Newsletter - October 2020

Android / Google Play

• See the latest version of Android Studio, now ready to be used in production. Highlights include a new Database Inspector for querying your app’s database, support for navigating projects that use Dagger for dependency injection, and better support for on-device machine learning. Read more .
  
• Learn about new Google Play Console features to optimize your app publishing process. The Publishing overview page helps you better understand your publishing process while Managed publishing gives you more control over when your app updates go live.
  
• Take advantage of the pre-launch tracks on Google Play with this best practice guide. Understand the benefits of testing, betas, and soft launches and how they can impact your game’s performance for launch and beyond.
• Listen to the second series of Apps, Games, & Insights to hear insights, stories, and learnings from industry experts on trending topics surrounding mobile apps, games, and tech. 
  
• Read part one of the Make Your App Shine on Google Play series to get up to speed on the three primary stages of the publisher's journey. Includes the “think principles” to keep in mind while designing and building an app.
  
• Announcing location permission declaration, now available in the Play Console. Impacted apps will receive a notification on the App content page (Policy > App content) in the Play Console to complete the permissions declaration form. Watch the video or visit Play Academy to learn more.
• Understand how the Cast Receiver SDK enables users to Cast from mobile and Chrome apps to Android TV apps.
  
• Simplify signing up and in for users with One Tap, a new cross-platform sign-in mechanism for Android and Web that supports and streamlines multiple types of credentials.
  

Firebase / Google Cloud

• Read the recap post from Firebase Summit 2020 to see how new product updates can accelerate, improve, and scale app development. Watch the keynote and talks on-demand and view pathways, codelabs, and online demos from this year’s summit.
  
• Register for Accelerate Data Interoperability with Apigee’s HealthAPIx Accelerator , a webcast featuring a standards-based approach to improving digital tools in the healthcare industry. Join this demo-rich tech talk to learn how to enable API discoverability for developers and partners, and deploy data interoperability and security through the FHIR and SMART on FHIR standards. 
  
• Improve your API management skills with the Virtual API Jamathon, a bootcamp for API developers, architects, and product managers. This 3-day, hands-on workshop provides best practices, demos, and support from Apigee experts. Practice with labs to better design, secure, publish, and analyze APIs.
  
• Prepare  for the Google Cloud certification most suited to your role by November 16. Practice with six weeks of learning paths to help you pass certifications like the Professional Machine Learning certification and more.
  
• Sign up for a prep session for Google Cloud’s new Professional Machine Learning Engineer certification on November 19. Learn how it can elevate your career, get exam tips and tricks from certified experts, see sample questions, and receive a special training discount for attending.
  
• Learn querying best practices, troubleshooting tips, and more from Google Cloud experts in a hands-on lab dedicated to BigQuery on November 6. Attendees receive a special training discount.
• Solve the latest monthly data puzzle on BigQuery for a chance to win $500 in Cloud credits.

Google Maps Platform

• Prepare for the 2020 holiday season and learn to drive conversions with Store Locator Plus and Checkout, two Google Maps Platform retail solutions .
  
• Learn how to help users find the nearest store, clinic, or drop-off location with Build a Full Stack Store Locator , a codelab that shows how to build back end database queries, user-delighting front end features, and more.
• See how to use the Places APIs in applications with five tutorials on the Google Maps Platform YouTube channel. 
• Watch  the latest videos to hear from the makers of the new PAC-MAN GEO game, learn the latest quick tips, and get an overview of Google Maps Platform APIs and SDKs.
• Get Swift code samples and replacement properties for deprecated methods when you upgrade to Places SDK for iOS v4.0.

Web

• Read how focusing on web performance improved Tokopedia's click-through rate by 35%.
  
• See how ZDF created a video PWA with offline and dark mode.
• Learn how Goibibo's PWA improved conversions by 60%. Read more case studies on web.dev .
• New security protection for Google accounts will be released January 4, 2021. Read through for guidance on how to manage changes, as all embedded frameworks and insecure browsers will be blocked to protect users from man-in-the-middle attacks.
• Subscribe to the web.dev newsletter to stay up to date on web development best practices.

Developer Community

• Watch the Black Founders Accelerator Demo Day on-demand and view the recap video.
  
• Join First Fridays by Google for Startups on November 6 to hear from developer-turned-entrepreneurs on turning passion projects into businesses with successful exits to companies like Google, Amazon, and Stripe.
• Sign up  to see Google for Startups Accelerator Canada - Demo Day 2020 virtually on November 26. See how nine startups use technology to solve a range of complex challenges from faster disease detection to real-time crop and pest management.
• See the DevFest demo and learn how Google and the community came together to build an app using multiple Google Developer tools to detect crop diseases, from scratch, in just a few minutes.
• Read about Luiza, a student developer in a rural town in Russia, who is building the tech scene in her community with the help of Google Developer Groups.
• Learn how Developer Student Club members from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey are helping their community vote smarter with an app that’s focused on the state of their local government.
• Discover insights each week with new talks and workshops from the Google Developer Groups series, MENA Digital Days. Topics focus on the latest technology, leadership, and programs.

BIPOC Partner Highlights

• Read about Demetrius Gray, a member of the Google for Startups Black Founders Accelerator and founder of Louisville-based insurance tech startup WeatherCheck . The four-year-old company collects data from sources like FEMA and mapping-software maker Esri to build a detailed model of weather damage across the U.S. and Canada.
• Watch and read about co-founders Mandy Price and Star Carter of Kanarys , a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) platform notable for its method of data-driven analysis. The duo were members of the Google for Startups Black Founders Accelerator .
• See Akshay Bahadur, an India-based developer, share his journey from working as a Java developer after college to becoming a Google Developers Expert in Machine Learning. 
• Celebrate SaLisa Berrien, founder of COI Energy, who won a $500K grant. SaLisa was a member of the Women Founders accelerator by Google for Startups.

Open Source and Misc

• Catch up  on Google Assistant Developer Day. See why the number of Actions completed by third party developers has more than doubled from last year, learn about integration use cases from top brands, and see new tools and features for Android apps and Smart Displays. Watch the conference on demand.
  
• See how Angular has brought major improvements and new features to i18n and the localization process, and closed the third most requested issue in the process.
• Learn about Web Creators, a new suite of social handles dedicated to journalists, fashionistas, artists, developers, animal lovers, and anyone making cool content on the open web.
• Get  up to speed on improvements to the Cloud Anchors API in ARCore 1.20.
• Announcing Learn, a new one-stop destination for developers to gain skills using Google’s technology. Visit to explore self-paced educational material like learning pathways, codelabs, topics, videos, and more on the Google Developers website. Sign up for a developer profile to get the most from the experience.
• Watch the latest Search On to get an overview of recent updates to the BERT model for Natural Language Understanding (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), which helps understand the intent behind a search query. See more about updates coming to Search.
• Read about how to test an app’s performance in Chrome. Learn how this technique is similar to how Developers at Google test the new Flutter Gallery’s performance. 
• Explore how the Navigator and Router Flutter APIs enable more fine-tuned control over the screens in your app and how you can use it to parse routes.
• Learn how AMP’s partners use AMP to send more engaging emails and notifications to users.
• Check out  the FlutterFire tech stack featuring Flutter and Cloud Firestore on Medium to learn how to quickly build and launch your app.