Google - 15/42 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Dec

Google Adds Two-Step Verification To AdMob Ads To Prevent Accidental Taps

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Android OS, Google, News

Mobile advertising is an unavoidable part of the Android experience - in fact, some would make the case that it's the whole reason for Android coming to exist in its current form. But that doesn't meant that it can't be improved. So Google's AdMob team has been looking at ways of making delivered ads both less intrusive and more functional, namely by cutting down on unwanted activations.

According to the post on Google's Mobile Ads Blog, accidental and non-intentional taps on the ad space are one of the biggest problems they've had to deal with. It's claimed that even the advertiser isn't too keen on accidental visits, since they're using up server resources on a customer who isn't necessarily all that valuable.

Dec

Have You Heard? Play Books And Movies Are Out In St. Petersburg (And The Rest Of Russia)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

It seems like we can't go more than a week or two without hearing that one of Google's content services has rolled out to a new country. Today, Russia is getting in on the action with Play Books and Movies now available throughout the country. You can purchase books like normal, and movies are available both for rental and purchase.

Prices for movie rentals start at around 49 rubles (USD$1.60) and purchases start at 99 rubles (USD$3.22). There are a number of major studios on board, including many American companies such as 20th Century Fox, NBC Universal, Paramount, and Sony, as well as local production houses like Central Partnership (Централ Партнершип).

Dec

Google Updates In-App Purchasing APIs, Makes Them Faster, Better, Harder, Stronger And Less Likely To Lose Transactions

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Sure, "in-app purchases" becomes a bit of a dirty phrase when we're talking about games that abuse the privilege, but they're a critical element of any profitable app ecosystem, and today Google's making a bunch of IAP features easier and smoother for developers and, by extension, you. Here are some of the new improvements.

Easier Purchasing Implementation

Previously, if you bought an item in an app, the purchase was handled via an "asynchronous notification through a background service." This meant that the app would call out to Google to announce a purchase, but then have to talk to a separate service in order to find out how it went.

Dec

Play Store Expands Carrier Billing To Australia, Partners With Payment Company Bango To Do So

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

One of the biggest problems with the Play Store is that, compared to certain other platforms, its international support for both products and payment systems is comparatively meager. This is, of course, one of the main reasons that earning revenue on Android seems harder for developers. Starting today, though, if you live in Australia and use Telstra, you have one more way to pay: carrier billing.

The rollout comes with special thanks to mobile payment platform Bango. This UK-based company specializes in connecting your wallet to the companies you want to give money to. This is particularly noteworthy since Bango is an international platform.

Dec

Google Now Heading To Chrome In The Future, 'Skeleton' Framework Already In Place

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

I hope you like Google Now, because it looks like this product is here to stay for a long time. As we speak, Chrome developers are working on bringing Popular Science's Innovation of the Year to the desktop, instead of keeping it trapped just on your phone or tablet. As it turns out, a "skeleton" framework is already in place for the search product to move in.

Google's not being shy about the existence of this product, but also isn't in a hurry to announce it, either:

Google confirmed that it's working on the project, but stopped short of committing to it.

Dec

Google+ Is The 'Fastest Growing Network Thingy Ever': 500m Users Upgraded, 235m Active Across Web, 135m In The Stream

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

As if the news out of Google couldn't get any hotter today, the company decided to just casually announce that it has over 500 million users with Google+ accounts, 235 million of whom are active "across Google" which means anything from +1ing things in various Google products to "connecting with friends in Search"...whatever that means. The most important stat, though, is 135 million users are active in the stream. That means, if we can assume past definitions are still true, those users either visit plus.google.com or use the mobile app to view content.

In other words, it's time to stop pretending that Google+ is a ghost town.

Dec

Snapseed, The Image Editor That Google Bought After It Won iPad App Of The Year, Is Now On Android

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, Google, News

There are no shortage of image editors on Android. Even Adobe, which makes the class-leading Photoshop, has a version of its editor on the platform. Today, though, Google gets one of its very own: Snapseed. You may recall this particular piece of software when it was demoed by NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at CES this year. At the time, it was only available on the iPad where it had won App of the Year in 2011. Shortly thereafter, Google bought the company. Now, the Android version is finally being released.

^{This video is a bit older and shows off the iOS version, but you get the idea.}

Dec

Google Now Offering Up Play Books And Movies In Brazil

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Google, News

After the successful launches of Play Music in Europe, Magazines in Canada, and Movies in a handful of countries, Google has made another step in its international Play crusade, today bringing Movies and Books to Brazil.

Android users in South America's largest country will now have access to thousands of Brazilian titles from Google's collection, along with movies and TV shows. Interestingly, Google's own international availability page hasn't been updated at the time of writing to reflect the expansion to Brazil, but just the same, users can access the store and look for their favorite titles.

Of course, the addition of Brazil only brings the total number of countries with access to Play Books and Movies to around ten, but it's still nice to see Google continuing the arduous task of expanding their media services globally.

Dec

Google Introduces The Play Store Private Channel, Gives Google Apps Users An Easy Way To Securely And Privately Distribute Internal Apps

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, Google, News

When it comes to distributing internal software, most companies have a few options: email, shared accounts on things like Box, or websites that specialize in private content sharing. Now, though, Google is making it easy for Google Apps users to easily, privately, and securely share their internal applications though the new Play Store Private Channel.

Basically, this creates a personal section of the Play Store that is only accessible when users log in with their Apps email address and browse the Private Channel. The channel is available for Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government users, and apps can be loaded through the Developer Console by the account owner, much like new apps are uploaded to the public Play Store.