Android Developers Blog

Posted by Leticia Lago, Head of Developer Marketing, EMEA At the start of this year we opened submissions for 2020’s Google Play Indie Games Festival - an international competition celebrating incredible indie games from Europe, Japan and South Korea. We’ve received hundreds of fantastic submissions that showcase the technical abilities and groundbreaking creativity of independent studios. Many thanks to everyone who submitted their game. After some hard choices and late nights, we’re happy to announce our 20 finalists in each region. Please check out the games below (in alphabetical order); each one is a true work of art. They will be receiving promotions and prizes to help them grow their business. They’ll also be competing in the Finals for the top prizes. While this is a happy announcement, we must also inform you that we will be unable to hold the Finals as planned on April 25 in Poland, Japan and South Korea due to the COVID-19 situation. We will be postponing the events until f

Posted by Michael Hazard As part of the Android 11 developer preview we’ve released Android 11 system images , which are capable of executing ARM binaries with significantly improved performance. Previously, developers who were dependent on ARM libraries and could not build an x86 variant of their app either had to use system images with full ARM emulation, which are much slower than x86 system images when run on x86-based computers, or resort to physical devices. The new Android 11 system images are capable of translating ARM instructions to x86 without impacting the entire system. This allows the execution of ARM binaries for testing without the performance overhead of full ARM emulation. The new Android 11 (Google APIs) x86 system image supports ARM ABIs, while the older Android Oreo system image does not Details The significance of this may require a bit of context, especially if you build apps exclusively with Kotlin or the Java programming language. Unlike Kotlin or the Java pro

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Head of Product Management, Games on Android & Google Play While we're sorry we didn't get to see you all in person at GDC, we hope you are all staying healthy and safe. As many of us look to press on with work as much as possible, we’d like to share with you what our teams have been working on at the digital Google for Games Developer Summit. We couldn’t be happier with the continued growth of the vibrant Android gaming ecosystem. In fact, Android remains the world's most popular mobile platform with more than 2.5 billion monthly active devices and great news for game developers, we’re seeing more than 1.4 trillion minutes played per month in your games on Google Play. It’s important to us that our platforms are highly useful to every kind of game developer, so our payment system helps games monetize in more than 65 countries. Moreover, we offer our users more than 275 local forms of payment, including more than 180 carrier billing options, wit

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering It’s been a difficult few months for many around the world. The Android team at Google is a global one, and we, like many of you, are learning how to adapt to these extraordinary times. We want to thank you, our developer community, who have given us valuable feedback on Android 11 amidst these circumstances. We hope you, your families and colleagues are all staying well. Just as many of you are trying to press on with work where possible, we wanted to share the next milestone release of Android 11 for you to try. It’s still an early build, but you can start to see how the OS is enabling new experiences in this release, from seamless 5G connectivity to wrapping your UI around the latest screens, to a smarter keyboard and faster messaging experience. There’s a lot to check out in Developer Preview 2 - read on for a few highlights and visit the Android 11 developer site for details. Today’s release is for developers only and not intended for dail

Posted by David Winer , Kotlin Product Manager Last May at Google I/O, we announced that Android was going Kotlin first, and now over 60% of the top 1000 Android apps use Kotlin. One feature we love about Kotlin is that nullability is baked into its type system — when declaring a reference, you say upfront whether it can hold null values . In this post, we’ll look at how the Android 11 SDK does more to expose nullability information in its APIs and show how you can prepare your Kotlin code for it. How does nullability in Kotlin work? When writing code in Kotlin, you can use the question mark operator to indicate nullability: KOTLIN var x: Int = 1 x = null // compilation error var y: Int? = 1 y = null // okay This aspect of Kotlin makes your code safer — if you later call a method or try to access a property on a non-null variable like x , you know you’re not risking a null pointer exception. We hear over and over again that this feature of Kotlin gives developers more peace of mind a

Posted by the Google for Games Team Last month, Game Developers Conference (GDC) organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community. GDC is one of our most anticipated times of the year to connect with the gaming industry. Though we won’t be bringing the news in-person this year, we’re hosting the Google for Games Developer Summit , a free, digital-only experience where developers can watch the announcements and session content that was planned for GDC. Google for Games Developer Summit The Developer Summit kicks off on March 23rd at 9:00AM PT with our broadcasted keynote . Immediately following, we’ll be releasing a full lineup of developer sessions with over 10 hours of content to help take your games to the next level. Here are some types of sessions to expect: Success stories from industry leaders on how they’ve conquered game testing, built backend infrastructure, and lau

Posted by Sam Saccone, Software Engineer and Clay Murphy, Technical Writer The Android Platform Codelab has been published to take developers from bare metal to a (virtual) device under test in a single page. This document will help new Android operating system engineers quickly learn the tools and processes needed to establish a build environment, sync the repository, build a virtual device image, and load that image onto an Android virtual device (AVD), allowing quick iteration of platform changes. The codelab walks through: Environment setup Downloading of code Creating a Cuttlefish Android Virtual Device (AVD) image Building the OS Using Acloud to set up and render the Cuttlefish AVD Creating and testing changes Uploading, reviewing, and reverting those modifications If you encounter errors during this codelab, please report them using the Site feedback link on the bottom of any page. Send questions to the android-building group.

Posted by Lily Sheringham , Global Marketing, Platforms & Ecosystems UPDATE: We have updated the launch date of some of the episodes due to the current circumstances with COVID-19, please check below for up-to-date episodes. This is a cross-post from The Google Keyword blog . Today we’re launching the Apps, Games, & Insights podcast series, bringing together insights, stories, and learnings from industry experts, on some of today's hottest topics surrounding mobile, apps and games businesses, and the wider industry. Listen to the podcast here! The series has eight episodes which aim to challenge, provoke thought, and enlighten listeners - from designers and developers, through to product managers and marketers, and those interested in the apps and games industry. The podcast is hosted by Googlers Tamzin Taylor, who heads up Apps & Games Business Development for Google Play in Western Europe, and Dirk Primbs, who leads the Ecosystem Developer Relations team in EMEA. Toge

Posted by the Google for Games Team Last Friday, GDC 2020 organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community. Every year, we look forward to the Game Developers Conference and surrounding events because it gives our teams a chance to connect with game developers, partners, and friends in the industry. Although we won’t be connecting in-person this year, we’re still excited to share the latest announcements from Google with everyone through our digital experience. We'll be sharing plans for our digital experience in the coming days. Thank you to all who keep this community thriving and check back soon at g.co/gdc2020 for more details.