After reading through yesterday’s post regarding the Admob changes and requirements by Google, I didn’t see a mention about whether Amazon Android apps also require the ‘applicationChildElements’ field in build.settings.
Is this change required for Android apps in general, or only for Google Play Android apps? In other words, do we need to modify this APP_ID field when we build our Amazon apps? Or do only the Google Play apps look for this?
As far as I know Amazon (i.e. Kindle Fire) doesn’t support the AdMob SDK. Amazon sells Google Play compatible apps that run on normal Android devices that support Google Play, so for apps uploaded to Amazon, if you wish to target the wider market (less Kindle’s), you will need to include this. If you’re choosing to build for Amazon, you’re producing a Kindle Fire specific version, and you won’t be any need for the AdMob plugin.
Rob
Hi Rob,
In the past, I had a Kindle Fire that had Admob ads running on my apps. I don’t have the Fire anymore, so currently I just test the Amazon-built apps on my Google Play-based Android device and verify the AdMob ads are working.
But… For the latest version of AdMob, do you mean the following?
For Amazon Kindle Fire, no change is required in build.settings when building since it won’t check the App ID
For Amazon apps running on Google devices, the change is required for the AdMob App ID so that I use the ID I had assigned for my Amazon apps
So, I guess when I build my app I will swap out the App ID I use for the Google Play version with the Amazon version. It should work for both #1 and #2 then.
Looks like I should have bought a Kindle Fire on Prime Day just for testing!
Just following up to this thread. After a year I finally tried to update my app for Amazon, and as kinda expected, I got the Developer Error popup about Google Play Services when I launched my rebuilt app on a Xiaomi device. This was caused by plugin.admob.
I guess I’ll be looking for a new ad provider for Amazon.
Hi Dislam;
I’d suggest you see the posts (including mine) at the bottom of this thread:
https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/74770-paid-plugins-from-corona-support-chartboost-adcolony/
If you use any of the 64 Bit builds for android (since last July), I think that using ANY of the advertising plugins on an Amazon build will trigger a “Google Play Error Massage” – in total Error.
So using any Corona build other than old ones is a problem – if building for an actual Kindle Fire device (using Amazon app store settings).
Steve
Okay, thanks, that’s some good news. I will try that out tonight.
Rob said: “If you’re going to target Amazon, you probably should be using a build before 2019.3490. Amazon is still 32-bit and I don’t know when we will get 64-bit builds working for Amazon.”
Just to clarify, 2019.3480 is the last 32-bit build, using the old build system and can link in 32-bit only plugins. This is what currently works on Kindle Fires. There is a gap in daily builds and I think 2019.3497 is the first published 64-bit version, but it’s was really, really buggy. Anyone who needs 64-bit Android (a Goole Play Requirement) or SDK 28 or later support (another Google Play Requirement) should build for the latest daily build.
For Mac users, it’s pretty easy to have multiple versions installed, but PC users don’t have that feature and we understand it’s a pain to change Corona versions just to do Amazon builds, but we can’t change how Windows works.
Rob
Thanks Rob, I just built an app with 3480 and it works fine with Admob ads on my new Fire 8 tablet. I’ll switch to this one for Amazon builds for now and use the latest builds for Google/iOS.
Yes, it is easy to choose the build on my Mac in Sublime Text 2. I just go under Preferences - Package Settings - Corona Editor - Settings-User, and then set corona_sdk_simulator_path accordingly.
e.g.
{
“corona_sdk_simulator_path”: “/Applications/Corona-3480/Corona Simulator.app”
}