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New tools for Android developers: updated SDK, Share Dialog and more

August 20, 2013ByChris Lang

In April, we introduced the next evolution of Facebook Platform for mobile in New York, where we unveiled new and improved products that enable rich native sharing experiences and make it easier to implement Open Graph on mobile. Today, we’re pleased to announce a major update to the Facebook SDK for Android that brings those products including Share Dialog and support for the Object API to Android.

We’re focused on providing the best products and tools to help you build great apps for any device or platform. With this Android SDK release, we’re moving one step closer to realizing that goal. Today, 73% of the top 100 grossing Android apps integrate with Facebook. With the new products we’re launching now, we’re excited to see even more high quality mobile apps integrate with Facebook to engage with our 800+ million mobile users.

Rich native sharing experiences

The Share Dialog offers a lightweight and consistent way to enable sharing to significantly enhance people’s sharing experiences from your app.

People now have the option to share activity from your apps without needing to login to Facebook first, eliminating up to 3 extra steps required for login when sharing via the feed dialog. With just one line of code, you can enable people to start sharing in an engaging way that lets them tag friends and share where they are. In addition, the Share Dialog includes support for publishing Open Graph actions to make it easier for people to tell their stories.

To integrate the new Share dialog for Android, simply download the SDK and follow these simple steps.


Open Graph made easier

With this release, we’re pleased to announce support for Object API that makes it easier to integrate Open Graph into your Android apps. With the Object API, you can directly create Open Graph objects and no longer need to host webpages with Open Graph tags.

Learn more about getting started with the Object API.

More insights and targeting options

We are launching in beta the ability to publish and measure app events for your Android apps. Previous versions of the SDK allowed developers and advertisers to measure installs driven from our mobile app install ads product. With app events, you can now also measure the aggregate number of times a predefined action was taken within your app, such as 'add to cart' in a commerce app, 'level achieved' in a game, or other custom events that help you understand the engagement and ROI coming from your mobile ads on Facebook. Over the next several months, we will be working on improving our optimization and insights and developing new features that will further leverage app events.

In addition, we are launching App User ID for custom audiences. With this feature, you can reach people who have taken specific actions in your Android app (such as installs or purchases) by defining an App User ID, and uploading this encrypted list in to our ads tool as a custom audience. Both app events, and ‘app user ID’ custom audiences are great features for apps that run mobile app install ads. We are always trying to add more features to the SDK that provide better mobile targeting and measurement capabilities for Android apps.

Learn more about app events (beta) and app user IDs.

Improved Login UI:

The updated Facebook Login UI not only looks better, but our tests also show it converts at a higher rate. We’ve refreshed the design in the LoginButton control and changed the default text to read - "Log in with Facebook." Your apps gain the benefit of the redesigned UI without any code changes, and you can still override the default text via localization.


We’ve updated our Android Dev Center so you can quickly access the tools and resources you need to build great apps. Start developing today to take advantage of these powerful new features. Share your feedback with us on Facebook's Stack Overflow page with the tag: Facebook-android-sdk.

Download the SDK now.