Did You Get the Memo? Android Market Gets an Update!

Eric Chu of the Android Market Support Team has sent out an email to developers outlining a few new updates. First, developers can now target new countries for free apps. Second, local language support has been added for more countries… and third, all apps published in the market now need to indicate a minimum SDK version in the manifest file. Full details of the email below:

Hello,

I’m writing to let you know about several changes made to Android Market.

We have added checkboxes in the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to target free apps for the following countries:  France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Switzerland, and Ireland.  Please note that among the countries in this list, devices are currently available in France, Italy, and Spain, and devices will soon be available in the other markets.  You can target one or more countries by selecting the individual checkboxes or by choosing “All Current and Future Locations,” which will make your free apps appear to users in all countries where free apps are available.

In the next couple weeks, we will add buyer support for priced apps in the following countries:  France, Italy, Spain, and Netherlands.  Also, we are finalizing the work to enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain to offer priced applications in the coming weeks.

To help you better merchandise your apps to users in different markets, we continue to add local language support for app titles and descriptions. The complete set of languages that Android Market now supports is: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, and Polish.

Finally, to better support Android-powered devices that may be running different versions of the platform, it is now necessary for all applications published in Android Market to indicate a minimum SDK version in the manifest file.  This applies to all new apps and upgrades to existing apps; apps currently in Market do not need to indicate a minimum SDK version until you publish an upgraded version.  If you were to use an Android 1.5 API in your app, you would need to set minSdkVersion accordingly (i.e., equal to ‘3?) so that Android Market won’t show your app to devices running an older version of the platform.  Apps using 1.5 APIs will not run properly on phones running earlier versions of Android. See the following page for more detailed instructions on how to specify a minimum SDK version in your manifest:
http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/versioning.html#minsdkversion.

One note:  Android 1.5 is becoming available to devices, but in the near term some users will still be on devices running Android 1.1 due to the deployment schedule for new phones and update process for existing phones. Therefore, we recommend that you first focus on making sure your 1.1 app works properly on 1.5 devices (future proofing) before publishing a 1.5 version.  We will provide more information when the majority of users have migrated their devices to Android 1.5 to help you with your app upgrade plans.  For more information on how to future proof your app, see the following blogpost:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/04/future-proofing-your-apps.html.

Thanks, and we look forward to continue working with you on Android Market.

Eric Chu,
Android Market

[Via: Phandroid]