Google Play preps a brand new full-screen app discovery characteristic and provides extra developer instruments

Although overshadowed by AI information this 12 months, Google’s I/O 2024 developer convention additionally focuses on what’s new for these constructing for Android. This 12 months, it’s Google Play that’s getting consideration, with a brand new discovery characteristic for apps, new methods to amass customers, updates to Play Factors, and different enhancements to developer-facing instruments just like the Google Play SDK Console and Play Integrity API, amongst different issues.

Of explicit curiosity to builders is one thing known as the Interact SDK, which can introduce a approach for app makers to showcase their content material to customers in a full-screen, immersive expertise that’s personalised to the person consumer. Google says this isn’t a floor that customers can see at the moment, nevertheless.

As an alternative, the Interact SDK is being supplied as a developer preview so builders can leverage the upcoming floor to focus on a very powerful content material from customers’ put in apps, personalised suggestions and promotions. If the consumer already has the app put in, it could spotlight a very powerful content material from these apps. If the consumer doesn’t have the app put in, builders can use this house to point out off their app’s most compelling options. It will probably additionally provide personalised promotions and offers.

Builders might want to combine with the Interact SDK — one thing that takes a couple of week to finish — to faucet into this new characteristic. For now, the Interact SDK is obtainable as an invite-only preview.

Play Factors, the Play ecosystem’s rewards program, is used to launch coupons, reductions and unique in-game gadgets. Now it’s additionally simpler to watch these promotions via the Play Console, so builders can higher optimize their campaigns.

Google additionally made it simpler to combine with Play Video games Providers and expanded its Google Play Video games on PC program to greater than 140 markets. This system’s catalog now consists of over 3,000 titles, the corporate famous.

For SDK builders, Google is opening up its SDK Console to all SDK makers, so long as they’re distributed by a canonical Maven repository supply that Google can confirm. The SDK Console, first launched in 2021, goals to assist SDK makers enhance their efficiency by providing instruments like crash reporting, insights, and the flexibility to speak with builders extra instantly. With the growth, it can now even be open to smaller SDKs and open supply SDKs that weren’t beforehand supported. That can enable a broader vary of SDK makers to supply builders with instruments to replace to SDK variations that repair bugs and points and adjust to the most recent Play Retailer pointers.

Builders are additionally in a position to share crash studies and ANR (Utility Not Responding) errors with SDK house owners to assist them enhance.

The Play Integrity API, launched in 2022, can be being up to date. The API helps builders be sure that consumer actions and server requests are coming from an unmodified model of their app as a way of defending in opposition to threat and fraud. Now it can add three new options. One is the general public beta of “app entry threat,” which lets an app know if one other app is capturing the display, displaying overlays or controlling the gadget. (It gained’t be triggered by options used for accessibility, nevertheless.) The API also can now reply with a Play Shield verdict, which lets builders know if Play Shield is turned on or if it has discovered any identified malware on the gadget. One other characteristic, “latest gadget exercise,” will let builders detect units making a excessive quantity of requests, which could possibly be an indication of automated visitors or an assault, says Google.

To assist builders purchase and interact customers, the Play Retailer is rolling out customized retailer listings, which permit builders to alter their listings and optimize them for various audiences. They’ll additionally now create listings primarily based on what key phrases customers are trying to find and the Play Console will make key phrase solutions. Google’s Gemini AI can be used to assist write app descriptions.

Following different modifications to make the Play Retailer extra helpful to these on completely different kind components, like tablets or watches, the listings can now show screenshots, scores, and evaluations particular to every kind issue. This will even assist when customers filter apps by gadget kind or discover the web page devoted to apps for “different units.”

Builders who use deep hyperlinks to their app — or hyperlinks that direct to a selected web page inside their app — can now replace these hyperlinks with out submitting an app replace for evaluation. As an alternative, they’ll be capable of use the deep hyperlinks patching characteristic within the Play Console to experiment with completely different hyperlinks after which push them stay.

The corporate additionally ran down varied modifications it’s made to Play Retailer commerce, together with the help for UPI in India, Pix in Brazil, the flexibility for folks to approve purchases for teenagers inside a Google Household setup, and, in India, the flexibility to ask a member of the family or pal exterior of your loved ones group to buy an app or in-app product. The latter is dealt with by sharing a fee hyperlink via a textual content or e-mail.

Google famous it’s robotically updating costs on the Play Retailer to mirror foreign money fluctuations in opposition to the U.S. greenback and is now letting builders value merchandise as excessive as USD $999.99 (or the native equal). Builders also can use a brand new Play Billing Lab app to check options to enhance the shopper expertise round one-time purchases and subscriptions.

Its installment subscriptions characteristic, which has been in early entry in choose markets, permits prospects the flexibility to pay over time for long-term subscriptions. To this point, this system has seen a rise of 8% in complete subscription sign-ups and 4% in consumer spending, however Google didn’t say when it could roll out extra broadly.

To reap the benefits of options, builders might want to improve to Play Billing Library 7.0 later this month, Google mentioned.