October 2015 Summaries

Kongregate, a mobile games publisher, successfully utilized Store Listing Experiments on the Google Play Developer Console to significantly increase their game installs by 45 percent. By conducting A/B tests on icons, screenshots, and text descriptions for their game Global Assault, they identified a new icon that boosted installs by 92 percent and improved screenshot variants by 14 percent. This process involved testing with different audience sizes and analyzing which elements resonated most with users. Key figures from Kongregate shared insights on optimizing mobile game listings, emphasizing the importance of testing icons first due to their significant impact, maintaining focus by not testing too many variables simultaneously, and ensuring experiments run long enough to achieve statistical significance. They also highlighted the value of learning from tests where control attributes outperform variants, as these can provide lessons for future iterations.

Google's Brillo and Weave platforms, introduced at Google I/O, offer a comprehensive solution for developing connected devices, with Brillo providing a lightweight embedded operating system based on Android and Weave facilitating communication between devices. Brillo enables rapid development from prototype to production, supporting over-the-air updates, metrics, and crash reporting. Weave allows devices to communicate both locally and remotely via the cloud, offering a secure messaging service and integration with mobile SDKs for iOS and Android. Both platforms are designed to be open, extensible, and secure, supporting a range of devices and use cases. Google also introduced a Weave compatibility program and a hardware initiative for silicon vendors, inviting developers to join their invite program for access to code, documentation, and a developer console, aiming to enhance the Internet of Things collaboratively.

gRPC has released its Beta version, signifying a crucial step towards stability and readiness for production environments, with most future API changes expected to be additive. The release improves the installation process by providing gRPC packages for Debian Stable/Backports and making them accessible through various language-specific package managers and Docker images on Docker Hub. Updated documentation on grpc.io includes new language-specific reference materials, and GitHub release notes detail changes for Java, Go, and other languages. The project will focus on enhancing performance, stability, and adding features for production use, while the community has shown enthusiasm through various projects adopting gRPC, such as etcd v3 experimental API and grpc-gateway for RESTful APIs. The team expresses gratitude to contributors and looks forward to the 1.0 release.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow introduced new features for developers, including updates to the Android Fingerprint API, which enhances user privacy and security through hardware-backed cryptographic vaults. A newly released sample, AsymmetricFingerprintDialog, demonstrates integrating fingerprint authentication with remote servers using asymmetric keys, allowing developers to securely authenticate online transactions. This approach involves creating an asymmetric key pair, registering the public key with a server, signing transactions with a fingerprint, and verifying signed transactions on the backend. The sample complements an earlier FingerprintDialog release focused on symmetric keys, showcasing options for securing data both offline and online. Additionally, updates to the Android for Work APIs, such as AppRestrictionEnforcer and AppRestrictionSchema, introduce new restrictions, enhancing the control developers have over app settings in Android 6.0.

The Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree, launched in partnership between Google and Udacity, offers a comprehensive program for aspiring app developers to learn the essential skills needed to transform app ideas into scalable businesses. Taking 4-7 months to complete, this online course provides free access to content and covers key areas such as product design, prototyping, monetization, and marketing. Participants will learn from industry leaders like Geoffrey Moore, Nir Eyal, and Steve Chen, and gain insights into startup management and effective app marketing strategies. While the course content is freely accessible, Udacity offers paid services for additional support, including project guidance and career counseling. Graduates receive a joint certificate from Udacity and Google, and top performers get the chance to pitch their projects to venture capitalists at Google, offering a potential springboard into the tech entrepreneurial world.

In an update from the Google Apps Developer Blog, Google announced enhancements to the HtmlService IFRAME sandbox mode, initially introduced in December 2014 to improve application user interfaces and allow the use of various JavaScript libraries. The update includes new features like Firefox support, file uploads, top navigation support, and improved Google Picker API support. As a result, Google is deprecating the NATIVE and EMULATED modes, with plans to retire them in stages by June 2016, encouraging developers to transition to the IFRAME sandbox mode using a provided migration guide. The transition timeline includes defaulting new scripts to IFRAME sandbox mode starting November 2015 and gradually phasing out EMULATED and NATIVE modes by April and June 2016, respectively. This phased deprecation aims to ensure a modern and secure environment for developing applications with Google Apps Script.

Google Cardboard is expanding its virtual reality reach worldwide by making its app available in 39 languages and over 100 countries on both Android and iOS devices, and offering developer documentation in 10 languages to facilitate the creation of VR experiences. The initiative has already seen more than 15 million installations of Cardboard apps from Google Play. Users can either create their own Cardboard viewers using open designs or purchase certified options like the Mattel View-Master and Zeiss VR One GX. To enhance the VR experience, the Cardboard SDKs for Android and Unity have been updated to include drift correction and improved Unity performance, featuring a major overhaul of sensor fusion algorithms for better accuracy and a fully Unity-native distortion pass for efficient rendering. Additionally, Google Street View is now accessible through Cardboard, offering immersive exploration of global destinations with the updated app.

In a blog post by Wesley Chun, a Developer Advocate at Google, a solution is presented for automating the task of tracking YouTube video view counts using Google Apps Script. The post discusses a scenario where manually counting views for numerous videos is impractical, suggesting automation as a more efficient approach. It introduces two Google developer tools: the YouTube Data API, which can be accessed through Google APIs Client Libraries, and Google Apps Script, a JavaScript environment in Google's cloud for writing data to Google Sheets. The blog is part of the Launchpad Online series, which provides technical guidance for novice Google developers, including a brief code snippet to help build custom solutions. Chun encourages feedback and suggestions for future topics in the series.