Hey AndroidDev community,

I got play store cards and i wanted to get an developer account with the play store cards is that possible.

Floris.

I built a Gradle plugin for generating clean-architecture Android skeleton code so AI tools don’t have to waste tokens on boilerplate.

The plugin generates the base project structure, build-logic, ui, utils, nav, archtest, baseline profile setup, optional telemetry, and TOML-driven feature modules. My goal is to let AI focus only on the app-specific behavior after the generic structure exists.

Article: https://medium.com/@sarim.mehdi.550/stop-using-ai-to-generate-boilerplate-android-code-f7458006ea0a
Repo: https://github.com/sarimmehdi/clean-android-skeleton-gradle-plugin

Curious if this matches how other Android devs are using AI in real projects.

UI have a problem in android studio layout editorIt's very very slow and lag I give him a 6 giga ram and the problem still plays any solution

Hope this helps other indie devs facing my same issue.

Google announced that Firebase Remote Config gets usage based pricing from September 1st.

To be clear first, because it sounds worse than it is: it stays free up to 100,000 fetches a day, on both Spark and Blaze. Above that it is $0.06 per 10,000 requests. A/B Testing, Rollouts and Personalization stay free. And cached values do not count, only real calls to the server.

So for most small apps nothing changes at all.

But some of mine are above that line, and the part that bothers me is not really the money. It is this: if you are on the free Spark plan and you cross 100k fetches a day, you get 30 days of grace, and after that everything over the limit gets throttled. Your clients stop getting updated configs. To avoid it you attach a billing account and move to Blaze. I do not want pay as you go billing on apps that have been free to run for years. That is the whole problem for me.

Then I remembered I already had a free replacement installed. And I think a lot of you do too.

RevenueCat Offering Metadata.

If you use RevenueCat for subscriptions, and most of us do, you can attach a JSON object to an Offering. Freeform, nested objects, proper data types, whatever shape you need. You read it straight off the Offering from the SDK.

That is a remote config. And if you already use RevenueCat, it costs you nothing extra.

You set it in Project Settings, then Product catalog, then Offerings, then Configure metadata, and you paste valid JSON.

I have been using it in some apps for a while and I actually prefer it to Remote Config, for two reasons.

It refreshes faster. Remote Config has a minimum fetch interval and caching, so a change can take hours to reach people, and sometimes I waited most of a day before every client had the new value. With Metadata the values come down with the offerings, so a change lands almost immediately.

And fewer caching surprises. I do not get the "I changed the value, why is it still the old one" moment anymore.

Where it does not replace Remote Config.

I am not going to pretend it is a drop in replacement, because it is not, and you would find this out on day two anyway.

The JSON has a 4,000 character limit. That is fine for flags, strings, paywall config. It is not enough for a big config blob.

It hangs off Offerings, so it is built around what you sell, not around general app config. If your config has nothing to do with monetization, it is a slightly strange home for it.

And you do not get Remote Config's conditions and percentage rollouts the same way. RevenueCat has Experiments and targeting but it is a different model, so check it fits before you move anything.

For flags, paywall copy, image URLs, kill switches, and most of what I actually used Remote Config for, it covers it.

If you already use RevenueCat this costs you nothing and takes about ten minutes to try on one value.

I am not sponsored or affiliated in any way with RevenueCat. I build in public, you can check my social media link in my profile. I only suggested RevenueCat because this is the solution that I know for this problem and because it's one of my favourite tools.

A few days ago I wrote about them here on reddit and other devs liked my tech stack. Got 21k views, 41 upvotes and 23 comments so far. You might find these useful too. Here it is if you missed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/appledevelopers/s/RM0fuetEMv

If you published in every country, your prices outside your own are probably not what you think. The stores do not localize your base price, they convert it and add local tax. Converted is not localized: ten dollars of spending power in the US is not ten dollars in Brazil or India, so the converted price often ends up two or three times too expensive for what people there can actually pay.

The big apps sorted this out years ago. Spotify, Netflix, Duolingo, Flo and Headspace all price by region, none of them use one flat global price. Google's Play team even gave a talk about it at Playtime in 2019.

I fixed my pricing in 2 minutes with PricePush. Full disclosure, it is mine. It sets purchasing power prices for every country and pushes them to both stores, and it is free for one app so you can see your own numbers before changing anything.

You can also do it by hand in both consoles. It is free and it works, it is just slow. That is how I did it for years, which is why I built the thing.

Best of luck with your own apps!

Google Play Developer Program Policy Update - 16-07-2026

DEVELOPER UPDATE

Hello Google Play Developer,

As part of our commitment to maintaining security and transparency on Google Play, we’re rolling out our latest round of policy updates.

We highly recommend reviewing the summary below to determine which sections apply to your apps. More details about this announcement can be found in our Policy Center.

Updated policies

You'll have at least 30 days from today to update your app to comply with the policy changes below. See our Policy Deadlines for specific timelines.

• Our Age-Restricted Content and Functionality and Child Safety Standards policies have new requirements and restrictions for anonymous chat and random chat apps. Our Families Policy Requirements policy also prohibits anonymous chat apps from targeting children.

• For apps that use SMS and Call Log Permissions, verifying user accounts via a phone call is no longer an approved use case for the READ_CALL_LOG permission. Use additional alternative APIs like the Digital Credentials API or the SMS Retriever API.

• To meet Android developer verification and Play Console requirements, you must register your Play apps in Play Console. While 99% of apps on Play were registered automatically, you should check your Android Developer Verification page in Play Console and register any remaining apps to avoid global removal from Google Play and ensure a seamless user installation experience. You can also use Play Console to register apps distributed outside of Google Play, ensuring they remain installable on certified Android devices.

Clarifications

Additionally, we've added clarifications to some of our existing policies. Our enforcement standards and practices remain the same.

• The Personal Loans policy requirements for Earned Wage Access (EWA) apps ensures that EWA services maintain the same high standards for transparency and user privacy protections as other financial service apps.

• Our User Data requirements also apply to third-party AI integrations, including limited use, disclosure and consent.

• In our Content Ratings policy we’re clarifying that we don’t allow unrated apps on Google Play.

• We're providing more guidance around precise and approximate locations disclosures in the Play Data safety section.

Reminders and additional information

• All apps must meet the annual target level API requirements by August 31, 2026 to provide users a safe experience.

• To help you catch potential issues before you submit your app for review, we've launched a new Android skill to help you with Play Policies. It’s an open-source tool to help your preferred AI assistant evaluate your code right inside your IDE or CLI. Read more.

• We've introduced a standardized numbering system across some policies for better tracking and clarity. You'll see these starting today, with more being updated over time.

I'm a new developer struggling with the Google Play 14-day closed testing requirement. I hired a testing service to help meet the 12-tester minimum. Currently, it shows 12 testers opted-in, but my stats only show 10 installs after 8 days.

​Has anyone experienced this discrepancy before? Should I be worried about rejection, or is this just standard data lag? Any advice on how to handle this with the service provider would be appreciated.

I'm a software engineer with an ML background, and I'm looking for someone who enjoys building weird, experimental things just to see what we can learn.

Lately I've been exploring a question around attention, human behavior, and smartphones. I don't have a startup pitch or a polished business plan. I just think it's an interesting technical and design problem worth experimenting with.

The idea is to build an Android prototype that can observe how we actually use our own phones—for example:

* Which apps we open and in what sequence. * How sessions begin and end. * App switching patterns. * Notification interactions. * Potentially even button presses or UI interactions (using Android services where appropriate), if needed for experimentation.

The goal isn't to build spyware or monitor other people. We'd only use it on our own devices to understand whether it's even possible to infer patterns of intentional vs. unintentional phone use.

I'm mainly looking for someone who is interested in learning together. We'll probably explore Android internals, system APIs, launchers, accessibility services, on-device data collection, and maybe some lightweight ML later.

About me:

* Software + ML engineer. * Enjoy working at the intersection of engineering, psychology, and product design. * More interested in understanding human behavior than chasing engagement metrics.

About you:

* Comfortable with Android development (Kotlin preferred). * Curious about how Android works under the hood. * Open to experimenting, breaking things, and learning. * Delhi/NCR preferred so we can occasionally meet and build together.

Even if this never becomes a company, I think building something like this would teach us a lot about Android systems, behavioral data, human-computer interaction, and rapid MVP development.

If this sounds like the kind of side project you'd genuinely enjoy, send me a DM and tell me a little about what you've built or what interests you.

Hi,

Is it possible to debug ART locally with DEX file and native code without start emulator?

Right now I set up an emulator and use gdb remote to connect which is inconvenient. :(

Thank you!

I created this library after getting tired of adding full-featured crash reporting tools to projects where I only needed basic crash information.

The library catches uncaught exceptions, extracts the stack trace, and makes it easy to log or process crashes however you want.

It's open source, and feedback or contributions are always welcome.

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/abbas-esfandiair/CrashReporterLibrary

I'm preparing the first multilingual update for my Android utility app.

It is a privacy-focused app which lets you safely hand your phone to someone to show photos, videos, audio, or PDF documents while keeping everything else on the device secure.

Which languages would you add first after English, and why?

Mock tests and interviews are now live at AndroidDevKit.com/tests.

These are timed tests to help you gauge how well you're prepared for your next android dev interview. Like always, this is completely free and there's no need to share any of your personal information.

People often just say this to get users, but I am extremely passionate about this site (needed it for my own interview prep lol) and I'm looking for actual feedback.

Does an app collect information after installation OR during the first use (or launch)?

I ask because I was thinking of installing apps then moving them to a work profile that is not linked to a Google account or have anything else saved such as contacts or messages.

I posted about AndroidDevKit on r/androiddev last weekend - it gained some traction - with both positive and negative feedback. It is an open source interview prep site made specifically for Android developers.

Website: https://androiddevkit.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/vishnusreddy/androiddevkit

I have been working on it since that post, and I just released a fairly big update. Thanks to the feedback from some kind ppl from reddit and LinkedIn.

Here is what I added:

• A progress tracker. You can mark questions as studied and see your progress for each topic.
• Saved questions. You can bookmark questions and filter the question bank to only show the ones you want to revisit.
• Mock tests. You can choose a topic, question type, difficulty, and time limit. The test can include MCQs, written answers, or both.
• Anonymous contributions. You can submit questions, corrections, topics, articles, and interview experiences without needing a GitHub account. Everything is reviewed before it is published.

Progress, bookmarks, and test results are stored in your browser. There is no account or sync, so clearing your browser data will also clear them.

The site is still completely free. There is no need to login, and no paywall. The source code is public as well.

I would love some honest feedback from Android developers:

• Does the mock test feel useful?
• Is the progress tracker showing the information you care about?
• What topics or questions should I add next?
• If you have interviewed recently, what kinds of Android rounds or questions did you get?

I am preparing for my own job switch too, so working on this has been part of my preparation. I hope it is useful for other people going through the same thing.

Hello fellow engineers,
Is there a community/channel on Reddit or discord for android engineers helping each other out for interview preparation!?

Peer to peer android interviews.
I am unable to get a valuable (human like) feedback with these AI mock interview platforms.

Would appreciate if someone can point out to a group helping each other. Or if there are enough people who are looking for something similar, we can help each other out.

I am facing an issue with my Google Play Developer account verification. My identity verification has been rejected multiple times, even after submitting valid government-issued documents.

I have already tried submitting my Aadhaar Card, PAN Card, and recent bank statement, but the verification is still not successful. I am not sure which exact document format or combination is required to complete the verification successfully.

Could someone please guide me on what documents are accepted for Indian Google Play Developer identity verification and what format should be uploaded? I want to understand whether Aadhaar Card, PAN Card, bank statement, or any other specific document is required.

Any guidance from someone who has successfully completed this verification would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Recently I had a problem in my app where after changing some options on the Settings screen and then returning to the Home screen I realized it seems that said option has not changed.

Let's assume we have an option for haptic feedback in the app (clicks, scrolls, etc) that can be changed in the Settings.

So of course the problem was that I'm using \`init\` block and Hilt to initialize my VMs.

I'm aware that using \`init\` was frowned upon but I would say what the hell, I don't see any performance or even huge architectural issues with it.

Reading some articles I'm still not convinced why it's a big no no since to me some pros don't justify cons especially when proposed solutions are a bit silly, expiring subscribers after 5 seconds? (\`SharingStarted\` shenanigans) What a sick joke! Why 5? Why not 10 or even a 6 million?

BTW recreating ViewModels after any navigation seems dumb to me, a part of idea behind ViewModels is preserving data across changes.

I consider changes like activity being paused, resumed; a concern of UI rather than ViewModel, a VM should provide ways to refresh data based on UI concerns but not actively monitoring and referencing them so implementing a built-in mechanism for VM to actively refresh data independently is wrong, all I'm saying that they're UI events.

If race conditions are a concern I don't see whether loading data on \`init\` or using cold flows change anything, if any operation is blocking in nature it doesn't matter how you run it as long as you separate UI with your logic, race conditions exists or not should not be any of concern for Composables as long as you have a well defined UI.

Fundamentally I'm against making things complex, I see a simple problem, if the best solution exists is a complex one, I rather stick with that problem because I don't want to create more problems by implementing a half-ass complex solution to minisculely improve the state of affairs.

But enough of me ranting, I accept its harmfulness for now. I was reading those articles but I couldn't wrap my head around how to implement them sanely without overcomplicating everything. I'll provide links.

A simple VM in my app that I intend to change.

https://github.com/yamin8000/freeDictionaryApp/blob/master/feature\\_about/src/main/kotlin/io/github/yamin8000/owl/feature\\_about/ui/AboutViewModel.kt

Some articles regarding the issue

https://funkymuse.dev/posts/properly-load-data/

https://pavelkorolev.xyz/blog/2024-09-30-viewmodel-initialization/

Hey r/startups —

I'm an india developer from India and I'm trying to validate an idea before I build it.

The problem I noticed: Google rejected 1.75 million apps in 2025. Most rejections happen because of simple, avoidable mistakes in the store listing — not the code. Things like:

- Privacy policy URL is broken or incomplete

- App description has a "misleading" phrase Google doesn't allow

- Wrong content rating selected

- Permissions list has 2-3 extras that trigger a flag

- Data Safety form doesn't match what the app actually does

Google has a tool called "Checks" but it only scans your APK (the code). Nothing checks your store listing TEXT before submission.

My idea: a simple web tool. You paste your description, title, permissions, and privacy policy URL → it scans everything and gives you a red/amber/green report with exact fixes.

Before I spend 2 months building this I want to ask:

**Is this a real problem or am I overthinking it?**

If you've ever submitted an app to Google Play:

- Did you get rejected? For what reason?

- Would you have used a free pre-checker tool?

- Would you pay $9/month for unlimited checks?

Tell me I'm wrong if you think so. I'd rather hear it now. 🙏

I am developing an Android application using the View/XML approach and need to prevent screenshots and screen recordings. To achieve this, I have enabled FLAG_SECURE using:

window?.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SECURE)

window?.setFlags(
    WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SECURE,
    WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SECURE
)

This works as expected on most devices, where screenshots and screen recordings are blocked successfully.

However, I have observed different behavior on Google Pixel devices (tested on Pixel 4 and Pixel 9). When a video is played in fullscreen mode using JW Player, users are still able to capture the screen, suggesting that FLAG_SECURE is not being enforced for the fullscreen video view.

Am I missing any additional configuration or implementation step for fullscreen video with JW Player?

Hello Tester Friends,

I developed an Islamic app called AdhanTime that helps Muslims in their daily worship. The app includes prayer times, Qibla direction, Holy Quran, Duas, Dhikr, Islamic reminders, and other useful features for everyday Islamic practice.

I have started the Closed Testing track on Google Play and I am looking for testers who can help me complete the 14-day testing requirement. I will gladly test your app back as well.

The app is now available for testing.

Here are the links:

Group:
https://groups.google.com/g/adhantime-test/about

App Install:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aistudio.adhantime.mzpqld

Thank you very much for your support and feedback.

Best regards,
Mirmoh

Hey everyone 👋

​

I'm currently building my first Android app and have started thinking about marketing and user acquisition before launch.

​

So I'd love to hear from indie developers who have actually launched apps.

​

1. What marketing channels worked best for your first app?

​

1. How did you get your first 100 users?

​

1. Any lessons or mistakes you wish you knew before launching?

​

One thing I've heard several times is that posting an app in developer communities often doesn't work very well because the audience consists mostly of other developers rather than actual consumers who would use the product. That makes sense to me, so I'm also wondering:

​

Where do you find communities of potential users rather than communities of builders?

​

For example, are there any consumer-focused forums, niche communities, subreddits, Facebook groups, Discord servers, or other channels that you've successfully used to get real users for your apps?

​

I'm a solo developer and this is my first launch, so any advice, resources, or personal experiences would be hugely appreciated.

​

Thanks in advance 🙏

I am going to build my application before publishing and waiting for user to download how to create user base I already failed in building and published no one download so it burried in play store but I try all organic way reddit insta all so I don't want to repeat the same think so I am asking all you any great advise really work

I built a way to stream analog audio to Google Home speaker groups (low latency)

I ran into a pretty specific problem and couldn’t find a clean solution for it.

I wanted to stream analog audio (mainly a turntable) to Google Cast speakers / speaker groups.

Surprisingly, there’s almost no hardware that handles this properly — especially when it comes to groups.

So I ended up building a small Android app that:

• Takes analog audio (e.g. turntable or mixer) via a USB audio interface
• Encodes it in real-time
• Streams it locally over HLS
• Casts it to Google Home / Nest speakers (including groups)

After some trial and error:

• Direct AAC → ~30s delay on Cast
• Switching to HLS → ~4–6s stable latency

After spending some time listening and comparing, I ended up tweaking the bass and treble a bit for the stream — some records just need that to sound right.

I kept it simple with a 5-step adjustment (−2 to +2), similar to what you'd find on classic gear.

Everything runs locally (no cloud involved).

I’m mainly curious:

• Has anyone here tried something similar?
• Is there hardware I somehow missed that already does this well?
• Would this actually be useful in a real setup?

Not trying to sell anything — just surprised this gap still exists.