Google TV square icon will be required starting Nov 9th, 2023

[lwmirkk]

https://developer.android.com/design/ui/tv/guides/system/tv-app-icon-guidelines?utm_source=email&utm_medium=msa&utm_campaign=Google-tv-app-icon-q3-2023

Starting Nov 9th, 2023 Google TV will require developers to provide a square app icon asset as part of the submitted TV app package in addition to the existing banner asset. The provided square app icon asset will be surfaced in circular format on the For You tab in the user’s Your Apps row and will be the primary asset users see when they launch your app. Please refer to the TV App Icon Guidelines for more guidance on creating app icons for your TV app.

What do I need to do? Ensure that you’ve submitted an updated APK which includes the square app icon assets as defined in the TV App Icon Guidelines by Nov 9th, 2023.

What happens if I do not provide a square icon by Nov 9th, 2023? If your app is already installed on a user’s device or a new user installs your app but there is no launcher icon asset provided, users will see the below Android default app icon. Default Android App Icon

What devices will be impacted? This update will apply to all existing (in-field) and new Google TV devices.

Do I still need to provide the 320x180-pixel app banner asset that exists today? Yes. The rectangular banner asset will still be displayed throughout other areas of the UI so please ensure to include both the square and rectangular assets in your submission.

[lwmirkk]

@ajwfrost

Any news about this? Google is rejecting app update because this: https://developer.android.com/design/ui/tv/guides/system/tv-app-icon-guidelines?utm_source=email&utm_medium=msa&utm_campaign=Google-tv-app-icon-q3-2023

References: https://forum.unity.com/threads/android-tv-app-icon-support.1502858/ https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/thread/270001289/android-tv-app-rejected-with-reason-no-full-size-app-banner-and-or-icon?hl=en https://www.figma.com/community/file/1283953738855070149/tv-app-icon-template-android-tv-google-tv

Thanks a lot. =)

[ajwfrost]

Hi @lwmirkk - apologies, it looks like our initial thoughts (that this would be handled via the standard icon functionality) isn't quite right, as there is size checking that happens within ADT that would block this...

The actual icons are provided in the normal way i.e. you don't need any new setting within the application descriptor, but the sizes of the icons are different here. e.g. for a normal Android app, the mipmap-mdpi folder should contain the icon with 48x48 pixels, but for Android TV it wants 80x80 pixels.

I'm a little unsure in the "details" section of the screenshot you provided .. who is the "we" referring to there?! It says the xhdpi setting should have a banner of 320x180 but an icon with 512x512 - which is way larger than the banner (?) and contradicts the Google website that has xhdpi icons at 160x160 px... and when we generate an Android TV project in Android Studio, we get a launcher icon in xhdpi at 96x96 (and a banner at 432x243, and the activity has this banner as the icon..!). Meanwhile the Figma template seems to agree with the Google website with a 160x160 pixel image in mipmap-xhdpi...

So it's all a little unclear what's actually required here!

On that Google support thread, the final entry says:

In all the folders we have updated icons following these dimension: screenshot of the Android TV launcher icon sizes Caution: The min size of each icon for become Android TV compatible is bigger than Android normal devices. Last step: Replace the xhdpi 160x160 by an 512x512px ( don't ask me why? ¿?¿?)

So what I'm thinking is:

• for an Android TV target, we should switch to using/requiring those different icon sizes
• and iff you provide a 512x512 icon, we'll put that into xhdpi instead of the 160x160 one..

Our imageNNxNN values don't include 160x160, 240x240 or 320x320 currently.. so this is actually going to need an update to the schema i.e. 51.1.

If we're updating that anyway: would it be useful to also allow you to provide different banner images for the different resolutions, per those design guidelines? i.e. you could pass in a 640x360px version if wanted?

thanks

[lwmirkk]

Hi @ajwfrost !

This was updated on this release, correct?

Update : AIR 51.1.1.1 AIR-7139: Updating icon/banner sizes for Android TV applications

We have some clients that we just compile the app for them to be released on the play store.

Currently I`m using the 51.1.3.3 and Google is rejecting the app for Android TV, this is the third app in a row with the same rejection that occurred just this week, the information was:

During review, we detected the following eligibility issue and were unable to accept your app for Android TV:

No full-size app banner

Your app does not contain a full-size app banner and/or icon, or it is not visible in the launcher. We are targeting 1080p, which we consider xhdpi. Apps should include the banner in the xhdpi (320 dpi) drawables folder with a size of (320px × 180px) and the icon with a size of (512px x 512px). Please refer to our Provide a home screen banner article and UI Patterns documentation.

The title should help users identify apps in the launcher. Please refer to our Visual design and user interaction documentation for more information.

So probably the AIR release is not the problem, but probably using the default app icon and the crop was not the ideal for Android TV, so probably we need to inform another icon just for Android TV, but how to point the different icon for Android TV on the Application XML?

This is the additional information provided by Google:

For example, your icon does not fill the entire icon space. You can refer to the attached screenshot for additional information.

Attachment about this information:

Thanks a lot :)

[ajwfrost]

Hi

There was an issue with the initial implementation you reference above - see #3604 But that should have been fixed in 51.1.3.2: https://airsdk.harman.com/release_notes?q=3604

So if you're using 51.1.3.3 and are getting rejected, then it's a bit odd..

From the report you copied, they say:

Apps should include the banner in the xhdpi (320 dpi) drawables folder with a size of (320px × 180px) and the icon with a size of (512px x 512px).

But from https://developer.android.com/design/ui/tv/guides/system/tv-app-icon-guidelines#banner they state that the banner should be in the mipmap folder.

Plus above they say about the icon size, that also contradicts their website which says it should be 160x160.

Do you have any possibility to query them on these two points, referring back to their guidelines website above?

It would of course also be worth unzipping your APK/AAB file and checking that the appropriate-sized images are in the appropriate res folders...

thanks