Posted by Dan Galpin, Developer Relations Engineer
In October of 2021 we released the final unit of Android Basics in Kotlin, our free, self-paced programming course that makes Android development accessible to everyone. It teaches people with no programming experience how to build Android apps. Along the way, students learn the fundamentals of programming and the basics of the Kotlin programming language.
In response to feedback from educators and learners, we've continued to iterate on our course material, adding projects that allow you to apply learnings along with new topics that can prepare students for more advanced material.
A focus on basics
With these updates, Android Basics in Kotlin now covers the key material covered in Android Kotlin Fundamentals, so we will be sunsetting the latter course. More advanced learners are encouraged to work through the Basics material, skipping sections that they are familiar with and moving straight to quizzes. Focusing on basics means that intermediate and advanced learners that might be missing a key concept will have what they need to succeed with this material. This also allows our team to focus on making sure our courseware continues to represent our most recent guidance. In addition to courseware, we're continuing to provide codelabs, code samples, documentation, and video content to serve learners at all levels.
What's next?
Our team is hard at work on the next course that will teach people how to program Android applications using Jetpack Compose. We're looking forward to teaching Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI because of all the ways that it simplifies and accelerates Android UI development.
What to do now
Taking the current course will teach you the fundamentals of app development, serving as a great starting point should you want to explore the existing Jetpack Compose Learning Pathway, or jump into the upcoming Android Basics with Compose course. You'll have a foundation that you can build on as you continue to explore the world of Android development. Both versions of Android Basics are planned to coexist, giving the option of learning Android with either UI toolkit.
Whether you’ve never built an app before but want to learn how, or just want to brush up on some of our latest best practices, check out the Android Basics in Kotlin course.
Posted by Maru Ahues Bouza, Director, Android Developer Relations
Apps are essential to making Android a platform people love - whether it’s on their phones, cars, TVs, or watches. As a popular mobile platform, Android is thriving with 1 in 4 developers - worldwide - building for Android according to Stack Overflow’s 2020 developer survey.
In Android Developer Relations (or Android DevRel for short), our mission is to help developers be successful on Android by helping them build great apps with the latest Android and Play features, empower anyone to get a great career as an Android developer, and advocate for developers as Android and Play evolve. It’s truly rewarding because we get to see the future of apps - every day - and help our fellow developers achieve great things. With such a big mission, we’re hiring engineers, technical writers, and program managers - and if this gets you inspired, we’d love to talk! Check out the links at the end of this blog and apply to join our team.
But first, what does Android DevRel actually do? Our team works with external developers, writes code, creates content, launches careers, grows communities, runs conferences - and more. Read on to learn more!
Building better products with developers
We work with product and engineering teams in Android and Play to define go-to-market strategies for new developer products and run Early Access Programs (EAPs) with the goal of building better products for all developers. Through these EAPs, we do deep technical engineering work with the most influential developers to help them integrate and deliver feedback to validate that the products we’re building are ready to work at scale.
We work with these developers to build high quality apps across multiple screens, to ensure better user experiences on Android and we share their success stories to show how integrating with these products will help developers be more successful in the Android ecosystem, and to help inspire other developers to adopt.
Code
A big part of how we help developers is through code — be it tutorials, videos, blogs, or entire multi-unit educational courses. We produce everything from simple code snippets that explain how to perform a specific function, to sample apps like Jet* or the Google I/O app that demonstrates how everything comes together. In the process of creating sample code, you may be the first developer to ever build something with a new API! We call this being the “zeroth customer” and it’s an important role where you can directly influence the direction of a product through feedback (and yes, some trial and error!)
Content
In helping developers, we end up learning best practices and producing a ton of content - documentation, tutorials, screencasts, talks, blog posts, podcasts, and more. There is an art to breaking down complex subjects into a learning path - to help both beginner and advanced developers alike - and it is something we do every day. From introducing new concepts, to distilling best practices, to thoroughly documenting the functionality of a new API - our role is to help developers understand and thrive on Android. While our output is the content itself, it’s important to note that engineering is at the heart of this. In order to teach developers how to use these technologies, we first have to understand them deeply ourselves.
Teach millions of developers through learning materials
Community
Many of us were Android developers before we joined DevRel, and one of the most gratifying aspects of our role is meeting and connecting with developers around the world. We engage with Google Developer Experts for Android (GDEs), Google Developer Groups, and of course individual community members on a regular basis through events, social media, and Slack. We love to hear what people are working on, lend a hand where we can, and create connections across the community so people can learn from each other.
Conferences
One of the places the community comes together is at conferences - and Android has a lot of them! While you can pick up a skill or learn about the latest software design pattern, people always say the most valuable thing they get from conferences is connecting with fellow developers. Meeting people in person (side note: can’t wait until we can do that again!) is such an important part of building a network of people you can count on for help - whether you get stuck in your next project, or are looking for career advice. While many of these conferences are run by the community themselves, we participate in these events around the world and look forward to engaging with this community wherever they are. We also organize the Android Developer Summit and the Android track at Google I/O.
Careers
Apps connect you to the people in your life, help you do things more easily, or even help you learn new skills. In the past year many of us have had to find new ways of doing things, and this has seen us reach for apps more often than ever before, while growing the demand for app developers. In fact, developer jobs are growing 5.5x faster than other professions (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). In Android DevRel, it is our privilege to build curriculum and work with universities and student groups around the world to skill-up the next generation of developers.
Want to join Android DevRel? Take a look at some of the roles below. Google often uses a single listing to make it easier for people to apply - so if it doesn’t say Android DevRel in the title of the role just tell them you’re interested in joining our team in your cover letter.
Android DevRel works with developers everywhere in the world, we want our team to represent all the developers we work with and we believe that diverse teams build better products that work for everyone. If you’re from an underrepresented group in tech, please apply even if you don’t think you match all the requirements and read what we’re doing to build a more diverse and inclusive Google.
Read on to see the roles that are available today:
Jetpack Compose is Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI. It enables you to quickly bring your app to life with less code, powerful tools, and intuitive Kotlin APIs. With the Beta of Jetpack Compose released today, this is the perfect time to learn Compose and get ready to adopt it. To help you get started with Jetpack Compose we are launching a new #AndroidDevChallenge!
For the next four weeks, the #AndroidDevChallenge will be launching a series of weekly challenges to help you build better apps faster with Jetpack Compose. Oriented around “lift off insights," each challenge focuses on a new area of Compose, from animations to Material Theming, composables to lists and more! Compete to win new prizes for each challenge, with over one thousand prizes to win including a Pixel 5. 1 The first challenge starts today!
The challenges
Every week brings a new challenge with its own rules and tasks. Every Wednesday starting today we’ll publish a blog post containing the full description of what you need to do and how long you have to complete the task. Each challenge will help you get familiar with the compose mental model and different Compose APIs - from basic Composables like Text and List, to state, animations and more.
Your solution to each challenge must be implemented in a GitHub repository. Make a copy of this Github repository template and follow the instructions in the README. The template contains a basic Hello World! in Compose and a continuous integration setup.
Week #1 - Puppy adoption app
Let’s start the #AndroidDevChallenge with a bang bark: build a puppy adoption app! The app should contain an overview screen that displays a list of puppies, and a detail screen showing each puppy's details. You have until March 2nd, 23:59 PST to submit your entry.2
Your UI must be fully built in Compose. Your submission will only be judged based on your app’s UI layer. To help you with the implementation, check out the Compose documentation on layouts, lists, text and navigation. For some paws-on learning try out the Compose pathway, with codelabs covering several topics useful in completing this challenge.
Are you a ?rather than a ? person? Submissions for any type of pet adoption app are welcomed.
We look forward to seeing what you build!
This week’s prize
Our first challenge kicks off with a prize that makes for the perfect sidekick as you’re flying through Compose: a limited edition trophy of our Jetpack Compose superhero, made of LEGO bricks. The first 500 people to successfully complete this challenge and submit their entry can add this trophy to their collection of Android figurines, showing off how you’re a winner for the first week’s #AndroidDevChallenge.
Week #1 prize: Jetpack Compose superhero
Help make Jetpack Compose better
Community is at the heart of Jetpack Compose and your feedback helps us build a better product:
File issues with Jetpack Compose on the official issue tracker.
Sign up to be part of the Jetpack Compose research studies.
1
There will be new prizes for each week’s challenge; for weeks when a Google Pixel 5 is a prize, we will offer a similarly valued electronics gift card for winners that reside in a country where a Google Pixel 5 is unavailable. See the official rules for more information.
2
Please review the link for the full official rules associated with the entry.
Jetpack Compose is Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI. It enables you to quickly bring your app to life with less code, powerful tools, and intuitive Kotlin APIs. With the Beta of Jetpack Compose released today, this is the perfect time to learn Compose and get ready to adopt it. To help you get started with Jetpack Compose we are launching a new #AndroidDevChallenge!
For the next four weeks, the #AndroidDevChallenge will be launching a series of weekly challenges to help you build better apps faster with Jetpack Compose. Oriented around “lift off insights," each challenge focuses on a new area of Compose, from animations to Material Theming, composables to lists and more! Compete to win new prizes for each challenge, with over one thousand prizes to win including a Pixel 5. 1 The first challenge starts today!
The challenges
Every week brings a new challenge with its own rules and tasks. Every Wednesday starting today we’ll publish a blog post containing the full description of what you need to do and how long you have to complete the task. Each challenge will help you get familiar with the compose mental model and different Compose APIs - from basic Composables like Text and List, to state, animations and more.
Your solution to each challenge must be implemented in a GitHub repository. Make a copy of this Github repository template and follow the instructions in the README. The template contains a basic Hello World! in Compose and a continuous integration setup.
Week #1 - Puppy adoption app
Let’s start the #AndroidDevChallenge with a bang bark: build a puppy adoption app! The app should contain an overview screen that displays a list of puppies, and a detail screen showing each puppy's details. You have until March 2nd, 23:59 PST to submit your entry.2
Your UI must be fully built in Compose. Your submission will only be judged based on your app’s UI layer. To help you with the implementation, check out the Compose documentation on layouts, lists, text and navigation. For some paws-on learning try out the Compose pathway, with codelabs covering several topics useful in completing this challenge.
Are you a ?rather than a ? person? Submissions for any type of pet adoption app are welcomed.
We look forward to seeing what you build!
This week’s prize
Our first challenge kicks off with a prize that makes for the perfect sidekick as you’re flying through Compose: a limited edition trophy of our Jetpack Compose superhero, made of LEGO bricks. The first 500 people to successfully complete this challenge and submit their entry can add this trophy to their collection of Android figurines, showing off how you’re a winner for the first week’s #AndroidDevChallenge.
Week #1 prize: Jetpack Compose superhero
Help make Jetpack Compose better
Community is at the heart of Jetpack Compose and your feedback helps us build a better product:
File issues with Jetpack Compose on the official issue tracker.
Sign up to be part of the Jetpack Compose research studies.
1
There will be new prizes for each week’s challenge; for weeks when a Google Pixel 5 is a prize, we will offer a similarly valued electronics gift card for winners that reside in a country where a Google Pixel 5 is unavailable. See the official rules for more information.
2
Please review the link for the full official rules associated with the entry.
Posted by Yafit Becher, Product Manager & Dan Galpin, Developer Advocate
Play Asset Delivery downloads the best supported texture for the device
Google Play Asset Delivery allows you to publish an Android App Bundle to Google Play containing all the resources your game needs. It offers multiple delivery modes, auto-updates, compression, and delta patching, all hosted at no cost to you.
As of today, you can use Google Play Asset Delivery to include textures in multiple texture compression formats in your Android App Bundle and Google Play will automatically deliver the assets with the best supported texture compression format for each device. With Texture Compression Format Targeting, you can start using ASTC for devices that support it while falling back to ETC2/ETC1 to devices that don’t. The Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) format offers advantages, such as improved rendering performance, faster load times, a smaller in-memory footprint, better battery life, and improved visual quality. You can even dramatically reduce your download size and on-device footprint by optimizing the tradeoff between size and quality.
Higher bandwidth version of much of this information
Android App Bundle will be the required publishing format for all new games and apps as of August 2021, which means that Google Play Asset Delivery will be required for new games that want Google Play to host more than 150MB of assets. Texture format targeting provides value even for smaller games due to the advantages of newer texture compression formats.
Texture compression
Texture compression is a form of lossy image compression that allows the GPU to render directly from the compressed texture using specialized silicon blocks, reducing the texture memory and memory bandwidth required to render the texture. As GPUs have gotten more advanced, more sophisticated texture compression formats have been developed, but not all GPUs can take advantage of them.
ASTC was released in 2012 to give developers more flexibility in trading compression size vs image quality. It compresses using fixed 128-bit block sizes, but allows for variable block footprints from 4x4 (8 bits per texel) to 12x12 (.89 bits per texel).
Googleplex from Google Earth at 12x12 (.89 BPT), 6x5 (4.27 BPT), 4x4 (8 BPT)
This allows almost any type of texture to be used in compressed form, and allows for textures to occupy much less space in RAM — up to 36x less space compared to uncompressed 2D textures depending on quality. Smaller textures also take less time to load, making games start faster.
Memory bandwidth
Since the GPU needs to do fewer reads from texture memory in order to render the texture, the memory bandwidth required to render the scene is reduced, often substantially when texture caches are taken into account.
Texture compression formats in Android
The top compression formats in Android are ETC1, ETC2, and ASTC.
Top texture compression formats with device penetration as of September 2020
ETC1 is supported on practically all devices. It has no transparency support; games can use a second texture for the alpha component. It has quality issues with sharp transitions such as edges and text.
ETC2 is supported by all devices that support GLES3. It supports multiple transparency modes and improves quality compared to ETC1.
ASTC is a more recent format that's more flexible; it supports many different kinds of textures, allowing for just about any texture in your game to benefit from compression. In addition, it supports various block sizes with different associated compression ratios. Using this format is a good way to optimize the size, image quality, and performance of your game.
When experimenting with ASTC on Asphalt Xtreme Gameloft found that they could reduce the size of their game by up to 30%
Using texture compression format targeting
Once you've implemented Google Play Asset Delivery in your game, adding texture format targeting is an incremental step. Inside your asset packs, make sure you have a directory that holds just your textures, such as [assetpackname]/textures. This directory will be used to hold default textures (probably in ETC1 or ETC2 format).
Then, create additional texture directories with a suffix representing the additional formats you wish to support.
Finally, update your app build.gradle file to enable texture splits in asset packs:
// In the app build.gradle file:
android {
...
bundle {
texture {
enableSplit true
}
}
}
Google Play strips off the texture suffixes so your game reads its assets from the default directory, regardless of what textures are delivered to the device.
Texture compression format targeting is available now
We're committed to helping you serve your entire game through Play with customized dynamic delivery and features such as texture compression format targeting. Documentation at d.android.com will walk you through the integration process depending on the game engine you use, and we also have codelabs ready for both C/C++ and Unity games. We have more information on all of our game related developer resources at d.android.com/games and stay up to date with Google Play Asset Delivery and other game developer tools by signing up for the games quarterly newsletter.
Posted by Jay Kong, Gaming and Graphics Product Manager
With the rollout of Android 11 on Pixel, Android GPU Inspector (AGI) has graduated from a limited developer preview to an open beta. During the preview, AGI has been helpful in finding performance bottlenecks for developers we've been working with, and we're looking forward to hearing your feedback.
What is Android GPU Inspector?
AGI is a graphics profiling tool that allows you to look into the GPU of Android devices to better understand graphics bottlenecks and optimize the performance of games and apps that leverage 3D graphics APIs. It shows a timeline of events for your running game or app, which includes system activities, high frequency GPU hardware counters, and, if you are using Vulkan, GPU activity information.
What devices can I use it on?
AGI relies on updated firmware and video drivers to get information it needs; the first devices to support it are the Pixel 4 and 4XL running Android 11. While we are working with device manufacturers and SoC vendors to enable more supported devices, the key insight we’ve learned on our journey is that being able to look into the GPU—even on a single device—creates a lot of value.
Working with Blizzard Entertainment Inc. and NetEase, Inc., AGI helped pinpoint 45% vertex bandwidth savings for the upcoming Diablo Immortal, a dark gothic action RPG game.
Working with King, AGI helped improve GPU frame time from 11-16ms to a stable 8ms for the upcoming Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!, allowing the game to reduce battery drain and run faster for a smoother experience.
Stay tuned for more information on how to use the tool and address common issues we’ve seen when working with real games. We’ll begin by demonstrating using AGI to indicate optimizations to make in your game’s textures.
You can also read about this topic on Medium, here.
How do I get started?
You can download AGI here, and the setup instructions are here. AGI is in beta, so there will be issues. Check out the release notes, and let us know if you see any issues here.
To learn about new device support, you can check this page. Stay up to date with AGI and all of our game developer tools by signing up for the games quarterly newsletter.
This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid. For each of the #11WeeksOfAndroid, we’re diving into key areas so you don’t miss anything. This week, we spotlighted games, media, and 5G; here’s a look at what you should know.
What's the buzz in Android 11?
You can now control media applications from a dedicated space within the notification area while enabling features such as playback resumption and seamless transfer.
New and updated 5g APIs help you unlock transformative new user experiences.
Adds new support for key game tools and technologies. On top of that foundation, we're building tools to both improve your game developer experience and help you better characterize the performance of your game, services to help you expand the reach of your game to more devices and new audiences, and new and improved features to support your games' go-to-market with Google Play.
Android 11 media
We covered how to take advantage of Android 11's new media controls by making sure your app is using MediaStyle with a valid MediaSession token. We showed how to support Media resumption by making your app discoverable with a MediaBrowserServiceCompat, using the EXTRA_RECENT hint to help with resuming content, and handling the onPlay and onGetRoot callbacks. Finally we showed you how to leverage the MediaRouter jetpack library to support seamless media transfer between devices. Check out the updated version of the UAMP sample which contains a reference implementation for media controls and playback resumption.
Turning photo-centric UX into video-centric or AR-centric UX
Prefetch helpfully to make your app even more responsive
Turn niche use cases into mainstream use cases, such as allowing streaming content everywhere
Android 11 adds new APIs and updates existing APIs to ensure you have all the tools you need to leverage the capabilities of 5G, such as an enhanced bandwidth estimation API, 5G detection capabilities, and a new meteredness flag from cellular carriers. The Android emulator now enables you to develop and test these APIs without needing a 5G device or network connection. All of this and more is available from our dedicated 5G page.
Catch up on what's happening with game development
We presented a special "11 Weeks" episode of The Android Game Developer Show providing an update on the tools, services, and technologies we're bringing to help you build, optimize, and distribute great games.
In Android Studio 4.1, we enhanced the System Trace view of the CPU Profiler and added the Native Memory Profiler, and both can now be launched standalone from Android Studio. The System Trace and Native Memory blog posts have more details on how to use them with your game or app.
You can sign up for developer previews of the Android Game Development Extension, and the Android GPU Inspector. The Android Game Development Extension helps with building multi-platform C/C++ games, while the GPU Inspector is used to profile and debug graphics. Stay tuned for the open beta of the Android GPU Inspector.
Reaching more devices and users with your game
We took a deep dive into the Android Performance Tuner, explaining annotations, quality levels, and fidelity parameters along with some best practices on how to use them. Once you've implemented that, we also covered how to use the new insights and analysis you'll get within Android Vitals.
We showed how Google Play Asset Delivery brings the benefits of app bundles to games with large asset sizes, flexible delivery modes, auto-updates, compression, and delta patching. Texture compression format targeting is coming very soon letting you tap into modern texture compression such as ASTC (now supported on over 50% of devices) allowing you to considerably cut your game size and in-memory footprint.
We launched the open beta of Play Games Services - Friends to help you bootstrap and enhance your in-game friend networks while having your games surfaced in new clusters in the Play Games app.
We demonstrated the new release management experience in the Google Play Console beta and showed how it can help your testing and publishing workflow.
Day one auto-installs is a new Google Play feature that allows users to request the automatic installation of your game during pre-registration. Early experiments show a +20% increase in day 1 installs when using this feature. The new pre-registration menu in the beta Google Play Console makes it easier than ever to access this feature.
We showed how to optimize your store listing page to take advantage of the greatly improved games visual experience within Google Play, showcasing rich game graphics and engaging videos.
The new in-app review API lets you choose when to prompt users to write reviews from within your game, without heading back to the app details page. This API supports both public and private reviews for when your app is in beta.
Learning path
If you’re looking for an easy way to pick up the highlights of this week, check out the Games, media, and 5G pathway. A pathway is an ordered tutorial that allows users to complete a pre-defined module that culminates in a quiz. It includes videos and blog posts. A virtual badge is awarded to each user who passes the quiz. Test your knowledge of key takeaways about Android game development, media, and 5G to earn a limited edition badge.
Key takeaways
Thank you for tuning in and learning about the latest in Android game, media, and 5G development.
You can find the entire playlist of #11WeeksOfAndroid video content here, and learn more about each week here. We’ll continue to spotlight new areas each week, so keep an eye out and follow us on Twitter and YouTube. Thanks so much for letting us be a part of this experience with you!
Two years ago, we introduced the Android App Bundle, a new publishing format that allows Google Play to help optimize your app delivery. The app bundle is now Play’s recommended publishing format; with almost 50% of all top apps & games already using it.
It replaces the traditional monolithic APK at publishing time, allowing you to package all of your languages, screen densities and device architectures into a single artifact. The bundle itself can't be installed; Play takes care of generating APKs optimized for each requesting device from the single bundle that you publish.
Dynamic Delivery with App Bundle Produces Optimized APKs
Apps have seen great success with app bundles, but games often have different delivery challenges.
Today, large Android games rely on APK Expansion Files and custom Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to deliver content. APK Expansion Files, also known as OBBs, support large resources but require you to maintain an additional publishing artifact, which causes many developer issues. Using CDNs for resource delivery often results in a suboptimal user-experience; users install and open the game just to face a long progress bar as they wait for additional resources to be downloaded. Users may also have to wait for updated resources, rather than having them delivered as part of the game auto-update. Finally, CDNs usually aren’t free, so this way of delivering game assets also involves extra cost that needs to be accounted for.
To handle the unique needs of games, Play is introducing Play Asset Delivery, giving you dynamic delivery of the right game assets to the right devices at the right time at no additional cost. To achieve this, we extended the Android App Bundle publishing format by adding asset packs.
The contents of an Android App Bundle with one base module, two dynamic feature modules, and two asset packs.
Asset packs contain non-code game content such as textures, materials, and sounds. They are served from Google Play with large size limits that are ideal for games, and you can customize how and when each asset pack is downloaded onto a device.
Keeping assets up-to-date
Play Asset Delivery (PAD) lets you rely on Google Play to take care of updating your assets, just like it does with your game binary. When your app auto updates, the entire game gets updated, including all assets. When your users open the game, they will already have the freshest binary and assets, and they won’t need to wait for resources to get updated. Play also takes care of delta patching for you, minimizing the download size and the update time.
To handle cases when the user opens the game before it has had a chance to update, you can trigger updates within the context of your game with our In-App Updates API.
Play Asset Delivery engine support
Version 4.25 of Unreal engine supports building App Bundles with asset packs instead of APK expansion files and includes a plugin that provides function calls for managing downloads and requesting information from Play Asset Delivery.
We have built a Unity plugin that takes care of packaging your Unity Asset Bundles into asset packs and lets you build an Android App Bundle that includes them. The plugin is now available in our Package Registry and is compatible with Unity 2017.4 and higher.
For other engines, that Android Gradle plugin 4.0 release lets you combine your asset packs and your binary into an App Bundle. Just update your gradle plugin version and configure the delivery mode in the build.gradle file for each individual asset pack.
Customizing when asset packs are installed
You can customize when asset packs are installed according to three delivery modes: install-time, fast-follow, and on-demand.
install-time asset packs allow you to deliver up to 1GB of game assets as part of the initial game installation. To your app, this works like a large APK, with no need for expansion files or special API calls. Just package your assets in asset packs and publish to Play.
fast-follow asset packs are automatically downloaded as soon as the app is installed, allowing the user to start playing while important assets are still downloading. The app doesn't have to be opened for the download to start.
on-demand asset packs are downloaded upon request by the app.
Both on-demand and fast-follow assets are delivered as raw files and placed in your game’s internal storage. You can track download progress with the PAD API and access the assets directly using file system calls.
Extending Android App Bundle for Games
When using Play Asset Delivery, you get to take advantage of the App Bundle format, which allows Play to optimize the binary for the device, making it easier to support both 64-bit and 32-bit devices and different CPU architectures such as ARM and X86. We also want to help you serve the optimal set of assets to each device, and the first step in this direction is texture compression format targeting.
In an upcoming release of Play Asset Delivery, you'll be able to package textures in multiple texture compression formats, relying on Play to serve optimal assets per device model. This means you won't need to compromise by using suboptimal texture compression formats, and your users will always get the best assets suitable for their device without wasting network bandwidth or having suboptimal loading performance.
Better retention with an improved install experience
Asphalt 8 by Gameloft
Gameloft integrated Play Asset delivery into Asphalt 8, Asphalt Xtreme, and Minion Rush. Asphalt Xtreme was easy to switch from using APK expansion files to using PAD with install-time delivery. Asphalt 8 and Minion Rush both originally used a custom CDN, which Gameloft replaced with PAD. They were able to leverage fast-follow and on-demand delivery by replacing their custom CDN calls with calls to the PAD API. They saw the expected reduction in CDN costs, but with fast-follow delivery, they have also seen a significant increase in the number of users who completed the secondary download to start playing the game. This resulted in better user retention, with 10% more new players compared to their previous CDN asset delivery system. With the promising early results and seamless implementation process, Gameloft plans to use PAD in more of their upcoming releases. Read more about their experience.
US-based developer RV AppStudios has over 200 million downloads to date across their portfolio of casual games, educational kids apps, and utility apps. Their Puzzle Kids app delivers over 23 MB of assets as players progress through the levels. When they switched from a third-party CDN to using Play Asset Delivery’s on-demand mode, they saw a 4.7% increase in 15-day retention and 21% reduction in crashes & ANRs. Overall, these changes helped improve the user experience by offering more stable, transparent, and secure downloads, while also saving costs for RV AppStudios. Read more about their experience.
Play Asset Delivery is available now
We're committed to helping you serve your entire game through Play with customized dynamic delivery. Play Asset Delivery, with the new app bundle format for games, along with its three delivery modes and updates + patching are all generally available. You can find documentation at d.android.com that will walk you through the integration process depending on the game engine you use.
