Google is no doubt one of the most fascinating tech giants in our time today. With the recent Google I/O 2023, people have seen how the company constantly evolves and improves its products, including the Google Play Store.
Whether you are an app developer, marketer, owner, or simply a person with a curious mind, you will surely want to read the rest of this post. Come and join us as we take a look at the key changes, updates, and announcements given during Google I/O 2023 that directly and indirectly affect Google Play Store.
What is Google I/O 2023?
Google I/O 2023 was held on May 10, 2023, in Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. It is one of the most anticipated events among developers and enthusiasts where Google announces new products, services, and features from their company.
What were the key announcements and updates for the Google Play Store at Google I/O 2023?
One of the biggest products of Google is the Play Store, which means that there are a lot of new announcements made for this Android platform.
The key Google I/O 2023 update for the Play Store is the upcoming release of Android 14, where there are just so many powerful and helpful changes. Moreover, generative artificial intelligence has become a game changer in the world of mobile apps. Security and privacy are still important and have taken a significant time to discuss during Google I/O.
We are going to take a look at some of the most important updates that you should never miss:
Google Play Store
The Play Store is an excellent and popular platform where users can go, look for their apps, and install them on their devices. However, as you may already know, while there are millions of people using the Play Store, there are also millions of apps all vying for users’ attention. The competition is fierce, and growing your business can be challenging in many ways.
Thus, Google works hard to help app developers thrive throughout their business lifecycles. They have done this by adding new features and making large-scale changes in the Play Store.
During the Google I/O 2023, Google announced some exciting announcements that are directly related to Play Store. Here are some of them:
Store listings
Last year, the Google Play Store made a great step toward helping app developers and marketers target various types of users by allowing them to create up to 50 custom store listings. This year, Google plans to launch custom store listings for Google Ads. This means that you can now submit your ad group ID via Play Console, and from there, you can direct users who interact with your ads on AdMob and YouTube to a specific custom store listing.
In connection with this, Google adds Store Listing Groups. As you can imagine, you would need to manage a lot of custom pages, and so this new feature would help you customize all your store listings in one place.
AI generative technology
What’s great about the new Store listing is using Google’s top-of-the-line generative AI technology. You can use AI to help you write and generate new custom page listings. All you have to do is give the AI prompts that describe what type of page listing you want to create.
As of now, the AI helper is in the experimental phase. Give it a try and provide feedback to Google to help them improve this new powerful feature.
AI-powered translation
Google understands the importance of unlocking new app markets by using localization. Translating your content plays a major role in accomplishing your localization goals.
As of now, Google has already added 10 languages from Google Translate. In just a matter of minutes, the new machine translation models can give you accurate results. The best news is that the translation service is free. You can join Google Play Academy for free hands-on training on how to use this feature.
Promotional content
Google wants to give you the highest level of visibility whenever possible. That’s why you can run high-priority events and have them shown across Google Play Store. Some of the most important places where events are shown include the home page and search. Previously, this feature was available for games, but now, Google Play makes it available to apps as well.
To track the performance of promotional content, Google Created a new section called the promotional content performance reports, which will help you find new growth opportunities. Aside from that, the public framework for app and game quality gives you more ideas of how you can improve the quality of your app.
Improved ANR metrics
ANR or app not responding is an important indicator of the performance of your app. Google made the ANR metrics reporting system to be more user-centric. Google now includes tips on how to debug your ANRs and fix them.
Moreover, Google empowers app developers by giving them a better channel where they can directly communicate with SDK partners. This allows app developers to fix their apps when SDKs cause the issue.
Featured Products
Google launched a brand new way for you to promote your app, and it is called featured products. This is an exciting way for you to sell and promote your in-app items directly in Google Play Store. You don’t have to wait for users to download your app just to bring your products front and center.
What’s astonishing about featured products is that you can specify in which country your ad would appear. You can even add specific discounts to better convert people who see your feature product.
Pricing
Google now allows you to test out different pricing schemes or strategies. These new features allow you to determine your price in real time, change your pricing quickly, and experiment with which pricing is the best for your customers.
Subscriptions
Aside from the subscription offers that were launched last year, Google now adds the ability to provide different auto-renewing and prepaid plan prices. You can even give your most valued customers a recurring discount.
Google Play Store security and safety
Google is once again putting a great emphasis on security. They want to create a safe space within the Play Store to ensure every user can use the platform with full confidence and peace of mind. Here are some of the best changes and updates on Google Play Store security:
- Play Integrity API prevents unauthorized access, cheating, attacks, and abuse within your app. Google also launched a new website where you can go and check your app’s API service status.
- Automatic integrity protection, which helps offline games to prevent piracy and tampering with your app’s code.
- Policy declarations help you to better understand how Google’s policies directly affect you and what might be the consequences for any non-compliance.
- The data deletion feature gives your users the option to quickly delete their accounts, which should be as easy as creating their accounts.
- Privacy Sandbox is an industry-wide initiative that protects users’ privacy.
Privacy and Security
Google puts great importance on your security and privacy. Thus, in Android 14, various security features are added and enhanced for you.
PhotoPicker
PhotoPicker gives your better control over what visual media you’re going to share with an app. In the user interface, you’ll see a browsable and searchable window where you’ll find your photos arranged from newest to oldest. From there, you can then indicate which specific photos you only want an app to access.
Location sharing
Sharing your location is an important aspect of your security. In the location permission dialog, there’s a new section there that you can click or tap. It will tell you exactly when an app shares your location with a third party.
Full Screen Intent (FSI) Notifications
Once Android 14 is rolled out, Android apps need to check for FSI permission, and they must get it from users. Play Store requires app developers to meet this minimum Target API requirement to ensure there’s no unintended interaction between various apps. However, calling and alarm apps don’t need to meet these requirements immediately.
Partial Screensharing
The partial screensharing allows users to specify which app they want to share with other people. Because of this, you can then multitask and use other apps or play videos during screen sharing.
Health Connect
Health Connect serves as a database where you can store all your health data in one place. Health Connect helps you view your data, change privacy controls, and even share data with other apps.
Passkeys
Android 14 users would soon say goodbye to their passwords as Google would replace them with passkeys. Google assures its customers that passkeys are a safe replacement for passwords. Passkeys may include biometric checks and screen unlocks for quicker access to various apps.
Google Android Accessibility
Google is fully committed to supporting about one billion people in the world living with disabilities. As a result, it also constantly improves the creation of accessible apps. Part of the Google I/O 2023 updates are the upcoming announcements about some improvements in Andriod Accessibility.
TalkBack
TalkBack is a helpful screen reader which is useful for people with visual impairment. TalkBack capitalizes on speech, voice commands, and Braille to perform various tasks such as cutting, copying, and pasting texts and spell-check messages. It also helps users to archive or delete emails.
Braille
Google improved Braille and added 38 languages by the time of this writing, and Google will add more in the near future.
Gestures
Android users can now use additional gestures to perform various tasks such as selecting text or moving cursors by word, character, and line. Gestures can also be used to cut, copy, and paste text.
Reading mode
Reading mode is an Android app that enables you to adjust the font size, choose the font style, and customize the theme. You can have text read aloud for you.
Other improvements
Google has also made improvements in the notification sound system, live caption, and hearing aids experiences for users. Interactive hearing aids become more intuitive with the latest updates. Additional features include better Bluetooth device connectivity, quick controls, audio streaming, and notifications through screen light flashing, vibration, and sound.
Google Pay and Google Wallet
Google wants to give its users a safe, simple, and convenient mode of payment for everyone wherever they might be. Because of this, Google Play offers an expanded zero fraud liability for eligible MasterCard and Visa transactions.
Here are some of the changes made in Google Pay and Google Wallet:
- Card authentication support for before and after payment transactions.
- Secure Payment Authentication, which improves authorization rates with fraud reduction.
- Dynamic Google Pay button, which is currently available on the web, but now Google plans to add it to Android.
- Improved Google Pay API that facilitates faster integration into the checkout process.
- React Native library for Google Pay, which is useful for app developers.
- Autofill allows customers to quickly make payments.
- Improved virtual card usage adds to the frictionless online checkout experience.
How do these changes impact app developers and users?
The Google I/O 2023 updates have a huge impact not just on app developers, but also on users. Here are some of the ways changes impact people:
For users:
- Improved user experience
- Enhanced app quality
- Safer platform, better transparency, and increased privacy
For developers:
- Improved opportunities for app visibility
- Improved opportunities for app monetization
- A better way of regulating app quality and performance
- Improved protection and security
Stay in the loop
Google made exciting changes and those won’t definitely be the last. There are more to come and those who are able to cope with the changes would surely get a competitive edge in the market.
Thankfully, you can stay on top of the new updates and announcements made by Google with the help of ShyftUp. Not only that, but ShyftUp will help you know what these updates mean to your business and how you can leverage them.
ShyftUp is the leading user acquisition agency that has the necessary knowledge, experience, and sources to ensure you stay updated with the latest developments in the world of mobile apps. They also specialize in app marketing, user acquisition, and data reporting.
Give them a try today and see how they can help you achieve your business goals!
