Here’s a little tip if your Android app makes use of location based services but doesn’t require them. We were getting a few emails from users that the app wasn’t available in Google Play on their devices. Most of the devices were more obscure tablets and low-end phones that didn’t have GPS functionality.

It seemed to be related to the fact that our app uses GPS and/or network location in order to geotag posts. This is not a required feature so we had this line in our AndroidManifest.xml file:

<uses-feature
        android:name="android.hardware.location"
        android:required="false" />

Turns out this was not good enough, as you need to be a bit more detailed about what your app is using but is not required:

<uses-feature
        android:name="android.hardware.location"
        android:required="false" />
<uses-feature
        android:name="android.hardware.location.gps"
        android:required="false" />
<uses-feature
        android:name="android.hardware.location.network"
        android:required="false" />

After we published that change to the manifest file, the app was available to 160 more devices. Woo!