Today we’re announcing two new versions of the Google Mobile Ads SDK: version 7.8 for Android, and version 7.4.1 for iOS. Those of you using Android Studio can download Google Repository (Rev. 20) to get the latest Gradle artifacts. Eclipse developers will find it listed as Google Play services (Rev. 26) in the Android SDK manager. Publishers with iOS apps can get the latest SDK for that platform by updating their CocoaPods Podfile to pull version 7.4.1 or by downloading it manually. These releases contain a number of stability and performance improvements, as well as some new features — including beta support for MRAID v2.0 on iOS and Android!
MRAID v2.0 Beta
MRAID v2.0 offers a number of new methods that advertisers can use to improve their creatives. Ads using the new standard can store photos, resize themselves on the fly, query screen dimensions, and make calendar events using calls like this:
mraid.createCalendarEvent({
description: “A big sale at our store!”,
location: ‘123 Savings Street’,
start: ‘2015-9-01T09:00-05:00’,
end: ‘2012-12-22T10:00-05:00’
});
The new standard creates some great opportunities for increased engagement, so for more info about MRAID, see our iOS MRAID guide, our Android MRAID guide, or the IAB’s specifications document.
Checking ad loading status on Android
In the new Android release, we’ve added an isLoading method to the AdLoader, AdView, and InterstitialAd classes so publishers can check whether an ad request is in progress. If you’re using an AdLoader to fetch a native ad, for example, you can use a call like this to see if the request has completed:
if (!myAdLoader.isLoading()) {
/* The AdLoader isn’t busy making a request. */
myAdLoader.loadAd(new AdRequest.Builder().build());;
}
iOS global settings
This SDK release introduces the GADMobileAds class, which provides global settings for controlling certain information collected by the SDK. In-app purchase reporting and crash reporting are enabled by default. However, if you’d like, you can disable these settings in most instances by using the disableAutomatedInAppPurchaseReporting and disableSDKCrashReporting methods. See the global settings guide for more information.
For a full list of Mobile Ads SDK changes, check out our release notes. For technical questions, post them on our forum.
- Andrew Brogdon, Mobile Ads Developer Relations
