developers

78 'developers' stories May 2011 - June 2014

Google Play adds new demographic stats for Android game devs

Jordan Kahn Jun 3 2014 - 7:54 am PT

gpg_dem_players_3

Google has announced some new features for Android game developers via the Google Play Developer Console. For developers using Google Play Games Services, stats on those playing your games are now available by country, age, gender dimensions and more. That’s in addition to the new game statistics Google added back in March.

Google provided a few examples of how developers can take advantage of the new data:

You just launched your new game globally, and expected it do particularly well in Germany. Using country demographic data, you see that Germany is much less active than expected. After some digging, you realize that your tutorial was not properly translated to German. Based on this insight, you immediately roll out a fix to see if you can improve active users in Germany.
After Looking at your new demographics report you realize that your game is really popular with women in their mid-20s. Your in-app purchase data corroborates this, showing that the one female hero character is the most popular purchase. Empowered by this data, you race to add female hero characters to your game.

You can access the new insights through existing reports in the Developer console today: You’ll see demographics integrated into Overview stats as well as the Players reports for New and Active users.

App indexing in search results on Android gets more languages

Jordan Kahn May 30 2014 - 10:52 am PT

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Google originally launched App Indexing for Android users back in December before rolling it out globally in English for a number of apps back in April. As pictured above, the feature allows content from Android apps to show up in search results with a button for users to quickly launch the app. Today the company announced it’s expanding the feature once again and launching it for apps in several languages other than English. It’s also added some other English results in the U.S. including the Walmart, Tapatalk, and Fancy apps.
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Google I/O schedule now live

Mark Hearn May 16 2014 - 10:37 am PT

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Google’s annual I/O conference is a little over a month away and today the company has shed a little light on this year’s show by releasing its schedule. The overall theme of the event appears to be “design, develop and distribute,” so segments will most likely focus on these talking points. Things are set to start on June 25th at Moscone West in San Francisco. The first day of the show will include presentations about making your cloud apps faster, cross-platform design, an introduction to Polymer and an interactive Android fireside chat.

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Google opens Play Store merchant registration to eight new territories

Mark Hearn May 1 2014 - 5:45 pm PT

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Today, Google opened Google Play merchant registration for eight new territories. Developers residing in Greece, Luxembourg, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam can now apply for a merchant account with Google Play, which will allow them to collect money for paid apps in local their local currency.

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Google Play still tops App Store in downloads, slowly narrowing revenue gap

Jonathan Kizer Apr 16 2014 - 9:36 am PT

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app annie 2014 The Play Store continues to hold a growing advantage over Apple’s App Store in terms of sheer downloads, according to the most recent App Annie report (via TechCrunch). More importantly, Google’s mobile app store is slowly narrowing the revenue gap that exists between the two platforms. While Google passed Apple’s App Store in terms of downloads last year, a major gap remained in the revenue that both platforms generated for developers. While Android still lags behind iOS in this department, it seems that the two are slowly reaching parity. Last year’s indexed revenue for the Play Store was ranked at about 40; as the above chart shows, it’s climbed to be just above 50.

Google Play led the iOS App Store in downloads by approximately 45% in Q1 2014, up from 35% in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the iOS App Store maintained its comfortable advantage in revenue, leading Google Play by 85%. However, Google Play continued to narrow this revenue gap. The gains for Google Play come as Android devices extended their lead in worldwide device installed base.

Google Play saw revenue growth in the United States, which helped it to close the gap. Additionally, Android saw strong download growth around the world. iOS continued its growth in the US, as well as in China — traditionally a stronghold for Android device, albeit devices without access to the Play Store. Apple’s platform also saw strong growth in Vietnam and South Africa, among other smaller countries.

The takeaway? Both ecosystems are strong, and getting stronger.

Google confirms Android SDK for wearables coming in two weeks

Jordan Kahn Mar 9 2014 - 12:06 pm PT

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Today during a talk at a SXSW Interactive event, Google’s Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai apparently announced that a new Android SDK for developers interested in developing wearables will arrive in the next two weeks (via TheVerge). While Google isn’t announcing any specific products, Pichai made it clear that Google will be approaching Android on smart watches and wearables much like on smartphones. With the new SDK, Sundar said the company plans to “lay out a vision for developers as to how we’ll see this market working.” Pichai also hinted that the new Android SDK for wearables will incorporate wearables beyond simply smartwatches.

“We want to develop a set of common protocols by which they can work together,” Pichai said, “they need a mesh layer and they need a data layer by which they can all come together”… “when we say we say wearables, we are thinking much more broadly”

9to5Google first reported that Google was working on a smartwatch that would rely heavily on Google Now-like features. There have been unconfirmed reports recently that Google as well as some of its close partners like LG have been developing smart watches and wearables running Android. Google also picked up WIMM Labs late last year for its Android smartwatch/wearble platform and SDK and the most recent report claimed that a Nexus smartwatch announcement could come as soon as this month.
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KitKat & Jelly Bean on the increase in this month’s Android distribution numbers

Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2014 - 10:41 am PT

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Android-distribution-March

Google has just updated its Android Distribution numbers on its Developers site to reflect the 7-day period ended March 3rd. The data shows growth for both KitKat and Jelly Bean, with Android 4.4 KitKat jumping up from 1.8% in February to 2.5% this month and all versions of Jelly Bean getting a slight bump as well (a combined 62% up from 60.7% last month). Increases come at the expense of drops in distribution numbers for most older versions of Android in addition to new KitKat and Jelly Bean devices hitting the market.

You can view all of Google’s Android distribution umbers for March here and last month’s numbers for comparison here.

Microsoft reportedly working on a cross-platform Xbox Live for Android & iOS apps

Jordan Kahn Mar 3 2014 - 11:04 am PT

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Xbox-Android Microsoft is considering taking Xbox Live cross-platform and allowing developers to integrate the service in iOS and Android games, according to a report from The Verge. The report cites a job listing from the company’s website seeking an engineer to work on “a modern framework that is open-source, lightweight, extensible and scalable across various platforms,” including iOS and Android. The report also cites its own sources reportedly familiar Microsoft’s plans to take Xbox Live cross-platform.

“New Devices and Gaming” is looking for passionate and experienced developers to join us. Your contribution will have direct impact on how we win back our game developers from our competitors. As a member of the newly formed team, you will have the rare opportunity to influence our planning and design from the beginning. We will create a modern framework that is open source, light-weight, extensible and scalable across various platforms including Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS and Android. Working on the gaming technologies, you will collaborate with both internal partner teams across the company and external ecosystem partners to enable end-to-end gaming scenarios.

The idea, according to the report, is that Xbox Live would act as a cross-platform alternative to Apple’s Game Center and similar services, allowing users to earn achievements, manage friends and more through a single service across Xbox and mobile platforms. No details on specific features or when we might expect to see more.

Fewer than 0.01 percent of mobile apps will be financially successful by 2018, predicts Gartner

Ben Lovejoy Jan 14 2014 - 4:29 am PT

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If developers are finding it difficult to make money from apps today, things are only going to get tougher, according to a forecast by Gartner (via TechCrunch). Looking at the period through to 2018, Gartner predicts that fewer than one in 10,000 apps will be considered financially successful by their developers.

“The vast number of mobile apps may imply that mobile is a new revenue stream that will bring riches to many,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “However, our analysis shows that most mobile applications are not generating profits.”

While this may not necessarily be a bad thing for major brands, who Gartner note may use apps to build brand recognition and product awareness, small developers have a much harder time getting their apps noticed, as consumers increasingly turn to recommendations and advertising to make their selections.

Gartner predicts that by 2017, 94.5 percent of apps will be free or freemium, suggesting that advertising and in-app purchases will become an increasingly important source of income. The company also expects browser-based apps to grow in popularity as the HTML5 standard matures.

Google releases Google Play Services 4.0 w/ Google Mobile Ads SDK and new APIs for devs

Jordan Kahn Oct 31 2013 - 11:35 am PT

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Screen Shot 2013-10-31 at 2.33.03 PM Google has decided to launch the new Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat today at a quiet press event and alongside those announcements is also releasing Google Play Services 4.0. The update to the developer services platform includes the integration of Google Mobile Ads SDK, and also offers new features for Google+, Google Wallet Instant Buy APIs, and geofencing.

Google says the new Google Mobile Ads SDK lets those using AdMob to monetize their apps provide “seamless improvements” to users. For example, pushing bug fixes automatically. The new Play Services also include new Maps and Location features:

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.

WIth Google Play Services 4.0, Google is offering Google Wallet Instant Buy APIs to everyone with a simplified API. New Wallet Objects means “you can award loyalty points to a user’s saved rewards program ID for each applicable Google Wallet Instant Buy purchase.”

The the new Google Play services SDK is available to download now for developers to start developing with the new Android 4.4 APIs. You can learn more in Google’s blog post here.

Google also noted that it’s dropping support for Froyo in this release now that “over 97% of devices now running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or newer platform versions.”

Report: Google prepping XE10 Glass update to officially enable third-party apps

Jordan Kahn Sep 26 2013 - 10:10 am PT

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myglass

According to a new report from Geek.com, Google is preparing an “XE 10” update for Google Glass next month that will officially enable apps from third-party developers. Details in the report are vague, but the site says Google has been working with devs and providing access to sensors, voice commands, and other features that unofficial third-party apps floating around can’t:

Multiple sources have now confirmed to Geek.com that the update offers developers access to the sensors in Glass for use in motion tracking and development. Developers will also be able to create their own voice commands through Glassware, giving the user the ability to launch the app from the “OK Glass” menu if they so choose.

The site says that Google has been working with developers to ensure Glassware apps will be available at launch, and also says Google will have a launch announcement alongside the XE10 update:
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Google launches server-side encryption for Cloud Storage at no charge to developers

Jordan Kahn Aug 15 2013 - 9:27 am PT

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Google announced today on its Cloud Platform Blog that the data stored in its Cloud Storage platform will now be automatically encrypted before written to disk at no additional charge to developers. Google said the process will not involve any input or configuration from developers and that the new encryption will cause “no visible performance impact”:

We manages the cryptographic keys on your behalf using the same hardened key management systems that Google uses for our own encrypted data, including strict key access controls and auditing. Each Cloud Storage object’s data and metadata is encrypted with a unique key under the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128), and the per-object key itself is encrypted with a unique key associated with the object owner. These keys are additionally encrypted by one of a regularly rotated set of master keys.

Google noted that developers will still be able to encrypt data using their own methods and manage their own decryption keys, but from now on Google will free developers from the effort and cost associated with doing so. The new server-side encryption is active starting today for new data written to the platform, and Google says it will work with both new objects or for overwriting existing objects. It also said that “older objects will be migrated and encrypted in the coming months.”

In July, reports claimed that Google was also readying server-side encryption for files stored in its consumer-facing Drive cloud storage service.

Google announces Chrome Dev Summit coming Nov. 20-21 in Mountain View

Jordan Kahn Aug 13 2013 - 12:26 pm PT

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Google announced today on Google+ that it will be holding a two-day Chrome Dev Summit later this year to discuss “new web APIs, multi-device workflows, performance tips and the guts of Blink.” The event will be held at Google’s HQ in Mountain View and it will also be live streamed to all that can’t make it on YouTube.

The dev summit is scheduled for November 20-21 and Google says registration for developers will open soon. No word on whether or not we might see some new product announcements, but it’s likely this will be a much smaller event that Google I/O and its recent Nexus 7 event.

Google has a website for the upcoming Chrome Dev Summit for those that want to learn more and a survey to find out what developers are interested in learning about at the event. Here’s a bit of what to expect:

Laughing in the face of dropped network connections
Optimizing the performance across GPU, CPU, and network
Maintaining and scaling your code
Jank busting and smooth scrolling
Testing workflows for multi-device deployments
Designing UX patterns for mobile web apps
Making friends with screens of all sizes
Directing the evolution of the web
Living in a declarative world with Web Components
Working smarter not harder with better workflow and tools

Amazon launches ‘Login with Amazon’ sign-in service for Android, iOS & web

Jordan Kahn May 29 2013 - 7:55 am PT

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Amazon is announcing today the roll out of a new service called “Login with Amazon” t0 allow developers to easily offer an Amazon sign-in option in their apps, games, and websites. Amazon says in a trial with Zappos.com customers chose to sign in using the Login with Amazon service about 40 percent of the time, while a trial with Woot found customers using Amazon sign in “had the highest rate of order conversion”:

“Login with Amazon enables app developers and website owners to leverage Amazon’s trusted sign-in solution, allowing them to focus on providing a great experience for their customers,” said Michael Carr, Amazon Vice President, eCommerce Services. “Amazon customers now have a hassle-free way to quickly and securely sign-in to apps, games and websites, without having to remember yet another password.”

Amazon is making the service available free of charge to devs and has SDKs for both Android and iOS available to download through its new login.amazon.com website.

Google updates AdMob with local payment support, improved ad filtering, more

Zac Hall May 16 2013 - 9:24 am PT

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Google announced updates to its AdMob ad network, which it acquired in 2010, including improved app promotion, strong filters for ad relevance, local payments eliminating currency conversions, and more.

Developers will see the changes roll out over the next few months according to Google.

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Google I/O 2013 Keynote posted to Youtube

Seth Weintraub May 15 2013 - 10:10 pm PT

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If you weren’t able to follow along live earlier today, Google’s just posted an archive of today’s event. So block out your next 4 hours or just skip to CEO Larry Page’s impromptu Q&A at the end like me.
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‘MedRef’ Google Glass facial recognition app for doctors now available for download

Jordan Kahn May 13 2013 - 10:16 am PT

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When talking about potential applications for Google Glass, the ability to use facial recognition is one area that we’ve seen discussed in many patents and projects from Google and others. Today, SelfScreens.com points us to perhaps the first facial recognition Glassware available with info on a new app dubbed MedRef for Glass that was recently created at a medical hackathon. The app, which was designed to allow doctors to pull up info on patients with Glass by simply recognizing their face, is being made available to download by its creators who also discussed the app in detail on their blog.

The app lets you find and create patient folders by voice, add photo and voice notes, view previous notes, and also find patient folders by facial recognition! Very exciting.Some people I talked to said hospitals are full of very busy people, often with their hands full, working with a lot of information – so Google Glass making it wearable is especially looked forward to there!”

One of the developers also gives us a walkthrough of an early build of the app in the video above showing how doctors can quickly notes about a patient that will be called up later when Glass recognizes the patient’s face.
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Google partners with SoundCloud, Fandango, Deezer & more to bring app activity from Google+ to Search

Jordan Kahn Apr 30 2013 - 8:27 am PT

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Google announced today on its Google+ Developers Blog that it will be working with app and site developers to integrate what it is calling “app activities” into search results. In other words, when searching for an app or site through Google search such as SoundCloud, users will now be greeted with a section to the right of search results showing related SoundCloud content that’s popular among Google+ users. Google is initially teaming up with music and movie apps Deezer, Fandango, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza,SoundCloud and TuneIn but plans to add more soon as the feature begins to roll out on desktops in the coming weeks.

Below Google compares the current search results for Fandango to the new improved results page with app activities:
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Hackers confirm Google Glass “root is easy”, let the modding begin (Update: Google says it left Glass unlocked intentionally)

Jordan Kahn Apr 26 2013 - 5:57 am PT

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looks like root is easy too: reboot-bootloader gives you fastboot oem unlock. There is fun to be had here…

— Liam McLoughlin (@Hexxeh) April 26, 2013

Update: A post from Google employee Dan Morrill clarifies that, although the original developer claimed a “root is easy”, the process developers are using is actually a ‘fastboot oem unlock’. Rather than exposing a security exploit, Google has actually intentionally left Glass open for devs to tinker with, as further explained by Googler Stephen Lau:

Not to bring anybody down… but seriously… we intentionally left the device unlocked so you guys could hack it and do crazy fun shit with it. I mean, FFS, you paid $1500 for it… go to town on it. Show me something cool.

Updated 2: Founder of the Cydia jailbreak store @saurik provided some clarification on his earlier tweets, informing us that he did not use fastboot oem unlock:

Actually, my device’s bootloader is still locked: I did not use fastboot oem unlock, and in fact that would not have been useful without the source code to the Glass kernel, which was not made available until this morning. I relied on a race condition in the adb restore process, a bug that existed in Android 4.0 (and even Android 4.1). As the Glass ships with Android 4.0.4, the bug was easy to exploit. This exploit was not one that I found, to be clear (unless you count “using Google” ;P): I pulled apart an implementation by@Bin4ryDigit, and adapted it for use on Glass (which required very small modifications to the backup; the entire process of learning the exploit and fixing it took 2 hours).

Saurik later published an article explaining some of the ins and outs of the potential for writing apps for Glass and the exploit he originally took advantage of.

Have you been wondering how long until developers crack into Google Glass to provide full root access and start creating some interesting mods? It appears we might not be too far off with Google intern on the Chrome OS team and hacker Liam McLoughlin confirming on Twitter that a root might be easier than many people think (via selfscreens).

McLoughlin first tweeted that, “There’s a “debug mode” option on Glass that appears to enable ADB access. I got a shell on my Glass :D (no root yet!).” Shortly after it appears he also figured out a root method, tweeting, “looks like root is easy too: reboot-bootloader gives you fastboot oem unlock. There is fun to be had here…”

He isn’t the only one working on a root for Google Glass, hacker @chpwn tweeted today that founder of the Cydia jailbreak store @saurik is in the process of unlocking his Google Glass and Saurik later confirmed:
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Former iOS jailbreak developer Comex headed to Google for internship

9to5 Staff Apr 24 2013 - 2:14 pm PT

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In other news, I’m going to intern for Google in a few weeks.

— comex (@comex) April 24, 2013

Former notable iOS jailbreak developer Comex announced on Twitter that he will be heading to Google for an internship position.

Comex previously interned for Apple, but left the company after failing to respond to an email to renew his contract with the company. It is also notable amidst a time where people are speculating that Apple is losing people resources to competitors such as Google.

Comex, whose real name is Nicholas Allegra, developed a notable Jailbreak.me hack that could jailbreak an iOS device via a simple website.

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Pebble Watch SDK goes live, new watch faces and apps to come

Alex Allegro Apr 12 2013 - 12:52 pm PT

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Pebble, the E-Ink smart-watch for iPhones and Android devices which raised over 10 million dollars on Kickstarter is about to get a lot of new features. Today, Pebble announced that the watch SDK is being released today. The SDK will allow developers to create custom watch faces, alerts and new apps.

At the moment, there’s less than 10 available watch faces and only one app, but expect those numbers to grow dramatically now that developers can get their hands on a public SDK.
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Microsoft’s latest Scroogled ad warns against downloading apps on Google Play

Jordan Kahn Apr 9 2013 - 1:15 pm PT

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[protected-iframe id=”c528ab847bd1105bebfbbc1620586798-22427743-18874939″ info=”http://hub.video.msn.com/embed/5ca0a386-f0c2-4a4f-bdea-bd971e54a3b0/?vars=Y29uZmlnQ3NpZD1NU05WaWRlbyZsaW5rb3ZlcnJpZGUyPWh0dHAlM0ElMkYlMkZ3d3cuYmluZy5jb20lMkZ2aWRlb3MlM0Zta3QlM0Rlbi11cyUyNnZpZCUzRCU3QjAlN0QlMjZmcm9tJTNEJm1rdD1lbi11cyZzeW5kaWNhdGlvbj10YWcmY29uZmlnTmFtZT1zeW5kaWNhdGlvbnBsYXllciZsaW5rYmFjaz1odHRwJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJpbmcuY29tJTJGdmlkZW9zJmZyPXNoYXJlZW1iZWQtc3luZGljYXRpb24%3D” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]

If you don’t know by now, since early February Microsoft has been running its “Scroogled” smear campaign spending 7 figures on a series of print and online ads attacking various Google services. The ads originally focused on Gmail and how Google displays ads based on the content of user’s emails, but Microsoft’s latest Scroogled ad (above) takes on another Google app– Google Play.

The ad is currently featured on the front page of Microsoft’s Scroogled website and features a warning that Google passes off personal information about users to app makers without consent from users:

When you buy an Android app from the Google app store, they give the app maker your full name, email address and the neighborhood where you live. This occurs without clear warning every single time you buy an app. If you can’t trust Google’s app store, how can you trust them for anything?

We expect Google will be issuing a response to Microsoft’s claims shortly. Another Scroogled ad claiming Google Play sends personal data to app makers below:
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Google Play services v2.0 includes Google Maps Android API

Élyse Betters Dec 3 2012 - 11:19 am PT

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Trulia Android app (goes live tomorrow) uses the new Maps API, so users can search for a place to buy or rent in 3D.

The Trulia Android app uses the new Maps API (starting tomorrow), so users can search for a place in 3D.

The Android Developers blog just unveiled version 2.0 for Google Play services.

Google Play services is a new platform that provides developers with improved integration for Google products. The latest version of the platform includes two new APIs, and the most notable one is an anticipated upgrade for Maps.

According to the announcing blog post, the new Google Maps Android API allows developers to “bring many of the recent features of Google Maps for Android to your Android apps.” The API is available supports Froyo devices and up:

The new API uses vector-based maps that support 2D and 3D views, and allow users to tilt and rotate the map with simple gestures. Along with the layers you’ve come to know from Google Maps such as satellite, hybrid, terrain and traffic, the new API lets you include indoor maps for many major airports and shopping centers in your app.

Google further launched Photo Sphere mode in the Camera for Android 4.2, which allows users to create panoramas, and now it is releasing new APIs that enable “developers, businesses, and photographers to explore new uses of Photo Sphere for work and for play.”

Photo Sphere is now an open format, too, so users can create and access it via the web and mobile devices. Go to the Android Developers blog for more information on either API key.

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Google releases SDK for integrating web apps with Google Drive

Jordan Kahn Apr 24 2012 - 11:11 am PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0ee3R3tfdd4]

You probably know by now that Google just unveiled its new cloud service called “Google Drive.” The service integrates with Google Docs online, offers an Android app, and it provides a desktop app for Dropbox-like functionality. In addition, Google announced availability of a Google Drive SDK and 18 web apps that used the SDK to create apps integrated with the service.

Integrating your application with Google Drive makes it available to millions of users. Drive apps are distributed from the Chrome Web Store, and can be used with any modern browser. Plus, your app can take advantage of Google’s sharing, storage, and identity management features.

So, what exactly will the Google Drive SDK allow you to do? Google will allow you to integrate sharing through Drive directly into your apps that manage files such as web app Lucidchart. Google already partnered with 18 apps that have integrated Drive features. The post also explained how Google would let you tap into Drive’s storage and indexing features:

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