AdMob to deprecate SDK

[Carlos Verdier]

Hi

This is just a warning / reminder, maybe you are already aware of this.

Yesterday I got a email from Google saying this:

Version 6.4.1 and earlier versions of Google ads SDK for mobile (Android) will become obsolete from September 15, 2016. To ensure that your ads continue after September 15, 2016, update your Google Ads SDK Mobile to version 7.0.0 or later.

Is AdMob cn1lib ready for this? 

Thanks

[Shai Almog]

Hi,
probably not but it should be pretty easy to fix. The author just needs to integrate cocoapods to support that: https://www.codenameone.com/blog/cocoapods.html
This would also make it future proof for other library deprecations.

[Carlos Verdier]

Thanks, I just opened a Issue on Github with your recommendation. Although I understand the owner of the current fork is Chen with some contributions from Steve...

[Maaike]

What version is actually used when using android.googleAdUnitId ?

I got this warning a few weeks ago, in January they will finally stop supporting versions older than 7.0.0. When I just send a new build, will admob be updated to the new sdk version?

[Shai Almog]

I think Steve addressed that issue already at least for the cn1lib. Is it still happening in current builds?

[Maaike]

I don't think a cn1lib is used for this? I didn't find a cn1lib for admob, only for fullscreen ads (and I don't want that).

I don't know what the version is in current builds, how can I see that? That is actually my question: what version is a recent build?

[Shai Almog]

Yes I was talking about that.

I can't find the issue mentioned by Carlos https://github.com/codenameone/CodenameOne/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+admob

Can you please file an issue on this and we'll try to look into it. You can also try adapting the full screen admob cn1lib to use banner ads instead.

[Maaike]

I added an issue.

https://github.com/codenameone/CodenameOne/issues/2297

Do you think you can look into it soon or will it take a few months? Just for me to know, because the ads are probably not working anymore in a few weeks.

[Maaike]

But what is the actual version that is used for the admob ads (when using the build hint googleAdUnitId). Or how can I find that out? I tried to search in the sources, but I can not find it that quickly.

[Shai Almog]

I think it's the one built into API level 14 which we abandoned long ago.

[Maaike]

So if it is abandoned, why is it still documented on several places? Can it be fixed?

Why is it so unclear what version of the Admob API is used?

What can I use to replace Admob banner ads? I don't want to have fullscreen ads, only a small banner! 

[Shai Almog]

No Android SDK 14 is abandoned as we are at 23. Most developers don't really use this feature otherwise you'd see more comments in the thread.

The Admob SDK is builtin to google's Android SDK and the original implementation is so old it points at SDK 14.

Right now we don't have a standalone cn1lib for banner ads, it's something we should do but we should do lots of other things that we don't do. Thankfully with recent improvements to peer behavior integrating an ad SDK into Codename One should now be far easier than it was back when we initially implemented that solution.