Tag Archives: Featured

#WeArePlay | How two sea turtle enthusiasts are revolutionizing marine conservation

Posted by Leticia Lago – Developer Marketing

When environmental science student Caitlin returned home from a trip monitoring sea turtles in Western Australia, she was inspired to create a conservation tool that could improve tracking of the species. She connected with a French developer and fellow marine life enthusiast Nicolas to design their app We Spot Turtles!, allowing anyone to support tracking efforts by uploading pictures of them spotted in the wild.

Caitlin and Nicolas shared their journey in our latest film for #WeArePlay, which showcases the amazing stories behind apps and games on Google Play. We caught up with the pair to find out more about their passion and how they are making strides towards advancing sea turtle conservation.

Tell us about how you both got interested in sea turtle conservation?

Caitlin: A few years ago, I did a sea turtle monitoring program for the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions in Western Australia. It was probably one of the most magical experiences of my life. After that, I decided I only really wanted to work with sea turtles.

Nicolas: In 2010, in French Polynesia, I volunteered with a sea turtle protection project. I was moved by the experience, and when I came back to France, I knew I wanted to use my tech background to create something inspired by the trip.

How did these experiences lead you to create We Spot Turtles!?

Caitlin: There are seven species of sea turtle, and all are critically endangered. Or rather there’s not enough data on them to inform an accurate endangerment status. This means the needs of the species are going unmet and sea turtles are silently going extinct. Our inspiration is essentially to better track sea turtles so that conservation can be improved.

Nicolas: When I returned to France after monitoring sea turtles, I knew I wanted to make an app inspired by my experience. However, I had put the project on hold for a while. Then, when a friend sent me Caitlin’s social media post looking for a developer for a sea turtle conservation app, it re-ignited my inspiration, and we teamed up to make it together.

close up image of a turtle resting in a reef underwater

What does We Spot Turtles! do?

Caitlin: Essentially, members of the public upload images of sea turtles they spot – and even get to name them. Then, the app automatically geolocates, giving us a date and timestamp of when and where the sea turtle was located. This allows us to track turtles and improve our conservation efforts.

How do you use artificial intelligence in the app?

Caitlin: The advancements in AI in recent years have given us the opportunity to make a bigger impact than we would have been able to otherwise. The machine learning model that Nicolas created uses the facial scale and pigmentations of the turtles to not only identify its species, but also to give that sea turtle a unique code for tracking purposes. Then, if it is photographed by someone else in the future, we can see on the app where it's been spotted before.

How has Google Play supported your journey?

Caitlin: Launching our app on Google Play has allowed us to reach a global audience. We now have communities in Exmouth in Western Australia, Manly Beach in Sydney, and have 6 countries in total using our app already. Without Google Play, we wouldn't have the ability to connect on such a global scale.

Nicolas: I’m a mobile application developer and I use Google’s Flutter framework. I knew Google Play was a good place to release our title as it easily allows us to work on the platform. As a result, we’ve been able to make the app great.

Photo pf Caitlin and Nicolas on the bach in Australia at sunset. Both are kneeling in the sand. Caitlin is using her phone to identify something in the distance, and gesturing to Nicolas who is looking in the same direction

What do you hope to achieve with We Spot Turtles!?

Caitlin: We Spot Turtles! puts data collection in the hands of the people. It’s giving everyone the opportunity to make an impact in sea turtle conservation. Because of this, we believe that we can massively alter and redefine conservation efforts and enhance people’s engagement with the natural world.

What are your plans for the future?

Caitlin: Nicolas and I have some big plans. We want to branch out into other species. We'd love to do whale sharks, birds, and red pandas. Ultimately, we want to achieve our goal of improving the conservation of various species and animals around the world.


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



How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Prompt users to update to your latest app version

Posted by Lidia Gaymond – Product Manager, Google Play

For years, Google Play has helped users enjoy the latest versions of your app through auto-updates or in-app updates. While most users update their apps this way, some may still be stuck on outdated, unsupported or broken versions of your app.

Today, we are introducing a new tool that will prompt these users to update, bringing them closer to the app experience you intended to deliver.

Play recovery tools allow you to prompt users running specific versions of your app to update every time they restart the app.

Image of side by side mobile device screens showing how the prompt to update may look to users
Note: Images are examples and subject to change

To use this new feature, log into Google Play Console and head to your Releases or to the App Bundle Explorer page, where you can select the app versions where you want to deliver the prompts. Alternatively, the feature is also available via the Play Developer API, and will soon be extended to allow you to target multiple app versions at once. Please note that the version you want to deploy the prompt to needs to be built as an app bundle.

You can then narrow your targeting criteria by country or Android version (if required), with no prior integration necessary.

Currently, over 50% of users are responding to the prompts, enabling more users to get the best experience of your apps.

After prompting users to update, you can use Play Console's recovery tools to edit your update configuration, view its progress, or cancel the recovery action altogether. Learn more about the feature here and start using it today!

#WeArePlay | Learn how a childhood experience with an earthquake shaped Álvaro’s entrepreneurial journey

Posted by Leticia Lago – Developer Marketing

Being trapped inside a house following a major earthquake as a child motivated Álvaro to research and improve the outcomes of destructive, large-scale quakes in Mexico. Using SkyAlert technology, sensors detect and report warnings of incoming earthquakes, giving people valuable time to prepare and get to safety.

Álvaro shared his story in our latest film for #WeArePlay, which spotlights the founders and creatives behind inspiring apps and games on Google Play. We caught up with him to find out his motivations for SkyAlert, the impact the app’s had and what his future plans are.


What was the inspiration behind SkyAlert?

Being in Colima near the epicenter of a massive earthquake as a kid had a huge impact on me. I remember feeling powerless to nature and very vulnerable watching everything falling apart around me. I was struck by how quick and smart you had to be to get to a safe place in time. I remember hugging my family once it was over and looking towards the sea to watch out for an impending tsunami – which fortunately didn’t hit my region badly. It was at this moment that I became determined to find out what had caused this catastrophe and what could be done to prevent it being so destructive another time.

Through my research, I learned that Mexico sits on five tectonic plates and, as a result, it is particularly prone to earthquakes. In fact, there've been seven major quakes in the last seven years, with hundreds losing their lives. Reducing the threat of earthquakes is my number one goal and the motivation behind SkyAlert. The technology we’ve developed can detect the warning signs of an earthquake early on, deliver alerts to vulnerable people and hopefully save lives.


How does SkyAlert work exactly?

SkyAlert collects data from a network of sensors and translates that information into alerts. People can put their zip code in order to filter updates for their locality. We’re constantly investing in getting the most reliable and fast technology available so we can make the service as timely and effective as possible.


Did you always imagine you’d be an entrepreneur?

Since I was a kid I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. This was inspired by my grandfather who ran a large candy company with factories all over Mexico. However, what I really wanted, beyond just running my own company, was to have a positive social impact and change lives for the better: a feat I feel proud to have achieved with SkyAlert.


How is Google Play helping your app to grow?

Being on Google Play helps us to reach the maximum number of people. We’ve achieved some amazing numbers in the last 10 years through Google Play, with over 7 million downloads. With 35% of our income coming from Google Play, this reach has helped us invest in new technologies and sensors.

We also often receive advice from Google Play and they invite us to meetings to tell us how to do better and how to make the most of the platform. Google Play is a close partner that we feel really takes care of us.


What impact has SkyAlert had on the people of Mexico?

The biggest advantage of SkyAlert is that it can help them prepare for an earthquake. In 2017, we were able to notify people of a massive quake 12 seconds before it hit Mexico City. At least with those few seconds, many were able to get themselves to a safe place. Similarly, with a large earthquake in Oaxaca, we were able to give a warning of over a minute, allowing teachers to get students in schools away from infrastructure – saving kids’ lives.

Also, many find having SkyAlert on their phone gives them peace of mind, knowing they’ll have some warning before an earthquake strikes. This can be very reassuring.


What does the future look like for SkyAlert?

We’re working hard to expand our services into new risk areas like flooding, storms and wildfires. The hope is to become a global company that can deliver alerts on a variety of natural phenomena in countries around the world.


Read more about Álvaro and other inspiring app and game founders featured in #WeArePlay.



How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

#WeArePlay | Learn how a childhood experience with an earthquake shaped Álvaro’s entrepreneurial journey

Posted by Leticia Lago – Developer Marketing

Being trapped inside a house following a major earthquake as a child motivated Álvaro to research and improve the outcomes of destructive, large-scale quakes in Mexico. Using SkyAlert technology, sensors detect and report warnings of incoming earthquakes, giving people valuable time to prepare and get to safety.

Álvaro shared his story in our latest film for #WeArePlay, which spotlights the founders and creatives behind inspiring apps and games on Google Play. We caught up with him to find out his motivations for SkyAlert, the impact the app’s had and what his future plans are.

What was the inspiration behind SkyAlert?

Being in Colima near the epicenter of a massive earthquake as a kid had a huge impact on me. I remember feeling powerless to nature and very vulnerable watching everything falling apart around me. I was struck by how quick and smart you had to be to get to a safe place in time. I remember hugging my family once it was over and looking towards the sea to watch out for an impending tsunami – which fortunately didn’t hit my region badly. It was at this moment that I became determined to find out what had caused this catastrophe and what could be done to prevent it being so destructive another time.

Through my research, I learned that Mexico sits on five tectonic plates and, as a result, it is particularly prone to earthquakes. In fact, there've been seven major quakes in the last seven years, with hundreds losing their lives. Reducing the threat of earthquakes is my number one goal and the motivation behind SkyAlert. The technology we’ve developed can detect the warning signs of an earthquake early on, deliver alerts to vulnerable people and hopefully save lives.

How does SkyAlert work exactly?

SkyAlert collects data from a network of sensors and translates that information into alerts. People can put their zip code in order to filter updates for their locality. We’re constantly investing in getting the most reliable and fast technology available so we can make the service as timely and effective as possible.

Did you always imagine you’d be an entrepreneur?

Since I was a kid I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. This was inspired by my grandfather who ran a large candy company with factories all over Mexico. However, what I really wanted, beyond just running my own company, was to have a positive social impact and change lives for the better: a feat I feel proud to have achieved with SkyAlert.

How is Google Play helping your app to grow?

Being on Google Play helps us to reach the maximum number of people. We’ve achieved some amazing numbers in the last 10 years through Google Play, with over 7 million downloads. With 35% of our income coming from Google Play, this reach has helped us invest in new technologies and sensors.

We also often receive advice from Google Play and they invite us to meetings to tell us how to do better and how to make the most of the platform. Google Play is a close partner that we feel really takes care of us.

What impact has SkyAlert had on the people of Mexico?

The biggest advantage of SkyAlert is that it can help them prepare for an earthquake. In 2017, we were able to notify people of a massive quake 12 seconds before it hit Mexico City. At least with those few seconds, many were able to get themselves to a safe place. Similarly, with a large earthquake in Oaxaca, we were able to give a warning of over a minute, allowing teachers to get students in schools away from infrastructure – saving kids’ lives.

Also, many find having SkyAlert on their phone gives them peace of mind, knowing they’ll have some warning before an earthquake strikes. This can be very reassuring.

What does the future look like for SkyAlert?

We’re working hard to expand our services into new risk areas like flooding, storms and wildfires. The hope is to become a global company that can deliver alerts on a variety of natural phenomena in countries around the world.

Read more about Álvaro and other inspiring app and game founders featured in #WeArePlay.



How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

#WeArePlay | Meet Steven from Indonesia. More stories from around the world.

Posted by Leticia Lago, Developer Marketing

As we bid farewell to 2023, we're excited to unveil our last #WeArePlay blog post of the year. From Lisbon to Dubai, let’s meet the creators behind the game-changing apps supporting communities, bringing innovation and joy to people.



We’re starting off in Indonesia, where Steven remembers his pocket money quickly running out while traveling around rural areas of Indonesia with his parents. Struck by how much more expensive food items were in the villages compared to Jakarta, he was inspired to create Super, providing more affordable goods outside the capital. The app allows shop owners to buy items stored locally and supply them to their communities at lower prices. It's helped boost the hyperlocal supply chain and raise living standards for rural populations. Steven is keen to point out that “it’s not just about entrepreneurship”, but “social impact”. He hopes to take Super even further and improve economic distribution across the whole of rural Indonesia.


ALT TEXT

Next, we’re crossing the Java Sea to Singapore, where twin brothers – and marathon runners – Jeromy and Kenny decided to turn their passion for self-care into a journaling app. On Journey, people can log their daily thoughts and work towards their mental health and self-improvement goals using prompts. With the guidance of coaches, they can practice gratitude, record their ambitions, and learn about mindfulness and building self-confidence. “People tell us it helps them find time to invest in themselves and dedicate space to self-care”, says Jeromy. In the future, the pair want to bring in additional coaches to support even more people to achieve their wellness goals.


ALT TEXT

Now we’re landing in the Middle East where former kindergarten friends Chris and Rene decided to use their experience being expats in Dubai to create a platform for connecting disparate communities across the city. On Hayi حي, locals can share information with their neighbors, find help within the community and connect with those living nearby. “Community is at the heart of everything we do and our goal is to have a positive effect”, says Chris. They’re currently working on creating groups for art and sport enthusiasts to encourage residents to bond over their interests. The pair are also dedicated to sustainability and plan on launching environmental projects, such as wide-scale city clean-ups.


ALT TEXT

And finally, we’re off to Europe where Lisbon-based university chums Rita, João and Martim saw unexpected success. Initially, the trio created a recipe-sharing platform, SaveCook. When they launched its accompaniment, Super Save, however, which compared prices of recipe ingredients across different supermarkets, it exploded in popularity. With rising inflation, people were hugely thankful to the founders “for providing a major service” at such a crucial time. Next, they’re working on a barcode scanner that tells shoppers where they can buy cheaper versions of products “to help people save as much as they can.”

Discover more founder stories from across the globe in the #WeArePlay collection.



How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

#WeArePlay | Meet Steven from Indonesia. More stories from around the world

Posted by Leticia Lago, Developer Marketing

As we bid farewell to 2023, we're excited to unveil our last #WeArePlay blog post of the year. From Lisbon to Dubai, let’s meet the creators behind the game-changing apps supporting communities, bringing innovation and joy to people.



We’re starting off in Indonesia, where Steven remembers his pocket money quickly running out while traveling around rural areas of Indonesia with his parents. Struck by how much more expensive food items were in the villages compared to Jakarta, he was inspired to create Super, providing more affordable goods outside the capital. The app allows shop owners to buy items stored locally and supply them to their communities at lower prices. It's helped boost the hyperlocal supply chain and raise living standards for rural populations. Steven is keen to point out that “it’s not just about entrepreneurship”, but “social impact”. He hopes to take Super even further and improve economic distribution across the whole of rural Indonesia.

ALT TEXT

Next, we’re crossing the Java Sea to Singapore, where twin brothers – and marathon runners – Jeromy and Kenny decided to turn their passion for self-care into a journaling app. On Journey, people can log their daily thoughts and work towards their mental health and self-improvement goals using prompts. With the guidance of coaches, they can practice gratitude, record their ambitions, and learn about mindfulness and building self-confidence. “People tell us it helps them find time to invest in themselves and dedicate space to self-care”, says Jeromy. In the future, the pair want to bring in additional coaches to support even more people to achieve their wellness goals.

ALT TEXT

Now we’re landing in the Middle East where former kindergarten friends Chris and Rene decided to use their experience being expats in Dubai to create a platform for connecting disparate communities across the city. On Hayi حي, locals can share information with their neighbors, find help within the community and connect with those living nearby. “Community is at the heart of everything we do and our goal is to have a positive effect”, says Chris. They’re currently working on creating groups for art and sport enthusiasts to encourage residents to bond over their interests. The pair are also dedicated to sustainability and plan on launching environmental projects, such as wide-scale city clean-ups.

ALT TEXT

And finally, we’re off to Europe where Lisbon-based university chums Rita, João and Martim saw unexpected success. Initially, the trio created a recipe-sharing platform, SaveCook. When they launched its accompaniment, Super Save, however, which compared prices of recipe ingredients across different supermarkets, it exploded in popularity. With rising inflation, people were hugely thankful to the founders “for providing a major service” at such a crucial time. Next, they’re working on a barcode scanner that tells shoppers where they can buy cheaper versions of products “to help people save as much as they can.”

Discover more founder stories from across the globe in the #WeArePlay collection.



How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Android Studio Hedgehog is stable

Posted by Sandhya Mohan, Product Manager

Today, we are thrilled to announce the stable release of Android Studio Hedgehog 🦔 : The official IDE for building Android apps!

In this Android Studio release, we have upgraded the IntelliJ platform to 2023.1, with features designed to improve app performance and battery life, make it easier to upgrade applications to the latest Android version, and make it faster to develop using Jetpack Compose. Read on to learn more about how Android Studio Hedgehog can help supercharge your developer productivity.

App performance

Android vitals in App Quality Insights

In addition to helping you investigate crash reports for apps instrumented with the Firebase Crashlytics SDK, App Quality Insights now also includes Android vitals data from Google Play Console. With Android vitals, you can see crash reports for any app you publish to the Google Play Store without requiring additional instrumentation in your app. You can view Android vitals issues, filter them, and see crash insights from Play to quickly understand and resolve the cause of a crash, and jump from stack trace to code all from the App Quality Insights tool window. Learn more.

Note: If you don't have permission to view your app in the Play Console, request that the app admin share read-only access to only app quality information, by clicking Users and permissions > View app quality information (read-only) in the Play Console.

Screengrab of Android Vitals data in App Quality Insights
Android Vitals data in App Quality Insights

Power Profiler

The new Power Profiler shows power consumption on devices. It segments the power consumption information by subsystems called "Power Rails". This helps you visualize the correlation between power consumed and the actions occurring in your app. This approach of directly measuring power consumption differs from the legacy Energy Profiler, which only used a model to estimate energy consumption.

By understanding this information, you can potentially identify and fix power consumption issues in your app by running A/B tests to compare the power consumption of different algorithms, features or even different versions of your app.

Apps which are optimized for lower power consumption lead to an improved battery and thermal performance, eventually leading to an improved end user experience. Power Rails data is available on Pixel 6+ devices running Android 10+.

Example of power consumption in different power rails.
Example of power consumption in different power rails.

Coding productivity

Target Android 14 using Android SDK Upgrade Assistant

The SDK Upgrade Assistant provides a step by step wizard flow to help developers through targetSdkVersion upgrades. It pulls documentation directly into the IDE, saving you time and effort.

Android Studio Hedgehog adds support for upgrading projects to Android 14 (API Level 34). We’ve also added additional relevance filters so that unnecessary steps are removed — and in some cases, the upgrade assistant will pinpoint exactly where in code the changes need to be made.

Screengrab of Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
Android SDK Upgrade Assistant

New UI updates

In the Giraffe release, we launched a new UI for the IDE. This reimagined theme reduces visual complexity and provides easier access to essential features, resulting in a more modern and clean look and feel. We’ve listened to your feedback and, in Hedgehog, we’ve added updates for compact mode, vertical and horizontal splitting, and project tabs for Mac OS. If you have not yet tried the new UI, we encourage you to do so.

Screengrab of Compact mode in the New UI
Compact mode in the New UI

Device mirroring

You can now mirror your physical Android device in the Running Devices window in Android Studio. While mirroring your device's display directly via ADB over USB or Wi-FI to Android Studio, you can execute common actions such as starting and interacting with apps, rotating the screen, folding and unfolding the phone, changing the volume, and more – directly from within Android Studio. Learn more.

Moving image demonstrating device mirroring in the running devices window
Device Mirroring in the Running Devices window

Embedded Layout Inspector

You now have the option to run the Layout Inspector directly in the Running Devices tool window while running your app on an embedded virtual device or mirrored physical device. This opt-in feature significantly improves performance of Layout Inspector, conserves screen real estate, helps organize your UI debugging workflow in a single tool window, and improves speed while inspecting your layout. In embedded mode, you can show a view hierarchy, inspect the properties of each view, navigate to code using “deep inspect” mode, and access other common Layout Inspector features. Enable it through Settings > Experimental > Layout Inspector

Screengrab showing Embedded Layout Inspector
Embedded Layout Inspector

Live Edit updated manual mode shortcut

Live Edit has a new default shortcut for manual mode for: Control+\ (Command+\ for macOS). Manual mode is helpful in situations where you want to have precise control over when updates are deployed to the running application. For more information, see the video clip in Live Edit for Jetpack Compose.

Compose tools

Compose Preview’s Gallery Mode

Gallery mode is a new mode in Compose Preview that lets you focus on one Preview at a time to conserve rendering resources. Use Gallery mode when iterating on UI and switch to other modes (Grid or List) when you need to see UI variants.

Moving image of Compose Preview's Gallery Mode
Compose Preview’s Gallery Mode

Compose State information in Debugger

When setting a breakpoint on a Composable function, the debugger now lists the parameters of the composable and their state, so you can more easily identify what changes might have caused unexpected recompositions.

Screengrab of Compose State information in Debugger
Compose State information in Debugger

Compose Multipreview templates

Android Studio Hedgehog includes support for the latest annotations added by the Compose Multipreview API, allowing developers to render common layout scenarios side-by-side while working with the Compose Preview.

The new annotations added include: @PreviewScreenSizes, @PreviewFontScales, @PreviewLightDark, and @PreviewDynamicColors

Screengrab of Compose Multipreview templates
Compose Multipreview templates

Build tools

New macro to specify JDK path

A new macro, #GRADLE_LOCAL_JAVA_HOME, makes it safer and easier to specify the Java* home path used for the Gradle daemon (background process) execution for your project by referencing your .gradle/config.properties file. This reduces errors related to incompatible Gradle and project JDK versions, since there is now a single source of truth for your Gradle JDK selection.

Starting with Android Studio Hedgehog, new projects will use #GRADLE_LOCAL_JAVA_HOME by default. Existing projects will automatically be migrated to the new macro after a successful sync, unless you're already using a macro like #JAVA_HOME.

[Windows-only] Minimize the impact of antivirus software on build speed

The Build Analyzer informs users if antivirus software may be impacting build performance. This can occur if antivirus software, such as Windows Defender, is performing real-time scanning of directories used by Gradle. Build Analyzer recommends a list of directories to exclude from active scanning, and, if possible, provides a link to add them to the Windows Defender folder exclusion list.

Use Firebase Test Lab devices with Gradle Managed Devices

Gradle Managed Devices can now target Firebase Test Lab devices, and you can utilize it to run your automated tests at scale. Use Gradle Managed Devices to select from a wide range range of both physical and virtual FTL devices, with support for test sharding for accelerated execution time. To use FTL devices, you need Android Gradle Plugin 8.2 with the latest Alpha version of the Firebase Test Lab Gradle plugin. Learn more.

Download Android Studio today!

Now is the time to download Android Studio Hedgehog to incorporate the new features into your workflow. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like, issues, or features you would like to see. If you find an issue, please check the known issues and file a bug if needed. Remember to also follow us on X (formerly known as Twitter), Medium, or YouTube for more Android development updates!


*Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Notes from Google Play: Celebrating another year of partnership and innovation

Posted by Sam Bright, Vice President & General Manager, Google Play

Hello everyone,

Since joining the team at the start of this year, I’ve been continuously inspired by our incredible community of people building apps and games, and it’s been my privilege to support your hard work and creativity. In particular, it’s been exciting to see you not only identify new user needs, but to develop innovative ways of solving them with your apps and games. This year, our annual Best of Play awards introduced new categories to recognize these achievements, including “Best with AI” and “Best multi-device app and game.”

No matter where you are on your developer journey, whether you just published your first app or already reached a global audience, Google Play is committed to being your partner in growth. Here’s a look back at some of the key tools, features, and programs we built this year to help you reach your full potential and build a successful business on Google Play.

Check out the video below or keep reading for more details about this year’s updates.

New tools and features built in 2023

User growth and engagement:

Monetization:

    • Generate revenue more effectively with the ability to A/B test prices to optimize for local purchasing power at scale.
    • Grow and retain your subscribers with our new subscription capabilities, such as the ability to offer different auto-renewing and prepaid plan prices per billing period.
    • To help you optimize for a global audience, we’ve started automatically updating our min/max price ranges to reflect currency fluctuations against the US dollar. You’ll also see a notification anytime we recommend a price adjustment for your in-app products.
    • We added several popular local payment methods to our extensive library, including PicPay in Brazil and PayPay in Japan, and expanded our support of UPI in India.
    • And with the introduction of our new alternative billing APIs, developers offering an alternative billing system alongside Google Play’s can enjoy a more streamlined experience.

Privacy and security:

Investing in our app and game community

This year, our Indie Games programs helped businesses of all sizes grow on Play. Through our Indie Games Fund, we awarded $2 million and offered hands-on support to 10 Latin American studios to help them grow their games on our platform. And for mentorship from Google and industry experts, early-career indie developers can apply for the Indie Games Accelerator from now until December 12, 2023.

We’re also pushing for greater representation and equity in the developer community by giving $600,000 across 13 nonprofit organizations around the world to support more inclusive programming. For example, we’ve partnered with Global Game Jam and the IGDA Foundation to host a game jam that helps women across Asia and Latin America launch careers in game development.

And finally, we continued our tour of the world by sharing and celebrating your stories through #WeArePlay. This year, we spotlighted over 260 app and game businesses from Europe, Japan, India and more.

Meet Solape & Yomi from Nigeria, founders of financial app HerVest

Looking ahead

I’m excited about the future of Google Play, which will see even more updates and improvements to the work we did this year.

For example, you may have noticed that we gave the Play Store a fresh look this year, with more visual components, new video capabilities, and fluid animations, and introduced new ways for people to discover, engage, and re-engage with your apps and games. In addition to new original editorial content and livestream events, we also developed new ways for users to be rewarded for their play, such as with time-bound offers and promotions.

Next year, we’ll build on that investment, going deeper to provide more value to users — and, in turn, to your businesses. We’re looking to:

    • Continue to improve gaming experiences across platforms,
    • Direct users to the right experiences, within and across apps,
    • Help folks get the most out of their devices, and
    • Make it easier for users and developers to transact when they want to.

As you know, Google Play is more than an app marketplace. We connect people with the experiences they’ll love, wherever they are, on whatever device they’re using. A big part of this is our continued focus on making it easier for people to find your latest, most relevant app and game content. It also means going beyond the Play Store to deliver this content to people across their devices, when and where it's most relevant.

Once again, I want to thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into making Google Play the best place for apps and games. I can’t wait to see what you build next.

On behalf of all of us at Google Play, happy holidays and best wishes for an amazing 2024.

Sam Bright
Vice President and General Manager, Google Play

The latest updates to power your growth on Google Play

Posted by Paul Feng – Vice President of Product Management, Google Play

Our annual Playtime event series kicks off tomorrow, with announcements from our product teams and insights from local Google experts. If you’re not one of the attendees joining us in person this year, here’s a sneak preview of the product news we’ll be sharing to help you grow successful, long-term businesses on Google Play.

Check out our top five updates in the video below, or read on for the full list.

More ways to boost growth and engagement

This year, we improved three of our most impactful offerings: custom store listings, the deep links page in Play Console, and Google Play Games on PC.

Custom store listings enable you to optimize your conversion rate and acquisitions by creating different messaging for different user segments. Many of you have already been using your 50 custom store listings to tailor your messaging by country, pre-registration status, Google Ads campaigns, or to inactive users.

Now, we’re making it even easier to create and manage your listings with the ability to:

    • Save your listings as a draft to continue editing later
    • Schedule your listings to publish when you want and for the duration you choose
    • Test your listings with a portion of your audience before rolling them out

Last year, we launched a new Play Console page dedicated to deep links to help you discover additional opportunities for growth and engagement. This page flags broken deep links and provides detailed guidance on how to fix them, as well as helps you rationalize your web-to-app mapping by reviewing your top website URLs and their deep link status.

This year, we improved the page with new metrics and insights to help you make the most of your deep link strategy. You can now:

    • Make sure the landing pages from your ad campaigns are deep-linked
    • See the percentage of your top-performing URLs that have been deep-linked, so you can see where you have an opportunity to direct more users to your app
    • Find out what percentage of users with your app installed would have the URL open inside the app

ALT TEXT

For game developers, we’ve expanded our Google Play Games on PC beta to help you grow your user base. Since we launched the program last year, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth. Google Play Games on PC currently reaches users in more than 120 countries, offering over 3,000 titles including Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Free Fire MAX, and Angry Birds 2*. Learn more about how Google Play Games on PC has improved the quality of the gaming experience to accelerate your growth.

More ways to reach your monetization goals

To help you more effectively generate revenue from your audiences, we're rolling out new features on our commerce platform to help you optimize your prices, reach more buyers, and better manage user purchases.

At this year's I/O, we launched price experiments for in-app products, allowing you to test price points and optimize for local purchasing power at scale. Next month, you’ll be able to:

    • Save your experiments as drafts to edit later
    • Remove a poorly performing variant during the experiment
    • See warning notifications for potential price configuration issues
    • Apply the ”winning” price to any and all products within the experiment

We’ve also started automatically updating our min/max price ranges to reflect currency fluctuations against the US dollar, and you’ll see a new Play Console Inbox notification anytime we recommend a price adjustment of your in-app products.

We also made several updates to help you better reach a global audience. Now you can more efficiently display available products and offers to users based on regional availability with the new getBillingConfigAsync API, which provides the user’s applicable country for Google Play. Our extensive payment method library now includes popular payment methods PayPay eWallet and cash top-ups at over 14,500 Lawson stores throughout Japan, cash top-ups at over 18,000 7-Eleven stores in Mexico, ShopeePay eWallet in the Philippines, Verve Card in Nigeria, and China UnionPay Card throughout select East Asian and Southeast Asian markets.

Coming soon, real-time developer notifications will expand to include notifications for one-time purchases and voided purchases such as cancellations, revocations, and chargebacks. These will give you more visibility and help you better manage purchases, including making quicker entitlement adjustments and taking action against potential fraud and abuse.

We’re also continuing our commitment to user choice billing, giving you more flexibility and choice when monetizing on Google Play. Developers enrolled in user choice billing can offer an additional billing system alongside Google Play’s in over 35 markets. And now, we’re making the alternative billing APIs available to participating developers with users across these markets. With the APIs integrated, developers can look forward to a more streamlined experience:

    • User choice screens rendered by Google Play: you will no longer need to build and maintain the information and/or choice screens as required by UX guidelines
    • Alternative billing settings in Play Console: manage alternative billing settings for eligible apps, including market enrollment, payment method logo, and more
    • Simplified transaction reporting: removing manual touchpoints
    • Google Play Top Charts: transactions reported via API are reflected on Top Charts
    • Improved reporting: transactions reported via API enable more detailed developer reporting - including exchange rates, associated app package ID, service fee rates, and more
Illustrative example of the user experience for user choice billing

Helping you deliver high-quality experiences

To connect people with experiences they’ll love, we continuously invest in new tools, features, and programs to help you build high-quality apps and games. As a reminder, we measure quality across four key pillars: core value, user experience, technical quality, and privacy and security.

For example, we’re increasing the app bundle size limit from 150MB to 200MB to help you deliver more functionality to improve your core value and user experience. Because Play will continue to deliver only the relevant content, users will only experience your enhanced functionality and not increased app size.

To help you improve your technical quality, we’re excited to announce some new features in Android vitals to help you monitor your title against per-device bad behavior thresholds and effectively manage and debug issues. You can now:

    • Monitor and detect issues with release rollouts using hourly vitals data
    • Analyze longer-term trends in technical performance with 3 years of Android vitals data
    • Prioritize devices by business impact with per-device business metrics like store listing impressions, average rating, and daily active device metrics
    • Get notified via email and Play Console Inbox when your per-device bad behavior threshold exceeds 8%
    • Analyze Android vitals crash event data and potential fixes alongside your code directly within Android Studio via App Quality Insights
    • Grant Play Console teammates limited access to app quality data only


And finally, to help ensure you're delivering the best experience to your users while you’re on the go, check out the recently refreshed Play Console app, where you can:

    • Monitor the metrics you care about
    • View and reply to reviews
    • Monitor and manage your apps across tracks and releases
    • Manage your app’s orders and issue refunds
    • Receive messages from Google Play

Protecting your business with the Play Integrity API

Over the last few years, we’ve continued to invest in the Play Integrity API to ensure that users experience your apps and games the way you intend.

Today, we’re announcing several major updates, including:

    • Low-latency Play Integrity API standard requests are leaving beta and becoming available to all developers, giving you integrity verdicts that are 10X faster
    • A new opt-in Play Protect signal checks whether Play Protect is on or off and whether any known malware is detected
    • A new Play Integrity API report and improved controls in Play Console helps you spot issues and adapt your anti-abuse strategy with an analysis and breakdown of API responses across your install base
    • SDK providers now have the option to set up and manage their Play Integrity API integration using the Google Play SDK Console, giving them control over their quota and letting them customize API responses

We hope you take advantage of all these new features to continue growing your businesses on Google Play. Please continue sharing your feedback so we can build the tools you need to power your growth. Thank you for being part of the Google Play community.


*Google Play Games on PC is available to download in 122 countries as of Nov 15, 2023.
Please see g.co/googleplaygames for more information. Game titles may vary by region.

Google Play Games on PC brings new features to accelerate growth

Posted by Arjun Dayal, Director, Google Play Games


Since we launched Google Play Games on PC beta last year, the product has seen a tremendous amount of growth. Now offering over 3,000 titles, Google Play Games on PC currently reaches users in more than 120 countries, providing a wide range of games across genres for players to enjoy. Our catalog continues to grow with popular mobile titles including Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Free Fire MAX, and Angry Birds 2 available today*.

We’ve been engaging with our amazing community of players and have been focused on increasing the quality of the gaming experience by adding new gameplay capabilities. We’ve recently added support for microphones and popular game controllers, as well as provided dynamic display options that let players select a screen resolution up to 4K.

CookieRun: Tower of Adventures with game controller support
Preview of CookieRun: Tower of Adventures with game controller support

We’ve also streamlined the user install journey for Google Play Games on PC to make game discovery easier. When a user visits the Play Store from a Windows PC, the games homepage will now showcase PC optimized games that can be installed directly on their PC.

Play store web version details page

We’re excited to bring more features to Google Play Games on PC to our growing community of players and unlock opportunities for developers to expand their reach. If you’re ready to make Google Play Games on PC a part of your growth strategy, learn more about new features and optimization guides from our developer site.


Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.
*Google Play Games on PC is available to download in 122 countries as of Nov 15, 2023.
Please see g.co/googleplaygames for more information. Game titles may vary by region.