I have an unpublished application in the Play Console. But early this application was published, and some users installed it. Will they receive new updates?
Yes. If you unpublish an app, users who already installed it will continue to receive any updates you might send out.
They won't be able to search for the app if they're trying to do a fresh install, but it will appear in their library.
It even says this right below the publish option:
Note your app will continue to be available to existing users.
If you click "Learn more" you'll see:
When you unpublish an app, existing users can still use your app and receive app updates. Your app won’t be available for new users to find and download on Google Play.
Related
I have a native android app in google play and now I have made a new version of the app with ionic 2 framework.
How to update the app and is it possible to notify the users about the new version of the app?
I quess I have to remove the old one and upload the new one.
This is exactly what you need:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/7159011
Because you completely rewrote your app please read this too, the most important part is "Prepare your APK":
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/113476?hl=en
If you follow these guides existing users will be notified about new version automatically by Google Play Store.
The existing users can download the update from your app listing page on the play store or when they select My apps on the Play store. Also if they have enabled auto update for your app then the update will be downloaded and installed automatically.
More about this here.
and as #Abhishek recommended, if you don't have any code for checking updates in your previous version of app then users will not get notified automatically.
also you don't have to remove the old app to upload the new one, you can deactivate the old app if you want it to no longer served to the user, OR you can retain it if you still want it to be served to the users.
Google play usually updates applications automatically. You just need to add upload APK and click Release. You don't have to remove old APK.
In less than a day or something all users of your application will be notified by Google Play that new version is available and if user configures his phone to install apps automatically, then apk will be installed in background as soon as update will be ready.
Also you can notify your users about new version using PUSH notifications. Of course if your previous release does not contain code to enable PUSHes, then you cannot send such notification.
And one more thing: if you use your previous keys to sign APK then everything is fine and you don't need to do anything with APK at developer console, otherwise you need to rollback application and/or re-publish it.
it is possible to remove a purchasable applications from the Developer Console? Can customers who bought the application continues to download the application?
I want to prevent from that the application further spreads. But existing customers to continue to download the application.
greetings
Just unpublish the application from the developer console.
The existing users can able to install/reinstall the application if they have already downloaded/purchased once. New users can not find this application in the play store and can't able to download it.
You can also provide update to the current users as well.
I am developing an Android app. During development, I want to push the app several iterations to 50 selected user so that they can test the app for bugs etc. These update should happen automatically. I know I could send emails with the .apk file to the selected users, but this is not an option. The update should happen automatically, same like if the app was downloaded through the Google Play Store.
Basically something similiar as Testflight.de or Fabrics.io for iOS...
Play store provides Beta testing for exactly the same reason. The specified beta testers will be able to receive updates as your app is updated.
You can check the details here
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213?hl=en
I wish to unpublish an app from Play Store and inform all existing users to move to a new app location at Play store. I understand that once I unpublish an app, new users will not be able to view it, but existing users are still tied up to it. Is there a way to inform existing users to move to the new app?
Update the existing app to include the disclaimer, and that "Support for App XYZ will be discontinued beginning <Date>, at which point you might consider using App ABC <link to play store>".
Then unpublish the app on that Date. Users who installed XYZ previously will still get the latest published version (via auto-update or when they see it has an update in their installed apps list), while others who haven't downloaded it at all before will have no idea that app XYZ existed at all.
I have an unpublished app on Google Play which I want to update for my existing users, but not let new users download it.
The Google Play documentation seems to be saying that this can be done by simply uploading an updated apk (and not re-publishing the app):
Unpublished Apps
Existing app users will still be able to receive app updates, even if you unpublish your app. If you don't want new users to find and download your app but still want to provide updates to your existing users, set your app to Unpublished in the Developer Console.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/113476?hl=en
But it seems unintuitive that an "unpublished" application would work that way. If the documentation is correct, how does Google Play tell the difference between an 'existing' user and a 'new' user?
Just a follow up: pushing an update to the unpublished app does make the update available to existing users only, but the app does not update automatically for these users. They must browse to the app page, where the app will have an "Update" button which can be triggered manually.
(This is just speculation, I'm not affiliated with Google in any way or anything)
The existing user probably has the app associated with the Google account they use to log in to the Play store.
If you look at your own profile in the store, there's a list of all the apps you've ever installed. I'm guessing the update would be available only for people who have your app in their lists, and the app will still be invisible for new users.
Whenever a user that has the app installed wants to update it, he requests an update of the app, it's different from re-installing the app as data from the app (a save from a game, or some saved preferences etc) are kept untouched, google play can easily detect that since it can detect what apps you have installed.