Haystack TV Doubles Engagement with Android TV

Haystack TV is a small six person startup with an ambitious goal: personalize the news. Traditionally, watching news on TV means viewing a list of stories curated by the network. Wouldn’t it be better if you could watch a personalized news channel, based on interesting YouTube stories?

Haystack already had a mobile app, but entering the living room space seemed daunting. Although “Smart TVs” have been on the market for a while, they remain challenging for developers to work with. Many hardware OEMs have proprietary platforms, but Android TV is different. It’s an open ecosystem with great developer resources. Developers can reach millions of users with familiar Android APIs. If you have an existing Android app, it’s easy to bring it to the living room.

Two weeks was all it took for Haystack TV to bring their mobile app to Android TV. That includes building an immersive, cinematic UI (a task greatly simplified by the Android framework). Since launching on Android TV, Haystack TV’s viewership is growing at 40% per month. Previously, users were spending about 40 minutes watching content on mobile per week. Now that’s up to 80 minutes in the living room. Their longest engagements are through Chromecast and Android TV.

Hear from Daniel Barreto, CEO of Haystack TV, on developing for Android TV

Haystack TV’s success on Android TV is a great example of how the Android multi-form factor developer experience shines. Once you’ve learned the ropes of writing Android apps, developing for another form factor (Wear, Auto, TV) is simple.

Android TV helps you create cinematic UIs

Haystack TV’s UI is smooth and cinematic. How were they able to build a great one so quickly? Developing an immersive UI/UX with Android TV is surprisingly easy. The Leanback support library provides fragments for browsing content, showing a details screen, and search. You can use these to get transitions and animations almost for free. To learn more about building UIs for Android TV, watch the Using the Leanback Library DevByte and check out the code samples.

Browsing recommended stories

Your content, front and center

The recommendations row is a central feature of the Android TV home screen. It’s the first thing users see when they turn on their TVs. You can surface content to appear on the recommendations row by implementing the recommendation service. For example, your app can suggest videos your users will want to watch next (say, the next episode in a series, or a related news story). This is great for getting noticed and increasing engagements.

Haystack’s content on the recommendations row

Make your content searchable

How can users find their favorite movie or show from a library of thousands? On Android TV, they can search for it using their voice. This is much faster and more relaxing than typing on the screen with a remote control! In addition to providing in-app search, your app can surface content to appear on the global search results page. The framework takes care of speech recognition for you and delivers the result to your app as a plain text string.

Next Steps

Android TV makes it possible for small startups to create apps for the living room. There are extensive developer resources. For an overview, watch the Introduction to Android TV DevByte. For details, see the developer training docs. Watch this episode of Coffee with a Googler to learn more about the vision for the platform. To get started on your app.

A New Reference App for Multi-device Applications

It is now possible to bring the benefits of your app to your users wherever they happen to be, no matter what device they have near them. Today we’re releasing a reference sample that shows how to implement such a service with an app that works across multiple Android form-factors. This sample, the Universal Music Player, is a bare-bones but functional reference app that supports multiple devices and form factors in a single codebase. It is compatible with Android Auto, Android Wear, and Google Cast devices. Give it a try and easily adapt your own app for wherever your users are, be that a phone, watch, TV, car, or more!

Playback controls and album art in the lock screen.
On the application toolbar, the Google Cast icon.

Controlling playback through Android Auto

Controlling playback on an Android Wear watch

This sample uses a number of new features in Android 5.0 Lollipop, like MediaStyle notifications, MediaSession and MediaBrowserService. They make it easy to implement media browsing and playback on multiple devices with a single version of your app.

Check out the source code and let your users enjoy your app from wherever they like.

Android 5.1 Lollipop SDK

Yesterday we announced Android 5.1, an updated version of the Android Lollipop platform that improves stability, provides better control of notifications, and increases performance. As a part of the Lollipop update, we are releasing the Android 5.1 SDK (API Level 22) which supports the new platform and lets you get started with developing and testing.

What's new in Android 5.1

For developers, Android 5.1 introduces a small set of new APIs. A key API addition is support for multiple SIM cards, which is important for many regions where Android One phones are being adopted. Consumers of Android One devices will have more flexibility to switch between carriers and manage their network activities in the way that works best for them. Therefore you, as a developer, can create new app experiences that take advantage of this new feature.

In addition to the new consumer features, Android 5.1 also enhances enterprise features to better support the launch of Android for Work.

 

Android 5.1 supports multiple SIM cards on compatible devices like Android One.

Updates for the Android SDK

To get you started with Android 5.1, we have updated the Android SDK tools to support the new platform and its new APIs. The SDK now includes Android 5.1 emulator system images that you can use to test your apps and develop using the latest capabilities and APIs. You can update your SDK through the Android SDK Manager in Android Studio.

For details on the new developer APIs, take a look at the API Overview.

Coming to Nexus devices soon

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out updates for Android 5.1 to the following Nexus devices: Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 [2012], Nexus 7 [2012] (3G), Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 7 [2013] (3G/LTE), Nexus 9, Nexus 9 (LTE), Nexus 10, and Nexus Player.

Next Steps

As with all Android releases, it’s a good idea to test your apps on the new platform as soon as possible. You can get started today using Android 5.1 system images with the emulator that’s included in the SDK, or you can download an Android 5.1 Nexus image and flash the system image to your Nexus device.

If you have not had a chance to update your app to material design, or explore how your app might work on Android Wear, Android TV, or even Android Auto, now is a good time to get started with the Android 5.1 SDK update.

Google Play services 7.0 - Places Everyone

Location Settings Dialog

While the FusedLocationProviderApi combines multiple sensors to give you the optimal location, the accuracy of the location your app receives still depends greatly on what settings are enabled on the device (e.g. GPS, wifi, airplane mode, etc). In Google Play services 7.0, we’re introducing a standard mechanism to check that the necessary location settings are enabled for a given LocationRequest to succeed. If there are possible improvements, you can display a one touch control for the user to change their settings without leaving your app.

This API provides a great opportunity to make for a much better user experience, particularly if location information is critical to the user experience of your app such as was the case with Google Maps when they integrated the Location Settings dialog and saw a dramatic increase in the number of users in a good location state.

Places API

Location can be so much more than a latitude and longitude: the new Places API makes it easy to get details from Google’s database of places and businesses. The built-in place picker makes it easy for the user to pick their current place and provides all the relevant place details including name, address, phone number, website, and more.

If you prefer to provide your own UI, the getCurrentPlace() API returns places directly around the user’s current location. Autocomplete predictions are also provided to allow a low latency search experience directly within your app.
You can also manually add places with the addPlace() API and report that the user is at a particular place, ensuring that even the most explorative users can input and share their favorite new places.

The Places API will also be available cross-platform: in a few days, you’ll be able to apply for the Places API for iOS beta program to ensure a great and consistent user experience across mobile platforms.

Google Fit

Google Fit makes building fitness apps easier with fitness specific APIs on retrieving sensor data like current location and speed, collecting and storing activity data in Google Fit’s open platform, and automatically aggregating that data into a single view of the user’s fitness data.
In Google Play services 7.0, the previous Fitness.API that you passed into your GoogleApiClient has now been replaced with a number of APIs, matching the high level set of Google Fit Android APIs:

• SENSORS_API to access raw sensor data via SensorsApi
• RECORDING_API to record data via RecordingApi
• HISTORY_API for inserting, deleting, or reading data via HistoryApi
• SESSIONS_API for managing sessions via SessionsApi
• BLE_API to interact with Bluetooth Low Energy devices via BleApi
• CONFIG_API to access custom data types and settings for Google Fit via ConfigApi

This change significantly reduces the memory requirement for Google Fit enabled apps running in the background. Like always, apps built on previous versions of Google Play services will continue to work, but we strongly suggest you rebuild your Google Fit enabled apps to take advantage of this change.

New Tools to Supercharge Your Games on Google Play

Everyone has a gaming-ready device in their pocket today. In fact, of the one billion Android users in more than 190 countries, three out of four of them are gamers. This allows game developers to reach a global audience and build a successful business. Over the past year, we paid out more than $7 billion to developers distributing apps and games on Google Play.

At our Developer Day during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place this week, we announced a set of new features for Google Play Games and AdMob to power great gaming. Rolling out over the next few weeks, these launches can help you better measure and monetize your games.

Better measure and adapt to player needs

“Player Analytics has helped me hone in on BombSquad’s shortcomings, right the ship, and get to a point where I can financially justify making the games I want to make.”Eric Froemling, BombSquad developer

Google Play Games is a set of services that help game developers reach and engage their audience. To further that effort, we’re introducing Player Analytics, giving developers access to powerful analytics reports to better measure overall business success and understand in-game player behavior. Launching in the next few weeks in the Google Play Developer Console, the new tool will give indie developers and big studios better insight into how their players are progressing, spending, and churning; access to critical metrics like ARPPU and sessions per user; and assistance setting daily revenue targets.

BombSquad, created by a one-person game studio in San Francisco, was able to more than double its revenue per user on Google Play after implementing design changes informed during beta testing Player Analytics.

Optimizing ads to earn the most revenue

After optimizing your game for performance, it’s important to build a smarter monetization experience tailored to each user. That’s why we’re announcing three important updates to the AdMob platform:

• Native Ads: Currently available as a limited beta, participating game developers will be able to show ads in their app from Google advertisers, and then customize them so that users see ads that match the visual design of the game. Atari is looking to innovate on its games, like RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, and more effectively engage users with this new feature.
• In-App Purchase House Ads Beta: Game developers will be able to smartly grow their in-app purchase revenue for free. AdMob can now predict which users are more likely to spend on in-app purchases, and developers will be able to show these users customized text or display ads promoting items for sale. Currently in beta, this feature will be coming to all AdMob accounts in the next few weeks.
• Audience Builder: A powerful tool that enables game developers to create lists of audiences based on how they use their game. They will be able to create customized experiences for users, and ultimately grow their app revenue.

"Atari creates great game experiences for our broad audience. We're happy to be partnering with Google and be the first games company to take part in the native ads beta and help monetize games in a way that enhances our users' experience."Todd Shallbetter, Chief Operating Officer, AtariNew game experiences powered by Google

Last year, we launched Android TV as a way to bring Android into the living room, optimizing games for the big screen. The OEM ecosystem is growing with announced SmartTVs and micro-consoles from partners like Sony, TPVision/Philips and Razer.

To make gaming even more dynamic on Android TV, we’re launching the Nearby Connections API with the upcoming update of Google Play services. With this new protocol, 

games can seamlessly connect smartphones and tablets as second-screen controls to the game running on your TV. Beach Buggy Racing is a fun and competitive multiplayer racing game on Android TV that plans to use Nearby Connections in their summer release, and we are looking forward to more living room multiplayer games taking advantage of mobile devices as second screen controls.

At Google I/O last June, we also unveiled Google Cardboard with the goal of making virtual reality (VR) accessible to everyone. With Cardboard, we are giving game developers more opportunities to build unique and immersive experiences from nothing more than a piece of cardboard and your smartphone. The Cardboard SDKs for Android and Unity enable you to easily build VR apps or adapt your existing app for VR.

Check us out at GDC

Visit us at the Google booth #502 on the Expo floor to get hands on experience with Project Tango, Niantic Labs and Cardboard starting on Wednesday, March 4. Our teams from AdMob, AdWords, Analytics, Cloud Platform and Firebase will also be available to answer any of your product questions.

For more information on what we’re doing at GDC, please visit g.co/dev/gdc2015.