Google Play 2023 priorities include more dev support and web3 policies

Google today detailed its “key 2023 initiatives” for the Play Store and Android. Meanwhile, the company is hosting #TheAndroidShow on Thursday with a focus on large screens, foldables, and Jetpack Compose.

Tweet us your burning Compose layouts and modifiers questions using #AskAndroid. We’ve assembled a team of experts ready to answer your questions live!

10 a.m. PT on March 9

Of note is how Google has “increasingly heard from developers who want to introduce additional web3 components, including the tokenization of digital assets as NFTs, into their apps and games.”

With any new technology, we must balance innovation with our responsibility to protect users, which is why we’ve begun conversations with developer partners to assess how potential policy changes could responsibly support these opportunities

The Play Store is already home to blockchain-related apps, and Google will “have more to share in the coming months.”

To improve developer support, Google this year launched the Play Developer Community as a forum. Additionally:

We’re also expanding our pilot programs like the Google Play Developer Helpline pilot, which provides direct policy phone support. Today, we’ve expanded the pilot to nearly 60,000 in 26 countries (16,000 more developers and 9 more countries since November). We’ve completed nearly 5,000 policy support sessions with developers and with a satisfaction score of 90%.

On the privacy front, Google is going to “continue improving Google Play’s Data safety section with new features and policies that aim to give people more clarity and control around deletion practices.” Developers are encouraged to “only collect and use data that’s required for their apps to function and provide quality user experiences,” with new permissions and policy requirements coming this year. Android 14 and Google Play policy updates are also coming soon, while Privacy Sandbox Beta testing was highlighted.

For families, there will be “improved ways for Google Play to help families discover great apps and more policy updates to protect kids’ safety.” Recently, the Play Store on Android tablets and Chromebooks elevated the Kids tab to the bottom bar/navigation rail.

Developers will benefit from “highly-requested feature updates to integrity products and expanded access to automatic integrity protection,” like the Play Integrity API. Google will also provide “more information about sensitive permissions an SDK may use and whether specific SDK versions may violate Google Play policy.” This follows work on the Google Play SDK Index, which has “insights and usage data for over 100 of the most popular commercial SDKs on Google Play.”