Thursday, October 18, 2012

Google Play Seller Support in India

Posted by Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, Product Manager on the Google Play team



Over the past year, Android device activations in India have jumped more than 400%, bringing millions of new users to Google Play and driving huge increases in app downloads. In the last six months, Android users in India downloaded more apps than in the previous three years combined, and India has rocketed to become the fourth-largest market worldwide for app downloads. To help developers capitalize on this tremendous growth, we are launching Google Play seller support in India.



Starting today, developers in India can sell paid applications, in-app products, and subscriptions in Google Play, with monthly payouts to their local bank accounts. They can take advantage of all of the tools offered by Google Play to monetize their products in the best way for their businesses, and they can target their products to the paid ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users in India and across the world.



If you are an Android developer based in India, you can get started right away by signing in to your Developer Console and setting up a Google Checkout merchant account. If your apps are already published as free, you can monetize them by adding in-app products or subscriptions. For new apps, you can publish the apps as paid, in addition to selling in-app products or subscriptions.



When you’ve prepared your apps and in-app products, you can price them in any available currencies, publish, and then receive payouts and financial data in your local currency. Visit the developer help center for complete details.



Along with seller support, we're also adding buyer’s currency support for India. We encourage developers everywhere to visit your Developer Console as soon as possible to set prices for your products in Indian Rupees and other new currencies (such as Russian Rubles).



Stay tuned for more announcements as we continue to roll out Google Play seller support to many more countries around the world.



Google Play Seller Support in India

Posted by Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, Product Manager on the Google Play team



Over the past year, Android device activations in India have jumped more than 400%, bringing millions of new users to Google Play and driving huge increases in app downloads. In the last six months, Android users in India downloaded more apps than in the previous three years combined, and India has rocketed to become the fourth-largest market worldwide for app downloads. To help developers capitalize on this tremendous growth, we are launching Google Play seller support in India.



Starting today, developers in India can sell paid applications, in-app products, and subscriptions in Google Play, with monthly payouts to their local bank accounts. They can take advantage of all of the tools offered by Google Play to monetize their products in the best way for their businesses, and they can target their products to the paid ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users in India and across the world.



If you are an Android developer based in India, you can get started right away by signing in to your Developer Console and setting up a Google Checkout merchant account. If your apps are already published as free, you can monetize them by adding in-app products or subscriptions. For new apps, you can publish the apps as paid, in addition to selling in-app products or subscriptions.



When you’ve prepared your apps and in-app products, you can price them in any available currencies, publish, and then receive payouts and financial data in your local currency. Visit the developer help center for complete details.



Along with seller support, we're also adding buyer’s currency support for India. We encourage developers everywhere to visit your Developer Console as soon as possible to set prices for your products in Indian Rupees and other new currencies (such as Russian Rubles).



Stay tuned for more announcements as we continue to roll out Google Play seller support to many more countries around the world.



Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Bringing Google Calendar to the Play Store



Previously available only on select Android devices like Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, you can now download the official Google Calendar app for Android from Google Play. Google Calendar makes it easy for you to manage all your calendars in one place, including those from your Google accounts and other calendars synced to your Android device. Beyond supporting the basics such as creating, editing, deleting events and responding to invitations, the new Google Calendar app has extra features that help you manage your time and communication more easily:
  • Snooze events directly from a notification if you’re not quite ready and want to be reminded later.
  • Use predefined messages to send quick "I'll be late" updates to your event participants directly from the notifications or the event itself (of course, you can always write your own).
  • Pinch to zoom in and out of a day.
  • Set a home time zone to help you manage your time better when traveling.
In addition, we also expanded the sync period so you can review past events from up to one year ago directly on your device. Download Google Calendar on Google Play today for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.3+) or Jellybean. Use the Google Feedback feature in the app to let us know how we can make Calendar work better for you!


(Cross-posted on the Official Gmail Blog)

Monday, October 15, 2012

New Google Play Developer Console Available to Everyone

Posted by Eva-Lotta Lamm, Riccardo Govoni, and Ellie Powers of the Google Play team



We've been working on a new Google Play Developer Console, centered around how you make and publish apps, to create a foundation for the exciting features we have planned for the future. Earlier this year at Google I/O, we demoed the new version (video). Since then, we've been testing it out with tens of thousands of developers, reviewing their feedback and making adjustments.



Today, we’re very happy to announce that all developers can now try the new Google Play Developer Console. At its core, the Developer Console is how you put your app in front of hundreds of millions of Android users around the world, and track how your app is doing. We hope that with a streamlined publishing flow, new language options, and new user ratings statistics, you’ll have better tools for delivering great Android apps that delight users.



Sleeker, faster, easier to navigate



You spend a lot of time in the Developer Console, so we overhauled the interface for you. It's bright and appealing to look at, easy to find your way around using navigation and search, and it loads quickly even if you have a lot of apps.



Designed for speed. Quickly locate the app data and business information you use every day. More screenshots »




Track user ratings over time, and find ways to improve



One of the most important things you'll be able to do is track the success of your app over time — it's how you continue to iterate and make beautiful, successful apps. You'll see new statistics about your user ratings: a graph showing changes over time, for both the all-time average user rating and new user ratings that come in on a certain day. As with other statistics, you'll be able to break down the data by device, country, language, carrier, Android version, and app version. For example, after optimizing your app for tablets, you could track your ratings on popular tablets.



New charts for user ratings. You can now track user ratings over time and across countries. More screenshots »




Better publishing workflow



We've completely revamped and streamlined the app publishing process to give you more time to build great apps. You can start with either an APK or an app name, and you can save before you have all of the information. You can also now see differences between the new and old versions of an app, making it easy to catch unintentional changes before you publish a new version to your users.



More languages for listings, with automated translations



You'll also enjoy a new app publishing flow and the ability to publish your app listing in 49 languages. Once you've saved any change to your application in the new Developer Console, your users will have the option of viewing an automatic translation of your listing on the web today and soon on devices — no additional action on your part is needed.



How can you try the new version?



Go to your Developer Console and click on “Try the new version” in the header or go directly to the new version. If you prefer the new version, don't forget to bookmark the new URL.



Please note that we're not quite done yet, so the following advanced features are not yet supported in the new Google Play Developer Console: multiple APK support, APK Expansion Files and announcements. To use these features, you can click “Switch back” in the header at any time to return to the old version.



Click the “Feedback” link in the header to let us know what you think, so that we can continue to improve your experience as a Google Play developer. Thank you for all of the feedback so far.




New Google Play Developer Console Available to Everyone

Posted by Eva-Lotta Lamm, Riccardo Govoni, and Ellie Powers of the Google Play team



We've been working on a new Google Play Developer Console, centered around how you make and publish apps, to create a foundation for the exciting features we have planned for the future. Earlier this year at Google I/O, we demoed the new version (video). Since then, we've been testing it out with tens of thousands of developers, reviewing their feedback and making adjustments.



Today, we’re very happy to announce that all developers can now try the new Google Play Developer Console. At its core, the Developer Console is how you put your app in front of hundreds of millions of Android users around the world, and track how your app is doing. We hope that with a streamlined publishing flow, new language options, and new user ratings statistics, you’ll have better tools for delivering great Android apps that delight users.



Sleeker, faster, easier to navigate



You spend a lot of time in the Developer Console, so we overhauled the interface for you. It's bright and appealing to look at, easy to find your way around using navigation and search, and it loads quickly even if you have a lot of apps.



Designed for speed. Quickly locate the app data and business information you use every day. More screenshots »




Track user ratings over time, and find ways to improve



One of the most important things you'll be able to do is track the success of your app over time — it's how you continue to iterate and make beautiful, successful apps. You'll see new statistics about your user ratings: a graph showing changes over time, for both the all-time average user rating and new user ratings that come in on a certain day. As with other statistics, you'll be able to break down the data by device, country, language, carrier, Android version, and app version. For example, after optimizing your app for tablets, you could track your ratings on popular tablets.



New charts for user ratings. You can now track user ratings over time and across countries. More screenshots »




Better publishing workflow



We've completely revamped and streamlined the app publishing process to give you more time to build great apps. You can start with either an APK or an app name, and you can save before you have all of the information. You can also now see differences between the new and old versions of an app, making it easy to catch unintentional changes before you publish a new version to your users.



More languages for listings, with automated translations



You'll also enjoy a new app publishing flow and the ability to publish your app listing in 49 languages. Once you've saved any change to your application in the new Developer Console, your users will have the option of viewing an automatic translation of your listing on the web today and soon on devices — no additional action on your part is needed.



How can you try the new version?



Go to your Developer Console and click on “Try the new version” in the header or go directly to the new version. If you prefer the new version, don't forget to bookmark the new URL.



Please note that we're not quite done yet, so the following advanced features are not yet supported in the new Google Play Developer Console: multiple APK support, APK Expansion Files and announcements. To use these features, you can click “Switch back” in the header at any time to return to the old version.



Click the “Feedback” link in the header to let us know what you think, so that we can continue to improve your experience as a Google Play developer. Thank you for all of the feedback so far.