Google Play App Translation Service

Posted by Ellie Powers, Google Play team

Today we are happy to announce that the App Translation Service, previewed in May at Google I/O, is now available to all developers. Every day, more than 1.5 million new Android phones and tablets around the world are turned on for the first time. Each newly activated Android device is an opportunity for you as a developer to gain a new user, but frequently, that user speaks a different language from you.

To help developers reach users in other languages, we launched the App Translation Service, which allows developers to purchase professional app translations through the Google Play Developer Console. This is part of a toolbox of localization features you can (and should!) take advantage of as you distribute your app around the world through Google Play.

We were happy to see that many developers expressed interest in the App Translation Service pilot program, and it has been well received by those who have participated so far, with many repeat customers.

Here are several examples from developers who participated in the App Translation Service pilot program: the developers of Zombie Ragdoll used this tool to launch their new game simultaneously in 20 languages in August 2013. When they combined app translation with local marketing campaigns, they found that 80% of their installs came from non-English-language users. Dating app SayHi Chat expanded into 13 additional languages using the App Translation Service. They saw 120% install growth in localized markets and improved user reviews of the professionally translated UI. The developer of card game G4A Indian Rummy found that the App Translation Service was easier to use than their previous translation methods, and saw a 300% increase with user engagement in localized apps. You can read more about these developers’ experiences with the App Translation Service in Developer Stories: Localization in Google Play.

To use the App Translation Service, you’ll want to first read the localization checklist. You’ll need to get your APK ready for translation, and select the languages to target for translation. If you’re unsure about which languages to select, Google Play can help you identify opportunities. First, review the Statistics section in the Developer Console to see where your app has users already. Does your app have a lot of installs in a certain country where you haven’t localized to their language? Are apps like yours popular in a country where your app isn’t available yet? Next, go to the Optimization Tips section in the Developer Console to make sure your APK, store listing, and graphics are consistently translated.

You’ll find the App Translation Service in the Developer Console at the bottom of the APK section — you can start a new translation or manage an existing translation here. You’ll be able to upload your app’s file of string resources, select the languages you want to translate into, select a professional translation vendor, and place your order. Pro tip: you can put your store listing text into the file you upload to the App Translation Service. You’ll be able to communicate with your translator to be sure you get a great result, and download your translated string files. After you do some localization testing, you’ll be ready to publish your newly translated app update on Google Play — with localized store listing text and graphics. Be sure to check back to see the results on your user base, and track the results of marketing campaigns in your new languages using Google Analytics integration.

Good luck! Bonne chance ! ご幸運を祈ります! 행운을 빌어요 ¡Buena suerte! Удачи! Boa Sorte!

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Android 4.4 KitKat and Updated Developer Tools

Posted by Dave Burke, Engineering Director, Android Platform

Today we are announcing Android 4.4 KitKat, a new version of Android that brings great new features for users and developers.

The very first device to run Android 4.4 is the new Nexus 5, available today on Google Play, and coming soon to other retail outlets. We’ll also be rolling out the Android 4.4 update worldwide in the next few weeks to all Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10 devices, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Google Play Edition devices.

As part of this release, we kicked off Project Svelte, an effort to reduce the memory needs of Android so that it can run on a much broader range of devices, including entry-level devices that have as little as 512MB RAM. From the kernel to system, frameworks, and apps, we've reduced memory footprint and improved memory management so Android can run comfortably on only 512MB of RAM. We did this not only on Android but across Google apps, like Chrome and YouTube.

By supporting a broader range of devices, Android 4.4 will help move the Android ecosystem forward. Now all users will be able to enjoy the very best that Android has to offer, on the devices that best meet their needs.

Here’s a quick look at some of the new features for developers:

• New ways to create beautiful apps — A new full-screen immersive mode lets your app or game use every pixel on the screen to showcase content and capture touch events. A new transitions framework makes it easier to animate the states in your UI. Web content can take advantage of a completely new implementation of WebView built on Chromium.



• More useful than ever — A printing framework lets you add the convenience of printing to your apps. A storage access framework makes it easier for users find documents, photos, and other data across their local and cloud-based storage services. You can integrate your app or storage service with the framework to give users instant access to their data.



• Low-power sensors — New hardware-integrated sensors let you add great new features to your apps without draining the battery. Included are a step detector and step counter that let you efficiently track of the number of walking steps, even when the screen is off.



• New media capabilities — A new screen recorder lets you capture high-quality video of your app directly from your Android device. It's a great new way to create walkthroughs, tutorials, marketing videos, and more. Apps can use adaptive playback to offer a significantly better streaming video experience.



• RenderScript in the NDK — A new C++ API in the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) lets you use RenderScript from your native code, with access to script intrinsics, custom kernels, and more.



• Improved accessibility support — New system-wide captioning settings let your apps present closed captions in the style that's preferred by the user.

There's a lot more, so be sure to check out the Android 4.4 platform highlights for a complete overview of those and other new capabilities for developers. For details on the APIs and how to use them, take a look at the API Overview or watch one of the new DevBytes videos on KitKat.

Along with the new Android 4.4 platform we're releasing a new version of the Android NDK (r9b). The new NDK gives you native access to RenderScript and other stable APIs in Android 4.4, so if you've been waiting to use RenderScript from your native code, give it a try.

Last, we've updated the Support Package (r19) with a new helper library for printing images through the new printing framework, as well as other updates.

You can get started developing and testing on Android 4.4 right away, in Android Studio or in ADT/Ant. You can download the Android 4.4 Platform (API level 19), as well as the SDK Tools, Platform Tools, and Support Package from the Android SDK Manager.

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Google Play Services 4.0

Today we're launching a new release of Google Play services. Version 4.0 includes the Google Mobile Ads SDK, and offers improvements to geofencing, Google+, and Google Wallet Instant Buy APIs.

With over 97% of devices now running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or newer platform versions, we’re dropping support for Froyo from this release of the Google Play services SDK in order to make it possible to offer more powerful APIs in the future. That means you will not be able to utilize these new APIs on devices running Android 2.2 (Froyo).

We’re still in the process of rolling out to Android devices across the world, but you can already download the latest Google Play services SDK and start developing against the new APIs using the new Android 4.4 (KitKat) emulator.

Google Mobile Ads

If you’re using AdMob to monetize your apps, the new Google Mobile Ads SDK in Google Play services helps provide seamless improvements to your users. For example, bug fixes get pushed automatically to users without you having to do anything. Check out the post on the Google Ads Developer Blog for more details.

Maps and Location Based Services

The Maps and Geofencing APIs that launched in Google Play services 3.1 have been updated to improve overall battery efficiency and responsiveness.

You can save power by requesting larger latency values for notifications alerting your app to users entering or exiting geofences, or request that entry alerts are sent only after a user stays within a geofence for a specified period of time. Setting generous dwell times helps to eliminate unwanted notifications when a user passes near a geofence or their location is seen to move across a boundary.

The Maps API enhances map customization features, letting you specify marker opacity, fade-in effects, and visibility of 3D buildings. It’s also now possible to change ground overlay images.

Google+ and Google Wallet Instant Buy

Apps that are enabled with Google+ Sign-In will be updated with a simplified sign-in consent dialog. Google Wallet Instant Buy APIs are now available to everyone to try out within a sandbox, with a simplified API that streamlines the buy-flow and reduces integration time.

Google Wallet Instant Buy also includes new Wallet Objects, which means you can award loyalty points to a user's saved rewards program ID for each applicable Google Wallet Instant Buy purchase.

New user control over advertising identifier

To give users better controls and to provide you with a simple, standard system to continue to monetize your apps, this update contains a new, anonymous identifier for advertising purposes (to be used in place of Android ID). Google Settings now includes user controls that enable users to reset this identifier, or opt out of interest-based ads for Google Play apps.

More About Google Play Services

To learn more about Google Play services and the APIs available to you through it, visit the Google Services area of the Android Developers site.

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Making your App Content more Accessible from Google

Posted by Chaesang Jung, Software Engineer

There are many reasons to build or not to build a mobile app as part of your broader mobile strategy. For instance, while apps offer a rich user experience, users can’t access them through Google Search like they do websites. Today, we’re announcing a new Google Search capability, app indexing, that will start to make apps more accessible through Google on Android.

Let’s say that a user is searching for a movie. With app indexing, Google will begin to include deep links to apps in Android search results. When the user taps on the “Open in app” deep links, the app opens up directly to the movie in question.

In this example, in order for the app deep links to appear in search results,

• The Flixster app supports deep linking


• The Rotten Tomatoes website has specified that the Flixster app page is an alternate for the web page


• Google has indexed the Flixster app to determine relevance


• The user has installed the Flixster app

The end result is that users will have a seamless search experience when accessing your app content through Google.

Google is currently testing app indexing with an initial group of developers including AllTheCooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDb, moviefone, newegg, OpenTable, Trulia, and Wikipedia. Deep links for these applications will start to appear in Google search results on Android, in the US, in a few weeks.

How to get started

If you are interested in enabling indexing for your Android app, you can learn more about our developer guidelines at developers.google.com/app-indexing and sign up. We are expanding our app indexing efforts and will gradually include more developers over time.