Publish to the Google Play Store

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In June 2020, Google introduced the new Google Play Console. And in November of the same year, it began to discontinue the old Play Console. Now, all developers use the new Play Console which you can access using play.google.com/console. The new Google Play Console is built on Google material which is UI design system for all the Google branded products. Hence, it is responsive so you can use it across your devices. The responsive design also supports right to left languages, including Arabic, Farsi, etcetera. The new updated navigation makes it easier to find all the tools for your job. The navigation groups related features based on what you want to achieve. Release, grow, quality, monetize, and policy, are now main groups and you see sub items under each of this. The new console inbox shows you key messages sent to you from Google Play. Here you can find information and reminders about policy updates, new features that Google Play team has released, and any new issues that Play team has found in your apps or accounts. You can add filters to your messages and also move the messages to archive once you have read them or acted upon them. The new Google Play Console include features, insights, and data to help every member of your team like engineers, teams, QAs, marketing managers, and executives. There is a full user search and bulk edit capabilities to make managing your teams easier. The new team member management area is updated with better more granular controls. The new permission names and descriptions are clearer so you can understand what you are and aren't allowing people to do. There is a clearer differentiation between global and app level permissions. You can use manage publishing to control exactly when changes to your app are published. When manage publishing is switched on, you can see what changes you submit are in review, and what changes are ready for publishing on the publishing overview page. Manage publishing also helps you understand all the changes that have been submitted across your releases, total listings, etcetera. The new release overview now gives you a snapshot of all your tracks. This helps you see the summary about your latest release to internal closed and open testing tracks, as well as your production track. You can also filter releases by track, version code, country or region, and last updated. Navigation for release now contains separate pages for different testing tracks like internal testing, open or closed testing, and production. This makes it easier for your team to understand the status of your app's tracks at a glance so they can release with confidence. Once your app is in production, release dashboard gives you most up to date metrics about your releases for production. This release dashboard is now moved to production track to manage rollout and check performance of your release. Management of countries, regions, where your app is released is available right on this production track page. Device catalog is redesigned. View all the devices that your app is available on and those that you are excluding. Search and filter the entire catalog of Android devices and save your results to easily reference later. View detailed pre device information including CPU, RAM, form factor, and system features. In advanced settings, quickly unpublish or publish an existing app using app availability. Also manage availability of your app on different Android devices and platforms using release types. There are now more ways to get the answers you need even faster. The new policy status and app content sections make it easier for you to provide information Google Play needs. You can now use these sections to confirm that your apps are compliant with the policies. And using the policy status, you can and quickly check if there is an issue that needs to be addressed. There are tons of changes in new Google Play Console and you've seen many of them in this episode. However, the list is still long and there are educational pages and goals created by Google Play team to learn more. This is a course available on Google Play Academy for Google Play Console. You can listen to Google Play Console webinars as well. You can refer to educational pages, click on learn more under what's new in Google Play. You can either watch videos or click read blog. This blog highlights what's announced in Android Dev Summit 2021. It includes new features that Google Play team has been building. Recently, team announced that starting 1st January, 2022, they are decreasing the service fee for all subscription on Google Play from 30% to 15%. Similar reduction was announced for apps and inner products sold through Google Play starting 1st July, 2021 for first 1 million USD of earnings each year. The upcoming data safety section in Play Store which let users know what type of data your app collects and shares, and how the data is used. Starting October 2021, developers can start declaring information in Google Play Console. Users will see the new data safety section in the Play Store starting Feb 2022. Developers will have time until April 2022 for their apps to have this section completed and approved. It is easier for you to be alerted to and fix new issues with improvements to Android vitals. Team recently launched a new tool in Play Console called reach and devices to help you understand which features or fixes would help you reach more users on Google Play. One of the most important ways users assess your app is by checking your ratings and reviews. Starting November 2021, users on phone will start to see ratings specific to their registered country. In early 2022, users will see ratings specific to the device they are on. You can preview your location specific and device specific ratings in Play Console now. And Google Play team encourages you to check them out so that you have time to make any required app quality improvements before new ratings go into effect in the Play Store. Billing library version three, which was announced in June 2020, includes new ways for users to pay subscription promotion capabilities, etcetera. Starting November 2021, all updates to existing apps must use billing library version three on newer. A new feature call in-app messaging will be available in next billing library release. This new API that can detect whether a subscription user is in payment decline and show a helpful message right in your app so the user can immediately fix the payment without leaving the app to go to the Play Store. There are updates for Play Game Services in this area. Google Play team announced the launch of the Google Play Store listing certificate. To get certified, app developers and marketers can take online training that will help you best tell your app or game story on Google play. After the training, take the exam to get an industry recognized certificate. You will find the links for all the three open tabs in the resources for this episode. Time now for the next step. Best practices for Google Play Store listing in next episode. Exciting, isn't it?