Tag Archives: Google Play

Congratulations to the finalists of the Indie Games Showcase from Google Play

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

Google Play Indie Games Showcase Announcements gif

Back in March we opened submissions for the Indie Games Showcase, an international competition for games studios from Europe*, South Korea, and Japan who are constantly pushing the boundaries of storytelling, visual excellence, and creativity in mobile.

We were once again impressed by the diversity and creativity that the indie community is bringing to mobile, and we’re happy to announce the 20 finalists.

Check out the local websites to learn more about the finalists and the events.

European illustration with Eiffel Tower and Matryoshka dolls

Europe

Europe Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

AntVentor by LoopyMood (Ukraine)

CHUCHEL by Amanita Design (Czech Republic)

#DRIVE by Pixel Perfect Dude (Poland)

Fly THIS! By Northplay (Denmark)

Fobia by Tapteek (Russia)

G30 - A Memory Maze by Ivan Kovalov (Russia)

Gold Peaks by Afterburn (Poland)

Grayland by 1DER Entertainment (Slovakia)

Hexologic by MythicOwl (Poland)

Lucid Dream Adventure by Dali Games (Poland)

OCO by SPECTRUM48 (United Kingdom)

Ordia by Loju (United Kingdom)

Peep by Taw (Russia)

Photographs by EightyEight Games (United Kingdom)

Rest in Pieces by Itatake (Sweden)

Returner Zhero by Fantastic, yes (Denmark)

see/saw by Kamibox (Germany)

STAP by Overhead Game Studio (United Kingdom)

Tesla vs. Lovecraft by 10tons (Finland)

Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery by Kiary games (Russia)

mt.Fuji and other Japanese emblems

Japan

Japan Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

ALTER EGO by 株式会社カラメルカラム

Infection - 感染 - by CanvasSoft

Jumpion - Make a two-step jump ! by Comgate

Lunch Time Fish by SoftFunk HULABREAKS

MeltLand by 個人

ReversEstory by 個人

キグルミキノコ Q-bit -第一章- by 個人

SumoRoll - Road to the Yokozuna by Studio Kingmo

Escape Game: The Little Prince by 株式会社 Jammsworks

Kamiori - カミオリ by TeamOrigami

Bear's Restaurant by 個人

クマムシさん惑星　ミクロの地球最強伝説 by Ars Edutainment

ゴリラ！ゴリラ！ゴリラ！by Gang Gorilla Games

Girl x Sun - Terasene - Tower defence & Novel game by SleepingMuseum

タシテケス by 個人

Destination: Dragons! by GAME GABURI

Cute cat's cake shop by 個人

Persephone by Momo-pi

Hamcorollin' by illuCalab.

Food Truck Pup: Cooking Chef by 合同会社ゲームスタート

Korean space needle and temple

South Korea

South Korea Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

다크타운 - 온라인 by 초콜릿소프트

Bad 2 Bad: Extinction by Dawinstone

셧더펑 : 슈팅액션 by Take Five Games

Cartoon Craft by Studio NAP

Catch Idle by HalftimeStudio

Hexagon Dungeon by Bleor Games

Hexonia by Togglegear

Mahjong - Magic Fantasy by Aquagamez

Maze Cube by IAMABOY

Road to Valor: World War II by Dreamotion Inc.

Onslot Car by Wondersquad

ROOMS: The Toymaker's Mansion by HandMade Game

Rhythm Star: Music Adventure by Anbsoft

7Days - Decide your story by Buff Studio

Seoul2033: Backer by Banjiha Games

Super Jelly Pop by STARMONSTER

UNLINK Daily Puzzle by Supershock

몬스터파크 온라인 by OVENCODE

WhamBam Warriors by DrukHigh

언노운 나이츠 by teamarex

We will welcome all finalists at events in London, Seoul, and Tokyo, where they will showcase their games to an audience of players, press and industry experts, for a chance to win the top prizes.

The events are open to the public, so if you would like to meet these games developers, try out their creations, and help choose the winners, sign up on the regional websites.

Congratulations to all finalists!

* The competition is open to developers from the following European countries and Israel: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Supporting Google Play developers regarding local market withholding tax regulations

Posted by Gloria On, Program Manager, Google Play

Many developers are increasingly focused on growing their businesses globally, and there were more than 94 billion apps downloaded from Google Play in the last year, reaching more than 190 countries. The regulatory environment is frequently changing in local markets, and in some countries local governments have implemented withholding tax requirements on transactions with which Google or our payment processor partners must comply. We strive to help both developers and Google meet local tax requirements in markets where we do business, and where Google or our payment processor partners are required to withhold taxes, we may need to deduct those amounts from our payments to developers.

Due to new requirements in some markets, we'll be rolling out withholding taxes soon to all those doing business in those countries. We wanted to bring this to the attention of Google Play developers to allow you time to prepare for these upcoming changes and take any necessary measures to meet these obligations. We strongly recommend developers consult with a professional tax advisor on your individual tax implications in affected markets and for guidance on the potential impact on your business so that you can make any necessary preparations.

The first countries where we will roll out these changes will be Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Myanmar. You can refer to the Google Play help center page to stay informed on future updates and changes.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★

I/O 2019: New features to help you develop, release, and grow your business on Google Play

Posted by Kobi Glick, Product Lead, Google Play

Play and #io19 logos with geometric shapes

Over the last 10 years, we’ve worked together to build an incredible ecosystem with more than 2.5 billion active users in over 190 countries. This would not be possible without you and all the fantastic apps and games you’ve built that entertain, help, and educate people around the world.

Every month, you upload more than 750,000 APKs and app bundles to the Play Console. We’ve been amazed by your enthusiasm, and it’s been our privilege to help you grow your business. This year, we want to help you go even further. So today at Google I/O, we're announcing new tools and features to help you develop, release, and grow your apps and games — many of them based on your feedback and suggestions.

Efficient, modular apps and customizable feature delivery

Last year we introduced Android's new publishing format, the Android App Bundle, and an entirely new dynamic delivery framework on Google Play. There are now over 80,000 apps and games using app bundles in production, with an average size savings of 20%. As a result of those savings, apps have seen up to 11% install uplift. As the future of app delivery, we’re excited to share these latest enhancements to the Android App Bundle.

Dynamic features are out of beta and available to all developers, including these new delivery options:

  • On-demand delivery — install features when they’re needed or in the background, instead of delivering them at install time, and reduce the size of your app.
  • Conditional delivery — control which parts of your app to deliver at the time of install based on the user’s country, device features, or minimum SDK version.
  • Instant experiences — now fully supported, so you only need to upload one artifact for your installed app and Google Play Instant experiences.

During our beta program, many developers implemented interesting use cases with dynamic features. Netflix, for example, now delivers their customer support functionality as a dynamic feature to users who visit the support center. By making functionality available only to users who need it, Netflix reported a 33% reduction in app size. You can learn more in the video below.

Seamless internal testing and increased security

We heard you loud and clear: testing bundles is hard. But with the new internal app sharing, you can now share test builds in a matter of seconds. Just upload your app bundle to Google Play and get a download URL to share with your testers. You don’t need to worry about version codes, signing keys, or most other validations that your production releases need to conform to.

In addition to efficiency and modularity, the Android App Bundle also now offers increased security with the launch of app signing key upgrade for new installs. With this feature, you can upgrade the cryptographic strength of your signing key for new installs and their updates on Google Play. Many developers sign their apps with keys generated a long time ago, and this new feature is the only backwards-compatible way to increase their strength.

Easier for users to update

Although auto-updates reach many users, you told us it was still challenging to get some users to update your apps. Now that our new in-app updates API is in general availability, users will be able to update without ever leaving your app. During our early access program, many developers used our API to create a polished upgrade flow, resulting in a median acceptance rate of about 50%.

The API currently supports two flows:

  • The “immediate” flow is a full-screen user experience that guides the user from download to update before they can use your app.
  • The “flexible flow” allows users to download the update while continuing to use your app.
Two iPhones side by side. The first on displaying Immediate update flow with a pop up recommending an update. The second displaying Flexible update flow with a pop up recommending an update.

Stronger decision-making with new Google Play Console data

The right data can help you improve your app performance and grow your business. That’s why we’re excited to tell you about new metrics and insights that will help you better measure your app health and analyze your performance.

  • Core metrics refresh — better understand your acquisition and churn, including data on returning users, automatic change analysis, install method (such as pre-installs and peer-to-peer sharing), metric benchmarking, and the ability to aggregate and dedupe over periods from hours to quarters.
  • App size metrics and reports — gain insights about your app size in Android vitals, including download size, size on device (at install time), changes compared to peers over time, and tailored optimization recommendations.
  • Developer-selected peer benchmarks — create a custom set of 8-12 peers to compare your app to, then see the median value of the set and the difference between your app and its peers for Android vitals data as well as for public metrics like your rating.
  • Market insights with curated peersets — in the coming months, you’ll also be able to compare your growth against an automatically generated, curated peerset of around 100 apps similar to yours for business-sensitive metrics like conversion rate and uninstall rate.
Android Vitals Overview dashboard on Peer group screen

Making it easier to respond to and improve user reviews

We’re also making big changes to another key source of performance data: your user reviews. Many of you told us that you want a rating that reflects a more current version of your app, not what it was years ago — and we agree. So instead of a lifetime cumulative value, your Google Play Store rating will be recalculated to give more weight to your most recent ratings. Users won’t see the updated rating in the Google Play Store until August, but you can preview your new rating in the Google Play Console today.

Every day, developers respond to more than 100,000 reviews in the Play Console, and when they do, we’ve seen that users update their rating by +0.7 stars on average. So in addition to the ratings change, we're making it easier to respond to reviews with suggested replies. When you go to respond to a user, you’ll see three suggested replies which have been created automatically based on the content of the review. You can choose to send one as-suggested, customize a suggestion for more personalization, or create your own message from scratch. Suggested replies are available in English now with additional languages coming later.

Google user review with suggested replies in Beta.

Better Google Play Store listing targeting and customization

Your store listing is where users come to learn more about your app or game and decide whether to install. It’s important real estate, so we’re releasing new features that let you optimize your Google Play Store to address different moments in the user lifecycle.

  • Following the launch of custom listings by country at GDC, we’re announcing a new early access program that lets you create custom listings by install state. Increase acquisition, retention, and re-engagement by providing customized marketing messages for users who haven’t installed your app, users who have your app, and users who have uninstalled your app. If you’re interested in joining the program, sign up here.
  • Now that pre-registration is available to all developers, we’re launching two new features to help you make the most of it: custom listing pages for pre-registration and pre-registration rewards, which let you incentivize players for signing up for notifications before you launch.

Learn more about these and other Google Play features at Google I/O. Join us live or watch later on the Android Developers YouTube channel.

You can also take your skills and knowledge to the next level with our e-learning courses on Google Play’s Academy for App Success, and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with our latest features and updates.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Google I/O 2019: Empowering developers to build the best experiences on Android + Play

Posted by Chet Haase

It's great to be in our backyard again for Google I/O to connect with Android’s developers around the world. The 7,200 attendees at Shoreline Amphitheatre, millions of viewers on the livestream, and thousand of developers at local I/O Extended events across 80+ countries heard about our efforts to make the lives of developers easier. Today at Google I/O, we talked about two big themes; helping our developers become more productive and strengthening user privacy and security in the platform. Let's take a closer look at the major developer news at I/O so far:

Developer Productivity

This year, we focused on a simple idea - we want to save you time every today. By making everything you use even better.

Kotlin

Two years ago, we announced Kotlin was a supported language for Android. Our top developers loved it already, and since then, it’s amazing how fast it’s grown. Over 50% of professional Android developers now use Kotlin, it’s been one of the most-loved languages two years running on Stack Overflow, and one of the fastest-growing on GitHub in number of contributors.

Today we’re announcing another big step: Android development will become increasingly Kotlin-first. Many new Jetpack APIs and features will be offered first in Kotlin. If you’re starting a new project, you should write it in Kotlin; code written in Kotlin often mean much less code for you–less code to type, test, and maintain. And, in partnership with Jetbrains and the Kotlin Foundation, we’re continuing to invest in tooling, docs, trainings and events to make Kotlin even easier to learn and use. This includes Kotlin/Everywhere, a new, global series of events where you can learn more about the language, new Udacity courses, and more.

Android Jetpack

Last year, we announced Android Jetpack, Android’s API to accelerate Android development and make writing high-quality apps easy, with less code. Over 80% of our top 1000 apps are already using Jetpack, as we continue to simplify more every-day developer challenges. Today, we are releasing 6 new Jetpack libraries (in alpha), and bringing 5 libraries to beta quality. Here are 3 highlights:

  • CameraX - You’ve told us working effectively across the range of unique Android devices was tough. CameraX is a new open-source Android Jetpack library to make camera development easier and faster. It provides a consistent camera experience across devices, so you no longer have to maintain device specific configurations. You’ll find support for leading-edge hardware and software features like optical zoom, bokeh, HDR, and night mode on participating manufacturer devices. It works with almost 90% of devices (backwards compatible to L). There’s also an easy migration path from legacy Camera APIs and it works seamlessly with camera2 APIs. 70% of camera usage on Android comes from installed apps (not the device camera app) so we’re really excited to make camera development easier.

  • Architecture Components - We’ve made a number of additions and enhancements based on your feedback. You’ve told us concurrency on Android was hard. So we’re bringing you LiveData and Lifecycles w/ coroutines to support common one-shot asynchronous operations. With the ViewModel with SavedState module, you can eliminate boilerplate code and gain the benefits of using both ViewModel and SavedState with simple APIs to save and retrieve data right from your ViewModel. And in case you missed it, we announced stable releases of WorkManager (background processing) and Navigation (navigation between app screens) just a couple of months ago.
  • Jetpack Compose - Many of you have been asking us for a modern, reactive style UI toolkit for Android, which takes advantage of Kotlin and integrates seamlessly with the platform and all of your existing code. Today, we’re sharing the team’s work on Jetpack Compose. Jetpack Compose is designed to simplify UI development by combining a reactive programming model with the conciseness and ease-of-use of Kotlin. It’s compatible with the existing UI toolkit, so you can mix and match views with direct access to all of the Android and Jetpack APIs. It’s also fully declarative for defining UI components. And, it’s designed with Material, animations, and tools in mind from the start. Starting today we’re developing this in the open, and you can find all the code on AOSP.

Android Studio

Today we’re releasing Android Studio 3.5 to Beta. For months, the team has been exclusively focused on refining and polishing day-to-day development workflows, with Project Marble. Android Studio 3.5 includes better IDE memory management for large projects, lower typing latency, lint improvements, CPU usage optimizations, layout editor improvements, emulator improvements, build changes, as well as a complete rewrite of Instant Run, now called Apply Changes, that now reliably accelerates the ability to see your code changes on a device - plus over 400 high- priority bug fixes.

Machine Learning at Android scale

In Android Q, we’ve made significant improvements to Android’s Neural Networks API (NNAPI). First, we have increased the number of Operators supported from 38 to over 90. The vast majority of models can now be accelerated by NNAPI with no alterations. We’ve also introduced an introspection API for advanced users, allowing full control over which hardware components handle acceleration (e.g. DSP vs. NPU). And, we’ve worked closely with hardware vendors to deliver significant improvements in performance, both in latency and power consumption. Working with MediaTek, we were able to accelerate ML Kit’s face detection API by 9X on the Helio P90. Working with Qualcomm, we were able to accelerate Google’s Lens OCR on the Snapdragon 855’s AI Engine, increasing speed by 3X while also reducing power consumption by 3.7X.

Dynamic features and in-app updates

Last year we introduced the Android App Bundle to help you reduce app size and increase installs. Since then, we’ve seen over 80,000 app bundles in production, with average size savings of 20%. And today we have a number of announcements to help you reduce size and deliver updates to your users even faster. Today we’re glad to share that dynamic feature modules are moving from beta to stable. With dynamic feature modules, you can reduce your app size even more by choosing which parts of your app to deliver - based on conditions like device features, country. You can even deliver modules on-demand, instead of at install time. And today we’re also moving in-app updates from beta to stable. The ability to dynamically update apps is something you’ve been requesting for a long time. Let’s say you have a crucial bug in your app, and you need to push it out right away; you don’t want to wait until users discover an update in the Play Store. Now you can.

User privacy and security in Android Q

As a developer community, we all care about getting this right. It’s about building a platform that offers powerful capabilities for developers, while making sure that user safety and privacy is protected. We introduced Android Q Beta a few months ago with over 50 features and improvements around user privacy and security. These Q changes provide users more transparency and control.

As always, we are working hard to do everything we can for developers adopting the new release. We know you have your own features to build. That’s why, with these Q changes, we’ve worked very hard to minimize the impact for you, as well as to incorporate your feedback. We’ve given as long a notice period as possible, as well as complete and detailed technical information up front, to make it as easy as possible to adopt. We also want to thank the community for your ongoing feedback. It’s been a huge help to the team who are working hard to get this right. A great example are the Beta 3 storage changes, where your feedback helped us evolve the feature over the course of the Betas. Android has a longstanding commitment to minimizing all breaking changes. Our commitment is unchanged, and we’ll work hard to keep Android the open, flexible, and developer friendly platform we all love.

Be a part of Google I/O!

We’ve got a lot of great content in store for you over the next three days, including over 45 sessions across Android. We’re excited for you to join us in-person here at Shoreline, at an I/O Extended event, or online through the livestream. We’re constantly investing in our platform that connects developers to billions of users around the world. To the entire Android community, thank you for your continued support and feedback, and for being a part of Android.

From puzzles to poster-making: 2019’s Google Play Award winners

To kick off this year’s Google I/O, we hosted our fourth annual Google Play Award ceremony to recognize the most innovative developers behind the top apps and games on Google Play over the past year. These apps and games had stiff competition across nine categories, including new additions like Most Inventive, Best Living Room Experience and Most Beautiful Game. We’re sharing the winners that rose to the top for providing the best experiences for fans, making an impact on their communities and raising the bar for quality content on Google Play.

Standout Well-Being App

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

The Woebot app logo, which features a yellow robot on a blue background.

Woebot: Your Self-Care Expert by Woebot Labs

Best Accessibility Experience

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

The Envision AI logo with a dark green background and "e" in the center.

Envision AI by Envision Technologies BV

Best Social Impact

Apps and games that create a positive impact in communities around the world (focusing on health, education, crisis response, refugees, and literacy).

The Wisdo logo with a purple background and "w" in the center.

Wisdo by Wisdo LTD.

Most Beautiful Game

Games that exemplify artistry or unique visual effects either through creative imagery, and/or utilizing advanced graphics API features.

The Shadowgun Legends logo with two robots.

SHADOWGUN LEGENDS by MADFINGER Games

Best Living Room Experience

Apps that create, enhance, or enable a great living room experience that brings people together.

The Neverthink logo with multicolored background and "nt" in the center.

Neverthink: Handpicked videos by Neverthink

Most Inventive

Apps and games that display a groundbreaking new use case, like utilize new technologies, cater to a unique audience, or demonstrate an innovative application of mobile technology for users.

The Tick Tock logo with 2 hands holding pocket watches.

Tick Tock: A Tale of Two by Other Tales Interactive

Standout Build for Billions Experience

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

The Canva logo with a blog logo and "C" in the middle.

Canva: Graphic Design & Logo, Flyer, Poster maker by Canva

Best Breakthrough App

New apps with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement, retention and strong growth.

The Slowly logo with a mailbox with a letter in it.

SLOWLY by Slowly Communications Ltd.

Best Breakthrough Game

New games with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement, retention and strong growth.

Marvel logo with colorful background

MARVEL Strike Force by FoxNext Games

To check out this year’s winners, head over to play.google.com/gpa2019.

Source: Android


And the 2019 Google Play Award nominees are…

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

Drum roll please! To kick off Google I/O this year, the 2019 Google Play Awards will take place on Monday, May 6th. We’re excited to highlight nine categories this year, some familiar and some new, to recognize developers that continue to set the bar for quality apps and games on Google Play.

Building on previous years, we celebrate our fourth year by recognizing 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 meet criteria thresholds covering high star rating, Android vitals, and have had a launch or major update since April 2018.

Congratulations to this year’s nominees below and remember to check them out on Google Play at play.google.com/gpa2019. Stay tuned as we announce the winners of each category at Google I/O.

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 and games enabling device interaction in an innovative way that serve people with disabilities or special needs.

Best Social Impact

Apps and games that create a positive impact in communities around the world (focusing on health, education, crisis response, refugees, and literacy).

Most Beautiful Game

Games that exemplify artistry or unique visual effects either through creative imagery, and/or utilizing advanced graphics API features.

Best Living Room Experience

Apps that create, enhance, or enable a great living room experience that brings people together.

Most Inventive

Apps and games that display a groundbreaking new use case, like utilize new technologies, cater to a unique audience, or demonstrate an innovative application of mobile technology for users.

Standout Build for Billions Experience

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

Best Breakthrough App

New apps with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement and retention, and strong growth.

Best Breakthrough Game

New games with excellent overall design, user experience, engagement and retention, and strong growth.

Come back on Monday, May 6th when we announce the winners, and until then, make sure to try out some of these great apps and games on Google Play at play.google.com/gpa2019.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Level up on Android with Indie Games Accelerator

Games are a powerful medium of creative expression, and at Google Play we’re inspired by the passion of game developers everywhere. Last year we announced the Indie Games Accelerator, a special edition of Launchpad Accelerator, to help top indie game developers from emerging markets achieve their full potential on Google Play.

Google Play | Indie Games Accelerator 2018

Our team of program mentors coached some of the best gaming talent from India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia. Thanks to the positive feedback we received around the program, we are bringing it back in 2019. Applications for the class of 2019 are now open, and we’re expanding the program to developers from select countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.


Selected participants will be invited to attend two all-expenses-paid gaming bootcamps at the Google Asia-Pacific office in Singapore. There, they’ll receive personalized mentorship from Google teams and industry experts. Additional benefits include Google hardware, invites to exclusive Google and industry events and more.
Indie Games Accelerator journey | MochiBits (Android Developer Story)

Howard Go, the co-founder of Mochibits LLC, talks about how the program helped him improve his game's downloads and ratings.

Head to our website to find out more about our program and apply. Applications are due May 19, 2019.


Indie Games Accelerator – Applications open for class of 2019

Posted by Anuj Gulati, Developer Marketing Manager and Sami Kizilbash, Developer Relations Program Manager

Last year we announced the Indie Games Accelerator, a special edition of Launchpad Accelerator, to help top indie game developers from emerging markets achieve their full potential on Google Play. Our team of program mentors had an amazing time coaching some of the best gaming talent from India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. We’re very encouraged by the positive feedback we received for the program and are excited to bring it back in 2019.

Applications for the class of 2019 are now open, and we’re happy to announce that we are expanding the program to developers from select countries* in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

Successful participants will be invited to attend two gaming bootcamps, all-expenses-paid at the Google Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, where they will receive personalized mentorship from Google teams and industry experts. Additional benefits include Google hardware, invites to exclusive Google and industry events and more.

Find out more about the program and apply to be a part of it.

* The competition is open to developers from the following countries: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Indie Games Accelerator – Applications open for class of 2019

Posted by Anuj Gulati, Developer Marketing Manager and Sami Kizilbash, Developer Relations Program Manager

Last year we announced the Indie Games Accelerator, a special edition of Launchpad Accelerator, to help top indie game developers from emerging markets achieve their full potential on Google Play. Our team of program mentors had an amazing time coaching some of the best gaming talent from India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. We’re very encouraged by the positive feedback we received for the program and are excited to bring it back in 2019.

Applications for the class of 2019 are now open, and we’re happy to announce that we are expanding the program to developers from select countries* in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

Successful participants will be invited to attend two gaming bootcamps, all-expenses-paid at the Google Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, where they will receive personalized mentorship from Google teams and industry experts. Additional benefits include Google hardware, invites to exclusive Google and industry events and more.

Find out more about the program and apply to be a part of it.

* The competition is open to developers from the following countries: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Improving the update process with your feedback

Posted by Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management, Android & Google Play

Thank you for all the feedback about updates we’ve been making to Android APIs and Play policies. We’ve heard your requests for improvement as well as some frustration. We want to explain how and why we’re making these changes, and how we are using your feedback to improve the way we roll out these updates and communicate with the developer community.

From the outset, we’ve sought to craft Android as a completely open source operating system. We’ve also worked hard to ensure backwards compatibility and API consistency, out of respect and a desire to make the platform as easy to use as possible. This developer-centric approach and openness have been cornerstones of Android’s philosophy from the beginning. These are not changing.

But as the platform grows and evolves, each decision we make comes with trade-offs. Everyday, billions of people around the world use the apps you’ve built to do incredible things like connect with loved ones, manage finances or communicate with doctors. Users want more control and transparency over how their personal information is being used by applications, and expect Android, as the platform, to do more to provide that control and transparency. This responsibility to users is something we have always taken seriously, and that’s why we are taking a comprehensive look at how our platform and policies reflect that commitment.

Taking a closer look at permissions

Earlier this year, we introduced Android Q Beta with dozens of features and improvements that provide users with more transparency and control, further securing their personal data. Along with the system-level changes introduced in Q, we’re also reviewing and refining our Play Developer policies to further enhance user privacy. For years, we’ve required developers to disclose the collection and use of personal data so users can understand how their information is being used, and to only use the permissions that are really needed to deliver the features and services of the app. As part of Project Strobe, which we announced last October, we are rolling out specific guidance for each of the Android runtime permissions, and we are holding apps developed by Google to the same standard.

We started with changes to SMS and Call Log permissions late last year. To better protect sensitive user data available through these permissions, we restricted access to select use cases, such as when an app has been chosen by the user to be their default text message app. We understood that some app features using this data would no longer be allowed -- including features that many users found valuable -- and worked with you on alternatives where possible. As a result, today, the number of apps with access to this sensitive information has decreased by more than 98%. The vast majority of these were able to switch to an alternative or eliminate minor functionality.

Learning from developer feedback

While these changes are critical to help strengthen privacy protections for our users, we’re sensitive that evolving the platform can lead to substantial work for developers. We have a responsibility to make sure you have the details and resources you need to understand and implement changes, and we know there is room for improvement there. For example, when we began enforcing these new SMS and Call Log policies, many of you expressed frustration about the decision making process. There were a number of common themes that we wanted to share:

  • Permission declaration form. Some of you felt that the use case descriptions in our permissions declaration form were unclear and hard to complete correctly.
  • Timeliness in review and appeals process. For some of you, it took too long to get answers on whether apps met policy requirements. Others felt that the process for appealing a decision was too long and cumbersome.
  • Getting information from a ‘real human’ at Google. Some of you came away with the impression that our decisions were automated, without human involvement. And others felt that it was hard to reach a person who could help provide details about our policy decisions and about new use cases proposed by developers.

In response, we are improving and clarifying the process, including:

  • More detailed communication. We are revising the emails we send for policy rejections and appeals to better explain with more details, including why a decision was made, how you can modify your app to comply, and how to appeal.
  • Evaluations and appeals. We will include appeal instructions in all enforcement emails and the appeal form with details can also be found in our Help Center. We will also be reviewing and improving our appeals process.
  • Growing the team. Humans, not bots, already review every sensitive decision but we are improving our communication so responses are more personalized -- and we are expanding our team to help accelerate the appeals process.

Evaluating developer accounts

We have also heard concerns from some developers whose accounts have been blocked from distributing apps through Google Play. While the vast majority of developers on Android are well-meaning, some accounts are suspended for serious, repeated violation of policies that protect our shared users. Bad-faith developers often try to get around this by opening new accounts or using other developers’ existing accounts to publish unsafe apps. While we strive for openness wherever possible, in order to prevent bad-faith developers from gaming our systems and putting our users at risk in the process, we can’t always share the reasons we’ve concluded that one account is related to another.

While 99%+ of these suspension decisions are correct, we are also very sensitive to how impactful it can be if your account has been disabled in error. You can immediately appeal any enforcement, and each appeal is carefully reviewed by a person on our team. During the appeals process, we will reinstate your account if we discover that an error has been made.

Separately, we will soon be taking more time (days, not weeks) to review apps by developers that don’t yet have a track record with us. This will allow us to do more thorough checks before approving apps to go live in the store and will help us make even fewer inaccurate decisions on developer accounts.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership and for continuing to make Android an incredibly helpful platform for billions of people around the world.

How useful did you find this blog post?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★