Android Developers & Publishers

I have been wondering for a long time what we independent developers can do to improve our position.

• For 5 years, Google will let developers offer an alternative in-app billing system next to Google Play (aka “User Choice Billing”)
• For 5 years, Google won’t make developers offer their best prices to customers who pick Google Play and Google Play Billing
• For 4 years, Google won’t make developers ship titles on Google Play at the same time as other stores and with feature parity
• For 5 years, Google won’t make companies exclusively put Google Play on a phone or its homescreen
• For 4 years, Google won’t stop OEMs from granting installer rights to preloaded apps
• For 5 years, Google won’t require its “consent” before an OEM preloads a third-party app store
• For 4 years, Google will let third-party app stores update apps without requiring user approval
• For 4 years, Google will let sideloaded app stores use its APIs and “feature splits” to help install apps
• For 5 years, Google will turn its two sideloading “scare screens” into a single user prompt which will read the equivalent of this agreed-upon language: “Your phone currently isn’t configured to install apps from this source. Granting this source permission to install apps could place your phone and data at risk.”
• For 5 years, Google will let User Choice Billing participating developers let their users know about better pricing elsewhere and “complete transactions using the developer’s existing web-based billing solution in an embedded webview within its app.”
• For 6 years, Google will “continue to allow developers to use contact information obtained outside the app or in-app (with User consent) to communicate with Users out-of-app”
• For 6 years, Google will let consumption only apps (e.g. Netflix, which doesn’t let you pay on device) tell users about better prices elsewhere, without linking to an outside website — example: “Available on our website for $9.99”
• For 6 years, Google “shall not prohibit developers from disclosing to Users any service or other fees associated with the Google Play or Google Play’s billing system.”

Spotify’s “unprecedented” popularity justified the deal.

Google keeps piling on restrictions for distributing apps via the Play Store, which is an issue when they have an effective monopoly

Hey fellow android devs, here is a plugin that I developed for invoking adb commands through the IDE. It was always a pain to copy all the cli shortcuts when i change machines. So, I thought why not make it a plugin. Hope you find it useful
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/22935-adbxpert

#androiddev

The popular developer forum is still hunting for a "path to profitability."

Survey on Android App Testing Practices

Dear Android Developers and Testers,
We cordially invite you to a brief 8-minute survey focusing on Android App testing practices. Your insights will greatly enhance our understanding of industry standards and help highlight areas of challenge and opportunity. Rest assured, your responses will be kept confidential and anonymous. Your expertise is invaluable, and we deeply appreciate your contribution to our research. Thank you for your time and participation.

https://forms.gle/G8UCsiy1V1vqyGor7

#androiddev

... "And then in late May, the Google contingent stopped posting on those groups.

There was no “goodbye”, or “hey, we need to focus on other things for a while”, or any other sort of announcement. One day, they were just gone. Eventually, we heard via “the grapevine” that top management (presumably Andy Rubin) had screamed fairly loudly about Googlers being involved with the community, particularly with deadlines looming. That seems plausible (both the justification and the screaming), though I never attempted to get corroboration for that story.

The reverberations from that lingered for years, as it seemed as though Google engineers were prevented from even acknowledging that the community existed. I distinctly remember an early Google I|O conference session, where Romain Guy was struggling not to say “ActionBarSherlock” when trying to answer a question about ActionBarSherlock, Jake Wharton’s legendary early UI framework." ...

Home of the jetc.dev Jetpack Compose newsletter! In the latest issue: Compose Compiler 1.4.8! Compose 1.5.0-beta03! Recomposition, and avoiding it! Floating bubbles! Action menu animations! @cb with window sizes for Compose Multiplatform! And, our rounded rectangles get... smoother?!?

A topic not specifically for android programmers but given the importance of Stackoverflow for all programmers it seemed right to bring it up here.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/425000/moderation-strike-stack-overflow-inc-cannot-consistently-ignore-mistreat-an

Just a test :)

To create a post you use the menu under the "+" icon and select "Add new link/article/photo".

"Add new post" creates a "microblog". I'm not sure how it works, it's the first time I'm using kbin, maybe it's similar to a tweet.

From what I understand about kbin and fediverse is that it's a combination of reddit and twitter, content-wise. There are various servers where you can create an account but all accounts, regardless of where they were created, can interact with each other.
One way to see content created on other servers and magazines is through hashtags. If the administrator of a magazine (magazine is the equivalent of sub on reddit) wants to include in the list of "threads" and "microblogs" content generated on other servers, it can do so by adding one or more tags on the relevant admin page. In this magazine, for the time being, the tag #androiddev has been included.

Those interested to help customize the magazine by creating an icon and editing the css and js - other than the icon I don't know what can be changed via css and js - can send me a message here.

I created an Android app to be able to read kbin.social content. Initially the app was a simple webview to be able to browse the site in a dedicated browser. Currently it has a few more features, such as being able to inject css and js, a menu with various links to the site etc. You can find the app and code at https://github.com/anemomylos/shell4kbin.