![]() Posted by Jacob Lehrbaum Director of Developer Relations, Android Great app experiences are great for business. In fact, nearly three-quarters of Android app users who leave a 5 star review on Google Play mention the quality of their experience with the app1; its speed, design, and usability. At Google, we want to help all developers achieve app excellence, and in turn help you drive user acquisition, retention, and monetization. So what is “app excellence”? This may sound aspirational, but it is within reach for many apps. It starts with a laser focus on the user, and more specifically, with intuitive user experiences that get people to the main functionality of your app as quickly as possible — but that is just the beginning. Excellent apps are consistent across all of their screens and experiences. They perform well, no matter the device used. App excellence is achievable when all of the stakeholders who influence your app are invested in the experience of using your app. One of the blockers that gets in the way of app excellence is shared or unclear accountability. Some of the primary measures of app quality, such as crashes and load times, are often seen as the responsibility of one group in the company, such as the engineering team. However, when we talk to best-in-class organizations2 about how they achieve app quality, it is clear that taking a cross-functional approach is key, with engineering, design, product, and business teams working toward a common goal. So what are some internal best practices behind app excellence? Make app quality a cross-organizational focus — not just an engineering concernIt’s a way easier conversation for me at the business end because I can say “these competitors’ apps are faster than ours; we need to reduce our load time down from 5 seconds to 4 seconds”. Software engineer, x-platform app App excellence helps drive business performance. New features are great, but if they slow down app start-up times or take up too much device space, people will eventually use your app less often or even delete it. Engineers who have built a company-wide focus on quality have often done so by quantifying the impact of quality issues on business performance, through:
Organize teams around features and/or app user journey stagesCompanies that organize teams around features — or stages in the user journey — are more likely to deliver consistent experiences across each operating system they support, bring new apps or features to market faster, and deliver a better app experience for all their customers. These teams are often cross-functional groups that span engineering, marketing, ux, and product — and are responsible for the success of a feature or user journey stage3 across all devices and platforms. In addition to better experiences and feature parity, this structure enables alignment of goals across functional areas while reducing silos, and it also helps teams hyper-focus on addressing specific objectives. Squads focused on business objectives heighten focus on the user. Use the same devices your customers useIf a majority of your users are on a specific type of device, you can build empathy for their experience if you use the same phone, tablet or smart watch as your primary device. This is especially relevant for senior leadership in your organization who make decisions that impact the day-to-day experience of millions of users. For example, Duolingo has built this into their company DNA. Every Duolingo employee — including their CEO — either uses exclusively or has access to an entry level Android device to reflect a significant portion of their user base. A user-centric approach to quality and app excellence is essential to business growth. If you are interested in learning how to achieve app excellence, read our case studies with practical tips, and sign up to attend our App Excellence Summit by visiting the Android app excellence webpage. In subsequent blog posts, we will dig deep into two drivers of excellent app experiences: app performance and how it is linked to user behavior, and creating seamless user experiences across devices. Sign up to the Android developer newsletter here to be notified of the next installment, and get news and insights from the Android team. NotesWorking Towards Android App Excellence published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Working Towards Android App Excellence
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Join the North America Android Study Jams to learn more about developing quality Android apps8/12/2021 ![]() Posted by Kübra Zengin, Program Manager Learning about Android development doesn’t mean you have to learn by yourself. Join fellow developers in your community and improve your skills by attending an Android Study Jam! Events are currently taking place across North America. Android Study Jams are community events where developers come together to learn, create, and collaborate. Participants will follow guided codelabs designed to improve their development skills, all with an extra focus on improving the quality of applications. These codelabs are created by the Android Developer Relations team at Google with three different tracks.
If you want to join an Android Study Jam, meet fellow developers, and learn alongside friends old and new, then check out this link to find an event! Join the North America Android Study Jams to learn more about developing quality Android apps published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Join the North America Android Study Jams to learn more about developing quality Android apps ![]() Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering Today we’re bringing you the fourth Beta of Android 12, and moving into the final phase of the release. We’ve built Android 12 with a new UI that adapts to you, performance improvements, privacy and security enhancements, and more. We’re now shifting our focus to polish, performance, and stability. Thanks for all the feedback you’ve shared to help us refine the release and get us to this point. For developers, Beta 4 takes us to Platform Stability, which means that Android 12’s APIs and all app-facing behaviors are finalized. For apps, the focus is now on compatibility and quality. It’s time to start preparing your compatible app updates in time for the official release later in the year. You can try Beta 4 today on your Pixel device by enrolling here for over-the-air updates, and if you previously enrolled, you’ll automatically get today’s update. You can also get Android 12 Beta 4 on select devices from several of our partners like ASUS, Oneplus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, and ZTE - learn more at android.com/beta. Visit the Android 12 developer site for details on how to get started. Platform StabilityAndroid 12 Beta 4 has reached Platform Stability, a milestone that means all app-facing surfaces and behaviors are now final in Android 12. This includes not only the official SDK and NDK APIs, but also final app-facing system behaviors and restrictions on non-SDK interfaces that may affect apps. So from Beta 4, you can confidently release your compatibility updates knowing that the platform won’t change. More on the timeline is here. We’re asking all app and game developers to start your final compatibility testing now and prepare to publish your compatibility updates as soon as possible ahead of the final release. For all SDK, library, tools, and game engine developers, it’s even more important to start testing now and release your compatible updates as soon as possible – your downstream app and game developers may be blocked until they receive your updates. When you’ve released a compatible update, be vocal and let developers know! App compatibilityFor Android, App compatibility means that your app runs as intended on a new version of the platform. You can check your app’s compatibility just by installing the production version of your app on a device or emulator and testing it - if the app looks good and runs properly, then you’re done, it’s compatible! Testing your app for compatibility is important because with each release, we make integral changes to the platform that improve privacy and security and the overall user experience across the OS. These can affect your apps, so you should take a look at the behavior changes and test against them, then publish a compatible update to your users. It’s a basic but critical level of quality that ensures users have a good app experience. As people update their devices to Android 12, they want to explore the latest version of Android, and experience it with their favorite apps. If those apps don’t work properly, it’s a major issue, ultimately resulting in uninstalls. So while there are a ton of new APIs and capabilities to explore, start by testing your current app and releasing a compatible update first. Get your apps readyTo test your app for compatibility with Android 12, just install your production app from Google Play or other source onto a device running Android 12 Beta 4. Work through all of the app’s flows and watch for functional or UI issues. Review the Android 12 behavior changes for all apps to focus your testing. Here are some changes to watch for:
Remember to test the libraries and SDKs in your app for compatibility. If you find any SDK issues, try updating to the latest version of the SDK or reaching out to the developer for help. Once you’ve published the compatible version of your current app, you can start the process to update your app’s targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes for Android 12 apps and use the compatibility framework to help you detect issues quickly. Here are some of the changes to test for (these apply when your app’s targetSdkVersion is 31 or higher):
During testing, also watch for uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces in your app and move those to public SDK equivalents instead. You can read about the restricted APIs here. Get started with Android 12!Today’s Beta release has everything you need to try the Android 12 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just enroll any supported Pixel device to get the update over-the-air. To get started developing, set up the Android 12 SDK. You can also get Android 12 Beta 4 on devices from some of our partners like ASUS, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, and ZTE. Visit android.com/beta to see the full list of partners participating in Android 12 Beta. For even broader testing, you can try Android 12 Beta 4 on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device, you can test on the Android Emulator. Beta 4 is also available for Android TV, so you can check out the latest TV features and test your apps on the all-new Google TV experience. Try it out with the ADT-3 developer kit. More here. Watch for one more Beta coming in the weeks ahead as a release candidate for your final testing. For complete details on Android 12 Beta, visit the Android 12 developer site. Android 12 Beta 4 and Platform Stability published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Android 12 Beta 4 and Platform Stability ![]() Posted by Jeremy Walker, Engineer Tiles provide quick access to information and actions with a simple swipe from the watch face home screen. This gives smartwatch users more control over what information and actions they want to see, and it’s no surprise that Tiles have become one of the most helpful and useful features for smartwatches that run on Wear OS. Today we’re announcing Tiles can be shared with your smartwatch users. You can start creating your custom Tile by downloading the latest Alpha release of the Jetpack Tiles API. Once you upload your experience to Google Play, your users will be able to download your Tile and starting using it. Let your users know they can try out the new experience. You can also upload a screenshot of your Tile to your Play Store preview assets within Google Play Console. Apps such as Calm and Sleep Cycle have already started building custom Tiles. “Using the new Tiles API, we were able to easily expose our Wear app features to be just a swipe away from your watch face.” -Samo Kralj, Android Staff Software Engineer at Calm. “The API was easy to understand and the documentation was quite clear, enabling us to have our first tile running with real data within hours. It feels like a very modern API that is easy to get started with.” -Viktor Åkerskog, Technical Lead at Sleep Cycle We’ve appreciated all your feedback on the alpha library, and have included many of the requests and performance improvements into the APIs. You can add any additional feedback here to help us prioritize API improvements for future releases. If you haven’t had a chance to try out the API, check out the guide, or if you prefer a walkthrough, explore the Tiles codelab. Happy coding! Sharing Tiles with your smartwatch users: published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Sharing Tiles with your smartwatch users: ![]() Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing During the month of June we received thousands of submissions for two of our annual developer programs - the Indie Games Accelerator and the Indie Games Festival. These programs support the growth of small games studios on Google Play. Every year we’re impressed with the art and creativity of the entries. This year was no exception. Many thanks to everyone who submitted their game. Meet the Festival finalistsToday, we’re announcing the finalists of the Festivals in Europe, Japan, and South Korea… drumroll, please. ![]() EuropeBeat Workers by NaturalPad Games, France Bird Alone by George Batchelor, United Kingdom Cats in Time by Pine Studio, Croatia Figment by Bedtime Digital Games, Denmark Froglike: The Frog Roguelike by Jimjum Studios, Israel Garson by Anastasiya Shabunia, Belarus Gumslinger by Itatake, Sweden Lyxo by Emoak, Austria Psychofunk by Tommy Søreide Kjær, Norway Railways by Infinity Games, Portugal Sticky Terms by kamibox, Germany Sweet Sins Superstars by Platonic Games, Spain Tiny Robots Recharged by Big Loop Studios, Bulgaria Tofu Drifter by Roach Games, Russia Towers by JOX Development, Ukraine Unholy Adventure by Dali Games, Poland Warplane Inc by Nuclear Games, Russia Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown by Ultaan Games, Poland Woof: The Good Boy Story by CHPV.GAMES, Russia Zen Symmetry by 8tbl, Russia Sign up to attend the European finals. ![]() Japan3D Chess: NOCCA NOCCA by Curiouspark, Inc. 5colors in Nate by NekodoraSoft Amabie san by HARAPECORPORATION Inc. Archer Battle Online by Takuya Fujieda Cthulhu DreamStairs by Tenyu ElectriarCode by ELECTRIAR LABO Escape from the Closed Circle by Hanachiru Heart of Sengoku by ZEN APP Leaving Two Tiles Dojo by ScreenPocket Living in the Ending World by illuCalab. MAKOTO WAKAIDO’s Case Files “Executioner’s Wedge” by HafHaf-Oden(Sukashiuma-LAB) Mini Mini Farm by CoffeeBreak MonohakobiPro by CGO Mousebusters by Odencat Numpurr Card Wars by Nukenin Parasite Days by Zxima Quantum Transport by ruccho Super Glitter Rush by tiny cactus studio Survivor’s guilt by aso Wolf Chess by Baton Sign up to attend the Japanese finals. ![]() South KoreaAngel Saga by Alchemist Games Inc. Animal Card Royale by Banjihagames Animal Doll Shop by Funnyeve BattleLive: Zombie&Human by PLOTRICK Box It Up! Inc. by team TAPE CATS & SOUP by HIDEA Cats are Cute: Pop Time by kkiruk studio Detective Mio by 1N1 Dicast: Rules of Chaos by BSS COMPANY Forest Island by Nanali Studios Frontier of Fortune by Dotomchi Games Inc. FUNKYGUNNER by FUNKY5 Group Project Simulator! by Studio806 Gun Tactics by Gimle Games Hybrid Warrior: Dungeon of the Overlord by Cat Lab Metro Blossom by The Sane Studio Portal Dungeon by Oblique Line Rush Hour Rally by Soen Games The Way Home by CONCODE Titan Slayer by Touchholic Sign up to attend the South Korean finals. Join the adventure on September 4This year the three Festivals are virtual, so everyone has the chance to explore the games, meet the developers who made them, cheer them on, and be the first to hear who the winners are. Expect plenty of fun and some very special surprises. So, don’t miss out. Sign up now to virtually attend the events showcasing the finalists from Europe, Japan, and South Korea. The events are free to attend and will all take place in the same space, so sign up to one and you will be able to teleport to all events! How about the Indie Games Accelerator?If you’re interested in knowing which developers are joining the 2021 class of the Indie Games Accelerator, sign up to attend the European Festival, where we will also announce the selected developers. ![]() Meet some of the best indie game devs published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Meet some of the best indie game devs ![]() Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing During the month of June we received thousands of submissions for two of our annual developer programs - the Indie Games Accelerator and the Indie Games Festival. These programs support the growth of small games studios on Google Play. Every year we’re impressed with the art and creativity of the entries. This year was no exception. Many thanks to everyone who submitted their game. Meet the Festival finalistsToday, we’re announcing the finalists of the Festivals in Europe, Japan, and South Korea… drumroll, please. ![]() EuropeBeat Workers by NaturalPad Games, France Bird Alone by George Batchelor, United Kingdom Cats in Time by Pine Studio, Croatia Figment by Bedtime Digital Games, Denmark Froglike: The Frog Roguelike by Jimjum Studios, Israel Garson by Anastasiya Shabunia, Belarus Gumslinger by Itatake, Sweden Lyxo by Emoak, Austria Psychofunk by Tommy Søreide Kjær, Norway Railways by Infinity Games, Portugal Sticky Terms by kamibox, Germany Sweet Sins Superstars by Platonic Games, Spain Tiny Robots Recharged by Big Loop Studios, Bulgaria Tofu Drifter by Roach Games, Russia Towers by JOX Development, Ukraine Unholy Adventure by Dali Games, Poland Warplane Inc by Nuclear Games, Russia Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown by Ultaan Games, Poland Woof: The Good Boy Story by CHPV.GAMES, Russia Zen Symmetry by 8tbl, Russia Sign up to attend the European finals. ![]() Japan3D Chess: NOCCA NOCCA by Curiouspark, Inc. 5colors in Nate by NekodoraSoft Amabie san by HARAPECORPORATION Inc. Archer Battle Online by Takuya Fujieda Cthulhu DreamStairs by Tenyu ElectriarCode by ELECTRIAR LABO Escape from the Closed Circle by Hanachiru Heart of Sengoku by ZEN APP Leaving Two Tiles Dojo by ScreenPocket Living in the Ending World by illuCalab. MAKOTO WAKAIDO’s Case Files “Executioner’s Wedge” by HafHaf-Oden(Sukashiuma-LAB) Mini Mini Farm by CoffeeBreak MonohakobiPro by CGO Mousebusters by Odencat Numpurr Card Wars by Nukenin Parasite Days by Zxima Quantum Transport by ruccho Super Glitter Rush by tiny cactus studio Survivor’s guilt by aso Wolf Chess by Baton Sign up to attend the Japanese finals. ![]() South KoreaAngel Saga by Alchemist Games Inc. Animal Card Royale by Banjihagames Animal Doll Shop by Funnyeve BattleLive: Zombie&Human by PLOTRICK Box It Up! Inc. by team TAPE CATS & SOUP by HIDEA Cats are Cute: Pop Time by kkiruk studio Detective Mio by 1N1 Dicast: Rules of Chaos by BSS COMPANY Forest Island by Nanali Studios Frontier of Fortune by Dotomchi Games Inc. FUNKYGUNNER by FUNKY5 Group Project Simulator! by Studio806 Gun Tactics by Gimle Games Hybrid Warrior: Dungeon of the Overlord by Cat Lab Metro Blossom by The Sane Studio Portal Dungeon by Oblique Line Rush Hour Rally by Soen Games The Way Home by CONCODE Titan Slayer by Touchholic Sign up to attend the South Korean finals. Join the adventure on September 4This year the three Festivals are virtual, so everyone has the chance to explore the games, meet the developers who made them, cheer them on, and be the first to hear who the winners are. Expect plenty of fun and some very special surprises. So, don’t miss out. Sign up now to virtually attend the events showcasing the finalists from Europe, Japan, and South Korea. The events are free to attend and will all take place in the same space, so sign up to one and you will be able to teleport to all events! How about the Indie Games Accelerator?If you’re interested in knowing which developers are joining the 2021 class of the Indie Games Accelerator, sign up to attend the European Festival, where we will also announce the selected developers. ![]() Meet some of the best indie game devs published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Meet some of the best indie game devs ![]() Posted by Amanda Alexander, Product Manager, Android ![]() We are excited to announce that Android Studio Arctic Fox is now available to download in the stable release channel. This latest release brings to life Jetpack Compose 1.0, Android’s new toolkit for building native UI. The release also focuses on devices, including Wear OS, and helps with developer productivity, with features like a new Background Task Manager. We used your feedback to create this suite of new Android Studio features that will help empower the developer community to create high quality, modern apps across devices faster! Note: As we announcedlast year, we adjusted our version numbering of Android Studio to match the year and version of the IntelliJ IDEA that Android Studio is based on, plus our own patch number. We will be using code names (in alphabetical order); the first is Arctic Fox and the next is Bumblebee (currently in canary).Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) updates Android Studio to version 2020.3 of the IntelliJ platform which adds a slew of new features including debugger interactive hints, VCS updates, and several new code editor enhancements to speed up your workflow. Learn more. To support rapid design of modern UI, we added additional features for Jetpack Compose. Compose Preview lets you create previews of multiple components of your Compose UI to instantly see the impact of your changes across dimensions (such as themes, screen and font sizes, and more). The Deploy Preview to device feature enables deploying snippets of your Compose code directly to a device or emulator so you can quickly test small parts of your code. If you want to dive deeper into your Layouts, we added Compose support to the Layout Inspector to help you understand how your layouts are rendered. Additionally, we added Live Editing of literals so you can instantly see your Compose code changes in previews and when running your app on an emulator or physical device without the need for compilation. For increased device support, we built a new Wear OS pairing assistant to simplify the pairing of Wear OS emulators with physical or virtual phones. To use the newest Wear OS version, you can now access the developer preview of the Wear OS 3 system image. When you run the Wear OS emulator, you will also find added support for the Heart Rate Sensor API. For apps targeting Google TV, we added the newest Google TV Remote Control features and updated the Google TV system images to reflect the latest UI design. Additionally, we have completed the development and testing workflow for the Automotive OS by enabling the emulator to use car sensor data to simulate driving use cases. For apps targeting tablets, we have updated all templates to support landscape out of the box. Whether you are developing for small or large screen devices, we have included new features to help you keep innovating and building amazing apps. Lastly, in an effort to boost developer productivity, we have added features to help you work more efficiently. For example, we added lint checks for Android 12 to provide guidance on building apps for the next version of Android. To help you test your code, we added an Accessibility Scanner for Layout Editor so you can more easily identify accessibility issues in your layouts and the new Test Matrix lets you view test results in real time across multiple devices in parallel. Additionally, we added preview support for Apple Silicon (arm64) hardware and extended the emulator controls for wider coverage in testing. Lastly, for debugging, the new Background Task Inspector helps you to analyze your app’s background workers. There are many enhancements to Android Studio Arctic Fox. To see the full list of changes, view the Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Beta release blog and release notes. You can take a look below at some highlights of the changes. What’s new in Android Studio Arctic Fox DesignUse the @Preview annotation to generate previews of Compose code and visualize the different configurations of multiple components (e.g. devices or themes). Compose Preview can make it simpler for you to construct a mental mapping of the composables in your code. ![]() Compose Preview Layout Inspector for Compose For both apps written fully in Compose and apps with some Compose alongside Views, Layout Inspector makes it possible to get more details on your layouts and troubleshoot. For example, you will be able to see the parameters and modifiers passed to each composable. There is an option to turn on Live Updates to stream data from your device as you develop your app. ![]() Compose Layout Inspector Live Edit of literals You can now quickly edit literals (strings, numbers, booleans, etc.) inline and see the immediate results on the change on screen (previews, emulator, or physical device), without having to compile. ![]() Live Edit of Literals: edit strings and see it reflected immediately in Preview DevicesWear OS Pairing The new Wear OS Pairing assistant will help walk you through the pairing process to make pairing Wear OS emulators with virtual or physical phone simple. Note that this feature assists with pairing with Wear OS 2 companion; support for Wear OS 3 will be coming soon. Learn more. ![]() Wear OS emulator pairing assistant dialog ![]() Phone + Watch emulators paired successful state Developer ProductivityBackground Task Inspector You can use the new Background Task Inspector to visualize, monitor, and debug your app’s background workers when using WorkManager library 2.5.0 or higher on a device running API level 26 and higher. You can access it by selecting View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the menu bar. Learn more. ![]() To recap, Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Stable includes these new enhancements & features: Design
Devices
Developer Productivity
Check out the Android Studio release notes, Android Gradle plugin release notes, and the Android Emulator release notes for more details. Getting StartedDownload You can download the latest version of Android Studio Arctic Fox from the download page and download the Apple Silicon preview build here. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio Arctic Fox at the same time. Learn more. We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Follow us – the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium. Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Stable published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Stable ![]() Posted by Anna-Chiara Bellini, Product Manager, Nick Butcher, Developer Relations ![]() Today, we’re launching version 1.0 of Jetpack Compose, Android’s modern, native UI toolkit to help you build better apps faster. It’s stable, and ready for you to adopt in production. We have been developing Compose in the open with feedback and participation from the Android community for the last two years. As we reach 1.0, there are already over 2000 apps in the Play Store using Compose - in fact, the Play Store app itself uses Compose! But that’s not all, we have been working with a number of top app developers and their feedback and support has helped us make the 1.0 release even stronger. Square, for instance, told us that by using Compose, they can “focus on things that are unique to Square and their UI infrastructure, rather than solving the broader issue of building a declarative UI framework”. Monzo said Compose allows them to “build higher quality screens more quickly”. And Twitter summed it up nicely: “We love it! ❤️” We designed Compose to make it faster and easier to build native Android apps. With a fully declarative approach, you just describe your UI, and Compose takes care of the rest. As app state changes, your UI automatically updates, making it a lot simpler to build UI quickly. Intuitive Kotlin APIs help you build beautiful apps with way less code, and native access to all existing Android code means you can adopt at your own pace. Powerful layout APIs and code-driven UI make it easy to support different form factors, like tablets and foldables, and Compose support is coming for WearOS, Homescreen Widgets, and more! This 1.0 release is ready for use in production, offering key features that you need:
New ToolsThe fully declarative approach in Jetpack Compose radically changes how you develop UI. To support new workflows and a different way of thinking, we are delivering new tools, designed specifically for Compose, and adding support for Compose to some of our existing tooling. Compose PreviewThe new Compose Preview, available in Android Studio Arctic Fox allows you to see your Composables in different states, light and dark theme, or different font scalings, all at the same time, making component development easier, without having to deploy a whole app to your device. Enhanced with live editing of literals, you can see updates without recompiling your project. ![]() Deploy PreviewIf you ever wished to be able to test parts of the UI on a device, without having to navigate through your app to the screen you’re working on, you will like the new Deploy Preview: just create a preview for your Composable, and deploy it on your device for fast iteration. Compose support in Layout InspectorLayout Inspector adds support for Composables, so that you can confidently mix Compose with existing Views. Sharing our roadmap for ComposeAdopting any new framework requires evaluation, especially something as far reaching as a new UI Toolkit. To help you to make an informed decision whether it’s the right time for you we’re publishing a public roadmap to share our plans to continue to build out Jetpack Compose. ![]() Learning ComposeTo help you get composing, we’ve prepared an extensive set of resources for you and your team:
Enjoy composing!We really believe that Jetpack Compose is a huge leap forward, making it so much faster and easier to build great UIs; we can’t wait to see what you build with it. Now that Compose is stable at 1.0, it’s time to get started; there’s nothing better than getting right to the code. Happy Composing! Jetpack Compose is now 1.0: announcing Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Jetpack Compose is now 1.0: announcing Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI ![]() Posted by Suzanne Frey, VP, Product, Android Security and Privacy Today, we’re announcing additional details for the upcoming safety section in Google Play. At Google, we know that feeling safe online comes from using products that are secure by default, private by design, and give users control over their data. This new safety section will provide developers a simple way to showcase their app’s overall safety. Developers will be able to give users deeper insight into their privacy and security practices, as well as explain the data the app may collect and why — all before users install the app. Ultimately, all Google Play store apps will be required to share information in the safety section. We want to give developers plenty of time to adapt to these changes, so we’re sharing more information about the data type definitions, user journey, and policy requirements of this new feature. What the new safety section may look like:![]() Images are directional and subject to change Users will see the new summary in an app’s store listing page. It’ll share the developer’s explanation of what data an app collects or shares and highlight safety details, such as whether:
![]() Images are directional and subject to change Users can tap into the summary to see details like:
![]() Images are directional and subject to change In designing our labels, we learned developers appreciate when they can provide context about their data practices and more detail on whether their app automatically collects data versus if that collection is optional. We also learned that users care about whether their data is shared with other companies, and why. The final design is subject to change as we continue working with developers and designing for the best blend of developer and user experiences. Policy changes to support the safety section Today we announced new user data policies designed to provide more user transparency and to help people make informed choices about how their data is collected, protected and used.
This applies to all apps published on Google Play, including Google’s own apps. What you can expectWe want to provide developers with plenty of time and resources to get prepared. ![]() Target Timeline. Dates subject to change. Starting in October, developers can submit information in the Google Play Console for review. We encourage you to start early in case you have questions along the way. The new safety section will launch for apps in Google Play in Q1 2022. We know that some developers will need more time to assess their apps and coordinate with multiple teams. So, you’ll have until April 2022 before your apps must have this section approved. Without an approved section, your new app submission or app update may be rejected. ![]() Images are directional and subject to change If your app’s information is not approved by the time we launch the safety section in Google Play to users in Q1 2022, then it will display “No information available.” How to get prepared:
We’ll continue to share more guidance, including specific dates, over the next few months. Thank you for your continued partnership in building this feature alongside us and in making Google Play a safe and trustworthy platform for everyone. Preparing for Google Play’s new safety section published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Preparing for Google Play’s new safety section ![]() Posted by Krish Vitaldevara, Director, Product Management We are always looking to make Google Play a safer and more trustworthy experience for developers and consumers. Today, we’re announcing new policy updates to bolster user control, privacy, and security. Giving users more transparency into data privacy and securityWe’re sharing our new policy for the upcoming safety section in Google Play alongside additional information, like data definitions. Learn more. Improving advertising privacy and securityWe’ve long offered users meaningful controls with advertising ID, like being able to reset their identifier at any time or opt out of allowing the identifier to be used for ads personalization. We’re continuing to add more controls this year. As we pre-announced to developers on June 2, we’re making a technical change as part of Google Play services update in late 2021. When users opt out of interest-based advertising or ads personalization, their advertising ID will be removed and replaced with a string of zeros. As a reminder, this Google Play services change will be a phased rollout, affecting apps running on Android 12 devices starting late 2021 and expanding to all apps running on devices that support Google Play in early 2022. Also, apps updating their target API level to Android 12 will need to declare a new Google Play services permission in the manifest file in order to use advertising ID. We will also test a new feature that notifies developers and ad/analytics service providers of user opt-out preferences to help developers implement user choice and add to existing policy restrictions on how advertising ID can be used. When a user deletes their advertising ID, developers will receive a notification so they can promptly erase advertising IDs that are no longer in use. In addition, we’re prohibiting linking persistent device identifiers to personal and sensitive user data or resettable device identifiers. This policy adds an additional layer of privacy protection when users reset their device identifiers or uninstall apps. And last, we’re offering a developer preview of app set ID for essential use cases such as analytics or fraud prevention. App set ID is a unique ID that, on a given device, allows you to correlate usage or actions across a set of apps owned by your organization. You cannot use app set ID for ads personalization or ads measurement. It will also automatically reset if all the developers’ apps on the device are uninstalled or none of the apps have accessed the ID in 13 months. Enhancing protection for kidsAs we introduce app set ID for analytics and fraud prevention, we are also making changes to further enhance privacy for kids. If an app is primarily directed to children, it cannot transmit identifiers like advertising ID. If an app’s audience is both kids and adults, then it needs to avoid transmitting these identifiers for kids. Over the next several months, we’ll share more information for a smooth transition. Strengthening securitySecurity is fundamental to enabling privacy across our platform. We’re announcing a few policy updates to help keep user data secure. First, Google Play remains a safer ecosystem when developers actively maintain their apps. So, we will close dormant accounts if the account is inactive or abandoned after a year. This includes accounts where the developer has never uploaded an app or accessed Google Play Console in a year. We will continue supporting developers with actively growing apps. We won’t close accounts with apps that have 1000+ installs or have in-app purchases in the last 90 days. Developers whose accounts are closed can create new ones in the future, but they won’t be able to reactivate old accounts, apps, or data. Second, it’s important for users to have an accessible experience that is secure. So, we’re adding new requirements on how AccessibilityService API and IsAccessibilityTool can be used. These tools help build accessible experiences, which often require access to user data and device functionality. Now, all apps that use the AccessibilityService API will need to disclose data access and purpose in Google Play Console and get approval. Learn more. Reminder on Payments policyAs we shared earlier in July, after careful consideration of feedback from both large and small developers, we are giving developers an option to request a 6-month extension until March 31, 2022 to comply with our Payments policy. For more resources
Thank you for helping us make Google Play an even more trustworthy platform for everyone. Announcing Policy Updates To Bolster Privacy and Security published first on https://alanneumann.tumblr.com/ via Tumblr Announcing Policy Updates To Bolster Privacy and Security |
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