Android App Publishing and Update?

Question

I will be publishing my app in couple of weeks but before that, I need to know something which I think might me important. To my knowledge the only way to publish the .apk file of my app is through Google Play. Am I right? If wrong please correct me. What else do I need in order to publish my app? Is there anything about license or something more important that I should keep in my mind?

Second thing I need to know is about update. After I have published my app at the Play, what if I need to release an update? To provide an update in future do I need to add something in my code or something in the manifest now at this moment of my development process? What are the important points should I keep in mind now so that I could provide an update later.

berwyn · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-14T22:08:51.193

There are other places you can publish your apps in addition to or instead of the Google Play Store, for example the Amazon App Store.

In regards to what else you need besides your APK, you need at least two screenshots of your app running, a large version of your app's icon and a pre-made privacy policy hosted somewhere on the web. There are other optional things that you should include, but don't need to (like a feature graphic, or a promo video).

Updating is much simpler. If you ever need to publish an update, simply change android:versionName & increment android:versionCode in your manifest and then you can just upload a new APK signed with the same key as your original to your app listing in the developer console and Google Play will automatically host the new version and notify users that have installed your app that an update is available.

Most of questions can be answered by visiting the developer console here:

https://play.google.com/apps/publish/

or the Android Developers Google Play guide:

http://developer.android.com/distribute/index.html

Thanks for the answer. As a matter of fact I have used ActionBarSherlock. In this case what do I need to do? Do I need to add any kind of license? — Debopam Mitra, Jul 14 '12 at 22:00
SquiresSquire seems to have answered your question on this one, but for most external libraries there's nothing you need to do on Google Play itself, just recognizing the license somewhere that the user can see in your application itself. — berwyn, Jul 14 '12 at 22:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 14 '12 at 21:45

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if you have used external library's check the license that came with them as to what you need for them. Updates are simply when you add new features to the code when releasing update you change version number in the manifest

answered Jul 14 '12 at 21:45

SquiresSquire

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Thanks for the answer. As a matter of fact I have used ActionBarSherlock. In this case what do I need to do? – Debopam Mitra Jul 14 '12 at 21:53
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It is an apache license u need to recognise apache in the about area and actionbar sherlock with links – SquiresSquire Jul 14 '12 at 22:03
@atomicrat2552 your right, i did mean to have the stuff in app my bad :P – SquiresSquire Jul 14 '12 at 22:12

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 18 '12 at 04:39

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I had the same issue. Be sure to ACTIVATE the APK on the APK Files tab.

answered Jul 18 '12 at 04:39

easycheese

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Android App Publishing and Update?

3 Answers3