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  • Widgets take center stage with One UI 7



    Posted by André Labonté – Senior Product Manager, Android Widgets

    On April 7th, Samsung will begin rolling out One UI 7 to more devices globally. Included in this bold new design is greater personalization with an optimized widget experience and updated set of One UI 7 widgets. Ushering in a new era where widgets are more prominent to users, and integral to the daily device experience.

    This update presents a prime opportunity for Android developers to enhance their app experience with a widget

      • More Visibility: Widgets put your brand and key features front and center on the user’s device, so they’re more likely to see it.
      • Better User Engagement: By giving users quick access to important features, widgets encourage them to use your app more often.
      • Increased Conversions: You can use widgets to recommend personalized content or promote premium features, which could lead to more conversions.
      • Happier Users Who Stick Around: Easy access to app content and features through widgets can lead to overall better user experience, and contribute to retention.

    More discoverable than ever with Google Play’s Widget Discovery features!

      • Dedicated Widgets Search Filter: Users can now directly search for apps with widgets using a dedicated filter on Google Play. This means your apps/games with widgets will be easily identified, helping drive targeted downloads and engagement.
      • New Widget Badges on App Detail Pages: We’ve introduced a visual badge on your app’s detail pages to clearly indicate the presence of widgets. This eliminates guesswork for users and highlights your widget offerings, encouraging them to explore and utilize this capability.
      • Curated Widgets Editorial Page: We’re actively educating users on the value of widgets through a new editorial page. This curated space showcases collections of excellent widgets and promotes the apps that leverage them. This provides an additional channel for your widgets to gain visibility and reach a wider audience.

    Getting started with Widgets

    Whether you are planning a new widget, or investing in an update to an existing widget, we have tools to help!

      • Quality Tiers are a great starting point to understand what makes a great Android widget. Consider making your widget resizable to the recommended sizes, so users can customize the size just right for them.

    Leverage widgets for increased app visibility, enhanced user engagement, and ultimately, higher conversions. By embracing widgets, you’re not just optimizing for a specific OS update; you’re aligning with a broader trend towards user-centric, glanceable experiences.




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  • Develop with confidence, powered by AI



    Posted by Sandhya Mohan – Product Manager

    To empower Android developers at work, we’re excited to announce a new offering of Gemini in Android Studio for businesses. This offering is specifically designed to meet the added privacy, security, and management needs of small and large organizations. We’ve heard that some people at businesses have additional needs that require more sensitive data protection, and this offering delivers the same Gemini in Android Studio that you’ve grown accustomed to, now with the additional privacy enhancements that your organization might require.

    Developers and admins can unlock these features and benefits by subscribing to Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise editions. A Google Cloud administrator can purchase a subscription and assign licenses to developers in their organization directly from the Google Cloud console.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSdSv75xck

    Your code stays secure

    Our data governance policy helps ensure customer code, customers’ inputs, as well as the recommendations generated will not be used to train any shared models. Customers control and own their data and IP. It also comes with security features like Private Google Access, VPC Service Controls, and Enterprise Access Controls with granular IAM permissions to help enterprises adopt AI assistance at scale without compromising on security and privacy. Using a Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise license enables multiple industry certifications such as:

      • SOC 1/2/3, ISO/IEC 27001 (Information Security Management)
      • 27018 (Protection of PII)
      • 27701 (Privacy Information Management)

    More details are at Certifications and security for Gemini.

    IP indemnification

    Organizations will benefit from generative AI IP indemnification, safeguarding their organizations against third parties claiming copyright infringement related to the AI-generated code. This added layer of protection is the same indemnification policy we provide to Google Cloud customers using our generative AI APIs, and allows developers to leverage the power of AI with greater confidence and reduced risk.

    Code customization

    Developers with a Code Assist Enterprise license can get tailored assistance customized to their organization’s codebases by connecting to their GitHub, GitLab or BitBucket repositories (including on-premise installations), giving Gemini in Android Studio awareness of the classes and methods their team is most likely to use. This allows Gemini to tailor code completion suggestions, code generations, and chat responses to their business’s best practices, and save developers time they would otherwise have to spend integrating with their company’s preferred frameworks.

    Designed for Android development

    As always, we’ve designed Gemini in Android Studio with the unique needs of Android developers in mind, offering tailored assistance at every stage of the software development lifecycle. From the initial phases of writing, refactoring, and documenting your code, Gemini acts as an intelligent coding companion to boost productivity. With features like:

      • Build & Sync error support: Get targeted insights to help solve build and sync errors

    screenshot of build and sync error support by Gemini in Android Studio

      • Gemini-powered App Quality Insights: Analyze crashes reported by Google Play Console and Firebase Crashlytics

    screenshot of app quality insights by Gemini in Android Studio

      • Get help with Logcat crashes: Simply click on “Ask Gemini” to get a contextual response on how to resolve the crash.

    screenshot of getting contextual responses on how to resolve a crash from by Gemini in Android Studio

    In Android Studio, Gemini is designed specifically for the Android ecosystem, making it an invaluable tool throughout the entire journey of creating and publishing an Android app.

    Check out Gemini in Android Studio for business

    This offering for businesses marks a significant step forward in empowering Android development teams with the power of AI. With this subscription-based offering, no code is stored, and crucially, your code is never used for model training. By providing generative AI indemnification and robust enterprise management tools, we’re enabling organizations to innovate faster and build high-quality Android applications with confidence.

    Ready to get started? Here’s what you need

    To get started, you’ll need a Gemini Code Assist Enterprise license and Android Studio Narwhal or Android Studio for Platform found on the canary release channel. Purchase your Gemini Code Assist license or contact a Google Cloud sales team today for a personalized consultation on how you can unlock the power of AI for your organization.

    Note: Gemini for businesses is also available for Android Studio Platform users.

    We appreciate any feedback on things you like or features you would like to see. If you find a bug, please report the issue and also check out known issues. Remember to also follow us on X, LinkedIn, Blog, or YouTube for more Android development updates!





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  • Prioritize media privacy with Android Photo Picker and build user trust



    Posted by Tatiana van Maaren – Global T&S Partnerships Lead, Privacy & Security, and Roxanna Aliabadi Walker – Product Manager

    At Google Play, we’re dedicated to building user trust, especially when it comes to sensitive permissions and your data. We understand that managing files and media permissions can be confusing, and users often worry about which files apps can access. Since these files often contain sensitive information like family photos or financial documents, it’s crucial that users feel in control. That’s why we’re working to provide clearer choices, so users can confidently grant permissions without sacrificing app functionality or their privacy.

    Below are a set of best practices to consider for improving user trust in the sharing of broad access files, ultimately leading to a more successful and sustainable app ecosystem.

    Prioritize user privacy with data minimization

    Building user trust starts with requesting only the permissions essential for your app’s core functions. We understand that photos and videos are sensitive data, and broad access increases security risks. That’s why Google Play now restricts READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions, allowing developers to request them only when absolutely necessary, typically for apps like photo/video managers and galleries.

    Leverage privacy-friendly solutions

    Instead of requesting broad storage access, we encourage developers to use the Android Photo Picker, introduced in Android 13. This tool offers a privacy-centric way for users to select specific media files without granting access to their entire library. Android photo picker provides an intuitive interface, including access to cloud-backed photos and videos, and allows for customization to fit your app’s needs. In addition, this system picker is backported to Android 4.4, ensuring a consistent experience for all users. By eliminating runtime permissions, Android photo picker simplifies the user experience and builds trust through transparency.

    Build trust through transparent data practices

    We understand that some developers have historically used custom photo pickers for tailored user experiences. However, regardless of whether you use a custom or system picker, transparency with users is crucial. Users want to know why your app needs access to their photos and videos.

    Developers should strive to provide clear and concise explanations within their apps, ideally at the point where the permission is requested. Take the following in consideration while crafting your permission request mechanisms as possible best practices guidelines:

      • When requesting media access, provide clear explanations within your app. Specifically, tell users which media your app needs (e.g., all photos, profile pictures, sharing videos) and explain the functionality that relies on it (e.g., ‘To choose a profile picture,’ ‘To share videos with friends’).
      • Clearly outline how user data will be used and protected in your privacy policies. Explain whether data is stored locally, transmitted to a server, or shared with third parties. Reassure users that their data will be handled responsibly and securely.

    Learn how Snap has embraced the Android System Picker to prioritize user privacy and streamline their media selection experience. Here’s what they have to say about their implementation:

    A grid of photos in the photo library is shown on a smartphone screen, including a waterfall and two people smiling and posing for the camera. The Google Photos interface is at the top, with the Photos tab selected, and one photo from the grid is selected for use

    “One of our goals is to provide a seamless and intuitive communication experience while ensuring Snapchatters have control over their content. The new flow of the Android Photo Picker is the perfect balance of providing user control of the content they want to share while ensuring fast communication with friends on Snapchat.”

    Marc Brown, Product Manager

    Get started

    Start building a more trustworthy app experience. Explore the Android Photo Picker and implement privacy-first data practices today.

    Acknowledgement

    Special thanks to: May Smith – Product Manager, and Anita Issagholyan – Senior Policy Specialist



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  • Improve app quality and performance with new Play Console insights



    Posted by Dan Brown, Dina Gandal and Hadar Yanos – Product Managers, Google Play

    At Google Play, we partner with developers like you to help your app or game business reach its full potential, providing powerful tools and insights every step of the way. In Google Play Console, you’ll find the features needed to test, publish, improve, and grow your apps — and today, we’re excited to share several enhancements to give you even more actionable insights, starting with a redesigned app dashboard tailored to your key workflows, and new metrics designed to help you improve your app quality.

    Focus on the metrics that matter with the redesigned app dashboard

    The first thing you’ll notice is the redesigned app dashboard, which puts the most essential insights front and center. We know that when you visit Play Console, you usually have a goal in mind — whether that’s checking on your release status or tracking installs. That’s why you’ll now see your most important metrics grouped into four core developer objectives:

      • Test and release
      • Monitor and improve
      • Grow users, and
      • Monetize with Play

    Each objective highlights the three metrics most important to that goal, giving you a quick grasp of how your app is doing at a glance, as well as how those metrics have changed over time. For example, you can now easily compare between your latest production release against your app’s overall performance, helping you to quickly identify any issues. In the screenshot below, the latest production release has a crash rate of 0.24%, a large improvement over the 28-day average crash rate shown under “Monitor and Improve.”

    screen recording of the redesigned app dashboard in Google Play Console

    The redesigned app dashboard in Play Console helps you see your most important metrics at a glance.

    At the top of the page, you’ll see the status of your latest release changes prominently displayed so you know when it’s been reviewed and approved. If you’re using managed publishing, you can also see when things are ready to publish. And based on your feedback, engagement and monetization metrics now show a comparison to your previous year’s data so you can make quick comparisons.

    The new app dashboard also keeps you updated on the latest news from Play, including recent blog posts, new features relevant to your app, and even special invitations to early access programs.

    In addition to what’s automatically displayed on the dashboard, we know many of you track other vital metrics for your role or business. That’s why we’ve added the “Monitor KPI trends” section at the bottom of your app dashboard. Simply scroll down and personalize your view by selecting the trends you need to monitor. This customized experience allows each user in your developer account to focus on their most important insights.

    Later this year, we’ll introduce new overview pages for each of the four core developer objectives. These pages will help you quickly understand your performance, showcase tools and features within each domain, and list recommended actions to optimize performance, engagement, and revenue across all your apps.

    Get actionable notifications when and where you need them

    If you spend a lot of time in Play Console, you may have already noticed the new notification center. Accessible from every page, the notification center helps you to stay up to date with your account and apps, and helps you to identify any issues that may need urgent attention.

    To help you quickly understand and act on important information, we now group notifications about the same issue across multiple apps. Additionally, notifications that are no longer relevant will automatically expire, ensuring you only see what needs your attention. Plus, notifications will be displayed on the new app dashboard within the relevant objectives.

    Improve app quality and performance with new Play Console metrics

    One of Play’s top goals is to provide the insights you need to build high-quality apps that deliver exceptional user experiences. We’re continuing to expand these insights, helping you prevent issues like crashes or ANRs, optimize your app’s performance, and reduce resource consumption on users’ devices.

    Users expect a polished experience across their devices, and we’ve learned from you it can be difficult to make your app layouts work seamlessly across phones and large screens. To help with this, we’ve introduced pre-review checks for incorrect edge-to-edge rendering, while another new check helps you detect and prevent large screen layout issues caused by letterboxing and restricted layouts, along with resources on how to fix them.

    We’re also making it easier to find and triage the most important quality issues in your app. The release dashboard in Play Console now displays prioritized quality issues from your latest release, alongside the existing dashboard features for monitoring post-launch, like crashes and ANRs This addition provides a centralized view of user-impacting issues, along with clear instructions to help you resolve critical user issues to improve your users’ experiences.

    The quality panel in the redesigned app dashboard in Google Play Console

    The quality panel at the top of the release dashboard gives you a prioritized view of issues that affect users on your latest release and provides instructions on how to fix them.

    A new “low memory kill” (LMK) metric is available in Android vitals and the Reporting API. Low memory issues cause your app to terminate without any logging, and can be notoriously difficult to detect. We are making these issues visible with device-specific insights into memory constraints to help you identify and fix these problems. This will improve app stability and user engagement, which is especially crucial for games where LMKs can disrupt real-time gameplay.

    The quality panel in the redesigned app dashboard in Google Play Console

    The low memory kill metric in Android vitals gives you device-specific insights into low memory terminations, helping you improve app stability and user engagement.

    We’re also collaborating closely with leading OEMs like Samsung, leveraging their real-world insights to define consistent benchmarks for optimal technical quality across Android devices. Excessive wakelocks are a leading cause of battery drain, a top frustration for users. Today, we’re launching the first of these new metrics in beta: excessive wake locks in Android vitals. Take a look at our wakelock documentation and provide feedback on the metric definition. Your input is essential as we refine this metric towards general availability, and will inform our strategy for making this information available to users on the Play Store so they can make informed decisions when choosing apps.

    Together, these updates provide you with even more visibility into your app’s performance and quality, enabling you to build more stable, efficient, and user-friendly apps across the Android ecosystem. We’ll continue to add more metrics and insights over time. To stay informed about all the latest Play Console enhancements and easily find updates relevant to your workflow, explore our new What’s new in Play Console page, where you can filter features by the four developer objectives.



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  • Most Coachella Attendees Buy Tickets with Buy Now, Pay Later

    Most Coachella Attendees Buy Tickets with Buy Now, Pay Later


    Coachella, the music festival that occurred across two weekends this month, drew crowds of 125,000-plus attendees each day.

    A report published by Billboard last week shows that most of the crowd, about 60%, used Coachella’s payment plan system to pay for their $600-and-up tickets. The plan allows attendees access to Coachella with an upfront cost of as little as $49.99.

    Tickets started at $649 for the first weekend of Coachella from April 10 through 12 and $600 for the second weekend from April 17 through 19. People reported that tickets used to cost $429 per weekend in 2020. When Coachella started in 1999, tickets were $50.

    Related: Jeff Bezos Was Caught on Video Dancing at Coachella, But It’s His ‘$12 Amazon Shirt’ That Has the Internet in Stitches

    The festival first began offering the buy-now-pay-later option in 2009, and at the time, only 18% of attendees tapped into it, per People.

    Coachella music festival 2025. Credit: Getty Images

    Coachella partnered with ticketing company AXS to offer the buy now, pay later payment plan, which enables the festival goer to pay off their ticket over three months. Coachella does not charge interest for the ticket purchase, but does require that those who opt for the payment plan pay a $41 fee for using the service, which amounts to about 8% of the ticket price. The average credit card interest rate, in comparison, is about 20%.

    Most fans bought tickets to Coachella after the festival announced its musician lineup in November, revealing that Lady Gaga, Travis Scott, Green Day, Post Malone, and Benson Boone were headliners. Anyone who bought tickets before Jan. 25 and opted for the payment plan had the price of their ticket divided into three equal payments, with the final payment deducted from the attendee’s account in March, per Billboard.

    If payments were more than 10 days late, the order was automatically cancelled and the fan given a credit for future festivals. The credit expires one year after being issued.

    Related: Google’s Founders Once Interviewed Their CEO at Burning Man. Now the Desert Festival Is Struggling to Sell Tickets.

    Coachella makes more than $115 million in ticket sales on average per year. Artists who perform at the festival can earn up to $5 million per weekend.



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  • Airbnb to Show Full Pricing With Cleaning, Added Fees

    Airbnb to Show Full Pricing With Cleaning, Added Fees


    The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “junk fees” ruling, which was passed in December 2024, goes into effect on May 12. The new law requires businesses selling tickets and short-term lodging to “clearly” show all fees (like service and cleaning fees) at the time of purchase.

    On Monday, Airbnb announced in a statement that it is getting started early.

    All Airbnb guests globally will now automatically see the complete cost of their proposed stay, including all fees (before taxes), when looking at search result listings.

    Related: ‘I Can’t Get Everyone to Move Here’: Why Airbnb’s CEO Is Sticking With a Once-a-Month Hybrid Schedule

    “With the global rollout of total price display, we’re making it easier for guests to better understand the price they’ll pay, and for hosts to succeed in a more transparent marketplace,” the company said. “We believe these improvements will continue to create positive guest experiences from search to stay while also supporting the growth of the Airbnb community around the world.”

    Parts of Europe, Canada, Korea, and Australia have already had total pricing transparency since 2019, following those countries’ individual regulations.

    The total price feature has been optional in the U.S. for two years, Airbnb notes, and 17 million guests have opted to use the feature. Meanwhile, the option for full price disclosure actually helped lower cleaning fees imposed by hosts.

    In its Q4-2023 and full-year financial results, Airbnb noted that after enabling the feature, nearly 300,000 listings removed or lowered cleaning fees, while 40% of active listings eliminated it completely.

    “Guests everywhere will now see the total cost of their reservation, including all fees before taxes,” the statement reads. “We know that clear, upfront pricing improves the Airbnb experience for both guests and hosts.”

    Related: Airbnb’s New ‘Icons’ Cost Less Than $100 Per Night, Including the House from ‘Up’ and Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’



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  • Building Engaging User Interfaces with SwiftUI [SUBSCRIBER]

    Building Engaging User Interfaces with SwiftUI [SUBSCRIBER]



    <p>This module explores advanced SwiftUI features and techniques to build complex and visually appealing user interfaces. Students will learn about animation and transitions, building complex layouts, and how to integrate SwiftUI with UIKit to leverage existing code and UI components.</p>



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  • Inspired by the Masters? Bring Your Work Hustle to the Golf Course with Mind Caddie, Now $99.99.

    Inspired by the Masters? Bring Your Work Hustle to the Golf Course with Mind Caddie, Now $99.99.


    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    Take the same focus and determination that makes you a shark in the office out on the golf course when you use Mind Caddie to up your mental golf game. Packed with short audio lessons, guided exercises, and performance tracking, the Mind Caddie app helps you hone in on the mindset that makes you a successful golf player. This usually $209 app is now just $99.99, so don’t miss this undervalued investment in your success.

    On the course and off

    Getting a round in with your colleagues is about more than seeing who makes it under par. It’s the time that puts a social face on your business connections. It’s the much-needed movement in a week spent sitting before screens and reports. It can also be a mental exercise in focus and confidence when using Mind Caddie for performance coaching on and off the course.

    Golf is as mental as it is physical. When you tap into the Mind Caddie app’s proven coaching methods from Karl Morris — a performance coach for Ryder Cup captains and PGA Tour, European Tour, PLGA, and Ladies European Tour winners — you learn the tools to help yourself achieve success. The program is structured in a way that helps you track your improvements and build mental resilience, all backed by scientific study.

    Using the app to improve your game

    You’ve already tried tutorials and swapping clubs. Now it’s time to use the simplest tool you’ve got: your listening ears.

    Listen to the short audio golf lessons to practice mental strategies. Use guided exercises to build confidence and focus. Follow the step-by-step course to develop yourself as a player. Then, track your performance — what gets measured gets improved, after all. You’ll see the proof in your own performance increases. Transform your mind, transform your game.

    A better golf game is out there, and you can play it for just $99.99 with Mind Caddie, now discounted by 52%.

    StackSocial prices subject to change.



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  • Data Persistence with SwiftData | Kodeco

    Data Persistence with SwiftData | Kodeco



    Mar 19 2025, Swift 5.10, iOS 17, ipadOS 17, macOS 15, visionOS 1.2, Xcode 15


    Leave a rating/review

    Explore advanced techniques to build robust data management solutions with SwiftData integrated with SwiftUI,
    and how to use it with CloudKit. Understand how interoperability works between SwiftData and Core Data, and learn some
    advanced data persistence techniques.

    By Tim Mitra.



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  • Build the Perfect Watchface for Your iPhone Home Screen With Tinker

    Build the Perfect Watchface for Your iPhone Home Screen With Tinker


    The app makes it easy to create a face. You can use your own images to design the hands, background, centerpiece, and more to make it unique. Even if you don’t have any images in mind, you can select from a wide variety of pre-made options in the library.

    In just a few minutes, I was able to create a beautiful timepiece for my home screen.

    As a fun plus, all of the widgets you create with the app can also be used in the iPhone StandBy mode.

    Tinker is a free download now on the App Store for the iPhone.

    There is an optional, one-time in-app purchase of $4.99. That will allow you to create unlimited watchfaces instead of the maximum of two with the free version.



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