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Posted by Matthew McCullough - Vice President, Product Management, Android Developer

We just dropped an I/O Edition of The Android Show, where we unpacked exciting new experiences coming to the Android ecosystem: a fresh and dynamic look and feel, smarts across your devices, and enhanced safety and security features. Join Sameer Samat, President of Android Ecosystem, and the Android team to learn about exciting new development in the episode below, and read about all of the updates for users.

Tune into Google I/O next week - including the Developer Keynote as well as the full Android track of sessions - where we're covering these topics in more detail and how you can get started.

Start building with Material 3 Expressive

The world of UX design is constantly evolving, and you deserve the tools to create truly engaging and impactful experiences. That's why Material Design's latest evolution, Material 3 Expressive, provides new ways to make your product more engaging, easy to use, and desirable. Learn more, and try out the new Material 3 Expressive: an expansion pack designed to enhance your app's appeal by harnessing emotional UX, making it more engaging, intuitive, and desirable for users. It comes with new components, motion-physics system, type styles, colors, shapes and more.

Material 3 Expressive will be coming to Android 16 later this year; check out the Google I/O talk next week where we'll dive into this in more detail.

A fluid design built for your watch's round display

Wear OS 6, arriving later this year, brings Material 3 Expressive design to Google's smartwatch platform. New design language puts the round watch display at the heart of the experience, and is embraced in every single component and motion of the System, from buttons to notifications. You'll be able to try new visual design and upgrade existing app experiences to a new level. Next week, tune in to the What's New in Android session to learn more.

Plus some goodies in Android 16...

We also unpacked some of the latest features coming to users in Android 16, which we've been previewing with you for the last few months. If you haven't already, you can try out the latest Beta of Android 16.

A few new features that Android 16 adds which developers should pay attention to are Live updates, professional media and camera features, desktop windowing for tablets, major accessibility enhancements and much more:

Watch the What's New in Android session and the Live updates talk to learn more.

Tune in next week to Google I/O

This was just a preview of some Android-related news, so remember to tune in next week to Google I/O, where we'll be diving into a range of Android developer topics in a lot more detail. You can check out What's New in Android and the full Android track of sessions to start planning your time.

We can't wait to see you next week, whether you're joining in person or virtually from anywhere around the world!

13 May 2025 5:00pm GMT

Posted by Robbie McLachlan - Developer Marketing

In our latest #WeArePlay film, which celebrates the people behind apps and games on Google Play, we meet Clément, the founder of Imagine Games. His game, My Lovely Planet, turns casual mobile gaming into tangible environmental action, planting real trees and supporting reforestation projects worldwide. Discover the inspiration behind My Lovely Planet and the impact it's had so far.

What inspired you to combine gaming with positive environmental impact?

I've always loved gaming and believed in technology's potential to tackle environmental challenges. But it was my time working with an NGO in Madagascar, where I witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of environmental changes that truly sparked my mission. Combining gaming and sustainability just made sense. Billions of people play games, so why not harness that entertainment to create real-world impact? So far, the results speak for themselves: we've built an engaged global community committed to protecting the environment.

How do players in My Lovely Planet make real-world differences through the game?

With My Lovely Planet, planting a tree in the game means planting a real tree in the world. Our community has already planted over 360,000 trees through partnerships with NGOs like Graines de Vie in Madagascar, Kenya, and France. We've also supported ocean-cleaning, bee-protection, and drone reforestation projects.

Balancing fun with impact was key. Players wouldn't stay just for the mission, so we focused on creating a genuinely fun match-3 style game. Once gameplay was strong, we made real-world actions like tree planting core rewards in the game, helping players feel naturally connected to their impact. Our goal is to keep growing this model to protect biodiversity and fight climate change.

Can you tell us about your drone-led reforestation project in France?

Our latest initiative involves using drones to reforest areas severely impacted by insect infestations and other environmental issues. We're dropping over one million specially-coated seeds by drone, which is a completely new and efficient way of reforesting large areas. It's exciting because if this pilot succeeds, it could be replicated worldwide, significantly boosting global reforestation efforts.

How has Google Play helped your journey?

Google Play has been crucial for My Lovely Planet - it's our main distribution channel, with about 70% of our players coming through the platform. It makes it incredibly easy and convenient for anyone to download and start playing immediately. which is essential for engaging a global community. Plus, from a developer's standpoint, the flexibility, responsiveness, and powerful testing tools Google Play provides have made launching and scaling our game faster and smoother, allowing us to focus even more on our environmental impact.

What is next for My Lovely Planet?

Right now, we're focused on expanding the game experience by adding more engaging levels, and introducing exciting new features like integrating our eco-friendly cryptocurrency, My Lovely Coin, into gameplay. Following the success of our first drone-led reforestation project in France, our next step is tracking its impact and expanding this approach to other regions. Ultimately, we aim to build the world's largest gaming community dedicated to protecting the environment, empowering millions to make a difference while enjoying the game.

Discover other inspiring app and game founders featured in #WeArePlay.

13 May 2025 1:00pm GMT

Posted by Dan Brown - Product Manager, Google Play

Google Play empowers you to manage and distribute your innovative and trusted apps and games to billions of users around the world across the entire breadth of Android devices, and historically, all Android devices have managed memory in 4 KB pages.

As device manufacturers equip devices with more RAM to optimize performance, many will adopt larger page sizes like 16 KB. Android 15 introduces support for the increased page size, ensuring your app can run on these evolving devices and benefit from the associated performance gains.

Starting November 1st, 2025, all new apps and updates to existing apps submitted to Google Play and targeting Android 15+ devices must support 16 KB page sizes.

This is a key technical requirement to ensure your users can benefit from the performance enhancements on newer devices and prepares your apps for the platform's future direction of improved performance on newer hardware. Without recompiling to support 16 KB pages, your app might not function correctly on these devices when they become more widely available in future Android releases.

We've seen that 16 KB can help with:

We recommend checking your apps early especially for dependencies that might not yet be 16 KB compatible. Many popular SDK providers, like React Native and Flutter, already offer compatible versions. For game developers, several leading game engines, such as Unity, support 16 KB, with support for Unreal Engine coming soon.

Reaching 16 KB compatibility

A substantial number of apps are already compatible, so your app may already work seamlessly with this requirement. For most of those that need to make adjustments, we expect the changes to be minimal.

Our December blog post, Get your apps ready for 16 KB page size devices, provides a more detailed technical explanation and guidance on how to prepare your apps.

Check your app's compatibility now

It's easy to see if your app bundle already supports 16 KB memory page sizes. Visit the app bundle explorer page in Play Console to check your app's build compliance and get guidance on where your app may need updating.

Beyond the app bundle explorer, make sure to also test your app in a 16 KB environment. This will help you ensure users don't experience any issues and that your app delivers its best performance.

For more information, check out the full documentation.

Thank you for your continued support in bringing delightful, fast, and high-performance experiences to users across the breadth of devices Play supports. We look forward to seeing the enhanced experiences you'll deliver with 16 KB support.

08 May 2025 4:00pm GMT