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I'm trying to figure out the distribution group for Google Play staged rollouts. I've read the support page, which states the following:

You can release an app update to production using a staged rollout, where you release an app update to a percentage of your users and increase the percentage over time.

New and existing users are eligible for to receive updates from staged rollouts. Staged rollouts can only be used for app updates, not when publishing an app for the first time.

Does the "new and existing users" mean that the application will be available to a percentage of:

  1. The entire google play store
  2. All users that can see the application in the play store
  3. All existing users

Based on the documentation, it sounds like it's #2, but I was hoping someone who had experience using staged rollouts would be able to confirm?

Community
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Gophermofur
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1 Answers1

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If you tell Google Play to roll out a new version of your application to 10% of users, that means that if tomorrow you have 100 users (either new or existing users), 10 of them will get the newer version.

In other words, there are two ways for users to get the latest version of your app that you are rolling out:

  • If the user already has your app, there is about a 10% chance that the Play Store will prompt them to update.
  • If the user is a new user, there is a 10% chance that they will download the new version instead of the old version.

Your options 1 and 2 don't make a lot of sense, because if Google only made your app available to 10% of either all the Play Store or 10% of people who could download your app, then there's a reasonable chance that every single one of your users is in the 90% that can see the app but didn't get the upgrade, resulting in 0 users using the new version and thus defeating the purpose of doing a staged rollout.

Bryan Herbst
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  • That makes sense for existing users, since those are users that already have the application. But I don't understand what a "new" user is in your example? A new user would be someone who doesn't have the application already, so wouldn't they have to fall into either category #1 (play store eligible) or #2 (application eligible)? – Gophermofur Aug 10 '15 at 16:06
  • Yes- my point was that while options 1 and 2 could make sense for new users, those two options that you presented don't make sense for existing users and thus are not viable strategies. The specifics of how Google determines what version users get is not public knowledge. The most we know is that you should see about X percent of your users using the version you are rolling out, regardless of whether they already had the app installed or not. – Bryan Herbst Aug 10 '15 at 16:14
  • OK, that makes sense. Was hoping there was more information regarding how Google implements a staged rollout. Oh well, we'll cross our fingers and hope the numbers are accurate. – Gophermofur Aug 10 '15 at 16:56