How to Fix App Quality Issues with Android Vitals (Part 2)
Article Summary
Your Android app's crash rate could be killing your Play Store rankings without you realizing it. Google's Android Vitals dashboard now has powerful new features to help you catch issues before users do.
Google's Wojtek Kaliciński breaks down the latest Android Vitals updates, including anomaly detection and category benchmarks. This second part focuses on fixing two critical metrics: stuck wake locks and crashes that directly impact your app's Play Store performance.
Key Takeaways
- Bottom 25% for stuck wake locks? Time to migrate from wake locks to JobScheduler
- Exceeding crash rate threshold triggers Play Store ranking penalties
- Kotlin's null safety prevents NullPointerExceptions at compile time, not runtime
- New anomaly detection alerts you via email when vitals suddenly spike
- Category benchmarks show performance vs similar apps, not just global averages
Apps exceeding the bad behavior threshold for crashes or wake locks face Play Store ranking consequences, but new Android Vitals features help you catch and fix issues faster.
About This Article
Developers have a hard time figuring out which wake locks are draining battery. Apps often grab partial wake locks through PowerManager without setting timeouts, which means these locks can get stuck and keep running across multiple battery sessions.
Wojtek Kalicinski suggests using static, descriptive wake lock tags and adding timeouts when you acquire locks. He also recommends switching to JobScheduler, WorkManager API, or AlarmManager instead. These modern tools handle wake lock lifecycles automatically.
When apps follow these practices, fewer battery sessions get affected by stuck wake locks. Apps can climb out of the bottom 25% performance tier, which helps with Play Store visibility and keeps users around longer.