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Android user experience

Google will now warn about battery-hungry Android apps
AppWizard
November 17, 2025

Google will now warn about battery-hungry Android apps

Google is enhancing the Android user experience by addressing battery drain caused by applications. The company is collaborating with developers to create power-efficient apps and has introduced new "technical quality metrics" to identify apps that excessively drain battery life. A specific focus is on "excessive partial wake locks," developed in partnership with Samsung, which can significantly escalate battery usage. A new beta metric for excessive partial wake locks has been refined and will soon be available as a core vital for all developers. Starting March 1, 2026, Google will implement new standards that could affect app visibility on the Play Store. Apps that do not meet the quality threshold for excessive wake locks may be excluded from prominent discovery surfaces and could receive warnings about potential battery drain. An app is considered to have excessive wake lock usage if it holds more than 2 cumulative hours of non-exempt wake locks in a 24-hour period, with a threshold for "bad behavior" set at exceeding 5% of user sessions classified as excessive over the past 28 days. Developers will receive alerts if their app surpasses this limit.
How Google and Samsung are teaming up to fix Android battery drain, suggests report
AppWizard
November 11, 2025

How Google and Samsung are teaming up to fix Android battery drain, suggests report

Google has introduced a new system to identify apps that excessively drain battery life, featuring an "excessive partial wake locks" metric developed in collaboration with Samsung. Wake locks allow applications to keep a device awake for background tasks, but their misuse can lead to battery drain. The system, in beta testing since April 2025, flags a user session as "excessive" if it exceeds two hours of non-exempt wake locks in 24 hours. Poor app behavior is defined as occurring when five percent or more of an app's user sessions exceed this threshold. Apps that exceed this threshold may face consequences on the Play Store, including removal from recommendations and a warning message. The policy will be implemented starting 1 March 2026, with additional tools and documentation provided to help developers optimize their applications.
This new Android 16 feature will cut down the time you spend waiting for apps to update
AppWizard
October 29, 2025

This new Android 16 feature will cut down the time you spend waiting for apps to update

Google has introduced a feature called "Seamless app updates" in Android 16, which reduces the duration of app freezing during updates to only a few milliseconds. This enhancement minimizes disruption for users, allowing them to resume activities with little to no delay. The feature is accessible to all Android users, not just Pixel device owners, and improves the update process by enabling simultaneous app updates through the Play Store. As this feature rolls out, users can expect quicker reopening of apps, particularly for larger applications and games.
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