Earlier this week, Google Play services released a major update to many of its libraries to migrate all Android support library dependencies to Jetpack (using androidx.* packages). This includes the play-services-ads library from the Google Mobile Ads SDK, which has been updated to 18.0.0.

While the Google Mobile Ads SDK itself hasn’t changed between version 17.2.1 and 18.0.0, you’ll need to migrate your own app and all of your dependencies to AndroidX in order to pick up play-services-ads 18.0.0 or any future versions. This is particularly important if you use AdMob mediation, as several mediation partners have dependencies on Android support libraries that aren’t compatible with AndroidX.

To make the migration process as smooth as possible for you, Android Studio offers an easy way to convert your project and its dependencies to AndroidX using the Migrate to AndroidX option.

Migrate to AndroidX

Android Studio 3.2 or higher includes a Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX menu option to convert your project to use AndroidX. We’ll demonstrate what happens when converting our BannerExample to AndroidX.

1. Change the project’s compileSdkVersion to 28. This is a prerequisite for migrating to AndroidX.
2. Right click the app module, and select Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX. You’ll be given an option to save your project as a zip file before Android Studio converts it.
3. Select Do Refactor to complete the migration.

What changed?

Here is the project before the migration:

And here is the project afterwards:

First, you’ll notice that the package name for AppCompatActivity has changed to androidx.appcompat.app. The refactor has changed this project’s com.android.support:appcompat-v7:26.1.0 dependency to androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.0.0 and fixed the associated imports.

Second, this migration added a gradle.properties file with these two lines:

android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true

These properties ensure your project and its dependencies use AndroidX, by rewriting any binaries that are using an Android support library. See Using AndroidX for more details on these flags.

Now that your project is converted to AndroidX, you can safely update your play-services-ads dependency to 18.0.0 in your project-level build.gradle file:

dependencies {
   implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.0.0'
   implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:18.0.0'
}

As always, you can follow the release notes to learn what’s changed in the Google Mobile Ads SDK. We’d also love to hear about how your migration went! If you have any questions about the release or have trouble migrating, please reach out to us on the Google Mobile Ads SDK developer forum.

 - Eric Leichtenschlag, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Google Mobile Ads SDK v17.0.0 for Android has just been released, and it comes with two important changes that you should be aware of:

1. A tag is now required in AndroidManifest.xml.
2. NativeAppInstallAd and NativeContentAd APIs are deprecated in favor of UnifiedNativeAd.

Required AndroidManifest.xml changes

Starting in version 17.0.0, if you are an AdMob publisher you are now required to add your AdMob app ID in your AndroidManifest.xml file. Once you find your AdMob app ID in the AdMob UI, add it to your manifest adding the following tag:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <!-- TODO: Replace with your real AdMob app ID -->
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID"
            android:value="ca-app-pub-################/##########"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

Failure to add this tag will result in the app crashing at app launch with a message starting with "The Google Mobile Ads SDK was initialized incorrectly."

What if I'm using Google Ad Manager instead of AdMob?

Publishers using Google Ad Manager will need to declare themselves as an Ad Manager app with a different tag to avoid the same crash:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AD_MANAGER_APP"
            android:value="true"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

See the getting started guide (AdMob | Ad Manager) for additional details on how to make this change.

NativeAppInstallAd and NativeContentAd APIs are deprecated

This release also officially deprecates the NativeAppInstallAd and NativeContentAd APIs in favor of the previously released UnifiedNativeAd API. The UnifiedNativeAd APIs offer a consolidated way to render any type of native ad, reducing the number of lines of code needed to integrate native ads by up to 50%.

The following example shows how to load both app install and content ads using the new unified API:

AdLoader adLoader = new AdLoader.Builder(context, "ca-app-pub-3940256099942544/2247696110")
    .forUnifiedNativeAd(new UnifiedNativeAd.OnUnifiedNativeAdLoadedListener() {
        @Override
        public void onUnifiedNativeAdLoaded(UnifiedNativeAd unifiedNativeAd) {
            // Show the ad.
        }
    })
    .build();
adLoader.loadAd(new AdRequest.Builder().build());

Check out the native ads guide to get started with the unified API.

What else changed?

See the release notes for a full list of changes. If you have any questions about the release, please reach out to us on the Google Mobile Ads SDK developer forum.

 - Eric Leichtenschlag, Mobile Ads Developer Relations