24 Apr 2018

feedAndroid Developers Blog

Time to celebrate the 2018 Google Play Award nominees

Posted by Purnima Kochikar, Director, Apps and Games Business Development, Google Play

This year's Google Play Awards will take place on Monday, May 7th, kicking off the week of Google I/O. Celebrating our third year, we're excited to highlight nine categories; some you may recognize from previous years, along with new additions highlighting growth areas and trends we're focused on, such as building for emerging markets.

Each year, the Google Play Awards recognize top apps and games on Google Play. They represent some of the best experiences available on Android, with an emphasis on overall quality, strong design, technical performance, and innovation. The nominees were selected by various teams across Google, and all meet criteria thresholds covering high star rating, Android vitals, and have had a launch or major update since April 2017.

Congratulations to this year's nominees below and don't forget to check them out on the Google Play store at g.co/play/gpa2018.

Standout Well-Being App

Apps empowering people to live the best version of their lives, while demonstrating responsible design and engagement strategies

Best Accessibility Experience

Apps or games enabling device interaction in an innovative way that serves people with disabilities or special needs

Best Social Impact

Apps or games that create a positive impact in communities around the world (focused on health, education, crisis response, refugees, financial health & fundraising functions)

Standout Indie

Games from indie developers that focus on artistic design, gameplay mechanics, and overall polish

Best Community Building Game

Games built to connect gamers, encouraging social interaction and community building

Best AR or VR Experience

Apps or games offering highly engaging and immersive experiences with optimal use of ARCore or Daydream UI

Standout Build for Billions Experience

Apps or games with optimized performance, localization, and culturalization for emerging markets

Standout Startup

Apps from new developers that offer a unique experience while achieving strong organic install growth.

Best Breakthrough Hit

New apps or games with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement and retention, and strong organic install growth

Come back on Monday, May 7th when we announce the winners, and until then, make sure to try out some of these great apps and games on Google Play at g.co/play/gpa2018.

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24 Apr 2018 5:01pm GMT

17 Apr 2018

feedAndroid Developers Blog

Protecting WebView with Safe Browsing

Posted by Nate Fischer, Software Engineer

Since 2007, Google Safe Browsing has been protecting users across the web from phishing and malware attacks. It protects over three billion devices from an increasing number of threats, now also including unwanted software across desktop and mobile platforms. Today, we're announcing that Google Play Protect is bringing Safe Browsing to WebView by default, starting in April 2018 with the release of WebView 66.

Developers of Android apps using WebView no longer have to make any changes to benefit from this protection. Safe Browsing in WebView has been available since Android 8.0 (API level 26), using the same underlying technology as Chrome on Android. When Safe Browsing is triggered, the app will present a warning and receive a network error. Apps built for API level 27 and above can customize this behavior with new APIs for Safe Browsing.

An example of a warning shown when Safe Browsing detects a dangerous site. The style and content of the warning will vary depending on the size of the WebView.

You can learn more about customizing and controlling Safe Browsing in the Android API documentation, and you can test your application today by visiting the Safe Browsing test URL (chrome://safe-browsing/match?type=malware) while using the current WebView beta.

17 Apr 2018 4:00pm GMT

16 Apr 2018

feedAndroid Developers Blog

Android Things Release Candidate

Posted by Dave Smith, Developer Advocate for IoT

Earlier this year at CES, we showcased consumer products powered by Android Things from partners like Lenovo, LG, JBL, iHome, and Sony. We are excited to see Android Things enable the wider developer ecosystem as well. Today we are announcing the final preview release of Android Things, Developer Preview 8, before the upcoming stable release.

Feature complete SDK

Developer Preview 8 represents the final API surface exposed in the Android Things support library for the upcoming stable release. There will be no more breaking API changes before the stable v1.0 release of the SDK. For details on all the API changes included in DP8, see the release notes. Refer to the updated SDK reference to review the classes and methods in the final SDK.

This release also brings new features in the Android Things developer console to make building and managing production devices easier. Here are some notable updates:

Production-focused console enhancements

With an eye towards building and shipping production devices with the upcoming LTS release, we have made several updates to the Android Things developer console:

App library

The new app library enables you to manage APKs more easily without the need to package them together in a separate zipped bundle. Track individual versions, review permissions, and share your apps with other console users. See the app library documentation for more details.

Permissions

On mobile devices, apps request permissions at runtime and the end user grants them. In earlier previews, Android Things granted these same permissions automatically to apps on device boot. Beginning in DP8, these permissions are granted using a new interface in the developer console, giving developers more control of the permissions used by the apps on their device.

This change does not affect development, as Android Studio grants all permissions by default. Developers using the command line can append the -g flag to the adb install command to get the same behavior. To test how apps on your device behave with certain permissions revoked, use the pm command:

$ adb shell pm [grant|revoke] <permission-name> ...

App launch behavior

Embedded devices need to launch their primary application automatically after the device boots, and relaunch it if the app terminates unexpectedly. In earlier previews, the main app on the device could listen for a custom IOT_LAUNCHER intent to enable this behavior. Beginning in DP8, this category is replaced by the standard CATEGORY_HOME intent.

<activity android:name=".HomeActivity">
    ...

    <!-- Launch activity automatically on boot, relaunch on termination. -->
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME"/>
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Apps that contain an IOT_LAUNCHER intent filter will no longer be triggered on boot. Update your apps to use CATEGORY_HOME instead.

Feedback

Thanks to all of you in the developer community for sharing your feedback with us throughout developer preview. Join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+ to let us know what you're building with Android Things and how we can improve the platform in future releases to help you build connected devices at scale!

16 Apr 2018 5:00pm GMT