Tag Archives: Android Developer

Continuous testing with new Android emulator tools

Posted by Lingfeng Yang, Android Studio team

Developers often use the Android Emulator during their day-to-day development to quickly test the latest changes before they are being committed. In addition, developers are increasingly using the emulator in their continuous integration (CI) systems to run a larger suite of automated tests. To better support this use-case, we are open sourcing the Android Emulator Container Scripts and improving the developer experiences around two pain points:

  1. Deployability - finding and running the desired version of Android Emulator.
  2. Debuggability - tracking down bugs from remote instances of Android Emulator.

Deployability

Android supports a wide variety of hardware and software configurations, and the Android Emulator is no different. However, this wide variety can create confusion over environment configurations. How should developers obtain emulators and system images? What drivers are required? How do you run with or without CPU or GPU acceleration? (etc. etc.)

To address this we have launched:

  • Android Emulator Download Script - This script provides the current up-to-date lists of emulator images (both AOSP and with Google Play Services) as well as emulators binaries (supporting Linux, Mac OS and Windows). You can integrate this with your existing continuous integration system. Going forward, we aim to enhance this service to enable downloading of deprecated versions in addition to the latest versions to make it easier to reproduce historical test results.
  • Android Emulator Docker image generator - Android system images and the emulator is only one part of the story. For environment, drivers, and pre-installed system dependencies, we put together a Docker image generator. This creates the complete environment in which the Android Emulator runs. After you start up the Docker image, 1) port forwarding and ADB, or 2) gRPC and WebRTC, makes interaction with the emulator possible. Currently, the Docker image generator is designed to work in Linux. We are also looking at Mac OS and Windows hosts, so stay tuned!

To increase reproducibility, the underlying Dockerfile template makes the required command line flags and system dependencies more explicit (and reproducible via building Docker images from them). For hardware acceleration, note the --privileged flag that is passed to run.sh; we assume CPU acceleration is available when running the emulator, and --privileged is needed to run the containers with CPU acceleration (KVM) enabled.

For more details on how to create and deploy the Android Emulator image, go to the README.

Debuggability

When the emulator is running and a test or the emulator fails, it can be difficult to dive into the running environment and diagnose the error. Often, diagnosis requires direct interaction with the virtual device. We provide two mechanisms for direct interaction:

  1. ADB
  2. Remote streaming

In the case of ADB, we allow all commands, such as logcat and shell, by forwarding a particular port from the Docker guest to the host. Because the current port is 5555, we'll need to collect more feedback and do more research on how best to separate ports across different containers.

Remote streaming

Security note: With remote streaming, keep in mind that once the service is started, anyone who can connect to your computer on port 80/443 can interact with the emulator. So be careful with running this on a public server!

With remote streaming, you can run the emulator in a container, which is as interactive as running locally. Running the emulator in a container makes it easier to debug issues that can be hard to discover using ADB commands. You can access the emulator using a browser with WebRTC, which is used to stream the video, and gRPC, which is used to send mouse and keyboard events to the emulator. Remote streaming requires three containers:

  1. A container that hosts the latest emulator
  2. A container with an Envoy web proxy needed for gRPC
  3. A container with nginx to serve the React web app

You can compose the Docker containers together using docker-compose, as described in the README. The containers bind to port 80 and 443, so make sure you do not have a web server running. A self-signed certificate will be offered if you point the browser to the host. If you point your browser to the host you should see something like the image below:

Again, keep in mind that anyone who can connect to your host can interact with the emulator. So be careful with running this on a public server!

Let’s scale testing!

Testing can seem to be a tax on development time. However, as many seasoned developers have seen, proper automated testing can increase development velocity as the code base becomes bigger and more complex. Continuous testing should give you confidence that the change you make won’t break your app.

Make stronger decisions with new Google Play Console data

Posted by Tom Grinsted, Product Manager, Google Play

At this year’s Google I/O, we announced a slate of new features to help you take your business further with Google Play. Launching today, these changes include several improvements designed to help you make better decisions about your business by providing clearer, more actionable data.

We know the right data is critical to help you improve your app performance and grow your business. That’s why we’re excited to share a major update that enables you to better measure and analyse your core statistics — the most fundamental install and uninstall metrics by user and device. We’ve also enhanced the Statistics page on the Play Console to show change over time, enable more granular configurations, and, coming soon, exclusive benchmarks for core stats!

Statistics page on the Play Console

More granular configurations are now available on the Statistics page to help you better understand your acquisition and churn.

More accurate and more expansive than before, the new metrics will help you better understand your acquisition and churn. For the first time, we are including data on returning users and devices - something that we understand is critical to many developers' growth strategies.

We’re also including new install methods (such as pre-installs and peer-to-peer sharing) and the ability to aggregate and dedupe over periods that suit your business needs. With these new updates, you can perform analyses that weren’t possible before, such as how many people re-installed your app last month.

Here’s what else is new:

  • Clearer, consistent metrics definitions:
    • Select users or devices, acquisitions or losses
    • Define if you’re interested in new, returning, or all users
    • Measure events (for example, when someone installs) or uniques (for instance, every person who installs)
  • Change analysis charts automatically show the largest changes during a selected period of time for a given dimension, making it easy to see the largest contributors to your metric trends.
  • Saved reports allow you to configure your metrics just the way you want them, then save them for easy retrieval and common analyses.
  • Suggested reports help you to find interesting ways to combine your data for more valuable analysis.
  • And finally, all configured data can be downloaded as CSVs from within the interface.

As a result of these updates, you will notice a few changes to your metrics. Old metrics names will be deprecated, but you can configure new metrics that map to the old ones with this cheat sheet. And don’t forget to use the ‘save report’ feature on the stats page so you can easily return to any configurations you find particularly helpful!

Save report feature on the stats page

Don’t forget to use the ‘save this report’ feature on the stats page to easily return to any configurations you find particularly helpful.

Other metrics like active user and active device will see a step-change as the new definitions are more expansive and include previously under-counted data.

Some new metrics map onto older ones. Where this happens, all historic data will be automatically included. But in other cases new metrics will only be generated from launch day. For unique devices or users, weekly metrics will start to appear two weeks after launch, monthly metrics once there’s a single full month’s data, and quarterly metrics once there’s a full quarter’s data.

We know it’s a lot to take in at once, so make sure to bookmark the cheat sheet for helpful tips as you navigate the transition and explore your new metrics. Additionally, our Decision-Making with the Google Play Console session from Google I/O and our Play Academy training are other great resources to help you get up to speed.

Check out these updates in the Google Play Console today — we hope you find them useful. Your comments help to shape the future of Google Play, so please continue to let us know what you think.

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Wear OS by Google: final API 28 emulator with new redesigned UI

Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate

Today, we are launching the final API 28 emulator image for developers. This image will also contain the UI redesign we announced in August. You should verify that your app's notification works well with the new notification steam, and that your apps work well against changes previously announced for API 28.

What's new in API 28?

Here are the highlights of the API 28 emulator:

  • New notification stream - You should make sure that your notifications are branded correctly, using color, and that the notification is sufficiently concise to fit into the new layout. Custom notification layout is no longer supported.
  • App Standby Buckets - Wear OS prioritizes app requests for resources based on how recent and how frequently the apps have been used. Developers are advised to follow best practices to ensure that their app behaves well, whichever bucket the apps are in.
  • User input and data privacy - To enhance user privacy, API 28 introduced new changes which limit background apps' access to device sensors. Depending on app requirements, developers may need to use a foreground service to enable continual access to sensor data.

Please note that changes related to the new notification stream are being rolled out to devices supporting API 25 and up. You can test how your notification will behave now, before roll-out is complete, by using the API 28 emulator image.

Keep your feedback coming

Just because we are now in release build does not mean that our work stops here. Please continue to submit all bug / enhancement requests via the Wear OS by Google issue tracker.

Finally, we are grateful for all of your valuable feedback during the developer preview. It played an important role in our decision making process - especially concerning App Standby Buckets. Thank you!

The Android Dev Summit app is live! Get ready for November 7-8

Posted by Matt Pearring, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Developer Marketing

In just a week, we'll be kicking off Android Dev Summit 2018, broadcasting live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on November 7 and 8. We'll have two days of deep technical sessions from the Android engineering team, with over 30 sessions livestreamed. The app just went live; download it on Google Play and start planning.

With the app you can explore the conference schedule with details on keynotes, sessions, and lightning talks. You can also plan your summit experience by saving events to your personalized schedule. This year's app is also an Instant app, so you can try it out first before installing it!

Android Dev Summit app screenshots

If you can't join in person, you can always join us online — we'll be livestreaming all of the sessions on the Android Dev Summit website or app and making them available on YouTube throughout the conference so you can watch at your own pace. Plus, we will share updates directly from the Computer History Museum to our social channels, so be sure to follow along!

Make the most of Notifications with the redesigned Wear OS by Google

Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Wear OS by Google

Today we announced that we are evolving the design of Wear OS by Google to help you get the most out of your time - providing quicker access to your information and notifications. Notifications can come from the automatic bridging of the phone's notification or be generated by a local Wear app running on the watch. Whether you are a phone developer, a Wear app developer, or both, there are a few things you will need to know about the new notification stream.

The new notification stream

Until now, each notification took up the entire screen in Wear OS. Although this provided more space to include things like inline action, it also meant it took a long time for the user to go through all their notifications. The new notification stream is more compact, and can display multiple notifications on the same screen. This means users can process their notification streams more quickly.

What this means for developers

  • Concise notification content is even more important. The new unexpanded notification on Wear will show up to three lines of text. Because this is already more information than a single line unexpanded notification on the user's phone, if your notification works on the phone unexpanded, it should be fine on Wear.
  • Brand notification with color. The default title and icon color for notification is white. Developers can now convey their brand identities by customizing the color of the title and icon tint using setColor.
  • Custom notification layout will no longer be supported. Previously developers used setDisplayIntent to inflate a custom activity inside the notification stream. We have found that the custom layout often does not take into account of the device form factor, and is difficult to keep up to date as Wear OS's notification experience evolves. As a result, we will no longer support this in notifications.
  • Inline action is being reviewed. To save space, the new layout no longer display inline action in the stream and setHintDisplayActionInline will be ignored. Users can continue to access notification actions including inline action when they tap to expand the notification. Our design team is reviewing whether we should include inline action in a future release. As a result, before a decision is made, we are not deprecating the related APIs. We will keep the developer community updated in due course.

As always, the current best practices for notification still apply. In particular, for messaging apps developers, we strongly encourage the use of MessagingStyle notification and enabling on-device Smart Reply through setAllowGeneratedReplies.

We will start rolling these changes out in the next month, so watch for updates on your Wear OS by Google smartwatch!

AndroidX Development is Now Even Better

Posted by Aurimas Liutikas, software engineer on AndroidX team

AndroidX (previously known as Android Support Library) started out as a small set of libraries intended to provide backwards compatibility for new Android platform APIs and, as such, its development was strictly tied to the platform. As a result, all work was done in internal Google branches and then pushed to the public Android Open Source Project (AOSP) together with the platform push. With this flow, external contributions were limited to a narrow window of time where the internal and AOSP branches were close in content. On top of that, it was difficult to contribute -- in order to do a full AndroidX build and testing, external developers had to check out >40GB of the full Android platform code.

Today, the scope of AndroidX has expanded dramatically and includes libraries such as AppCompat for easier UI development, Room for database management, and WorkManager for background work. Many of these libraries implement higher-level abstractions and are less tied to new revisions of the Android platform, and all libraries are designed with backwards compatibility in mind from the start. Several libraries, such as RecyclerView and Fragment, are purely AndroidX-side implementations with few ties to the platform.

Starting a little over two years ago, we began a process of unbundling -- moving AndroidX out of Android platform builds into its own separate build. We had to do a great deal of work, including migrating our builds from make to Gradle as well as migrating all of our API tracking tools and documentation generation out of the platform build. With that process completed, we reached a point where a developer can now check out a minimal AndroidX project, open it in Android Studio, and build using the public SDK and public Android Gradle Plugin.

The Android developer community has long expressed a desire to contribute more easily to AndroidX; however, this was always a challenge due to the reasons described above. This changes today: AndroidX development is moving to public AOSP. That means that our primary feature development (except for top-secret integrations with the platform ?) and bug fixes will be done in the open using the r.android.com Gerrit review tool and changes will be visible in the aosp/androidx-master-dev branch.

We are making this change to give better transparency to developers; it gives developers a chance to see features and bug fixes implemented in real-time. We are also excited about receiving bug fix contributions from the community. We have written up a short guide on how to go about contributing a patch.

In addition to regular development, AOSP will be a place for experimentation and prototyping. You will see new libraries show up in this repository; some of them may be removed before they ship, change dramatically during pre-alpha development, or merge into existing libraries. The general rule is that only the libraries on maven.google.com are officially ready for external developer usage.

Finally, we are just getting started. We apologize for any rough edges that you might have when contributing to AndroidX, and we request your feedback via the public AndroidX tracker if you hit any issues.

Google Play security metadata and offline app distribution

Posted by James Bender, Product Manager, Google Play

In December last year we announced that we would be making updates to app security to help verify product authenticity from Google Play. We are now adding a small amount of security metadata on top of APKs to verify that the APK was distributed by Google Play.

One of the reasons we're doing this is to help developers reach a wider audience, particularly in countries where peer-to-peer app sharing is common because of costly data plans and limited connectivity.

In the future, for apps obtained through Play-approved distribution channels, we'll be able to determine app authenticity while a device is offline, add those shared apps to a user's Play Library, and manage app updates when the device comes back online. This will give people more confidence when using Play-approved peer-to-peer sharing apps.

This also benefits you as a developer as it provides a Play-authorized offline distribution channel and, since the peer-to-peer shared app is added to your user's Play library, your app will now be eligible for app updates from Play.

No action is needed by developers or by those who use your app or game. We're adjusting Google Play's maximum APK size to take into account the small metadata addition, which is inserted into the APK Signing Block. In addition to improving the integrity of Google Play's mobile app ecosystem, this metadata will also present new distribution opportunities for developers and help more people keep their apps up to date.

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#IMakeApps – Celebrating app makers worldwide

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Developer Marketing, Platforms & Ecosystems

The Android developer ecosystem is made up of exceptional individuals with different backgrounds, interests, and dreams. To celebrate the people who make up our community, starting today, and over the coming months, we'll be meeting with developers, founders, product managers, designers, and others from around the world to hear more about their passions and discover what they do when they step away from their computers.

Watch stories featuring adventurer Niek Bokkers from Polarsteps (Netherlands), artist Faith Ringgold from Quiltuduko (USA) and chair restorer Hans Jørgen Wiberg from Be My Eyes (Denmark). You can also read more about them and their apps on g.co/play/imakeapps.

Share your story

We'd love to hear from you too. Use the hashtag #IMakeApps on your social channels, sharing the app or game you work on, your role in its creation, and an image that best depicts who you are outside of work. We will regularly select and share some of our favorites on our channels.

If you also want to get featured in an upcoming #IMakeApps film, tell us more about yourself and your app or game, by completing this self-nomination form.

Stay tuned for more #IMakeApps stories by following us on Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

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Time to celebrate the 2018 Google Play Award nominees

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

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

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

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

Standout Well-Being App

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

Best Accessibility Experience

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

Best Social Impact

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

Standout Indie

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

Best Community Building Game

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

Best AR or VR Experience

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

Standout Build for Billions Experience

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

Standout Startup

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

Best Breakthrough Hit

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

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

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Introducing new Android Excellence apps and games on Google Play

Kacey Fahey, Developer Marketing, Google Play

Congratulations to the latest apps and games featured in the Android Excellence program on Google Play. As a reminder, these collections are refreshed every three months and recognize apps and games that set the bar for high quality, great user experience, and strong technical performance.

If you're looking for some new apps, here are a few highlights.

  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC: Capture, edit, and share your photos with the power of Lightroom on your mobile device. Use presets for quick and easy edits, or dive in with the advanced editing tools.
  • Seven - 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge: Use this app to fit seven minute workouts into your busy lifestyle. Grab your phone, or even your Wear OS device to work out anywhere and anytime. Keep it up to earn achievements and join the 7 Club for even more support.
  • SoloLearn: Learn to Code for Free: Learn one of many new coding languages by joining a community of millions. Tap in to the 24/7 peer support, or create your own lessons to become a community influencer.

Here are a few of our favorite new games joining the collection.

  • CodyCross: Crossword Puzzles: Try this game for a fun new style of crossword puzzles. Play for free on adventure mode or subscribe for special themed packs, varying difficulty levels and fresh content added weekly.
  • MARVEL Contest of Champions: Play with your favorite Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villians in iconic locations from the Marvel Universe. Assemble your team of champions to play through the exciting storyline and even build alliances with your friends.
  • Orbital 1: Test your skills in this real-time multiplayer game with beautiful 3D graphics. Collect and upgrade fighters and weapons to build out your perfect squad for quick battles and new daily quests.

See the full list of Android Excellence apps and games.

New Android Excellence apps New Android Excellence games
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

Dashlane

Holstelworld

iCook

Keeper Password Manager

Keepsafe Photo Vault

Mobisystems OfficeSuite

PhotoGrid

Runtastic Results

Seven - 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge

SoloLearn: Learn to Code for Free

Tube Map

WPS Office

Angry Birds 2

Azur Lane アズールレーン

CodyCross

Into the Dead 2

Little Panda Restaurant

MARVEL Contest of Champions

Orbital 1

Rooms of Doom

Sky Dancer Run

Sling Kong

Soul Knight

Explore other great apps and games in the Editors' Choice section on Google Play and discover best practices to help you build quality apps and games.

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