Yes, you are right. On Android devices I have never been able to get smart banners to show at all using AGK. On iOS they seem to work if running an iPhone 6 or later, or iPad 3+. I don't even know what the "fluid banner" type is since it just shows as a small banner and isn't part of the
Admob Ad Types at all.
My solution currently is to use smart banners for modern iOS devices and standard banners for all other devices and Android. But it's not ideal. I also am unsure at the moment what version of the Admob SDK is being used by AppGameKit, since the last reference to it being updated in the change log was way back in 2016 with 7.15.0 (16 major versions behind). There are many new features in the latest SDK including improved placement and support for iPhone X, mediation potential and so on.
(EDIT: Checking via Xcode reveals: "<Google:HTML> You are currently using version
7.20.0 of the SDK. Please consider updating your SDK to the most recent SDK version to get the latest features and bug fixes." So AppGameKit is still bundling the version from
May 2017 (13 months and 11 versions out-of-date). Everything in the
Admob change log from after May 13, 2017 is not implemented.
I actually wrote to Paul about the ad issue on May 21 but haven't heard back. My message was:
Quote: "I have found that if I set the Admob banner type to 5 (smart banner) they never actually appear on any Android devices. I have tried several tablets and phones using both test and real ad unit IDs. It works fine on iOS devices and if I revert to the original non-smart banner format they appear on Android as well. Have you experienced this? I’m not sure what the “6 - fluid ad” type is in the documentation as it just shows a standard small banner when I try it.
Relatedly, I don’t know what version of the Admob SDK is currently in use but at least 7.26.0 (iOS) is required for proper iPhone X support (it moves the close button on fullscreen ads to a safe area). Likewise in order to prevent “top” banners from overlapping the notch in iPhone X it should be allowable to set a custom y position instead of just top, center or bottom so it could be offset so many pixels from the top, for example. The latest Admob SDK includes additional benefits relating to ad mediation etc.
Finally it would be very helpful if we could retrieve the true width and height of the banner in pixels though the AdSize.getWidthInPixels() and AdSize.getHeightInPixels() methods Google provides, especially useful for smart banners."
