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The winners of Google Play’s Best of 2024 are here. This year’s awards aren’t just about showcasing amazing apps, games and books; they’re a thank you to the talented developers who make the Android ecosystem so vibrant, building fantastic apps and games across all your devices.
In 2024, we made Google Play more than just a store. We’ve been improving discoverability, expanding gaming options, boosting rewards and ensuring timely content delivery — all to better support the developers who power the platform. We look forward to seeing how developers and publishers continue to help people discover new apps, games and books — wherever they are, on whatever device.
This year we met with the winners of our “Best App,” “Best Game,” “Best Multi-device App” and “Best Multi-device Game” awards to hear their stories. Read on for the full list of award winners in the U.S. You can also see all the winners on the Best of 2024 page on Play.
Nearly four years ago, we brought our award-winning Material You design to billions of Android phones and tablets, making them feel more human, approachable and grounded in your needs. Material 3 Expressive builds on Material You, bringing even more customization options so you can truly express yourself.
Material 3 Expressive feels even more fluid and introduces a system of more natural, springy animations meant to bring a moment of delight to everyday routines. For example, when you dismiss a notification, the others next to it subtly respond to your drag. And when you snap it off the stack, you feel a satisfying haptic rumble.
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Hands-free voice commands with Google Assistant have always been at the core of Android Auto and cars with Google built-in. Soon, Gemini will upgrade that experience by understanding what you want while you’re driving, through natural conversations. So instead of focusing on the perfect prompt or tapping the right button, you can stay focused on the road ahead.
You can not only find the best route, but also get help along the way. For example, Gemini can find you a charging station on the way to the post office that’s also near a park, so that you can go for a walk before your errands while your car is charging.
By connecting to your messaging app, Gemini can summarize the messages that you receive, and even translate your reply into another language before sending. And if you’re like me and spend a lot of time in the car, Gemini Live can be your helpful driving companion. On my morning commute, I can ask Gemini to give me the rundown of the news today (but without sports), or get a quick synopsis of the book I just finished reading (or didn’t have time to finish) on my way to my book club meetup.
Gemini will be available on Android Auto in the coming months, followed by cars with Google Built-in.
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Android has always offered a wide variety of features to keep your digital life secure, and that extends to your physical belongings, too. We launched Find My Device to help you locate everything from a lost phone at the park to a misplaced piece of luggage at the airport. Now this feature is evolving into something even more helpful: Find Hub.
With Find Hub, you can easily locate your devices and tagged items, check if loved ones got home safely or share your location during a night out — all within a single, unified space. We’re adding even more compatible devices and Bluetooth tags to our ever-expanding list of partners. Learn more and sign up to be notified of our partner tag deals.
And later this year, for devices and carriers that support satellite connectivity, Find Hub will take safety even further with the integration of satellite connectivity, helping you stay connected with friends and family even when cellular service is unavailable.
Thanks to our partnerships, you’ll be able to easily share your Bluetooth tag’s location with some of your favorite airlines early next year, making recovering your lost luggage a breeze.
Website: LINK
For over a decade, we’ve been bringing people a safer, more helpful connected driving experience. We started with Android Auto as a way for your Android phone to display the most helpful apps on your car screen. This helps you navigate, communicate, enjoy entertainment and more, while staying focused on the road. We also worked with over a dozen car brands to launch next-generation cars with Google built-in, allowing drivers to enjoy the best of Google, all built right into the infotainment system (phone optional!).
Today, there are over 250 million cars that support Android Auto, and more than 50 car models with Google built-in on the road. Whichever experience you choose, we’re always bringing the latest technology to make your drive more fun and productive. And the future of driving is getting a whole lot smarter with Gemini, your AI assistant from Google, coming to your car soon.
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Today, we kicked off this year’s Google I/O season with The Android Show: I/O Edition, where we shared some of the biggest news across the Android ecosystem.
As the world’s most popular OS with more than 3 billion active devices in over 190 countries, it’s an exciting time for Android. We’re seeing a wave of flagship phones that are being recognized as the best globally, thanks to groundbreaking hardware, smartest software and beautiful designs — it’s the platform where you see the future first.
Now is a great time to learn what’s new in Android. Check out everything we announced, including introducing the biggest redesign in years with Android 16 and Wear OS 6, bringing Gemini across all of your devices, helping you fight scammers and keeping you and your devices safe.
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Over the last few years, we’ve been focused on improving how people connect, no matter what phone they have. That’s why we helped make RCS the messaging standard for Android and iOS. Now, in the U.S. alone, there are more than a billion RCS messages sent every day (based on an average of the last 28 days). This means more people have been able to send high-quality photos and videos, and add someone to the group chat, without it breaking.* Learn more about RCS on our website.
*RCS messaging must be turned on. Availability varies by region and carrier.
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Today on the Google I/O stage, we gave a deeper look at glasses with Android XR.
For over a decade, we’ve been working on the concept of smart glasses. With Android XR, we’re taking a giant leap forward.
Equipped with a camera, microphones and speakers, these glasses work in tandem with your phone, giving you access to your apps without ever having to reach in your pocket. And an optional in-lens display privately provides helpful information right when you need it. Pairing these glasses with Gemini means they see and hear what you do, so they understand your context, remember what’s important to you and can help you throughout your day.
Today’s sneak peek showed how Android XR glasses will work in real-world scenarios, including messaging friends, making appointments, asking for turn-by-turn directions, taking photos and more. We even demoed live language translation between two people, showing the potential for these glasses to break down language barriers — giving you subtitles for the real world.
Website: LINK
Android’s Find My Device has been helping you locate your belongings for years. Now, with the evolution of Find My Device into Find Hub, we’re making it even easier to locate your belongings, family and friends — alongside a growing list of partners.
There will soon be even more personalized styles, too. Whether it’s built-in luggage finding from July and Mokobara, keeping your skis safe on the mountain with Peak integration, or adding a touch of fun with Disney-themed Bluetooth tags from Pixbee, there’s something for everyone. Later this month, we’re also bringing you new nearby finding capabilities with ultra-wide band (UWB) enabled tags, first available on moto tag.
Later this year, Find Hub will take safety even further with the integration of satellite connectivity, helping you stay connected with friends and family even when you don’t have cellular connectivity.
And traveling is about to get even smoother. Thanks to our partnerships, you’ll be able to easily share your Bluetooth tag’s location with some of your favorite airlines early next year, making recovering your lost luggage a breeze.
Website: LINK
In 2019, we launched Project Euphonia to find ways to make speech recognition more accessible for people with non-standard speech. Now we’re supporting developers and organizations around the world as they bring that work to even more languages and cultural contexts.
To improve the ecosystem of tools globally, we’re providing developers with our open-source repositories via Project Euphonia’s GitHub page. They can now develop personalized audio tools for research or train their models for diverse speech patterns.
Earlier this year we partnered with Google.org to provide support to the University College London in their creation of the Centre for Digital Language Inclusion (CDLI). The CDLI is working to improve speech recognition technology for non-English speakers in Africa by creating open-source datasets in 10 African languages, building new speech recognition models and continuing to support the ecosystem of organizations and developers in this space.
Accessibility tools can be particularly helpful for students with disabilities, from using facial gestures to navigate their Chromebooks with Face Control to customizing their reading experience with Reading Mode.
And now when you use your Chromebook with College Board’s Bluebook testing app (which is where students can take the SAT and most Advanced Placement exams) you’ll have access to all of Google’s built-in accessibility features. This includes ChromeVox screen reader and Dictation, along with College Board’s own digital testing tools.
With more than 2 billion people using Chrome each day, we’re always striving to make our browser easier to use and more accessible for everyone with features like Live Caption and image descriptions for screen reader users.
Previously, if you opened a scanned PDF in your desktop Chrome browser, you wouldn’t be able to use your screen reader to interact with it. Now with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Chrome automatically recognizes these types of PDFs, so you can highlight, copy and search for text like any other page and use your screen reader to read them.
Page Zoom now lets you increase the size of the text you see in Chrome on Android without affecting the webpage layout or your browsing experience — just like how it works on Chrome desktop. You can customize how much you want to zoom in and easily apply the preference to all the pages you visit or just specific ones.
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No, but you can still be an I/O pro. Originally, the name I/O was based on the first two digits in a googol (a one, followed by 100 zeroes), the number that lends our company its name. According to lore, I/O has evolved to also nod to “input / output,” referencing the computational concept of interfacing between a computer system and the outside world, and “innovation in the open.” Pretty fitting, don’t you think?
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The Google Play Books team released a curated list of the books they read and loved so far this year. From thrilling fantasy epics to thought-provoking nonfiction to bone-chilling horror, they’ve got picks for every reader (even kids!). Browse the collection in the Google Play Books store and in the Play Books app on Android and iOS. Discover the books that the team couldn’t put down, and find your next great read today.
June is Pride Month, a time of celebration and reflection for the LGBTQ+ community. As parades, festivals and cultural events kick off across the United States, Google is here to help connect with celebrations, whether you’re joining the crowds or looking for ways to celebrate online with art, music and history.
Heading to a Pride parade or event? For major parades around the world, Google Maps and Waze can help you stay informed about road closures and find alternate routes to ensure you arrive without a hitch. Real-time traffic updates and rerouting suggestions will keep you moving smoothly.
Plus, look for the LGBTQ+owned and LGBTQ-friendly attributes on Maps and Search to find welcoming spaces for dining, shopping and more.
Learn more about LGBTQ+ culture, history and creativity on Google Arts & Culture, which shares partner collections from cultural organizations about topics like „A Queer Eye on Art History“ and the history of the Pride flag.
Over on Google Play, discover dedicated collections of LGBTQ+ created and Pride-related games, apps, curated book collections and interviews with LGBTQ+ developers.
And to celebrate the sounds of Pride, YouTube Music has created a variety of playlists. Whether you’re looking for high-energy anthems to get you moving or more reflective tunes for quieter moments, you’ll find the perfect sounds for your Pride celebrations. Check out our flagship playlist on YouTube Music.
Today, the Google Doodle will celebrate hyperpop, a subgenre of electronic music pioneered by queer artists. The Doodle artwork pays homage to the music production tools and iconography associated with hyperpop. The Doodle aesthetic reflects the quality of the music including distortion, layering and shiny maximalism. And try searching for Pride 2025 for a celebratory surprise on your screen!
Regardless of how you choose to celebrate, there are countless ways for members of the LGBTQ+ community, their friends & family, and allies, to learn, connect and celebrate. Happy Pride to all who celebrate!
This Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Google’s products can help you embrace the spirit of connection and celebration. There are new ways to immerse yourself in art, dive into captivating stories, and engage with the contributions of Asian and Pasifika heritage to the United States.
The Google Play Store is creating a vibrant hub dedicated to Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This curated collection makes it easier than ever for you to find new stories to read, with top book picks from authors Nghi Vo, Bianca Mabute-Louie, and Saumya Dave. You can also discover special APAHM games hub featuring engaging games, such as Disney Emoji Blitz and Arena Breakout. The hub also features WEBTOON, Viki, Hulu and other apps that offer Asian-developed comics, shows and more. Keep an eye out for editorial content including an interview with Mattel CEO Amy Huang.
To further spotlight Asian and Pasifika voices throughout May:
From June 5 to July 2, check out Google Play’s Diamond District, a new experience on Roblox open in all markets where Play Points is available. Inside the Diamond District, you’ll be able to navigate our obstacle course (or obby) with glimmering gems and special portals, play other mini-games and collect weekly drops. Plus, with a course made up of unique modules offering over four billion combinations, you’ll never have the same experience twice. For Diamond, Platinum and Gold members of Play Points, the Diamond District gets even better with access to our exclusive VIP Vault, where you can claim special digital items for your avatar. This is the first time we’re offering an exclusive Roblox space and Roblox rewards to our Gold+ members — as a special thank you for being a part of our community. To access the VIP Vault, be sure to confirm your status by linking your Google Play Points account.
Google Play’s billing system ensures you can safely purchase digital products and subscriptions. Your payment information stays between you and Google — it’s securely stored and isn’t shared with app developers. For an extra level of security, you can also require purchase verification, providing authentication with password or biometrics any time that you make a purchase on Google Play.
We partner with app businesses and parents to help keep kids and teens safe online while empowering families. If children are the target audience for an app, there are additional Play requirements that the app must meet concerning its content and handling of personal information. And, with our parental controls, parents can choose to restrict age-inappropriate experiences and content from being downloaded or purchased.
You have transparency and control when it comes to what Play data is used to shape your store results and recommendations. For example, you can tell Play not to use data associated with a particular app for personalization within the Play store.
At I/O 2025, we shared a major update on our work on Android XR, a new platform for headsets and glasses. We also showed a demo of how Android XR glasses work. Paired with Gemini, they can see and hear what you do, so they understand your context, remember what’s important to you and provide information right when you need it.
These glasses are equipped with a camera and microphones, giving Gemini the ability to see and hear the world while speakers let you listen to the AI, play music or take calls. And an optional, in-lens display privately shows you helpful information. The glasses also work with your phone, letting you access your apps while keeping your hands free.
We’ve started gathering feedback on our prototype with trusted testers. For now, you can sign up for our newsletter for updates on device availability and watch our I/O demo of how helpful Android XR glasses can be in the real world.
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Today, we’re sharing six new Android features designed to be made your own. From a daily AI-generated audio show based on your interests, to customized Google Home Favorites across your devices, these personalized features travel with you whether you’re at home or on the go. Here’s what’s new.
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Today, we’re bringing you Android 16, rolling out first to supported Pixel devices with more phone brands to come later this year. This is the earliest Android has launched a major release in the last few years, which ensures you get the latest updates as soon as possible on your devices.
Android 16 lays the foundation for our new Material 3 Expressive design, with features that make Android more accessible and easy to use. Let’s take a look at what’s new:
Waiting for your food delivery to get to your house? Instead of opening your delivery app every 5 minutes, live updates keep you informed in real-time. These live updates are starting with compatible ride-share and food delivery apps. We’re working together with these app partners to bring this capability to the Android ecosystem, including in Samsung’s Now Bar and OPPO and OnePlus’ Live Alerts.
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Google is investing in AI to improve everyday life. Recent updates include AI features in Search like AI Mode and Deep Search. Also, check out the new Android XR glasses and the redesigned Android and Wear OS.
Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.
Attend, and hear of Google’s AI might,
Where models bloom, and futures take their flight.
New tools for search, with answers deep and vast,
And shopping smarts, that hold your budget fast.
On glasses now, AI will lend its grace,
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For filmmakers too, a tool is made with care,
And marketers find AI beyond compare.
A subscription new, for those who crave the best,
AI Ultra grants access, putting skills to the test.
So use these tools, and let your visions soar,
For Google’s AI unlocks a boundless door.
Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.
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To celebrate World Book Day on April 23rd, Google Play Books provides tools to make reading extra engaging for families and children. Here are two ways we’re creating a fun and rewarding space for future bookworms:
Want to get started? Check out a featured selection of children’s books or if you’re looking for deals, we offer a variety of ebooks for under $5 and audiobooks for under $6.