runescape is a hugely popular mmo, now in its 20th year, which has recently been ported from desktop pc to mobile platforms. the galaxy gamedev team were involved from an early stage in development, profiling the game and providing optimisation recommendations for the development team. while we made a number of suggestions over the time we supported the game, the most significant was the recommendation to move rendering api calls onto a dedicated render thread (a.k.a deferred rendering). this aligned with the work the runescape team were already doing to move to a separate thread for rendering. it is not uncommon for pc games to rely on a single thread which handles the main game loop and also the rendering, but this can be a limiting factor for framerate on mobile; the cpu was taking much longer to submit a frame than the gpu was taking to render it. the major difference between a desktop pc and a mobile device is the power requirements for each. a desktop pc can be plugged into the mains and draw a large amount of power, 500w plus for gaming pcs, and can use large fans to keep cool. a mobile device normally relies on a small battery, and needs to be comfortable to hold, restricting how hot it can get. for long battery life and comfortable temperature, the device should use around 3-4w of power. this means that mobile cpus cannot reach the high frequencies of a desktop cpu, making it hard to match the single-threaded performance. however, both desktop and mobile cpus have had multiple cpu cores for some time, making it possible to spread the load across several cores. the simplest architecture for breaking up a single threaded game is to create two threads, one for the main game and other systems, and one for rendering the scene. this is the approach that jagex took with runescape for mobile and it made a big difference to performance: framerate more than doubled in some cases. more complex architectures use job systems to split up certain cpu tasks such as physics and animation to be run on several cores in addition to having a separate render thread. this approach can be found in game engines such as ue4 and unity. it’s worth noting that even if your game is running at 60fps using a single thread it may still be beneficial to switch to multithreading. this is because there is not a linear relationship between clock frequency and power usage. by running everything on one core, that core will need to run at a higher frequency than if the work was spread across more cores, and that will cause higher power usage and battery drain. it may also cause the device to throttle the cpu to avoid overheating. stay in touch with galaxy gamedev in addition to the many resources on this site, the galaxy gamedev team is starting a new, quarterly newsletter focuesed on optimizing games for mobile devices. if you found this article interesting, please sign up for this newsletter. if you have questions about developing for samsung galaxy devices, please join us on the samsung developer forum.

more improvements to seller portal were released at the end of september. this past month, the seller portal team made some changes based on requests from you. also, learn more about two upcoming events in october that will give you the opportunity to provide us additional feedback. settlement and financial reports include local currency information new local currency information has been added to the settlement and financial reports. the type of currency is defined in the payment currency column (for example, usd) and reflects where the sales occurred. there are new local currency columns for sales, commission, transaction fee, and vat. seller portal timeout after you log in to seller portal, an inactive session remains open for up to 24 hours. that means you only have to log in to seller portal once a day and won’t see the login pop-up notification every 20 minutes. if your session is idle for 24 hours, you are automatically logged out and you will receive a pop-up notification 10 minutes prior to being logged out. for security purposes, remember to log out of seller portal when you have completed your tasks. requirements for samsung iap and android r if your app is integrated with samsung in-app purchase (iap) version 6.0 or earlier with target api level 30 (android r) or higher, an android policy change requires an update to the manifest file. without this update, android r (or higher) users may not be able to make a payment. to the https://developer.android.com/training/basics/intents/package-visibility manifest file, add the following: <queries> <package android:name="com.sec.android.app.samsungapps" /> </queries> iap subscriptions and your customers in india the reserve bank of india issued a regulation that, starting october 1, 2021, customers in india must consent to renew a subscription at the end of a subscription period. auto-recurring (automatically renewed) subscriptions are no longer allowed. if you are using samsung iap, your subscription customers in india will automatically receive an email notification to renew their subscription. if you are using another payment service provider for your subscription items, you must consult with this payment service provider about the changes you need to make to comply with this regulation. see this seller portal notice and the iap subscription guide for more information. iap beta testing the samsung in-app purchase (iap) team needs your help! if you have published an app or game integrated with samsung iap, you may be eligible to participate in an upcoming beta test to review and provide feedback on the following features: manage item prices and information separately from app information change the status of each item to active/inactive, when necessary provide a price template that allows you to manage all items with the same price look for an announcement in october with more information, including how you can apply. sdc21 is coming join us online for the samsung developer conference on october 26th. see what’s cooking with development tools and our latest technology. learn from and network with our experts and your fellow developers and designers. shape. design. create. additional resources on the samsung developers site this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account and subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

the galaxy store seller portal team has been busy, bringing you many new and updated features. let’s check them out! galaxy store seller portal policy page seller portal-related policies are being collected and organized onto a single web page. content about app distribution, pricing, and legal requirements that are available in separate notices, guides, and pages can all be viewed from the galaxy store seller portal policy page. bookmark this page and stay up-to-date on any new or updated policies. galaxy store badge images galaxy store badges are used to link to your app detail page or brand page. samsung also provides an image, in different languages, for your link. previously you had to create a badge url in order to download a badge image. the ui has been updated to allow you to download a badge image at any time, without having to create a badge url. for more information about galaxy store badges, see galaxy store badge promotion. app re-registration if your app fails to pass the pre-review phase, you can quickly and easily re-register the app to fix the issues. after reviewing the reasons for rejection, click the re-register button from the app list or the reasons for approval rejection window. your app will move to the re-registering status, allowing you to edit your app information. support for galaxy watch4 apps galaxy watch4 apps registered in seller portal can only be sold in china. to sell your galaxy watch4 apps in any other country, register them in google play. note that galaxy store only supports .apk files. therefore any .aab file must be converted before it can be uploaded to seller portal. for more information about registering a galaxy watch4 app in seller portal, refer to this seller portal notice. support for galaxy z fold3 and flip3 the new galaxy z devices have been released and are added to seller portal’s list of supported devices. if your existing uploaded binaries support these devices, you don’t need to do anything to start selling your apps on these devices. to check if these devices are supported by your app, go to the binary tab and click selected devices. in the detailed device settings window, locate the galaxy z flip3 5g and galaxy z fold3 5g phones and verify their checkboxes are selected. seller portal newsletter archive did you miss any of the earlier issues of the seller portal newsletter? you can view past versions from the archive page. sign up for email notifications (seller portal > profile) and have the monthly newsletter delivered directly to your inbox. don’t miss out on future announcements! additional resources on the samsung developers site this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

the galaxy store seller portal team has brought forth new enhancements for may. don’t miss out on valuable information about galaxy store seller portal in the past, important changes and the latest news about seller portal were shared through announcements posted on the seller portal system. now, you can receive these announcements directly through email notifications. email notifications contain valuable insights and information about seller portal. you will still continue to receive important announcements about the latest updates to seller portal, but now you can opt in and subscribe to receive benefits, tips, and news focusing on you, the seller. change your email notification preferences at any time from your seller portal user profile. subscribe now and don't miss any of the valuable information from the galaxy store seller portal team. import beta app after beta testing your app, if no updates are required, you don’t need to upload the binary again. instead, you can import the existing binary you used for beta testing to quickly register it for commercial distribution. from the binary tab, click import beta app. app groups an app and its beta test apps are organized and displayed together as a group in your list of apps. you can easily identify which app is on sale in galaxy store or is being registered and if any apps were added as beta test apps. the group can be expanded or collapsed. watch face keywords a new field for watch face keywords has been added for watch face apps (when "watch faces" is selected as the category). previously, we asked you to add keywords used on your watch faces in the description field. this information is used to help us more quickly review your designs and identify any possible ip infringement. in the app information tab of your watch face app, the watch face keywords field is used for you to identify all words (such as your brand name) that appear on your watch face design. text for commonplace terms, such as the names of days or months, do not need to be included. promotional opportunities for galaxy store while discovering apps, a user may download an app based on various factors such as the app name, icon, screenshots, or description. screenshots are one of the most important assets and can be used to make a big impact and visual impression. did you know that your uploaded screenshots may be used for a banner in galaxy store? if you upload an image with a 16:9 ratio, the galaxy store team can immediately consider it for their promotions. have you tried out last month’s updates to beta testing? last month, enhancements to beta testing included testing any app at any time and running open and closed beta tests simultaneously, improving your ability to find and fix issues with your app before publishing in galaxy store. read more about these added features in enhancements for beta testing apps in seller portal. additional resources on the samsung developers site this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

international women's day provides an important opportunity to celebrate women's achievements while calling for greater equality. to support and strengthen gender equality in the developer community – and tech in general – here’s a round up of some of our favorite initiatives that support women in the space. online communities and organizations django girls - this volunteer-run organization and community empowers women to organize free, one-day programming workshops by providing tools, resources, and support. more than 20,000 female devs have already become django girls at events spanning 98 countries and 526 cities. tech ladies - through a supportive online group, a free job board and opportunities to learn, tech ladies has helped thousands of women grow their technology careers. members can connect with 100,000 females working in the tech space through this international community. women who code - envisioning a world where women are proportionally represented as technical leaders, executives, founders, vcs, board members, and software engineers, women who code provides over 200,000 members with access to programs and services designed to support career growth. this global community connects female devs with jobs, leaders, scholarships, and more. 80% of members reported positive career impact after joining wwcode. e-mail subscription lists ada’s list - with a mission to make women in technology stronger as a community and as individuals, this community asks its members to listen, ask, answer, support, participate, and be thoughtful, helpful, open, honest, and respectful. they aim to address female under-representation in tech by providing a space for discourse and change. systers - the world’s largest email community of women in technical computing roles, systers provides a private, safe online forum. members gain support by networking, sharing advice, and experiences, and collaborating on various projects. with 23 different affinity groups, women technologists from a variety of backgrounds and self-identified cultures can connect. organizations that promote strong female voices women who design - this directory of accomplished women in the design industry helps people find notable and relevant voices to follow on twitter by parsing twitter bios for popular keywords, including developers, ux designers, web designers, and more. women talk design - this organization elevates women and gender non-binary speakers and their talks so organizers can better discover them. it also provides tools, information and resources to organizers on how to design more inclusive events, and offers training, events, and community for new speakers. organizations aimed at supporting the next generation girls who code - on a mission to build the largest pipeline of future female engineers in the united states, girls who code is a supportive sisterhood of peers and role models who create clear pathways for young women to join the computing workforce. techbridge girls – for the past 20 years, techbridge girls has aimed to excite, educate and equip girls from low-income communities by delivering high-quality stem programming, empowering them to achieve economic mobility and make better life choices. in the next ten years, they’re aiming to have empowered 1 million young women through their programming. within our samsung developer team, we have a roster of strong women in leadership roles – each of whom contribute in meaningful and unique ways. we have made great strides as an industry and are looking forward to an even more diverse and inclusive developer space in the years to come. check out the above resources and drop a comment if we missed any that you love. happy international women’s day 2020!

06 october 2020: the urls in the sample code were updated to use the latest domain and link to the app's review page. a big part of converting users from a click to a sale often involves your ratings and reviews. apps that have strong reviews and scores typically have an edge over apps with few or bad reviews. in today’s world, this is how many users define quality without actually purchasing. just checking in by implementing the code shown below, users are prompted to leave a review on the galaxy store after a certain number of logins. by giving users an easy way to leave a 5-star review, you will likely start getting more positive reviews, and your downloads may increase as well. how you implement this is up to you and depends on your app. if you think users have a good understanding of how your app works after just a few logins, then you should prompt them then. however, if your app is more complex and you think users need additional time to see its value, it’s better to prompt them later. the biggest thing to remember is that you only have a small window of time to ask. waiting too long to ask is the same as not asking at all. public void onclick(dialoginterface dialog, int id) { reviewsubmitted = true; sharedpref.putboolean("review\_submitted",reviewsubmitted); sharedpref.commit(); try { intent intent = new intent(intent.action\_view, uri.parse( "samsungapps://apprating/<packagename>")); intent.setflags(intent.flag\_activity\_new\_task); startactivity(intent); } catch (android.content.activitynotfoundexception anfe) { intent intent = new intent(intent.action\_view, uri.parse( "http://apps.samsung.com/appquery/apprating.as?appid=<packagename>" )); intent.setflags(intent.flag\_activity\_new\_task); startactivity(intent); } } another thing to keep in mind is not to ask at the beginning of a session. no one likes a pop-up, and users probably don’t want to leave a review just as they are opening your app. tests prove this to be true, showing that 50% of users close the app after being prompted to leave a review at the beginning of the session. it’s also important to not ask over and over again. ensure that the user meets a few conditions before you ask, such as after using the app for a few days or after completing certain tasks. this way, you ensure they have used the app before they leave a review. if they haven’t chosen to leave a review after a few prompts, they probably aren’t going to, so it’s better to stop asking rather than risk losing a user. you should also be a bit more strategic in your ask. instead of asking users to rate your app, ask them if they are enjoying it. if they say they love it, you can redirect them to the store to leave a positive review. if they think it needs work, ask them to send feedback by email or a dedicated forum. this way, you’re not incentivizing poor reviews, and you’re garnering valuable feedback from your community. finally, sellers should be aware that the galaxy store is implementing conditions for appearing in the “top” lists. as of september 27, 2019 apps that appear in the top lists need to have at least 10 reviews and an average of 2.5 stars. these conditions are based by country, so if your app has 100 reviews and a 4-star rating in the us, but only 5 reviews and a 4-star rating in korea, your app will appear in the us top list, but not in korea’s. this makes asking for reviews even more important, but you’ll want to localize first. for more info about localization, check out our localization blog post. gaining lots of good reviews means taking the time to not only create an amazing app experience, but also knowing when, where, and how to ask each user to leave one. the best thing you can do to gain better reviews is just asking.

the latest edition of samsung galaxy unpacked was held on february 20th in san francisco, and the event certainly did not disappoint. i know you’re all excited to learn what unfolded during the presentation, so let’s take a look at what's new and discuss what it means for developers and designers. galaxy fold first up was the galaxy fold, which was previewed last november at the samsung developer conference. this time everyone got to see the revolutionary device in action. we demonstrated three apps simultaneously sharing the large main display, and also showed how easily apps moved from the cover display to the main display when the device is unfolded. developers can easily improve how their apps work with the galaxy fold’s new display abilities by following the steps in this tutorial. and don’t forget: ensure app continuity for your apps to live in perpetuity. taking the time to implement app continuity will be the key to a delightful customer experience. as new tips and tricks become available, we’ll update the developer site. if you have any immediate fold-related thoughts and queries, you can now post about the galaxy fold in our developer forums. for those of you who'd like to learn about how the fold will handle games, samsung and google are co-presenting a session on optimizing games for the galaxy fold next month at the game developers conference in san francisco. galaxy s10 next, we celebrated 10 years of galaxy innovations with the new galaxy s10. can you believe that more than two-billion galaxy devices have been sold in the last 10 years? the newest galaxy s device does not disappoint with its enhanced cameras, in-screen fingerprint sensor, gorgeous bezel-less display, and top-of-the-line performance features. the s10 is also the first mobile device that is optimized for games built using the unity platform and their adaptive performance features. as the device runs android pie and our latest one ui update, your apps and content will work as is. designers can create galaxy themes for the s10 and customers will have full access to android apps via both google play and the galaxy store. want to remotely test your apps on an s10? once devices are in market, you’ll be able to do so via our cloud device farm. excited to experience all the new features yourself? pre-order and reserve your device today. for those of you in europe, bixby now supports additional dialects and languages: british english, german, italian, and spanish. download the bixby developer studio and get started building capsules for bixby today. both the galaxy fold and the galaxy s10 are compatible with samsung dex. we have great tips on how to ensure your apps are compatible with our desktop-like dex experience. galaxy watch active the last announcement of interest to developers and designers was the galaxy watch active, the latest in our wearables product line. like the galaxy watch series announced last fall, the galaxy watch active runs tizen 4.0. the biggest change that impacts developers is that the device has no bezel. apps and watch faces will work as-is unless they rely on the bezel for navigation. check out our user-interface guidelines on how to support both bezel and touch in your apps. if you didn’t catch unpacked live, check out the samsung newsroom for more on the day’s announcements.

in the last two updates of seller portal, the galaxy store seller portal team included enhancements for beta testing. and this month, they’ve done it again. the latest seller portal update introduces multiple and simultaneous closed beta testing and the ability to manage your beta apps using the galaxy store developer api. run up to six beta tests simultaneously a previous enhancement allowed you to run both an open and closed beta test at the same time. now, you can have up to five (5) closed beta tests and one (1) open beta test for one app running at the same time. that’s a total of six (6) beta tests being run at the same time for the same app! why run multiple beta tests for the same app? you could run a beta test for a bug fix and another for an upcoming major release. you could test different features with different users which can help you to decide what to include in the next release of your app. and, with your beta test apps grouped and located below your commercially distributed app in seller portal, you can easily see and keep track of each beta test version of your app. each beta test app has an automatically-generated prefix added to its name. however, you can edit the app name as you wish. to take advantage of this feature, the following is required: testers must have galaxy store version 4.5.27.9 installed. you must use the closed beta urls generated after may 25, 2021, which contain the content id. urls generated before may 25th do not contain the content id and, if used, may not direct the tester to the correct version of the app. distribute and manage your beta test apps using the galaxy store developer api the galaxy store developer api is a set of server-to-server apis that allow you to manage apps, manage in-app items, and check app statistics without accessing seller portal. use the apis to programmatically access the same types of functionality provided by galaxy store seller portal. the content publish api is used to view, modify, submit, and change the status of apps registered in galaxy store seller portal. the iap publish api is used to view, register, modify, and remove samsung in-app purchase (iap) items. finally, the gss (galaxy store statistics) metric api is used to get statistics about apps registered in galaxy store. start managing your commercially distributed apps and beta test apps programmatically using the galaxy store developer api. seller portal update announcements if you missed any of our announcements about enhancements to beta testing, you can find the information in the enhancements for beta testing apps in seller portal and may updates for galaxy seller portal are here! blogs. you can also opt-in to receive the seller portal newsletter to find out what has been updated in seller portal each month. the june newsletter includes tips about beta testing such as configuring licensed testers, responding to tester’s comments, and much more. subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter in the email notifications section of your seller portal profile. additional resources on the samsung developers site this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

here are the updates and announcements the seller portal team cooked up for you in october. introducing staged rollouts have you ever been worried about finding issues in your app just after releasing or updating it? using staged rollouts, you can distribute your app gradually, allowing you to monitor it and observe user responses. you can: set options for staged rollout when you register an app apply the same rollout rate for all countries or set different rates for individual countries pause and resume a staged rollout update an app after pausing its rollout see set a staged rollout for more information. managing licensed testers when running a closed beta test, if you want to allow testers to purchase in-app items without charging them, you must add them to the licensed testers list. when registering your binary, you can manage up to 400 testers from the beta test section by clicking license tester setting. advanced mode is removed when registering an app, all configuration options are displayed, not just the required or basic information. you no longer have to select advanced mode to display everything. quickly find the essential information you want to add or update. chrome is the official browser of seller portal chrome is the officially supported browser of seller portal. internet explorer is no longer supported and seller portal services are not optimized for other browsers such as microsoft edge and mozilla firefox. updates to unity and unreal samsung iap plugins the unity and unreal samsung iap plugins have been updated to version 6.1.2 due to a change in android’s policy. if you are using samsung iap version 6.0 or lower with a target api level 30 (android r os) or higher, you must manually update your manifest file. see this seller portal notice for more information. free galaxy game plays font we have created a galaxy game plays font for our galaxy store users. from your galaxy mobile device, in all countries except china and south korea, click here to download it for free. in south korea, from your galaxy mobile device, click here. coming soon, updates to review periods in early november, the length of a review period will be added to the description of the publish automatically, publish on date, or publish manually options. this will help you decide which publishing option is right for you. in addition, the button in the app list that allows you to update your publishing options will be renamed to publication settings. clicking this button opens a window from which you can publish the app “now” or change the publishing start date. congratulations to all of the best of galaxy store award winners the best of galaxy store awards ceremony was held during the samsung developer conference, sdc21, on october 26th. awards for the best apps, games, themes, and bixby capsules were announced. find out more about the award winners on the best of galaxy store awards page or watch the video. additional resources on the samsung developers site the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account and subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

in the previous post, we introduced remote test lab, a service that enables you to test your application on a real mobile phone or watch device by interacting with it over the internet in real time. since last year, we have added more features for you to expand your test coverage. in this article, we introduce two new features available on the remote test lab service. many apps play a variety of common media types, such as audio, video, and images. previously, remote test lab showed the screens of real devices, but without any audio, which was inconvenient for testing audio features. we have now added an audio streaming feature that allows you to listen to the audio played through the test device in addition to seeing the device screens. the other new feature is multi-touch gesture support. this allows multiple pointers (fingers) to touch the device screen at the same time, enabling you to test scrolling, zooming in and out, and rotation gestures, on apps such as in google maps. start audio streaming the remote test lab client supports the audio streaming feature on devices running android 10 and newer. if you launch the remote test lab client, you can see the contextual menu by clicking the right mouse button. to start streaming, click experimental > start audio stream in the contextual menu. for security and privacy reasons, audio stream capture has some limitations. to be able to capture audio, the client brings up the prompt displayed by createscreencaptureintent(), and you must approve it. if you do approve, you can listen to the sound of the test device, with the exception of certain streams such as audiomanager#stream_ring, audiomanager#stream_alarm, and audiomanager#stream_notification. after audio streaming is started, the contextual menu item changes to stop audio stream. to stop streaming, click the menu item. for more information on media capture, see mediaprojectionmanager in the android api reference. use multi-touch gestures the remote test lab client also supports multi-touch gestures. in smartphone apps, multi-touch gestures include scrolling, zooming in and out, and rotation. although you cannot directly touch the screen on the remote test lab device, you can use your keyboard and mouse to perform multi-touch gestures on it, such as while using google maps. to use multi-touch gestures in remote test lab: press and hold the shift key on your keyboard. click on the device screen. without releasing the shift key, click and drag on the device screen to perform the gesture you want. to complete the multi-touch gesture, release the shift key. the following video shows how google maps responds to multi-touch gestures: remote test lab article series get started with remote test lab for mobile app testing loop test with auto-repeat (coming soon) run and test applications with remote debug bridge in android studio (coming soon) web-based client preview (coming soon) go to remote test lab follow up this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.