The Google Play store has a ton of apps, and it’s second only to the Apple App store. If you’re a developer for Android, then you should know about the selection of tools in the Google Play Console. If you want any assistance with developing and publishing a game or app, you can check out the blog here.
New Google Play console updates will help developers
Let’s start off with the LiveOps feature. You see this feature whenever an app has a promotion, and you see it pasted on the Google Play store. This feature has been available for thousands of apps, and now, it’s getting some big changes. First off, the name is being changed to “Promotional Content”. Also, the company is expanding This feature to more apps over the next year. So, if you want to advertise new events or promotions going on with your app, the feature will most likely be coming to you soon.
Getting people to redownload your app
People sometimes uninstall an app after using it. When this happens, it can be hard for the developer to get them to redownload it. This is something that Google is looking to help. Rolling out later in the year is a feature called Churned-user Custom Store Listings. This feature will launch in beta form most likely, so you may be able to test it out. This will allow you to readvertise an app to users who previously downloaded and uninstalled your app. We’re not quite sure how this will function just yet, but we will find out over the coming months
Google is raising the standard for apps
When it comes to operating an app store, it’s important to have a high standard for the apps posted. This is why Google is raising the bar on the apps that can be posted. When posting an app to the Google Play store, It will be recommended that your app has a User-perceived crash rate below 1.09% across all devices and 8% per phone model. When it comes to the user-perceived ANR rate, it needs to be below 0.47% across all devices and 8% per phone model. If your app does not meet the standards, then it will be excluded from being recommended. This’ll make it a lot harder for people to discover your app on the Play store. Also, the Google Play Store may display a warning when people see it. It will basically tell the user that this app is not of high quality, and nobody wants that.
There are new safety features coming
Google introduced the Play Integrity API. This will help you defend against risky or unknown traffic to your app. You’ll be able to customize and test out this API in the Play Console. You want to make sure that your app is safe for users against bad actors, so this will definitely be handy. Lastly, Google is coming out with multiple programs to help protect against coordinated review attacks. Review attacks are when a group of people floods an app’s review section with false negative reviews to bring down the rating and make people not download it. These features will be coming out over the next couple of months, so if you’re an Android developer, you should be looking forward to these features coming.
