Google Details April’s Google System Updates

April approaches and with it a fresh Google System Update, featuring fixes and changes for the Google Play/system ecosystem as a whole. To recap, what you’re about to see is what is happening behind the scenes in Play Services updates and general Google Play updates. These are the changes you don’t really see, but should help make your Android experience a bit better.

Before we go any further, do know that Google does a lot of copy and paste with these changelogs. Due to that, on top of Google’s vague bullets, it’s impossible to say for sure what’s new. In this changelog, Google lists bug fixes for security for its various platforms yet again this month (same thing for last month), as well as updates for system management services that improve device connectivity, network usage, stability, etc. While vague, it’s certainly better than nothing.

Here’s the full list for those interested.

What’s New

April 2022

Critical Fixes

• [Auto, Phone, Tablet, TV, Wear OS] Bug fixes for security & privacy, and system management & diagnostics related services. ^[1][2]

Google Play Store

• Improvements to Play-as-you-download feature to let gamers start playing mobile games while the app download continues to reduce waiting times. ^[3]
• New Features to help you discover the Apps & Games you love.^[3]
• Optimizations allowing faster and more reliable download and installation.^[3]
• New features to the Play Pass and Play Points programs. ^[3]
• Enhancements to Google Play Billing. ^[3]
• Continuous improvements to Play Protect to keep your device safe. ^[3]
• Various performance optimizations, bug fixes and improvements to security, stability and accessibility. ^[3]

System Management

• Updates to system management services that improve device connectivity, network usage, stability, security and updatability. ^[1][2]

Developer Services

• New developer features for Google and third party app developers to support ads, accessibility, analytics & diagnostics and machine learning & AI, and security & privacy related developer services in their apps. ^[2]

_{[1] Available through Google Play system update for April.
[2] Available through Google Play services v22.12 updated on 04/01/2022.
[3] Available through Google Play Store v29.9 updated on 04/01/2022.}

As a reminder, these updates are very important/cool because they are for all Android users. These are not device specific, and while Google has been doing them for a while, we’ve only recently been provided with changelogs. Please continue this, Google.

These new features and improvements will rollout as Google Play Services v22.12 and Google Play Store v29.9 starting April 1. It will likely take a while before everyone gets them.