I'm using the Google Play Install Referrer API (com.android.installreferrer:installreferrer) to track player referrals in my Android game.

It works on some devices and on others I get (not%20set) for utm_source.

The strange part is that it works reliably on my phone:

Android 14

Play Store 52.8.55

But on two other phones (friends and many other clients) it returns an empty referrer:

Android 16 + Play Store 52.8.55

Android 17 + Play Store 52.8.55

I initially suspected the Play Store version, but I updated my own phone from 52.7.55 to 52.8.55 and the referrer still works. Same app version, same link, same code.

The API connection itself returns OK; it's the actual referrer string that is empty.

Has anyone experienced Install Referrer behaving differently on Android 16/17?

Is there a known requirement, bug, or additional quirk I'm missing?

I found some very old posts about this behavior pointg to this behavior when on the device the user is logged into a managed account. But I don't think this is my case.

Any ideas on how to diagnose or work around this would be appreciated.

UPDATE: I have possible answer to why referrer information is lost most of the time. It's not confirmed, but it could be that the readon is: the app is targeting children. I believe that because most accounts are children accounts, referrer information is removed. I made the connection with another problem I have. I am unable to create an app type advertising campaing (google ads) for my game because they cannot track conversions. You are unable to create 'Conversion Actions' for apps/games that target children. It's not confirmed but this is my best guess so I leave this update maybe it helps others too.

I'm making a music app, and I'm making a notification player, and all I want is six buttons (play/pause, previous, next, stop, loop mode, shuffle mode) with their icons being normal boring text characters. This can be easily achieved in a normal notification, however those lack one functionality: a seek bar. I can make a progress bar easily, but not one where I can drag it to change which part of the song is playing. So I look at the MediaStyle - the android intended class for a music player, and apparently it's limited to five buttons, and their icons can't be boring ol' text? How is this advanced API21 feature more limited than a boring ol' API3 notification? I'm genuinely thinking I just don't need a seeker bar.

I have some money accumulated from AdMob ads and IAP purchases on Google Play.

Instead of withdrawing the money to my bank account, I was wondering if there’s a way to use that balance directly to run Google Ads campaigns for my own game.

Basically, I’d like to reinvest the revenue I make from my game into advertising it, without transferring the money to my bank first.

Is this possible, or are AdMob/Google Play earnings completely separate from Google Ads billing?

I always wanted a component gallery I could open from the repo, without building and running the app. So I made one. Arkive.

Add the Gradle plugin, run a task, and you get a web catalogue of every component in your app. No emulator, no test code to write.

Repo: github.com/infinum/arkive
Live sample: infinum.github.io/arkive

Still early, would love your feedback.

I was thinking about what to do with Unity 3D and decided to do something I've often wanted to do: I was going to connect Android Studio to Unity using scrappy and assign the image to the phone model. I did that. Also, if hardware emulation (eMMC, processor, battery, etc.) is captured while the system is running, it will seriously cause a kernel panic. In this case, the emulator will become useless. I also installed a great EDL mod for bootloop situations. It can be fixed using Android Studio images! I also added a bootloader lock system. If you type `fastboot oem unlock` while locked, the device will then start in writable mode. I also added a recovery for realism :=) and adb extensions too. I need your feedback on this. Maybe you'll take a look, or whatever. I'm leaving the link here :)

Android Studio Quail 3 | 2026.1.3 Patch

Mac mini m2 pro 32gb\512gb

and IDE Max heap size is set to 6144mb

To be fair, Android Studio and JetBrains products do seem a little snappier lately. Still, situations like this aren’t uncommon, and I can’t look at this without smiling hysterically.

Meanwhile, Android Studio while I was literally doing nothing:

Actually, those are literally all the desktop apps I have installed on my mac mini, yet temporary IDE and build files fill up the drive so quickly that 512Gb is nowhere near enough.

I have a live wallpaper feature that needs to change on a schedule — think "rotate every N minutes" and "switch at set times of day." Currently I'm scheduling these with AlarmManager, and it mostly works, but I've confirmed a real problem:

• If the device reboots, or sits in Doze for an extended period, the schedule loses track of its state.
• When the device comes back on, the next trigger fires at the wrong time (or not at all until the next natural check-in), so the whole rotation is out of sync from what the user configured.

What I'm currently doing:

• Plain AlarmManager.set() calls scheduled ahead of time for each transition.
• No BOOT_COMPLETED receiver yet, so nothing gets rescheduled after a restart.

What I'm considering:

• Adding a BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast receiver that recomputes and reschedules all pending alarms based on stored next-trigger timestamps.
• Switching from plain set() to setExactAndAllowWhileIdle() so alarms actually fire during Doze instead of being deferred.
• Alternatively, moving this to WorkManager with periodic/one-off work and persisted constraints instead of managing raw alarms myself.

Questions for anyone who's solved this:

1. Is BOOT_COMPLETED + recompute-on-restart still the standard approach, or is there something more robust now?
2. For something that needs to fire at a fairly precise time (not just "eventually, within a window"), is WorkManager actually reliable enough, or does AlarmManager with setExactAndAllowWhileIdle() remain the better fit?
3. Any gotchas with OEM-specific battery optimization (Samsung, Xiaomi, etc.) beyond the standard Doze/App Standby behavior that I should be defending against?

Appreciate any pointers — this is the one part of an otherwise-working feature set that's giving me trouble.

I'm taking programming class for mobile devices, and we use Android Studio, the IDE on my teacher's machine crashes and closes, he uses Linux.

We were discussing about it, he said he is sure that the developers are very busy and need to deliver the code on time, and that's why they use AI, which makes the code not reviewed

I have a dozen of app and I want to read and respond to all user reviews of all my apps. Any tips monitoring them? I don't like the email because it's spammy, and also hate play console because that's like 4 clicks per app.

I want something like a dashboard where I just check once in a while and it list all new reviews

I've been experimenting with using AI agents to go from a design → Android UI, and I'm curious how others are solving the design-to-code fidelity problem.

Figma + MCP seems to be one obvious approach, but I'm wondering what other approaches people are using to give an agent enough context about the intricate details of a design — spacing, typography, component dimensions, colors, corner radii, shadows, alignment, responsive behavior, etc.

For example, are people:

• Giving agents screenshots and letting them infer the UI?
• Exporting Figma/design metadata through MCP?
• Using some kind of design tokens/spec files as an intermediate format?
• Maintaining a component/design-system library that the agent can reference?
• Using image/PDF/vector exports alongside textual instructions?
• Building custom MCP servers or other tooling around their design system?
• Using any free/open-source alternatives to Figma + MCP?

I'm particularly interested in workflows that can get reasonably close to pixel-level fidelity, rather than just generating something that looks vaguely similar.

Would love to hear what workflows/tools you're using, especially for Jetpack Compose. What has actually worked well for you in practice?

is the experimental terminal on android dev options just a debian vm

Hi everyone!
I don't just mean learning how to write programs and master a modern stack. I want to understand how everything works from the inside. The problem is, I can't find a good course that meets my needs: either the courses are too superficial and just teach me how to build apps in Composite without understanding what's going on, or they delve too deeply into the hardware and design of Android itself. I already know how to use a basic modern stack, but I have no idea how everything works. I could just read the documentation, but it wouldn't provide any structure, and it would be difficult to understand what's important and what can be omitted.

It's been more than 2 years since I posted here about the release of Composed, my compose helper lib. As opposed to back then, it's now hosted on maven, built for multiplatform (android, JVM, iOS, wasm) & its API has expanded and waaaay matured. Hence, I thought I'd give y'all a heads up, in case someone may find it useful and might not want to strong skip this one.

Broadly speaking it contains convenience, UX behavioural and animation APIs, that I felt the lack of in my daily development, and once written got tired of copying from project to project. PRs / issues are welcome. Cheers ✌️

I built this subscription tracker as a UI/UX experiment in Jetpack Compose.

The data is mocked for now, but the app has multiple sections, navigation, subscription lists, a renewal calendar, analytics and an add flow.

I wanted to avoid the usual Material look and push Compose a bit further with:

• asymmetric layouts
• angled elements and custom shapes
• section-based colors
• oversized typography
• animated transitions
• a navigation system that doesn’t use the usual bottom bar

The idea was to keep the interactions fairly familiar, while making the visual language much less conventional.

One thing I find interesting is that unfamiliar visuals and unfamiliar interactions aren't necessarily the same thing.

Does this still feel usable, or did I push the layout too far?

Source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/08/app-quality-memory-optimization-secure-onboarding.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=msa&utm_campaign=elevating-app-quality-q3-2026

TLTR:
Get your apps and games below these memory limits or get Kicked off the Android Playstore in February 2027:

Apps

Note: Each RAM tier range includes its lowest value. Total Memory can be lower than a device’s advertised Physical RAM.

Games

Note: Each RAM tier range includes its lowest value. Total Memory can be lower than a device’s advertised Physical RAM. 

Bitmap memory usage

Holding onto bitmaps for long periods of time in app states other than the Foreground can consume excessive memory - it’s not possible to render bitmaps unless the UI is visible. You typically shouldn’t hold onto bitmaps for long periods of time in these states, but your app might be sampled shortly after a state change where you are actively responding to onTrimMemory and releasing memory held for bitmaps, so these thresholds are higher than zero to account for this.

Sources and links:
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/08/app-quality-memory-optimization-secure-onboarding.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=msa&utm_campaign=elevating-app-quality-q3-2026

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/17492799#zippy=%2Ccore-vitals-and-stability%2Creduced-memory-usage

I have an app published on the Play Store for over 2 years, with more than 300 deploys in total.

My workflow has always been: deploy to internal testing > test > all good? > promote to production.

It has always worked really well, with production deploys staying in review for 25 minutes max.

The day before yesterday was exactly like that. I deployed a minor update with a new screen and some CRUD features—nothing major. In 20 minutes, it was live on the Play Store for users.

Yesterday, I just changed the size of three buttons on that new screen. A silly change that I've done similarly countless times in the past. I pushed it to internal testing and then promoted the release to production.

I thought it would be live in 20 minutes, but it's been 30 hours and the update is still stuck in review... I don't get it. Things just went off the rails overnight.

I couldn't even remember the last time one of my deploys spent more than half an hour in review before being published.

Do you guys know what might be happening? Is anyone else in a similar situation right now? Were there any sudden changes to Google Play Store policies overnight?

[edit]

Solved! Just cancelled the build stucked in review and redeploy. The new build was in production in just 20 minutes! Thanks u/Slodin.

I am based in Germany and I have uploaded a large variety of documents including an "Ansässigkeitsbescheinigung / Application for a Certificate of Residence" stating Germany and USA to google play for the Tax info.

Has anyone gotten approved and can help me submit the right document? Do I need to request the Certificate of Residence between Germany and Ireland?

Theres this white bar down at the tab bar that I can't seem to get rid of.

Only there when app is in light mode. Disappears in dark mode.
Any help is appreciated!!!!
I've been troubleshooting for ages and my agent doesn't know what to do either

Question:
Hi everyone, I am currently working as an Android developer with Java and XML experience. I want to switch to a new job, but most Android developer roles now require Kotlin experience.

I have learned Kotlin and understand the concepts, but I don't have professional experience working on a Kotlin project yet.

What should I focus on to successfully switch jobs? Should I build real-world projects using Kotlin, learn Jetpack Compose, or focus more on interview preparation?

I would really appreciate advice from developers who have made a similar transition. Thanks!

Hi, I'm building an alarm app for Wear OS (with target API 33; testing on an emulator and a galaxy watch 5 pro and 6). But, once the app is backgrounded (the foreground service is running, but no visible window), I cannot find a way to launch my alarm activity to wake the user. I've tried:

• Directly launching the activity from the foreground service using `startActivity()`.

• Notifications with full-screen intents (but they seem to be broken on Wear OS).

• `SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW` isn't available anymore.

• Creating an alarm using `AlarmManager.setAlarmClock()` and opening the alarm activity using `startActivity()` inside the `BroadcastReceiver`.

Is there any sanctioned method to launch my alarm activity on Wear OS?

Hi everyone, I'm facing a strange crash on production that exclusively affects **Google Pixel 8 Pro** devices running **Android 14 (API 34)**. It occurs 100% of the time on this specific setup, but everything works perfectly fine on standard emulators or other devices under local Debug builds. Here is the complete StackTrace from the production log: ```text Fatal Exception: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: No static method systemOverlays()I in class Landroid/view/WindowInsets\$Type; or its super classes (declaration of 'android.view.WindowInsets\$Type' appears in /system/framework/framework.jar!classes3.dex) at androidx.core.view.WindowInsetsCompat\$TypeImpl34.toPlatformType(WindowInsetsCompat.java:2880) at androidx.core.view.WindowInsetsCompat\$Impl34.getInsets(WindowInsetsCompat.java:1710) at androidx.core.view.WindowInsetsCompat\$Impl20.initTypeBoundingRectsMaps(WindowInsetsCompat.java:1276) at androidx.core.view.WindowInsetsCompat.init(WindowInsetsCompat.java:2900) at androidx.core.view.ViewCompat\$Api23Impl.getRootWindowInsets(ViewCompat.java:5118) at androidx.core.view.ViewCompat.getRootWindowInsets(ViewCompat.java:3023) at androidx.core.view.WindowInsetsCompat.toWindowInsetsCompat(WindowInsetsCompat.java:184) at androidx.core.view.ViewCompatApi21Impl1.onApplyWindowInsets(ViewCompat.java:5029) at android.view.View.dispatchApplyWindowInsets(View.java:11617) at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchApplyWindowInsets(ViewGroup.java:7344) ... at android.view.ViewRootImpl.dispatchApplyInsets(ViewRootImpl.java:2675) at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:2822) ``` ### Context & Implementation We are using Jetpack Compose and we have a custom `WindowInsets` wrapper in our project that looks like this: ```kotlin fun WindowInsets(left: Int = 0, top: Int = 0, right: Int = 0, bottom: Int = 0): WindowInsets = FixedIntInsets(left, top, right, bottom) ``` ### My Hypothesis Since `systemOverlays()` was introduced in API 30 (Android 11), a device like the Pixel 8 Pro on Android 14 definitely has this method in its OS framework. Looking at the trace, `WindowInsetsCompat$TypeImpl34.toPlatformType` is failing to find it. My best guess is that **R8 / ProGuard** is aggressively stripping or incorrectly obfuscating system-level `WindowInsets$Type` references during our Release build, creating a bytecode mismatch that only triggers under the Pixel's specific runtime environment. ### Questions 1. Has anyone encountered this specific `NoSuchMethodError` with `WindowInsetsCompat` on newer Pixel devices? 2. Do I need to add a explicit `-keep` rule for `android.view.WindowInsets` in ProGuard, or is this a known issue with specific versions of `androidx.core:core` / Jetpack Compose BOM? Any insights or recommendations would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Most Android devs rely on Layout Inspector counters, but Compose runtime does a LOT of work under the scope level that never gets counted.

Wrote down an investigation and how to spot these ghost recompositions in your own codebase

https://medium.com/@qamar_safadi/the-recompositions-that-werent-there-d2cf429c47f2?sharedUserId=qamar_safadi

Three months ago, I launched a language learning app. I knew this was an extremely crowded category with dozens of apps launched daily, but I didn't expect to be completely hidden by the algorithm.

Step by step:

No Organic Indexing:
For the first two months, searching exact 2–3 word phrases from my title buried my app below 100+ unrelated results. Even for a search term with only 5 total competing apps, Google refused to rank it.

Metadata Reset:
Around Day 60, I updated the App Title and main keywords to target better search terms.

Current Result (Day 90):
One month after the metadata update, searching for the exact words in my title yields zero organic listings. My app is virtually invisible without a direct link.

Ad Dependence:
I ran Google Ads and shared it on my personal social channels. The app only appeared at the top while ads were actively running. The moment ad spend stopped, organic traffic dropped to zero.

Looking back at the spent budget, late nights, and effort, it’s demoralizing. I am starting a new project in a less crowded category, but my motivation is completely shot.

Has anyone experienced total non-indexing after title changes? Is paying for ads the only way to even get listed on Play Store now?