Android Developer

A snippet of code found buried in the backend of Android 8.0 Oreo by XDA Developers seems to suggest that Android Oreo may eventually allow OEMs to add secondary functionality to hardware buttons in the near future. To be fair, advanced users have already been playing around with the concept using various methods and workarounds […]

Software company FaceTec on Tuesday announced ZoOm, its new software development kit (SDK) for mobile biometric authentication which ships with full support for Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and newer versions of the operating system. The firm’s latest solution is meant to improve the security offered by contemporary biometric authentication services on mobile devices while simultaneously […]

Expensive app subscriptions lead to more loyal users, whereas developers who opt to sell their mobile services at more affordable rates may actually lose customers, according to the latest market study conducted by Liftoff. The Palo Alto, California-based firm analyzed three main groups of subscription apps: those priced at between $0.99 and $7, services with […]

App creators looking for a new market to grow into should be looking at launching apps in Russia, according to the official Android Developers blog. That’s all down to the current state of the market in the country. A study published earlier this year has shown that Russia’s market for mobile applications is prime territory, […]

Microsoft listed the Android port of Windows Dev Center on the Google Play Store several days back, with the digital tool originally appearing on Google’s digital marketplace as an unreleased app, indicating that it’s still in the alpha stage of development and may take a while before hitting the stable channel. The app itself was […]

Facebook on Thursday announced the Messenger Platform 2.1, a new technological solution that enables a wide variety of new content and features on the company’s instant messaging (IM) service. Following the new update, developers are able to access a broad range of tools that can help them create new services for Messenger, the company said, […]

Despite the many implications and uncertainties surrounding various markets after last year’s “Brexit” decision, Amazon appears to be having no real trouble hiring people and expanding its business in the U.K. In fact, the retail shipping giant has revealed plans to double the current task force at the company, in high-tech positions in the research […]

Android’s new EmojiCompat library allows owners of old devices to view emojis included in newer versions of the operating system. The new library allows developers to inject additional code into their applications that will render the appropriate emojis in all smartphones running Android 4.4 KitKat and up. This will reduce the instances wherein blank boxes […]

The fourth Developer Preview of Android O with near-final system images is now rolling out to users and will be offered to all eligible devices in the coming days, Google’s Vice President of Engineering David Burke confirmed on Monday. All developers that are already enrolled in the Android Beta Program will soon be prompted to […]

Samsung Electronics on Thursday detailed the creation of the Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) station that debuted alongside the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, with two of the company’s Service Product Management Group officials also talking about the tech giant’s future plans for the platform. Minchul Kim and Hyoungsik Kim revealed that Samsung DeX has been in […]

Chinese tech giant Baidu and Irvine, California-based audio software company Conexant on Wednesday announced a new partnership meant to facilitate advancements in the artificial intelligence (AI) segment, specifically the one aimed at voice-enabled product and services, as well as their commercial implementations. The two companies are soon planning to release reference designs and software development […]

Early Android O adopters will lose some notification controls managing the behavior of their devices, specifically the ability to set Notification Importance that would usually be available in notification settings of individual apps, according to a thread posted in the Issue Tracker of the third developer preview of Android O. The problem stems from Notification […]

LG Electronics on Thursday added the United States variant of the LG G6 to the list of devices supported by its official bootloader unlocking tool. The South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM) refers to the variant in question as the “US997.USA” and notes that using its tool to unlock the phone’s bootloader will still void […]

Yesterday Google announced the launch of the first developer preview of its Android Things Console. This is designed to work with Android Things and in the shortest of terms, as a centralized port where developers can more easily interact and control a large number of Android Things-powered devices. So for instance, via the Android Developers […]

Sony on Tuesday open-sourced its Neural Network Libraries, a framework meant for developing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions with deep learning capabilities, the Japanse tech giant said in a statement. The company is hoping that its latest move will help grow a development community centered around its software tools and consequently improve the “core libraries” of the […]

Founders behind mobile marketing agency AppScotch on Tuesday officially launched their latest venture called Acquired.io, a comprehensive user acquisition management platform that’s meant to provide a centralized, versatile solution for managing user growth on popular social media networks and related services. The establishment of Acquired.io comes shortly after the company managed to raise $2 million […]

A new report shared by mobile advertising platform Tapjoy has revealed that mobile gamers in the United States prefer to have opt-in, rewarded advertisements over other forms of advertisements by a 4-to-1 margin. They also prefer to have their apps to be free which is something that might be obvious from the fact that there […]

Google has announced the release of Blockly 1.0 for both Android and iOS platforms. It is a significant update for the open source library meant for building block visual programming which was introduced five years ago. The library is aimed at making it easier and faster for developers to code as it offers drag and […]

This week Amazon announced the opening of its ‘Video Skill API’ for Alexa. This is the latest Alexa skill to become available to developers and looks to act as a bridging element between Alexa and video content from third-party services and providers. This is interesting for a number of reasons, although one of the most obvious […]

Google on Thursday released the third Developer Preview of Android O, adding that the latest beta iteration of the operating system also ships with finalized application programming interfaces (APIs), meaning this is the last call for Android developers to optimize their apps and prepare them for the upcoming release of the next major iteration of […]

Mapping software company eeGeo on Thursday announced a range of new products and changes, including the fact that it has rebranded itself as WRLD, simply pronounced “world.” The firm also debuted three new tools for developers looking to create 3D maps and related content for their software products – the WRLD Map Designer, WRLD software development […]

Google has announced the Actions on Google Developer Challenge designed with a goal of encouraging developers to come up with new and unique Google Assistant actions. The challenge is open to any developer who is or might be interested in expanding their app’s functionality to the Google Assistant. While the Actions on Google platform was […]

Google I/O 2017 has now come and gone. However, if you are feeling a little nostalgic or simply would like a brief overview of what happened during the event, then the Google Developers team has now released a new video which you can check out below. The video is titled ‘Google I/O 2017 Highlights’ and […]

Yesterday, on the first day of their I/O event, Google announced the launch of the Android Instant Apps SDK.  Instant apps were first launched at Google I/O 2016, and allow users to launch certain apps without the need to install them on their device. Up until the announcement, which was made onstage at the conference […]

Android O will introduce a new animation class that will allow developers to create smoother, more natural object movements, as revealed by a set of development documents published by Google earlier this week. The changes were announced following the rollout of the second developer preview of Android O that debuted at Google I/O 2017 Keynote […]

Google announced that it’s adding support for Android development in Kotlin that will now be considered as one of the official programming languages for its ubiquitous operating system. The announcement of yet another expansion of the Android development community aptly came at the latest iteration of the company’s Google I/O developer conference that started earlier […]

In the run-up to Google I/O 2017 whose Keynote is currently underway, Google discreetly launched “Chatbase,” an analytics service for developers of chatbots looking to improve their creations. The service is technically live as of this writing though it isn’t freely accessible. Instead, interested developers are able to request access to Chatbase which the Mountain […]

GPS navigation service Sygic released its Sygic Online Maps application programming interface (API) for developers earlier this week, the Bratislava, Slovakia-based company announced. The new API was launched within the firm’s Sygic Mobility Development Kit (SDK) and was designed to assist developers in integrating Sygic’s services with their existing and upcoming fleet management and smart […]

It would seem that the Google Play Top Developer program is now coming to an end. The information has come from emails that are reportedly being sent out to developers from the Google Play team confirming the closure of the program. According to the email, the program will officially cease to be within the next […]

Huawei has partnered with Linaro to release its own answer to the Raspberry Pi called the HiKey 960, which gets its name from the powerful Kirin 960 processor that it houses. Having all of the same computing muscle inside as the recently released Huawei P10 and P10 Plus flagship smartphone doesn’t come cheap as this dev […]

Livestream, the New York-based company behind the hand-held Mevo live-streaming camera, have announced several major upgrades to the device, which includes an Android app featuring support for YouTube Live. Until now, there has only been an iOS app available. The Android app is currently a beta version, but when completed will allow users to broadcast […]

Amazon has introduced a change to the policies that Alexa Skills developers have to adhere to, banning advertisement from any and all facets of Alexa development except music streaming and radio services, as well as “flash briefings” or small, pre-recorded segments from news broadcasters and the like. This means that Skills that don’t use those […]

Amazon has been making consistent moves to convince professionals to start developing for Alexa for a while now, and the latest such move, announced Wednesday, gives developers full access to Lex, the powerful conversational technology behind Alexa’s ability to understand and obey voice commands, as well as provide feedback to users. Lex has been in a preview […]

Designing and implementing a user interface that can perform dynamically and consistently across a broad range of mobile devices is hard, but Facebook is aiming to make it a bit easier for all by open-sourcing the Litho framework that they created from scratch to handle scrolling workloads for Android apps. Litho is loosely based on the […]

The tool Google uses internally to track bugs and feature requests, as well as collecting feedback, has now been made available to Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) developers. More specifically, this is the same issue tracking tool the search giant behind Android has been using to track those issues for the Android O Developer Preview. The public […]

Google has today made available the third developer preview of Android Things. This latest developer preview comes with the usual bug fixes, but also brings with its full support for Android Bluetooth APIs, allowing developers of Android Things devices to make use of Bluetooth classic and low energy (LE) in a similar way to how […]

Google has again provided details about how Googlers have optimized the open-source code behind its newest Santa Tracker application in an effort to help Android and web developers improve their own experiences. The fact that the web and Android applications see a yearly release, in addition to their size and number of users, makes them […]

The first developer preview of Android O ships with support for automatic notification timeouts, meaning notifications pushed by any app can disappear on their own after a set amount of time even if they haven’t been seen, Android developer João Dias has learned after spotting the feature in the Notification Builder section of Android O’s documentation. Dias […]

It has been announced that AT&T’s TV service, DIRECTV, will have its live 4K coverage of the 2017 Masters Tournament extended. The golfing action will take place at the August National Golf Club in Georgia from April 6th to the 9th and subscribers to the service will be able to benefit from 4K Ultra High […]

Google today announced the launch of a new ‘Google Mobile Sites certification’ program with the end result being that mobile-oriented web developers will be able to refer to themselves “as a Google accredited mobile site developer.” A certification which Google notes will then be listed on the developer’s partners profile as a sign to potential […]

Social media giant Twitter announced Periscope Producer, a new application programming interface (API) meant to introduce new methods of sharing video broadcasts. Twitter’s Staff Software Engineer John Boiles explained that the new API was specifically designed for external hardware and third-party software as it will allow independent developers to create applications that can authorize Periscope accounts, […]

Yesterday, on March 13, Crafty Apps EU revealed that its popular and powerful automation application Tasker has a fairly big update in the works that should be coming soon. Although the overhaul has not been given a timeframe as of this writing, the devs have released a log showing what they have been working on. […]

Facebook added an anti-surveillance clause to its platform policies for Facebook and Instagram, the Menlo Park-based social media giant announced on Monday. The changes were made to the policies for third-party developers that are creating services for Facebook and Instagram and specifically prohibit the use of personal data for any kind of surveillance purposes. Facebook […]

Whether you’ve been using Android Studio as a primary development tool or are just looking into getting started in mobile development, you’ll probably be interested to hear that Google has just released a pretty substantial update to the program. The update brings the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to version 2.3  and was announced on March […]

Google brought new developer tools yesterday to the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco that is designed to help developers get noticed by more consumers, gain more downloads, better tracking of consumers, and of course make more money. The best of the bunch is a program called playables which is a lightweight version of the game that […]

Google’s Android Emulator version 25.3 supports IPV6 and better audio and Google is making this latest version of the emulator available to developers starting today. Since the emulator is aimed at developers there are a couple of things that developers will need as a dependency for this latest version, and those things are revision 24 […]

Android Wear 2.0 is here, and Google has taken to the Google Developers blog to go over the improvements it brings with a fine tooth comb, and what those improvements mean for developers. On the whole, things have gotten easier and prettier for both developers and users, and new hardware features are supported, allowing for a […]

Google recently started warning Android developers about their apps on the Google Play Store that violate the company’s User Data Policy, threatening to take action against their creations if they don’t fix these issues quickly. Over the last two days, the Alphabet-owned company reportedly messaged numerous developers from all around the world regarding those violations. Most […]

HTC has decided to jump on the extreme developer advocacy bandwagon with the newest addition to the Vive family by offering 1,000 Vive Tracker units to qualified developers for free, so long as those developers are willing to give them back when HTC comes knocking. The application seems to only be open to business entities, […]

Google has added a new section to its Android Developers website in a bid to improve the security of Play Store applications through a series of guidelines and best practices. Because it is open-source, the perception is often that Android is more susceptible to viruses, hacking, and malware. Citing that security is the result of […]

For quite some time now, the only way to officially get Google’s Android Debug Bridge (ADB) or fastboot tools has been to download either the entire Android Software Development Kit (SDK) or Android Studio. To those who have not previously used these tools, ADB and fastboot are commonly used for functions such as rooting a […]

If you happen to be a Facebook developer, you’ve likely utilized the company’s Account Kit on a number of occasions. This authentication solution relies on users providing a valid phone number and an email address, both of which are then used to confirm their identity. As such, Account Kit is not an alternative to Facebook Login, […]

Often, software deals with sensitive and private information; which best explains why there is a need for top level encryption to act as support in protecting this information from attacks. But because there are new cyber security threats that are found daily, the software require constant patching. Thankfully, Google released a new set of security […]

The Internet of Things industry is evolving at a rapid pace and as Google is always looking to be on top of things, the Mountain View-based tech giant is also doing its best to spearhead IoT-related advancements and position itself as a major player in this emerging market. With that in mind, Google just announced […]

The Google Home smart speaker has been on the market for a very short time and while the company’s latest speaker is slowly making its way to users’ homes throughout the United States, the Mountain View-based tech giant is already looking towards the future. More specifically, Google is planning ways in which it can expand […]

The Internet of Things (IoT) industry is still young, but people are slowly getting used to the idea of connected consumer electronics, largely thanks to digital assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. As these smart companions are always evolving, they’re gradually becoming more capable and useful, which is why it’s important for developers to […]

Earlier this year, Amazon announced plans to implement additional artificial intelligence (AI) solutions into Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing unit. Back then, the Seattle-based tech giant explained that it’s looking to offer as many cloud-based AI applications as possible to not fall behind competitors like Google and Microsoft who have been doing the […]

Android Studio has been the de facto way to develop Android apps for some time now, with many app developers swearing by it, including most of the developers behind the top 125 apps in the Play Store. It isn’t the only solution, of course; game makers can turn to engines like Unreal and Unity, and […]

If you’re an Android developer, you’ve probably heard of Stetho by now. Facebook‘s Android debugging platform was officially open-sourced last year and has steadily received major updates ever since then. In fact, one such update was just introduced over on the Stetho GitHub page. The most important feature included in the latest Stetho build is an Accessibility […]

Samsung’s Linux-based Tizen may not be the most popular operating system ever created but the South Korean tech giant is still betting big on it. And why wouldn’t it? Tizen has been on the market for close to five years now and has proven to be a reliable solution for a variety of devices. To […]