Heads up, Android developers, because Google is giving you a holiday gift in the form of a Google Play services update.
The Google Play services 8.4 SDK is now available, and it’s got some notable updates that are sure to please Android developers. The first is custom email app invites, which will let you share content from within the app inside of an invite. Before, you could let the user customize an app invite with text and an image, but now they can also add richer content from within the app to help entice the invitee to check the app out.
The tools in Google Play services 8.4 will also help you to predict user churn and spend. With churn, the prediction tools will show the probability that a user will churn, or stop using an app. You can then use that data to implement changes that’ll make the user stick around. Meanwhile, the spend prediction tool will show you the probability that a user will spend money in your app. You can use this data to provide discounts or show ads in an effort to get more money out of the app.
There are quite a few other developer-focused goodies included in the Play services 8.4 update. Some of them include Fused Location Provider updates, improvement to the Maps API, support for Aztec bar codes, and background beacon scanning.
To learn more about the goodies included in Google Play services 8.4, check out the video above and the link below.
