Android developers interested in informing their app’s users of the new features in a latest app update have had no other recourse, until recently, than using the app description field to detail the news. The issue annoyed many developers who felt constricted by the description’s field character limit – only 325 characters.
Now, with a recent update to the Android Market’s backend, developers finally have the “changelog” feature they’ve been asking for.
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The new feature is a field called “Recent Changes” and it allows you to add notes about the specific changes to the newest version of your Android application. The changes are linked to each app version, so developers will actually be required to enter information in this field going forward.
How to Use “Recent Changes”
As a best practice, Android developers are asked to only submit details regarding the changes in the current app update, and not try to summarize all the changes the app has seen to date. According to Google, those prior changes will not be made visible to the end user at present, but may be visible in the future.
Given that restriction, we suspect some developers will feel the need to highlight past changes in this field, but we would advise against this. If those recent changes are that important, developers should update the app’s main description instead, along with the list of all the app’s main features.
Another important item to note – the recent changes field won’t have any impact on the search index. That means that if you have introduced new features that should lead users to your app via a Market search, those keywords should be in the app’s description field, not just the changes section.
Recent Changes in Action
Here’s a look at what the new Recent Changes feature looks like, courtesy of the AndroidCommunity.com website, which first discovered the news this morning.
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