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Fast & Simple Android Location Updates with Google Play services

August 24, 2017 Aug 24, 2017 08/24/17
James Montemagno
Starting an Android application that relies on device location can be overwhelming. The classic way of getting location is with Android's core APIs, which have been around for a very long time and can be confusing to use. To simplify this process, we developed the Geolocator plugin, which enables developers to get the location from shared code on iOS, Android, and Windows from a single API. There are times when you may want or need full control over the API, however, and that's where the new Google Play services location APIs come in. These APIs simplify location awareness with multiple sensors on the device to help determine the location of the user. This means that, when using these new APIs, querying for location updates is faster and more accurate and, with the most recent update (11.0.4), it's never been easier to get started.

Mastering the Android Support Libraries

July 11, 2017 Jul 11, 2017 07/11/17
James Montemagno
Android Support Libraries are an essential part to every Android application and you'll find them absolutely everywhere. The Support Libraries offer developers the ability to add the latest and greatest features of Android to their application while maintaining backward compatibility with older versions of Android. As new versions of the Android SDK continue to roll out, so do updates to the Support Libraries; keeping them up-to-date and installing the correct versions is an important (and sometimes frustrating) part of Android development. This blog post will help demystify the Support Libraries and help you upgrade to the latest versions.

Consumable In-App Purchases

February 15, 2017 Feb 15, 2017 02/15/17
James Montemagno
If you are building a game or application with content that needs to be purchased multiple times, you'll need to integrate consumable in-app purchases (IAPs) into your application. In my previous IAP blog post, I covered the basics of setting up your app for IAP transactions, adding the IAP items to Google Play and iTunes Connect, and introduced you to the In-App Billing Plugin for Xamarin that greatly simplifies the process of adding IAP to your application's code. Today, we'll take a look at consumables and how they offer a slight tweak to the development process.