Google updates app title guidelines for clarification on naming third-party apps

Google has just updated their app title guidelines to help developers choose better, more disconnected titles for third-party applications. The guidelines are put in place to help third-party app developers separate themselves from potentially tricking a user into thinking the developer is directly associated with a brand.

Google has long practiced this policy when it came to 3rd party app’s using its own branding, or the Android branding more specifically. For instance, Google would rather have an app titled Media Player for Android, as opposed to Android Media Player. The latter suggests that the music player is associated with Android, and the former suggests that the music player is simply an app on the Android platform. With their latest guideline update, they not only clarify the practice of naming conventions, they now expand it to cover other services and brands such as social networks and more.

This means that Twitter clients can’t be called “Twitter Easy Connect” (made up example), and instead would have to be Easy Connect for Twitter. This also means stuff like Reddit Sync could come under fire under this new guideline update. In the Android Developer portal’s Policy Guidelines & Practices section, the new changes will appear in the Keyword Spam section.

This is basically something for Google to refer back to if a developer just so happens to mis-title their application. In short, this should help developers catch their mistakes early on, eliminating the need to change their app name further down the road.