Thursday, September 29, 2016
Google I O 2016 Develop Grow Earn
Google I O 2016 Develop Grow Earn
Earlier today, we kicked off our 10-year celebration of hosting developer events with Google I/O in front of over 7,000 developers at Shoreline Amphitheatre, and with millions of other viewers on the I/O live stream around the world. During the keynote, we had a number of announcements that featured tools for Android, iOS, and mobile Web developers, showcased the power of machine learning for delivering better user experiences, and introduced a previewed platform for high quality, mobile virtual reality.
And over the next three days at the festival, well continue to focus on things that matter to you: Develop, to build high quality apps; Grow & Earn, to find high quality users, increase user engagement and create successful businesses; and Whats Next, a look at new platforms for future growth.
Develop, Grow & Earn with Firebase
Those core themes are best represented in our launch of Firebase. As shared during the keynote, weve significantly expanded Firebase beyond a mobile backend to include brand new features, like mobile analytics, growth tools, and crash reporting. Firebase is now a suite of 15 features and integrations designed to help you develop your app, grow a user base and earn money. At the heart of the suite is a new mobile analytics tool we built from the ground up called Firebase Analytics. Available for free and unlimited usage, Firebase Analytics is inspired by our decade-long experience running Google Analytics, but designed specifically for the unique needs of apps.Lets also take a closer look at the other major developer news at I/O:
Develop
- Android N Developer Preview 3 Get a look at the next release of Android N focused on performance, productivity and security. Even better, Android N is now ready to test on primary phones or tablets.
- Android VR A rework of the entire Android stack in N to tailor it to provide high quality mobile VR experiences.
- Android Studio 2.2 Preview Our new preview focuses on speed, smarts, and Android platform support. This major update includes a completely rewritten, feature-rich Layout Designer.
- Android Wear 2.0: A developer preview of the biggest platform update since we launched Android Wear two years ago. It includes updated design guidelines and APIs that make the watch even more useful for watch faces, messaging, and fitness. Apps on the watch can now be standalone, with direct network access to the cloud.
- Recording APIs: enables Android TV app developers and content providers to bring recording functionality to live channels.
- Google Play services 9.0 In addition to Firebase, the next release includes new API updates for Ads, Nearby and Play Games services.
- Android Pay APIs A new set of tools that includes support for mobile web, Instant Apps, Save to Android Pay and an API for issuers. Well have more to share during the session Android Pay everywhere: New developments later today at 2:00 PM PT Stage 1 Hercules.
- Progressive Web Apps A new set of capabilities to build app-like mobile websites that work reliably on the worst network connections and can send notifications to re-engage users.
- Credentials API The latest version of Chrome now supports the Credential Management API, allowing sites to interact with the browsers credential manager to improve the sign in experience for users. The API enables users to sign in with one tap and lets them automatically sign back in when returning to the site.
- Accelerated Mobile Pages Check out the AMP project, an open source initiative that is helping publishers create mobile-optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere.
Grow & Earn
- Reach a global audience on Google Play New and powerful tools to help you grow your business: discover and join beta tests from the Play Store (including a new Early Access section), discover collections of complementary apps to help users solve complex tasks, see how your app runs on real devices with a new pre-launch report, get insights and benchmarks for reviews and user acquisition, monitor your app stats and get notifications when your updates are live with the new Play Console app, and more.
- Android Instant Apps With Android Instant Apps, users can open your app simply by tapping on a link, even if they dont have the app installed. Instant Apps is compatible with Android Jelly Bean and later, reaching over a billion users. Were working with a small set of developers now, and well be gradually expanding access.
- Building for billions New resources to help you optimize your app and get your business ready to serve over a billion Android users around the world.
- Universal App Campaigns Last year, we introduced Universal App Campaigns as a simple and powerful way to surface apps to the billions of users across Google Play, Search, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. Were building on this success by expanding onto iOS and by helping developers use insights to optimize for lifetime value. See our new apps best practices.
Whats Next
- Awareness API: Well be previewing a new, unified sensing platform that enables apps to be aware of all aspects of a users context, while managing system health for you. Learn more at the "Introducing Awareness API: an easy way to make your apps context aware" session later today at 3:00 PM PT in Stage 5 Libra.
- Daydream Well have more to share on how developers can start building Daydream apps during the VR at Google session tomorrow (May 19) at 9:00 AM PT in the Amphitheatre and livestreamed.
- Chromebooks Hear from the team firsthand whats new with Chromebooks tomorrow (May 19) at 11:00 AM PT in Stage 8 Crater.
- The Mobile Web Well share what were doing to improve the mobile web experience for developers and users tomorrow (May 19) at 2:00 PM PT in the Amphitheatre.
Available link for download
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Develop a sweet spot for Marshmallow Official Android 6 0 SDK Final M Preview
Develop a sweet spot for Marshmallow Official Android 6 0 SDK Final M Preview
By Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Whether you like them straight out of the bag, roasted to a golden brown exterior with a molten center, or in fluff form, who doesnt like marshmallows? We definitely like them! Since the launch of the M Developer Preview at Google I/O in May, weve enjoyed all of your participation and feedback. Today with the final Developer Preview update, were introducing the official Android 6.0 SDK and opening Google Play for publishing your apps that target the new API level 23 in Android Marshmallow.
Get your apps ready for Android Marshmallow
The final Android 6.0 SDK is now available to download via the SDK Manager in Android Studio. With the Android 6.0 SDK you have access to the final Android APIs and the latest build tools so that you can target API 23. Once you have downloaded the Android 6.0 SDK into Android Studio, update your app project compileSdkVersion to 23 and you are ready to test your app with the new platform. You can also update your app to targetSdkVersion to 23 test out API 23 specific features like auto-backup and app permissions.
Along with the Android 6.0 SDK, we also updated the Android Support Library to v23. The new Android Support library makes it easier to integrate many of the new platform APIs, such as permissions and fingerprint support, in a backwards-compatible manner. This release contains a number of new support libraries including: customtabs, percent, recommendation, preference-v7, preference-v14, and preference-leanback-v17.
Check your App Permissions
Along with the new platform features like fingerprint support and Doze power saving mode, Android Marshmallow features a new permissions model that streamlines the app install and update process. To give users this flexibility and to make sure your app behaves as expected when an Android Marshmallow user disables a specific permission, its important that you update your app to target API 23, and test the app thoroughly with Android Marshmallow users.
How to Get the Update
The Android emulator system images and developer preview system images have been updated for supported Nexus devices (Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 & Nexus Player) to help with your testing. You can download the device system images from the developer preview site. Also, similar to the previous developer update, supported Nexus devices will receive an Over-the-Air (OTA) update over the next couple days.
Although the Android 6.0 SDK is final, the devices system images are still developer preview versions. The preview images are near final but they are not intended for consumer use. Remember that when Android 6.0 Marshmallow launches to the public later this fall, youll need to manually re-flash your device to a factory image to continue to receive consumer OTA updates for your Nexus device.
What is New
Compared to the previous developer preview update, you will find this final API update fairly incremental. You can check out all the API differences here, but a few of the changes since the last developer update include:
- Android Platform Change:
- Final Permissions User Interface we updated the permissions user interface and enhanced some of the permissions behavior.
- API Change:
- Updates to the Fingerprint API which enables better error reporting, better fingerprint enrollment experience, plus enumeration support for greater reliability.
Upload your Android Marshmallow apps to Google Play
Google Play is now ready to accept your API 23 apps via the Google Play Developer Console on all release channels (Alpha, Beta & Production). At the consumer launch this fall, the Google Play store will also be updated so that the app install and update process supports the new permissions model for apps using API 23.
To make sure that your updated app runs well on Android Marshmallow and older versions, we recommend that you use Google Plays newly improved beta testing feature to get early feedback, then do a staged rollout as you release the new version to all users.
Available link for download