At its Games Developer Summit, Google introduced new Android 12 features to improve the gaming experience, one of which includes the ability to play a game as it is still downloading.
This new feature will particularly help when you’re downloading large games. The feature comes with games that use Play Asset Delivery system, which allows games larger than 150MB to replace legacy expansion files (OBBs) by publishing a single artifact to Play containing all the resources the game needs, according to Google. PAD comes with flexible delivery modes, auto-update, and it is free to use. Google encouraged Game Developers to activate PAD on their games to benefit from the pecks.
According to Tech Crunch, this isn’t Google’s first attempt at making games load faster. With “Google Play Instant,” the company already offers a related feature that allows gamers to immediately start a game from the Play Store.
Android 12: Google phased out APKs on the Play Store
The Games Developer Summit comes after Google announced that Developers will be required to use a new format, Android App Bundles (AAB) when uploading apps on the Play Store instead of APK.
AAB is a format that only Google Play uses, which means that unless you use Google Play, you might not have access to some apps, and it was launched in 2018.
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Google said the new app will only apply to new apps and that apps that are already on the Play Store don’t have to change format — users would still be able to download them.
What else is Android 12 bringing?
Andriod 12 is bringing a set of other features including a new design system called Material You, which is supposedly meant to mainly be a set of principles for creating interfaces, The Verge said.
Google had said Material You will be applied across all of its products, from the web to apps to hardware to Android.
