Google Play Services

Google Play Services is a core Androids app that keeps your other apps up-to-date.

Google Play is more than an app storefront. It’s a platform through which you manage your devices, apps, locations and so forth. Google Play Services is the app the allows for communication between your devices and that platform. Its primary purpose is to ensure that your apps are updated and thus don’t cause conflicts with the operating system and other apps. This occurs without manual input. On a schedule, this app checks your other apps against a database and updates them accordingly.

You can also use this app to manage your account. It provides control over all of the apps you’ve claimed rather than just the ones you have installed on a particular device. You can set your privacy settings, synchronize your contacts and use location-based services. It handles authentication and manages memory for games and other intensive apps, and most of the time you’re using this app, you won’t even think about it because it tends to do its job in the background.

Google Play Services is a core but not essential Android component. It should be preinstalled on your Android device and is primarily available for downloading for updating purposes. There are scenarios, such as with rooted devices, where this app isn’t present and requires a fresh install if you want it.

This app can be resource-intensive. Whether high memory and battery usage is the fault of this app or other apps that rely on it is a matter of debate and certainly situational. Regardless, this app can run amuck at times and can be difficult for novice users to suspend or eliminate.

Pros

• Keeps apps up-to-date
• Lets you manage all apps across devices
• Manage devices, locations and other settings

Cons

• Can be resource-intensive

7.3

- Maps API v2 for Android Wear

- Wear API improvements, including Channel API for bidirectional data transfer between devices

- Fit API improvements, including new API for reading aggregated daily totals

- Location API improvements, including parameter for setting max wait time

- Places API improvements, including ability to retrieve attributions