Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, let's talk about how we have to update the target SDKs of our Android apps.
Okay, so we all got this email last week from Google Play saying we have to update the
target SDKs of our Android apps. So if your - the target SDK of your Android
app is below 26, you need to update it by the first of November 2018. And we got
this email last week, we got it on the 1st of August. If you're an Android developer,
you may have got it on the 1st of August too. But basically, it says, "This is a
reminder that starting November 1st 2018 updates the apps and games on Google
Play will be required to target Android Oreo API level 26 or highe. After this
time the Play Console will prevent you from submitting new APKs with a target
SDK version less than 26. This really just applies to updates and it
goes on to say in the email that your minimum target, your minimum SDK could
still be a lot lower than Oreo. You still target the older Android devices
but the new stuff has to be done and version 26. And it goes on to list the
apps that are affected by it and for me, it's like nearly all of them. Because we
use Corona SDK for a lot of our games and that uses their servers to compile
it, or their SDKs to compile it and under Android and those are all done. We just
recently redid them all and that's Android target SDK 25, so it's always so
close. We have to go through and update it and at first when I saw this. I was
kind of like, "Man, I don't want to go through and update those things all again,
but you know, it's probably a good thing. You see, one of the things about the
Apple App Store is that apps disappear after a time. If you don't update
them for a few years, Apple will go through and remove them which it doesn't
happen that often. But most of the time, what happens is that developers, they
start setting up their apps, their App Store accounts, and then for whatever
reason, it might not work out and then they give up. They quit and then they
just don't bother to pay their developer account - pay for their developer
account anymore. And those apps just sort of disappear. So, this has happen
a few time - I have a - at least one client who stopped and they
just let their Google Play, or they just let their iTunes account,
sorry, their Apple App Store account, just expire so those apps have disappeared.
But the Google Play ones, they stick around forever. And I know developers who
have stopped doing app development years ago and they still have all these Google
Play apps because there's no real reason to remove them. Although it doesn't
talk about removing older apps, I'm hoping that - that happens eventually.
I mean, Google Play will remove apps sometimes like when they add the - when
they added the new requirements for content, for the content description and
everything like that, being able to put a rating on your app. A lot of apps I know
that like some clients came back to be say, "Hey, my apps been removed. Why? And
it's like, "Well, because you didn't put that content. That's all you have to do
is put it in their ad, wasn't suspended it was just removed. So, this might be a
good thing overall to end up limiting some of the apps that are on
Google Play. And maybe improve the find ability of some of the apps are
better out there. So, we'll find out but it's still gonna be a pain to do it
all. But to be honest with you, November 1st seems like it's gonna - it's ages away.
It's like ages to do that and I'm glad we don't have that - It's only
update, so I assume that eventually, we will get to the
point where we have to go through and update all of them and just knowing me,
I'll probably wait until the last minute to do that anyway. But yeah, we'll see.
Maybe not see because Google has their algorithm is kind of secret.
Every so often, we'll just go through and we'll start updating things just in
order to keep them fresher, because we don't know if that's gonna affect their
rankings in terms of keywords and stuff like that anyway. So anyway, let me know
what you, guys, think. Are you bummed out by this? Do you think it's gonna be good
new, or you just kinda like, "Yeah, we'll change it when the time
comes." But I'm open-minded about this. I think we're - it seems like we're seeing a
lot of changes on the Google Play side, which is probably for the better. I hope
so. Anyway, let me know what you, guys, think. That's it for today. I'll talk to
you tomorrow!