Beta Channel for the Android WebView

Posted by Richard Coles, Software Engineer, Google London

Many Android apps use a WebView for displaying HTML content. In Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google has the ability to update WebView independently of the Android platform. Beginning today, developers can use a new beta channel to test the latest version of WebView and provide feedback.

WebView updates bring numerous bug fixes, new web platform APIs and updates from Chromium. If you’re making use of the WebView in your app, becoming a beta channel tester will give you an early start with new APIs as well as the chance to test your app before the WebView rolls out to your users.

The first version offered in the beta channel will be based on Chrome 40 and you can find a full list of changes on the chromium blog entry.

To become a beta tester, join the community which will enable you to sign up for the Beta program; you’ll then be able to install the beta version of the WebView via the Play Store. If you find any bugs, please file them on the Chromium issue tracker.

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The Guardian — Understanding and engaging mobile users

Posted by Leticia Lago, Google Play team

The Guardian is a global news organization with one of the world's largest quality English-speaking news websites, theguardian.com. It has more than 100 million monthly unique browsers and app users, two thirds of which come from outside the UK. With a longstanding reputation for agenda-setting journalism, the publication is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning coverage of the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian’s early adoption of a digital-first policy and continued digital innovation means it has also become a respected name among developers and tech audiences. In the last year, it has launched a redesigned app and new website and been among a handful of publishers to develop its own Glassware.

The Guardian app is taking advantage of unique Google Play and Android features to drive user engagement. Their mobile app readers are now 10 to 20 times more engaged than their average web users. Improving engagement has also helped them lift the rating for their app from 4.0 to 4.4 on Google Play.

Anthony Sullivan, Director of Product, and Tom Grinsted, Product Manager, share some best practices for increasing app engagement in this video.

To learn more, be sure to check out these resources to better engage your users:

• Convert installs to active users [video] — hear from Matteo Vallone, Partner Development Manager for Google Play, about the best practices for engaging and retaining users through intents, identity, context, and rich notifications as well as delivering a cross-platform user experience.


• Adding Wearable Features to Notifications [tutorial] — learn how to add notifications to Android Wear devices, including how to make use of the Wear notification features: voice commands, stacks, and pages.


• Beta testing [help] — discover how to make use of the alpha and beta testing features offered by Google Play, and get feedback from real users.


• Build your community (of testers) [guide] — get advice on how to build communities on G+ or other social networks, then tap into their skills and enthusiasm to help with testing your app.

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Trulia sees 30% more engagement using notifications and further innovates with Android Wear

Posted by Laura Della Torre, Google Play team

Trulia’s mission is to make it as easy as possible for home buyers, sellers, owners and renters to navigate the real estate market. Originally a website-based company, Trulia is keenly aware that its users are migrating to mobile. Today, more than 50 percent of Trulia’s business comes from mobile and growth shows no sign of slowing, so they know that’s where they need to innovate.

In the following video, Jonathan McNulty, VP of Consumer Product, and Lauren Hirashima, Mobile Product Manager, at Trulia, talked about how the company successfully leveraged notifications on Android to increase app engagement by 30 percent and has seen 2x the amount of engagement on Android relative to other platforms:

Trulia continues to focus on improving their mobile experience, using Google’s geo-fencing technology to create Nearby Home Alerts, which lets users know when they walk near a new listing. Combined with Android Wear, Trulia now makes it possible for users to see details and photos about a property and call or email the agent, all directly from their watch.

Find out more about using rich notifications on Android and developing for Android Wear. And check out The Secrets to App Success on Google Play (ebook) which contains a chapter dedicated to the best practices and tools you can use to increase user engagement and retention in your app.

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Android Wear & QR Code: Putting Users through the Fast Track

Posted by Hoi Lam, Developer Advocate

Rushing onto a train, entering a concert, or simply ordering a coffee, we have all seen users (or ourselves) rummaging through their wallets or mobile app trying to get the right boarding pass, ticket or loyalty card. With Android Wear and a few lines of code in your mobile app, this can all work like magic.

What’s new in the Android Support Library

While QR Code images could be attached to a notification since the first release of the Android Wear platform, developers have asked about two situations which they would like to see improve:

1. With circular displays, it is hard for developer to know if the QR code is displayed in it’s entirety and not cropped.


2. To conserve battery, Android Wear switches off the screen after five seconds of inactivity. However, this makes it hard for the user to ensure that the QR code is still displayed on their wrist when they reach the front of the queue.

With the latest support library, we have added two additional methods to WearableExtender to give developers more control over how background images are displayed in notifications. These new APIs can be used in a number of scenarios, we will focus on the QR code use case in this post:

• Ensure the image is not cropped - setHintAvoidBackgroundClipping(true)

With this new method, developers can ensure that the entire QR code is always visible.
















Wrong: setHintAvoidBackgroundClipping (false) // this is the Default	Right: setHintAvoidBackgroundClipping (true)






• Ensure the QR code is still displayed when the user gets to the front of the queue - setHintScreenTimeout(timeInMS)

This new method enables developers to set a timeout that makes sense for their specific use case.

Design Best Practices

We have experimented with a number of customization options with QR codes and here are some of the lessons learnt:

Dos

• Do test with your equipment - Before deploying, test with your QR code readers to ensure that the QR code displayed on the wearable works with your equipment.


• Do use black and white QR codes - This ensures maximum contrasts and makes it easier for the reader to read the information.


• Do display only the core information in the text notification - Remember that less is more. Glanceability is important for wearables.


• Do test with both round and square watches - The amount of text can be displayed on the notification varies especially dependent on the form factor (square and circular).


• Do brand with icon - On the main notification in the Android Wear stream, developers can set a full color icon using setLargeIcon to brand your notification.


• Do convey additional information using background - To achieve an even better result, consider setting context sensitive backgrounds through setBackground, such as a photo of the destination for the train or a picture of the stadium.


• Do use QR codes which are 400x400 pixels or larger - In line with other background images, the recommended minimum size for QR code is 400x400 pixels.

Don'ts

• Do not brand the QR code - The screen real estate is limited on Android Wear and using some of this for branding may result in the QR code not working correctly.


• Do not use anything other than grey or default theme color for notification text - Although Android Wear notifications support basic text formatting such as setting text color, this should be used in moderation with the color set to default or grey. The reason is that the Holo theme for Android 4.x has a default background of black whereas Material Design theme for Android 5+ including Android Wear has a white background. This makes it hard for the colour to work for both themes. Bold and Italic are fine formatting choices.

Android Wear is for people on the move

Using QR codes on Android Wear is a very delightful experience. The information that the user needs is right on their wrist at the right time in the right place. With the new APIs, you can now unlock more doors than ever before and give users an easier time with check in on the go.

Sample code can be downloaded from this repository.

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