Android Developers Blog

Posted by Sameer Samat, VP, Product Management Helping developers build sustainable businesses is a core part of Google Play’s mission. We work with partners every day to understand the challenges they face and help them bring their innovative ideas to life. Getting a new app off the ground and into orbit is not easy! To aid their quest for growth we provide a broad range of support, from powerful marketing tools and actionable data in the Play Console , education via Play Academy , "> best practices and thought leadership resources, programs such as the Indie Games Festival , Indie Corner , and accelerator programs around the world. We’re always looking for new ways to give them an added boost. Starting on July 1, 2021 we are reducing the service fee Google Play receives when a developer sells digital goods or services to 15% for the first $1M (USD) of revenue every developer earns each year. With this change, 99% of developers globally that sell digital goods and servic...

Posted by Posted by Purnima Kochikar, Director, Business Development, Games & Applications Today, we announced Google Play’s annual Best of 2020 awards , highlighting the year’s best apps, games and digital content. None of this would be possible without the developers that created the amazing content that made a profound impact on us in 2020, or should we say a Genshin Impact … From miHoYo Limited to Loona Inc, the makers behind your favorite apps and games were unafraid to experiment, challenge the status quo, and design incredible experiences we never thought possible. Check out the full rundown of the developers behind the best apps and games of 2020 in the U.S. on Google Play: Best App of 2020 Loóna: Bedtime Calm & Relax by Loona Inc. Best Personal Growth Apps Paired: App for Couples | Relationship Advice by Better Half Ltd. Centr, by Chris Hemsworth by Loup Pty Ltd Speekoo by LearnMyLanguage Intellect by The Intellect Company Jumprope: How-to Videos by Jumpr...

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Global Marketing, Platforms & Ecosystems We are launching the second series of the Apps, Games, & Insights podcast. Over the summer, we teamed up with a new group of leading industry insiders and experts to bring you 8 new podcast episodes over the next couple of months. We are bringing you their exceptional business stories, experiences and discussion on some of the latest big questions in the apps and games industry. We are joined again by your hosts—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 Europe— and you can find out who they have been cajoling and corralling in the new series, below. In the first series , the guests covered topics ranging from responsible growth and building for the long term, through advice from mergers and acquisitions and venture capital experts, to hot topics such as privacy and accessibi...

Posted by Michael Watson, Product Manager, Google Play With more kids spending time at home, parents are looking for ways to find apps and games for children that are both enriching and entertaining. Today, we’re announcing an update that will make it easier for parents to find this content on the Google Play Store. We’re launching the Teacher Approved program , an editorial program to highlight high-quality, teacher-approved apps for kids. This is part of our ongoing effort to create a safer Google Play for kids . What’s changing We consulted with academic experts to develop a framework for rating apps for kids. Specially trained teachers across the US will rate apps for kids based on this framework, evaluating things like: Design quality Appeal to children Enrichment potential Ads & in-app purchases Age appropriateness Teacher-approved apps will: Be eligible to appear in the new Kids section on Google Play Be eligible for featuring in banners or collections on Google Play Displa...

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 Paul Feng, Product Manager, Google Play At Google Play, we continue to build new experiences to delight users and help developers succeed. Today, we’re excited to announce that the Google Play Points rewards program is expanding to the United States following successful launches in Japan and Korea, where millions of people have already enrolled. The program is designed to show appreciation to our users and help increase engagement with your games and apps. Google Play Points rewards users for any purchase they make on Play — including apps, games, in-app items, music, movies, books, and subscriptions - and for downloading select apps and games. For all developers, if you’re on Play billing, users will earn points on your apps and games immediately. Play Points can then be redeemed for unique rewards like special items and discounts in Candy Crush, Homescapes, Lords Mobile and many others. We’re fortunate to be working with a select group of developers to offer these reward...

Posted by Andrew Ahn, Product Manager, Google Play Google Play is committed to providing a secure and safe platform for billions of Android users on their journey discovering and experiencing the apps they love and enjoy. To deliver against this commitment, we worked last year to improve our abuse detection technologies and systems, and significantly increased our team of product managers, engineers, policy experts, and operations leaders to fight against bad actors. In 2018, we introduced a series of new policies to protect users from new abuse trends, detected and removed malicious developers faster, and stopped more malicious apps from entering the Google Play Store than ever before. The number of rejected app submissions increased by more than 55 percent, and we increased app suspensions by more than 66 percent. These increases can be attributed to our continued efforts to tighten policies to reduce the number of harmful apps on the Play Store, as well as our investments in automat...

Posted by Chris Yang, Program Manager, Translation Service It is not uncommon for developers to have the following concerns and thoughts when considering whether to localize their apps: "I just don't have the time!" "Translation is too expensive." "High-quality translation is just hard to find.'' Does this sound familiar? At Google, we consider translation a key component of making the world's information universally accessible and useful. This commitment extends not only to localizing our own products, but also to providing tools to help developers and translators more easily localize their apps. Introducing the Google Play App Translation Service Available in the Google Play Console, the Google Play App Translation Service simplifies localization of your app user interface strings, store listing, in-app product names, and universal apps campaign ads. Thousands of developers have already used this service to reach hundreds of millions of users...

Posted by Patricia Correa, Platforms & Ecosystems Earlier this year we highlighted some of Google Play's milestones and commitments in supporting the 1M+ developers on the Play Store, as well as those of you working on Android apps and games and looking to launch and grow your business on our platforms. We have been inspired and humbled by the achievements of app and game developers, building experiences that delight and help people everywhere, as some stories highlighted in #IMakeApps . We continue to focus on helping you grow thriving businesses and building tools and resources to help you reach and engage more users in more places, whilst ensuring a safe and secure ecosystem. Looking to 2019, we are excited about all the things to come and seeing more developers adopt new features and update to Android P . In the meantime let's share some of the 2018 highlights on Google Play and Android: Building for the future Along with Android P we have continued to help ...