independently and run tests for at least a week in order to gather significant results.

Custom store listings: tailor your marketing messages to specific user groups based on their country, install state or even pre-registration. This is a great way to highlight key features and updates best suited for existing or lapsed users.

Localization: take advantage of Google Play's worldwide reach to identify key markets, translate your app store listing, and even run store listing experiments to optimize for each country.

Get the most out of the Google Play Console and learn about improving app quality on the Academy for App Success, a free e-learning resource.

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04 Jun 2019 4:00pm GMT

Posted by Doug Stevenson, Developer Advocate

Later this year, the Google Play services and Firebase SDKs will migrate from the Android Support libraries to androidx-packaged library artifacts. We are targeting this change for June/July of 2019. This will not only make our SDKs better, but make it easier for you to use the latest Jetpack features in your app.

If your app depends on any com.google.android.gms or com.google.firebase libraries, you should prepare for this migration. To quickly test your build with androidx-packaged library artifacts, add the following two lines to your gradle.properties file:

android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true

If your build still works, then you're done! You will be ready to use the new Google Play services and Firebase SDKs when they arrive. If you experience any new build issues or want more information on this migration, visit the official Jetpack migration guide. We will communicate when the androidx migration is complete in the near future, stay tuned!

03 Jun 2019 6:23pm GMT

Posted by Kanika Sachdeva, Product Manager, Google Play

At Google Play, we're committed to providing a positive, safe environment for children and families. Over the last few years, we've helped parents find family-friendly content through the Designed for Families program and empowered them to set digital ground rules for their families with Family Link parental controls.

After taking input from users and developers we are evolving our Google Play policies to provide additional protections for children and families. These policy changes build on our existing efforts to ensure that apps for children have appropriate content, show suitable ads, and handle personally identifiable information correctly; they also reduce the chance that apps not intended for children could unintentionally attract them.

Over the next few months, we will continue to roll out additional features that will help parents make informed choices before they install apps for their kids.

What's changing for developers

We are asking every developer to thoughtfully consider whether children are part of your target audience.

• If children are part of your target audience, you must meet policy requirements in your app concerning content and handling of personally identifiable information.
• Ads in your app that are served to children need to be appropriate and served from an ads network that has certified compliance with our families policies.
• If children are not part of your target audience, you should make sure your app does not unintentionally appeal to them. We will double check your app marketing to confirm this and ask you to make adjustments where required.

Declaring a target audience

As part of the new policy, all developers must complete the new target audience and content section of the Google Play Console.

The new target audience and content section of the Google Play Console.

For most developers, the target audience does not include children and this section should be relatively quick to complete. If children are part of your target audience, we will ask you follow-up questions.

We will use the information you provide in the Google Play Console, along with our own review of your app marketing assets, to categorize your app and apply policies according to the following target audience groups: children, children and older users, older users.*

We recommend you review our new policies, developer guide, and this training before starting the target audience and content section so that you clearly understand the implications of your answers.

Rolling out these changes

These changes affect every developer on Play, so if your app is already live on the Google Play store, we want to give you time to make any necessary updates. Below are the key dates to keep in mind:

• Today: Target audience and content section available in the Google Play Console. All new apps must comply with the updated policies.
• September 1st, 2019: All existing apps must have filled out the new target audience and content section and complied with the updated policies.

Our commitment to you

We're committed to providing the resources you need to understand and implement these changes. You can view more information on the Android developers website and access training on our new policies on Google Play's Academy for App Success. We have also increased our staffing and improved our communications for app review and appeals processes to help you get timely decisions and understand any changes that are needed.

Thanks in advance for the work you are putting in. We will continue to listen to your feedback and use it to improve the way we roll out these updates and communicate with the developer community.

*Note: The word "children" can mean different things in different locales and in different contexts. It is important that you determine what obligations and/or age-based restrictions may apply for the countries where you target your app.

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29 May 2019 2:06pm GMT

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Platforms & Ecosystems Developer Marketing

Back in March we opened submissions for the Indie Games Showcase, an international competition for games studios from Europe*, South Korea, and Japan who are constantly pushing the boundaries of storytelling, visual excellence, and creativity in mobile.

We were once again impressed by the diversity and creativity that the indie community is bringing to mobile, and we're happy to announce the 20 finalists.

Check out the local websites to learn more about the finalists and the events.

Europe

AntVentor by LoopyMood (Ukraine)

CHUCHEL by Amanita Design (Czech Republic)

#DRIVE by Pixel Perfect Dude (Poland)

Fly THIS! By Northplay (Denmark)

Fobia by Tapteek (Russia)

G30 - A Memory Maze by Ivan Kovalov (Russia)

Gold Peaks by Afterburn (Poland)

Grayland by 1DER Entertainment (Slovakia)

Hexologic by MythicOwl (Poland)

Lucid Dream Adventure by Dali Games (Poland)

OCO by SPECTRUM48 (United Kingdom)

Ordia by Loju (United Kingdom)

Peep by Taw (Russia)

Photographs by EightyEight Games (United Kingdom)

Rest in Pieces by Itatake (Sweden)

Returner Zhero by Fantastic, yes (Denmark)

see/saw by Kamibox (Germany)

STAP by Overhead Game Studio (United Kingdom)

Tesla vs. Lovecraft by 10tons (Finland)

Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery by Kiary games (Russia)

Japan

ALTER EGO by 株式会社カラメルカラム

Infection - 感染 - by CanvasSoft

Jumpion - Make a two-step jump ! by Comgate

Lunch Time Fish by SoftFunk HULABREAKS

MeltLand by 個人

ReversEstory by 個人

キグルミキノコ Q-bit -第一章- by 個人

SumoRoll - Road to the Yokozuna by Studio Kingmo

Escape Game: The Little Prince by 株式会社 Jammsworks

Kamiori - カミオリ by TeamOrigami

Bear's Restaurant by 個人

クマムシさん惑星　ミクロの地球最強伝説 by Ars Edutainment

ゴリラ！ゴリラ！ゴリラ！by Gang Gorilla Games

Girl x Sun - Terasene - Tower defence & Novel game by SleepingMuseum

タシテケス by 個人

Destination: Dragons! by GAME GABURI

Cute cat's cake shop by 個人

Persephone by Momo-pi

Hamcorollin' by illuCalab.

Food Truck Pup: Cooking Chef by 合同会社ゲームスタート

South Korea

다크타운 - 온라인 by 초콜릿소프트

Bad 2 Bad: Extinction by Dawinstone

셧더펑 : 슈팅액션 by Take Five Games

Cartoon Craft by Studio NAP

Catch Idle by HalftimeStudio

Hexagon Dungeon by Bleor Games

Hexonia by Togglegear

Mahjong - Magic Fantasy by Aquagamez

Maze Cube by IAMABOY

Road to Valor: World War II by Dreamotion Inc.

Onslot Car by Wondersquad

ROOMS: The Toymaker's Mansion by HandMade Game

Rhythm Star: Music Adventure by Anbsoft

7Days - Decide your story by Buff Studio

Seoul2033: Backer by Banjiha Games

Super Jelly Pop by STARMONSTER

UNLINK Daily Puzzle by Supershock

몬스터파크 온라인 by OVENCODE

WhamBam Warriors by DrukHigh

언노운 나이츠 by teamarex

We will welcome all finalists at events in London, Seoul, and Tokyo, where they will showcase their games to an audience of players, press and industry experts, for a chance to win the top prizes.

The events are open to the public, so if you would like to meet these games developers, try out their creations, and help choose the winners, sign up on the regional websites.

Congratulations to all finalists!

* The competition is open to developers from the following European countries and Israel: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).

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23 May 2019 6:00am GMT

Posted by Peiyong Lin, Software Engineer

Android is now at the point where sRGB color gamut with 8 bits per color channel is not enough to take advantage of the display and camera technology. At Android we have been working to make wide color photography happen end-to-end, e.g. more bits and bigger gamuts. This means, eventually users will be able to capture the richness of the scenes, share a wide color pictures with friends and view wide color pictures on their phones. And now with Android Q, it's starting to get really close to reality: wide color photography is coming to Android. So, it's very important to applications to be wide color gamut ready. This article will show how you can test your application to see whether it's wide color gamut ready and wide color gamut capable, and the steps you need to take to be ready for wide color gamut photography.

But before we dive in, why wide color photography? Display panels and camera sensors on mobile are getting better and better every year. More and more newly released phones will be shipped with calibrated display panels, some are wide color gamut capable. Modern camera sensors are capable of capturing scenes with a wider range of color outside of sRGB and thus produce wide color gamut pictures. And when these two come together, it creates an end-to-end photography experience with more vibrant colors of the real world.

At a technical level, this means there will be pictures coming to your application with an ICC profile that is not sRGB but some other wider color gamut: Display P3, Adobe RGB, etc. For consumers, this means their photos will look more realistic.

Display P3

SRGB

Display P3

SRGB

Above are images of the Display P3 version and the SRGB version respectively of the same scene. If you are reading this article on a calibrated and wide color gamut capable display, you can notice the significant difference between these them.

Color Tests

There are two kinds of tests you can perform to know whether your application is prepared or not. One is what we call color correctness tests, the other is wide color tests.

Color Correctness test: Is your application wide color gamut ready?

A wide color gamut ready application implies the application manages color proactively. This means when given images, the application always checks the color space and does conversion based on its capability of showing wide color gamut, and thus even if the application can't handle wide color gamut it can still show the sRGB color gamut of the image correctly without color distortion.

Below is a color correct example of an image with Display P3 ICC profile.

However, if your application is not color correct, then typically your application will end up manipulating/displaying the image without converting the color space correctly, resulting in color distortion. For example you may get the below image, where the color is washed-out and everything looks distorted.

Wide Color test: Is your application wide color gamut capable?

A wide color gamut capable application implies when given wide color gamut images, it can show the colors outside of sRGB color space. Here's an image you can use to test whether your application is wide color gamut capable or not, if it is, then a red Android logo will show up. Note that you must run this test on a wide color gamut capable device, for example a Pixel 3 or Samsung Galaxy S10.

What you should do to prepare

To prepare for wide color gamut photography, your application must at least pass the wide color gamut ready test, we call it color correctness test. If your application passes the wide color gamut ready tests, that's awesome! But if it doesn't, here are the steps to make it wide color gamut ready.

The key thing to be prepared and future proof is that your application should never assume sRGB color space of the external images it gets. This means application must check the color space of the decoded images, and do the conversion when necessary. Failure to do so will result in color distortion and color profile being discarded somewhere in your pipeline.

Mandatory: Be Color Correct

You must be at least color correct. If your application doesn't adopt wide color gamut, you are very likely to just want to decode every image to sRGB color space. You can do that by either using BitmapFactory or ImageDecoder.

Using BitmapFactory

In API 26, we added inPreferredColorSpace in BitmapFactory.Option, which allows you to specify the target color space you want the decoded bitmap to have. Let's say you want to decode a file, then below is the snippet you are very likely to use in order to manage the color:

final BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
// Decode this file to sRGB color space.
options.inPreferredColorSpace = ColorSpace.get(Named.SRGB);
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(FILE_PATH, options);

Using ImageDecoder

In Android P (API level 28), we introduced ImageDecoder, a modernized approach for decoding images. If you upgrade your apk to API level 28 or beyond, we recommend you to use it instead of the BitmapFactory and BitmapFactory.Option APIs.

Below is a snippet to decode the image to an sRGB bitmap using ImageDecoder#decodeBitmap API.

ImageDecoder.Source source =
        ImageDecoder.createSource(FILE_PATH);
try {
    bitmap = ImageDecoder.decodeBitmap(source,
            new ImageDecoder.OnHeaderDecodedListener() {
                @Override
                public void onHeaderDecoded(ImageDecoder decoder,
                        ImageDecoder.ImageInfo info,
                        ImageDecoder.Source source) {
                    decoder.setTargetColorSpace(ColorSpace.get(Named.SRGB));
                }
            });
} catch (IOException e) {
    // handle exception.
}

ImageDecoder also has the advantage to let you know the encoded color space of the bitmap before you get the final bitmap by passing an ImageDecoder.OnHeaderDecodedListener and checking ImageDecoder.ImageInfo#getColorSpace(). And thus, depending on how your applications handle color spaces, you can check the encoded color space of the contents and set the target color space differently.

ImageDecoder.Source source =
        ImageDecoder.createSource(FILE_PATH);
try {
    bitmap = ImageDecoder.decodeBitmap(source,
            new ImageDecoder.OnHeaderDecodedListener() {
                @Override
                public void onHeaderDecoded(ImageDecoder decoder,
                        ImageDecoder.ImageInfo info,
                        ImageDecoder.Source source) {
                    ColorSpace cs = info.getColorSpace();
                    // Do something...
                }
            });
} catch (IOException e) {
    // handle exception.
}

For more detailed usage you can check out the ImageDecoder APIs here.

Known bad practices

Some typical bad practices include but are not limited to:

• Always assume sRGB color space
• Upload image as texture without necessary conversion
• Ignore the ICC profile during compression

All these cause a severe users perceived results: Color distortion. For example, below is a code snippet that results in the application not color correct:

// This is bad, don't do it!
final BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
final Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(FILE_PATH, options);
glTexImage2D(GLES20.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GLES31.GL_RGBA, bitmap.getWidth(),
        bitmap.getHeight(), 0, GLES20.GL_RGBA, GLES20.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, null);
GLUtils.texSubImage2D(GLES20.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 0, 0, bitmap,
        GLES20.GL_RGBA, GLES20.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE);

There's no color space checking before uploading the bitmap as the texture, and thus the application will end up with the below distorted image from the color correctness test.

Optional: Be wide color capable

Besides the above changes you must make in order to handle images correctly, if your applications are heavily image based, you will want to take additional steps to display these images in the full vibrant range by enabling the wide gamut mode in your manifest or creating a Display P3 surfaces.

To enable the wide color gamut in your activity, set the colorMode attribute to wideColorGamut in your AndroidManifest.xml file. You need to do this for each activity for which you want to enable wide color mode.

android:colorMode="wideColorGamut"

You can also set the color mode programmatically in your activity by calling the setColorMode(int) method and passing in COLOR_MODE_WIDE_COLOR_GAMUT.

To render wide color gamut contents, besides the wide color contents, you will also need to create a wide color gamut surfaces to render to. In OpenGL for example, your application must first check the following extensions:

• EXT_gl_colorspace_display_p3_passthrough
• EXT_gl_colorspace_display_p3

And then, request the Display P3 as the color space when creating your surfaces, as shown in the following code snippet:

private static final int EGL_GL_COLORSPACE_DISPLAY_P3_PASSTHROUGH_EXT = 0x3490;

public EGLSurface createWindowSurface(EGL10 egl, EGLDisplay display,
                                      EGLConfig config, Object nativeWindow) {
  EGLSurface surface = null;
  try {
    int attribs[] = {
      EGL_GL_COLORSPACE_KHR, EGL_GL_COLORSPACE_DISPLAY_P3_PASSTHROUGH_EXT,
      egl.EGL_NONE
    };
    surface = egl.eglCreateWindowSurface(display, config, nativeWindow, attribs);
  } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {}
  return surface;
}

Also check out our post about more details on how you can adopt wide color gamut in native code.

APIs design guideline for image library

Finally, if you own or maintain an image decoding/encoding library, you will need to at least pass the color correctness tests as well. To modernize your library, there are two things we strongly recommend you to do when you extend APIs to manage color:

1. Strongly recommend to explicitly accept ColorSpace as a parameter when you design new APIs or extend existing APIs. Instead of hardcoding a color space, an explicit ColorSpace parameter is a more future-proof way moving forward.
2. Strongly recommend all legacy APIs to explicitly decode the bitmap to sRGB color space. Historically there's no color management, and thus Android has been treating everything as sRGB implicitly until Android 8.0 (API level 26). This allows you to help your users maintain backward compatibility.

After you finish, go back to the above section and perform the two color tests.

20 May 2019 7:13pm GMT

Posted by Posted by Florina Muntenescu & Wojtek Kaliciński, Developer Advocates, Android

Last week at Google I/O, we announced a big step: Android development will become increasingly Kotlin-first. It's a language that many of you already love: over 50% of professional Android developers now use Kotlin, and it's the fastest-growing language on GitHub. As part of this announcement, many new Jetpack APIs and features will be offered first in Kotlin. So if you're starting a new project, you should try writing it in Kotlin; code written in Kotlin often means much less code for you-less code to type, test, and maintain.

To help you dive deeper into Kotlin, we're happy to announce a new program we're launching together with JetBrains: Kotlin/Everywhere, a series of community-driven events focussing on the potential of Kotlin on all platforms. We are aiming to help learn the essentials and best practices of using Kotlin everywhere, be it for Android, back-end, front-end and other platforms.

Join the Kotlin/Everywhere global event series between June and December 2019.

Who can attend the events?

Whether you are a developer, a speaker, a Kotlin User Group, a Google Developer Group member or any other community leader join us. Anyone interested in learning Kotlin and its ecosystem, sharing knowledge, and hosting a Kotlin-focused event is welcome to attend.

If you are a developer wanting to learn more about Kotlin, or a speaker excited to share your Kotlin experience with others, you can find events near you to join. Just go to the map on the website. More events will be added over time.

How to host your Kotlin/Everywhere event?

If you want to host an event in your city, you can begin by checking out the detailed organizers' guide. It will help you to decide on the format and what kind of support you might need. All the necessary tips and tricks, materials, and branding assets are inside. Go ahead and submit your event on the official web page.

Besides the detailed organizers' guide, we also provide you with resources such as content, codelabs, and guidance to help you maximize your success. You can also apply for support: we have speakers from Google/JetBrains and can help by providing funding for venue, food and drinks, swag, or other. We will also list your event on the official website.

Still have questions? Ask them at our hangout sessions for organizers on May 16 and 17.

Let us know if you want to take part! Apply at kotl.in/everywhere

16 May 2019 5:51pm GMT

Posted by Dan Galpin

Developing Android Apps with Kotlin, developed by Google together with Udacity, is our newly-released, free, self-paced online course. You'll learn how to build Android apps using industry-standard tools and libraries in the Kotlin programming language.

Android development fundamentals are taught in the context of an architecture that provides the scaffolding for robust, maintainable applications. The course covers why and how to use Android Jetpack components such as Room for databases, Work Manager for background processing, the Navigation component, and more. You'll use popular community libraries to simplify common tasks such as Glide for image loading, Retrofit for networking, and Moshi for JSON parsing. The course teaches key Kotlin features such as coroutines to help you write your app code more quickly and concisely.

As you work through the course, you'll build fun and interesting apps, such as a Mars photo gallery, a trivia game, a sleep tracker and much more.

This course is intended for people who have programming experience and are comfortable with Kotlin basics. If you're new to the Kotlin language, we recommend taking the Udacity Kotlin Bootcamp course first.

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

Come learn how to build Android apps in Kotlin with us at https://www.udacity.com/course/ud9012.

15 May 2019 9:14pm GMT

Posted by Gloria On, Program Manager, Google Play
Many developers are increasingly focused on growing their businesses globally, and there were more than 94 billion apps downloaded from Google Play in the last year, reaching more than 190 countries. The regulatory environment is frequently changing in local markets, and in some countries local governments have implemented withholding tax requirements on transactions with which Google or our payment processor partners must comply. We strive to help both developers and Google meet local tax requirements in markets where we do business, and where Google or our payment processor partners are required to withhold taxes, we may need to deduct those amounts from our payments to developers.
Due to requirements in some local markets, we'll be rolling out withholding taxes soon to all those doing business in those countries. We wanted to bring this to the attention of Google Play developers to allow you time to prepare for these upcoming changes and take any necessary measures to meet these obligations. We strongly recommend developers consult with a professional tax advisor on your individual tax implications in affected markets and for guidance on the potential impact on your business so that you can make any necessary preparations.
The first countries where we will roll out these changes will be Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Myanmar. You can refer to the Google Play help center page to stay informed on future updates and changes.
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15 May 2019 4:25pm GMT

Posted by Rene Mayrhofer and Xiaowen Xin, Android Security & Privacy Team

With every new version of Android, one of our top priorities is raising the bar for security. Over the last few years, these improvements have led to measurable progress across the ecosystem, and 2018 was no different.

In the 4th quarter of 2018, we had 84% more devices receiving a security update than in the same quarter the prior year. At the same time, no critical security vulnerabilities affecting the Android platform were publicly disclosed without a security update or mitigation available in 2018, and we saw a 20% year-over-year decline in the proportion of devices that installed a Potentially Harmful App. In the spirit of transparency, we released this data and more in our Android Security & Privacy 2018 Year In Review.

But now you may be asking, what's next?

Today at Google I/O we lifted the curtain on all the new security features being integrated into Android Q. We plan to go deeper on each feature in the coming weeks and months, but first wanted to share a quick summary of all the security goodness we're adding to the platform.

Encryption

Storage encryption is one of the most fundamental (and effective) security technologies, but current encryption standards require devices have cryptographic acceleration hardware. Because of this requirement many devices are not capable of using storage encryption. The launch of Adiantum changes that in the Android Q release. We announced Adiantum in February. Adiantum is designed to run efficiently without specialized hardware, and can work across everything from smart watches to internet-connected medical devices.

Our commitment to the importance of encryption continues with the Android Q release. All compatible Android devices newly launching with Android Q are required to encrypt user data, with no exceptions. This includes phones, tablets, televisions, and automotive devices. This will ensure the next generation of devices are more secure than their predecessors, and allow the next billion people coming online for the first time to do so safely.

However, storage encryption is just one half of the picture, which is why we are also enabling TLS 1.3 support by default in Android Q. TLS 1.3 is a major revision to the TLS standard finalized by the IETF in August 2018. It is faster, more secure, and more private. TLS 1.3 can often complete the handshake in fewer roundtrips, making the connection time up to 40% faster for those sessions. From a security perspective, TLS 1.3 removes support for weaker cryptographic algorithms, as well as some insecure or obsolete features. It uses a newly-designed handshake which fixes several weaknesses in TLS 1.2. The new protocol is cleaner, less error prone, and more resilient to key compromise. Finally, from a privacy perspective, TLS 1.3 encrypts more of the handshake to better protect the identities of the participating parties.

Platform Hardening

Android utilizes a strategy of defense-in-depth to ensure that individual implementation bugs are insufficient for bypassing our security systems. We apply process isolation, attack surface reduction, architectural decomposition, and exploit mitigations to render vulnerabilities more difficult or impossible to exploit, and to increase the number of vulnerabilities needed by an attacker to achieve their goals.

In Android Q, we have applied these strategies to security critical areas such as media, Bluetooth, and the kernel. We describe these improvements more extensively in a separate blog post, but some highlights include:

• A constrained sandbox for software codecs.
• Increased production use of sanitizers to mitigate entire classes of vulnerabilities in components that process untrusted content.
• Shadow Call Stack, which provides backward-edge Control Flow Integrity (CFI) and complements the forward-edge protection provided by LLVM's CFI.
• Protecting Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) against leaks using eXecute-Only Memory (XOM).
• Introduction of Scudo hardened allocator which makes a number of heap related vulnerabilities more difficult to exploit.

Authentication

Android Pie introduced the BiometricPrompt API to help apps utilize biometrics, including face, fingerprint, and iris. Since the launch, we've seen a lot of apps embrace the new API, and now with Android Q, we've updated the underlying framework with robust support for face and fingerprint. Additionally, we expanded the API to support additional use-cases, including both implicit and explicit authentication.

In the explicit flow, the user must perform an action to proceed, such as tap their finger to the fingerprint sensor. If they're using face or iris to authenticate, then the user must click an additional button to proceed. The explicit flow is the default flow and should be used for all high-value transactions such as payments.

Implicit flow does not require an additional user action. It is used to provide a lighter-weight, more seamless experience for transactions that are readily and easily reversible, such as sign-in and autofill.

Another handy new feature in BiometricPrompt is the ability to check if a device supports biometric authentication prior to invoking BiometricPrompt. This is useful when the app wants to show an "enable biometric sign-in" or similar item in their sign-in page or in-app settings menu. To support this, we've added a new BiometricManager class. You can now call the canAuthenticate() method in it to determine whether the device supports biometric authentication and whether the user is enrolled.

What's Next?

Beyond Android Q, we are looking to add Electronic ID support for mobile apps, so that your phone can be used as an ID, such as a driver's license. Apps such as these have a lot of security requirements and involves integration between the client application on the holder's mobile phone, a reader/verifier device, and issuing authority backend systems used for license issuance, updates, and revocation.

This initiative requires expertise around cryptography and standardization from the ISO and is being led by the Android Security and Privacy team. We will be providing APIs and a reference implementation of HALs for Android devices in order to ensure the platform provides the building blocks for similar security and privacy sensitive applications. You can expect to hear more updates from us on Electronic ID support in the near future.

Acknowledgements: This post leveraged contributions from Jeff Vander Stoep and Shawn Willden

09 May 2019 3:30pm GMT

Posted by Jeff Vander Stoep, Android Security & Privacy Team and Chong Zhang, Android Media Team

Android Q Beta versions are now publicly available. Among the various new features introduced in Android Q are some important security hardening changes. While exciting new security features are added in each Android release, hardening generally refers to security improvements made to existing components.

When prioritizing platform hardening, we analyze data from a number of sources including our vulnerability rewards program (VRP). Past security issues provide useful insight into which components can use additional hardening. Android publishes monthly security bulletins which include fixes for all the high/critical severity vulnerabilities in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) reported through our VRP. While fixing vulnerabilities is necessary, we also get a lot of value from the metadata - analysis on the location and class of vulnerabilities. With this insight we can apply the following strategies to our existing components:

• Contain: isolating and de-privileging components, particularly ones that handle untrusted content. This includes:
  • Access control: adding permission checks, increasing the granularity of permission checks, or switching to safer defaults (for example, default deny).
  • Attack surface reduction: reducing the number of entry/exit points (i.e. principle of least privilege).
  • Architectural decomposition: breaking privileged processes into less privileged components and applying attack surface reduction.
• Mitigate: Assume vulnerabilities exist and actively defend against classes of vulnerabilities or common exploitation techniques.

Here's a look at high severity vulnerabilities by component and cause from 2018:

Most of Android's vulnerabilities occur in the media and bluetooth components. Use-after-free (UAF), integer overflows, and out of bounds (OOB) reads/writes comprise 90% of vulnerabilities with OOB being the most common.

A Constrained Sandbox for Software Codecs

In Android Q, we moved software codecs out of the main mediacodec service into a constrained sandbox. This is a big step forward in our effort to improve security by isolating various media components into less privileged sandboxes. As Mark Brand of Project Zero points out in his Return To Libstagefright blog post, constrained sandboxes are not where an attacker wants to end up. In 2018, approximately 80% of the critical/high severity vulnerabilities in media components occurred in software codecs, meaning further isolating them is a big improvement. Due to the increased protection provided by the new mediaswcodec sandbox, these same vulnerabilities will receive a lower severity based on Android's severity guidelines.

The following figure shows an overview of the evolution of media services layout in the recent Android releases.

• Prior to N, media services are all inside one monolithic mediaserver process, and the extractors run inside the client.
• In N, we delivered a major security re-architect, where a number of lower-level media services are spun off into individual service processes with reduced privilege sandboxes. Extractors are moved into server side, and put into a constrained sandbox. Only a couple of higher-level functionalities remained in mediaserver itself.
• In O, the services are "treblized," and further deprivileged that is, separated into individual sandboxes and converted into HALs. The media.codec service became a HAL while still hosting both software and hardware codec implementations.
• In Q, the software codecs are extracted from the media.codec process, and moved back to system side. It becomes a system service that exposes the codec HAL interface. Selinux policy and seccomp filters are further tightened up for this process. In particular, while the previous mediacodec process had access to device drivers for hardware accelerated codecs, the software codec process has no access to device drivers.

With this move, we now have the two primary sources for media vulnerabilities tightly sandboxed within constrained processes. Software codecs are similar to extractors in that they both have extensive code parsing bitstreams from untrusted sources. Once a vulnerability is identified in the source code, it can be triggered by sending a crafted media file to media APIs (such as MediaExtractor or MediaCodec). Sandboxing these two services allows us to reduce the severity of potential security vulnerabilities without compromising performance.

In addition to constraining riskier codecs, a lot of work has also gone into preventing common types of vulnerabilities.

Bound Sanitizer

Incorrect or missing memory bounds checking on arrays account for about 34% of Android's userspace vulnerabilities. In cases where the array size is known at compile time, LLVM's bound sanitizer (BoundSan) can automatically instrument arrays to prevent overflows and fail safely.

BoundSan instrumentation

BoundSan is enabled in 11 media codecs and throughout the Bluetooth stack for Android Q. By optimizing away a number of unnecessary checks the performance overhead was reduced to less than 1%. BoundSan has already found/prevented potential vulnerabilities in codecs and Bluetooth.

More integer sanitizer in more places

Android pioneered the production use of sanitizers in Android Nougat when we first started rolling out integer sanization (IntSan) in the media frameworks. This work has continued with each release and has been very successful in preventing otherwise exploitable vulnerabilities. For example, new IntSan coverage in Android Pie mitigated 11 critical vulnerabilities. Enabling IntSan is challenging because overflows are generally benign and unsigned integer overflows are well defined and sometimes intentional. This is quite different from the bound sanitizer where OOB reads/writes are always unintended and often exploitable. Enabling Intsan has been a multi year project, but with Q we have fully enabled it across the media frameworks with the inclusion of 11 more codecs.

IntSan Instrumentation

IntSan works by instrumenting arithmetic operations to abort when an overflow occurs. This instrumentation can have an impact on performance, so evaluating the impact on CPU usage is necessary. In cases where performance impact was too high, we identified hot functions and individually disabled IntSan on those functions after manually reviewing them for integer safety.

BoundSan and IntSan are considered strong mitigations because (where applied) they prevent the root cause of memory safety vulnerabilities. The class of mitigations described next target common exploitation techniques. These mitigations are considered to be probabilistic because they make exploitation more difficult by limiting how a vulnerability may be used.

Shadow Call Stack

LLVM's Control Flow Integrity (CFI) was enabled in the media frameworks, Bluetooth, and NFC in Android Pie. CFI makes code reuse attacks more difficult by protecting the forward-edges of the call graph, such as function pointers and virtual functions. Android Q uses LLVM's Shadow Call Stack (SCS) to protect return addresses, protecting the backwards-edge of control flow graph. SCS accomplishes this by storing return addresses in a separate shadow stack which is protected from leakage by storing its location in the x18 register, which is now reserved by the compiler.

SCS Instrumentation

SCS has negligible performance overhead and a small memory increase due to the separate stack. In Android Q, SCS has been turned on in portions of the Bluetooth stack and is also available for the kernel. We'll share more on that in an upcoming post.

eXecute-Only Memory

Like SCS, eXecute-Only Memory (XOM) aims at making common exploitation techniques more expensive. It does so by strengthening the protections already provided by address space layout randomization (ASLR) which in turn makes code reuse attacks more difficult by requiring attackers to first leak the location of the code they intend to reuse. This often means that an attacker now needs two vulnerabilities, a read primitive and a write primitive, where previously just a write primitive was necessary in order to achieve their goals. XOM protects against leaks (memory disclosures of code segments) by making code unreadable. Attempts to read execute-only code results in the process aborting safely.

Tombstone from a XOM abort

Starting in Android Q, platform-provided AArch64 code segments in binaries and libraries are loaded as execute-only. Not all devices will immediately receive the benefit as this enforcement has hardware dependencies (ARMv8.2+) and kernel dependencies (Linux 4.9+, CONFIG_ARM64_UAO). For apps with a targetSdkVersion lower than Q, Android's zygote process will relax the protection in order to avoid potential app breakage, but 64 bit system processes (for example, mediaextractor, init, vold, etc.) are protected. XOM protections are applied at compile-time and have no memory or CPU overhead.

Scudo Hardened Allocator

Scudo is a dynamic heap allocator designed to be resilient against heap related vulnerabilities such as:

• Use-after-frees: by quarantining freed blocks.
• Double-frees: by tracking chunk states.
• Buffer overflows: by check summing headers.
• Heap sprays and layout manipulation: by improved randomization.

Scudo does not prevent exploitation but rather proactively manages memory in a way to make exploitation more difficult. It is configurable on a per-process basis depending on performance requirements. Scudo is enabled in extractors and codecs in the media frameworks.

Tombstone from Scudo aborts

Contributing security improvements to Open Source

AOSP makes use of a number of Open Source Projects to build and secure Android. Google is actively contributing back to these projects in a number of security critical areas:

• Creator and primary contributor to AddressSanitizer and other "sanitizer" (compiler-based dynamic testing tools) to LLVM.
• Primary contributor to compiler-based hardening tools in LLVM (ControlFlowIntegrity, ShadowCallStack).
• Creator of fuzzing tools (AFL, libFuzzer, honggfuzz, syzkaller) and fuzzing infrastructure (oss-fuzz, syzbot) for user-space and OS kernels.
• Participant in research related to hardware-assisted memory safety.
• Primary contributor of the Scudo hardened allocator to LLVM.

Thank you to Ivan Lozano, Kevin Deus, Kostya Kortchinsky, Kostya Serebryany, and Mike Antares for their contributions to this post.

09 May 2019 3:30pm GMT

Posted by Karen Ng, Group Product Manager and Jisha Abubaker, Product Manager, Android

Last year, we launched Android Jetpack, a collection of software components designed to accelerate Android development and make writing high-quality apps easier. Jetpack was built with you in mind -- to take the hardest, most common developer problems on Android and make your lives easier.

Jetpack has seen incredible adoption and momentum. Today, 80% of the top 1,000 apps in the Play store are using Jetpack. We've also heard feedback from so many of you across our early access developer programs and user studies, as well as Reddit, Stack Overflow, and Slack, that has helped shape these APIs. Very humbly, thank you.

What's New in Jetpack

Today, we are excited to share with you 11 Jetpack libraries that can be used in development now and an early-development, open-source project called Jetpack Compose to simplify UI development.

Now in Alpha

CameraX

We've heard from many of you that developing camera apps or integrating camera functionality within your existing apps is hard. With the new CameraX library, we want to enable you to create great camera-driven experiences in your application without worrying about the underlying device behavior. This API is backwards compatible to Android 5.0 (API 21) or higher, ensuring that the same code works on most devices in the market. While it leverages the capabilities of camera2, it uses a simpler, use case-based approach that is lifecycle-aware eliminating significant amount of boilerplate code vs camera2. Finally, it enables you to access the same functionality as the native camera app on supported devices. These optional Extensions enable features like Portrait, Night, HDR, and Beauty.

LiveData and Lifecycles w/ coroutines

We heard you loud and clear and agree that LiveData must support your common one-shot asynchronous operations. With Lifecycle & LiveData KTX, you can do so with Kotlin coroutines that are lifecycle-aware. Kotlin coroutines have been well received by the developer community for how they simplify the way concurrency is handled within Android apps. We want to simplify it even further and enable you to use them safely by offering coroutine scopes tied to lifecycles, coroutine dispatchers that are lifecycle-aware, and support for simple asynchronous chains with the new liveData builder.

Benchmark

The Benchmark library provides you a quick way to benchmark your app code, whether it is written in Kotlin, the Java programming language or native code. We use this library to continuously benchmark Jetpack libraries we release to ensure we do not introduce any latency into your code. You can now do the same right within your development environment in Android Studio, easily measuring database queries, view inflation, or a RecyclerView scroll. The library takes care of what is needed to provide reliable and consistent results like handling warm-up periods, removing outliers, and locking CPU clocks.

Security

To maximize security of an application's data at-rest, the new Security library implements security best practices for you. It provides strong security that balances encryption with performance for consumer apps like banking and chat. It also provides a maximum level of security for apps that require a hardware-backed keystore with user presence and simplifies many operations including key generation and validation.

ViewModel with SavedState

ViewModel provided you an easy way to save your UI data in the event of a configuration change. It did not save your app state in the event of process death, and many of you have been relying on SavedInstanceState alongside ViewModel. With the ViewModel with SavedState module, you can eliminate boilerplate code and gain the benefits of using both ViewModel and SavedState with simple APIs to save and retrieve data right from your ViewModel.

ViewPager2

ViewPager2, the next generation of ViewPager, is now based on RecyclerView and supports vertical scrolling and RTL (Right-to-Left) layouts. It also provides a much easier way to listen for page data changes with registerOnPageChangeCallback.

Now in Beta

ConstraintLayout 2.0

ConstraintLayout 2.0 brings up new optimizations, and new way of customizing layouts, with the addition of helper classes. As part of ConstraintLayout 2.0, MotionLayout provides an easy way to manage motion and widget animation in your applications. You can easily describe transitions between layouts and animation of properties. MotionLayout is fully declarative in XML, allowing you to describe even complex transitions without requiring any code.

Biometrics Prompt

Users are accustomed to biometric credentials on their phones, but if your app requires a biometric login, it is important to make sure that users are provided a consistent and safe way to enter their credentials. The Biometrics library provides a simple system prompt giving the user a trustworthy experience.

Enterprise

With the Jetpack Enterprise library, your managed enterprise apps can send feedback back to Enterprise Mobility Management providers in the form of keyed app states, while taking advantage of backwards compatibility with managed configurations.

Android for Cars

With the Android for Cars libraries, you can provide your users a driver-optimized version of your app that will be automatically installed onto the vehicle's infotainment system in vehicles equipped with the Android Automotive OS. It also allows your apps to work with the Android Auto app, providing the driver-optimized version anytime on their device.

Now in Stable

And in case you missed it, we announced stable releases of Jetpack WorkManager (background processing) and Jetpack Navigation (in-app navigation) just a few months ago.

Jetpack Compose

Today, we open-sourced an early preview of Jetpack Compose, a new unbundled toolkit designed to simplify UI development by combining a reactive programming model with the conciseness and ease-of-use of Kotlin. We have always done our best work when we did it with you - our developer community. That's why we decided to develop Jetpack Compose in the open, starting today.

In that vein, we took a step back and chatted with many of you. We heard strong feedback from developers that they like the modern, reactive APIs that Flutter, React Native, Litho, and Vue.js represent. We also heard that developers love Kotlin, with over 53% of professional Android developers using it and with 20% higher language satisfaction ratings than the Java programming language. Kotlin has become the fastest-growing language in terms of number of contributors on GitHub.

So, we decided to invest in the reactive approach to declarative programming and create an easier way to build UIs with Kotlin.

We are building Compose with a few core principles:

• Build with the benefits that Kotlin brings -- concise, safe, and fully interoperable with the Java programming language. Designed to drastically reduce the amount of boilerplate code you have to write, so you can focus on your app code, and help avoid entire classes of errors.
• Fully declarative for defining UI components, including drawing and creating custom layouts. Simply describe your UI as a set of composable functions, and the framework handles UI optimizations and updates to the view hierarchy under the hood.
• Provide reusable building blocks that let you build custom widgets easier, and without starting from scratch.
• Compatible with existing views so you can mix and match and adopt at your own pace with direct access to all of the Android and Jetpack APIs.
• Material Design out of the box and animations from the start, so it's easy to create beautiful apps that are full of motion.
• Accelerate development with tools like live preview and apply changes.

A Compose application is made up of composable functions that transform application data into a UI hierarchy. A function is all you need to create a new UI component. To create a composable function just add the @Composable annotation to the function name. Under the hood, Compose uses a custom Kotlin compiler plug-in so when the underlying data changes, the composable functions can be re-invoked to generate an updated UI hierarchy. The simple example below prints a string to the screen.

We know that adopting any new framework is a big change for existing projects and codebases, which is why we've designed Compose like all of Jetpack -- with individual components that you can adopt at your own pace and are compatible with existing views.

If you want to learn more about Jetpack Compose or download its source to try it for yourself, check out http://d.android.com/jetpackcompose

We'd love to hear from you as we iterate on this exciting future together. Send us feedback by posting comments below, and please file any bugs you run into on AOSP or directly through the feedback buttons in the Android Studio Jetpack Compose build in AOSP. Since this is an early preview, we do not recommend trying this on any production projects.

Happy Jetpacking!

08 May 2019 7:27pm GMT

Posted by Kobi Glick, Product Lead, Google Play

Over the last 10 years, we've worked together to build an incredible ecosystem with more than 2.5 billion active users in over 190 countries. This would not be possible without you and all the fantastic apps and games you've built that entertain, help, and educate people around the world.

Every month, you upload more than 750,000 APKs and app bundles to the Play Console. We've been amazed by your enthusiasm, and it's been our privilege to help you grow your business. This year, we want to help you go even further. So today at Google I/O, we're announcing new tools and features to help you develop, release, and grow your apps and games - many of them based on your feedback and suggestions.

Efficient, modular apps and customizable feature delivery

Last year we introduced Android's new publishing format, the Android App Bundle, and an entirely new dynamic delivery framework on Google Play. There are now over 80,000 apps and games using app bundles in production, with an average size savings of 20%. As a result of those savings, apps have seen up to 11% install uplift. As the future of app delivery, we're excited to share these latest enhancements to the Android App Bundle.

Dynamic features are out of beta and available to all developers, including these new delivery options:

• On-demand delivery - install features when they're needed or in the background, instead of delivering them at install time, and reduce the size of your app.
• Conditional delivery - control which parts of your app to deliver at the time of install based on the user's country, device features, or minimum SDK version.
• Instant experiences - now fully supported, so you only need to upload one artifact for your installed app and Google Play Instant experiences.

During our beta program, many developers implemented interesting use cases with dynamic features. Netflix, for example, now delivers their customer support functionality as a dynamic feature to users who visit the support center. By making functionality available only to users who need it, Netflix reported a 33% reduction in app size. You can learn more in the video below.

Seamless internal testing and increased security

We heard you loud and clear: testing bundles is hard. But with the new internal app sharing, you can now share test builds in a matter of seconds. Just upload your app bundle to Google Play and get a download URL to share with your testers. You don't need to worry about version codes, signing keys, or most other validations that your production releases need to conform to.

In addition to efficiency and modularity, the Android App Bundle also now offers increased security with the launch of app signing key upgrade for new installs. With this feature, you can upgrade the cryptographic strength of your signing key for new installs and their updates on Google Play. Many developers sign their apps with keys generated a long time ago, and this new feature is the only backwards-compatible way to increase their strength.

Easier for users to update

Although auto-updates reach many users, you told us it was still challenging to get some users to update your apps. Now that our new in-app updates API is in general availability, users will be able to update without ever leaving your app. During our early access program, many developers used our API to create a polished upgrade flow, resulting in a median acceptance rate of about 50%.

The API currently supports two flows:

• The "immediate" flow is a full-screen user experience that guides the user from download to update before they can use your app.
• The "flexible flow" allows users to download the update while continuing to use your app.

Stronger decision-making with new Google Play Console data

The right data can help you improve your app performance and grow your business. That's why we're excited to tell you about new metrics and insights that will help you better measure your app health and analyze your performance.

• Core metrics refresh - better understand your acquisition and churn, including data on returning users, automatic change analysis, install method (such as pre-installs and peer-to-peer sharing), metric benchmarking, and the ability to aggregate and dedupe over periods from hours to quarters.
• App size metrics and reports - gain insights about your app size in Android vitals, including download size, size on device (at install time), changes compared to peers over time, and tailored optimization recommendations.
• Developer-selected peer benchmarks - create a custom set of 8-12 peers to compare your app to, then see the median value of the set and the difference between your app and its peers for Android vitals data as well as for public metrics like your rating.
• Market insights with curated peersets - in the coming months, you'll also be able to compare your growth against an automatically generated, curated peerset of around 100 apps similar to yours for business-sensitive metrics like conversion rate and uninstall rate.

Making it easier to respond to and improve user reviews

We're also making big changes to another key source of performance data: your user reviews. Many of you told us that you want a rating that reflects a more current version of your app, not what it was years ago - and we agree. So instead of a lifetime cumulative value, your Google Play Store rating will be recalculated to give more weight to your most recent ratings. Users won't see the updated rating in the Google Play Store until August, but you can preview your new rating in the Google Play Console today.

Every day, developers respond to more than 100,000 reviews in the Play Console, and when they do, we've seen that users update their rating by +0.7 stars on average. So in addition to the ratings change, we're making it easier to respond to reviews with suggested replies. When you go to respond to a user, you'll see three suggested replies which have been created automatically based on the content of the review. You can choose to send one as-suggested, customize a suggestion for more personalization, or create your own message from scratch. Suggested replies are available in English now with additional languages coming later.

Better Google Play Store listing targeting and customization

Your store listing is where users come to learn more about your app or game and decide whether to install. It's important real estate, so we're releasing new features that let you optimize your Google Play Store to address different moments in the user lifecycle.

• Following the launch of custom listings by country at GDC, we're announcing a new early access program that lets you create custom listings by install state. Increase acquisition, retention, and re-engagement by providing customized marketing messages for users who haven't installed your app, users who have your app, and users who have uninstalled your app. If you're interested in joining the program, sign up here.
• Now that pre-registration is available to all developers, we're launching two new features to help you make the most of it: custom listing pages for pre-registration and pre-registration rewards, which let you incentivize players for signing up for notifications before you launch.

Learn more about these and other Google Play features at Google I/O. Join us live or watch later on the Android Developers YouTube channel.

You can also take your skills and knowledge to the next level with our e-learning courses on Google Play's Academy for App Success, and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with our latest features and updates.

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08 May 2019 6:40pm GMT