I need to publish the same app multiple times with just some small differences (app name, app launcher icon, colors and images).
I will configure Gradle to have a different applicationIdSuffix for each buildTypes.
So the apps will have this kind of packages: "com.appname.app1", "com.appname.appB", "com.appname.app3", "com.appname.app1234", etc...
Is that allowed from the Google Play Store rules?
Yes. You can publish the apps by changing there package names.
No, you cannot do what you are proposing. It is against the Play Store rules to do this.
If they determine you are doing this, your account could get banned, and there is precedence for this.
You really need to figure out how you can target multiple platforms with the same APK.
Here is the specific language from the page:
Spam and Placement in the Store Developers are important partners in
maintaining a great user experience on Google Play.
Do not post repetitive content.
Related
We want to manage different environments for our app on the Google Play Store.
The developer console provides the option to setup different tracks. (Internal, Open...)
Now i was wondering if there would be a way to install all or some of these tracks on the same time on the same device. This would make things more easy for the QA which needs to test all of the tracks.
I haven't found anything on the web and presume that it wont be possible because every track shares the same bundle identifier. Right now my best guess would be to create different Apps for the different environments which would be ugly and i believe also not easy to maintain.
But maybe i lucky and someone else had the same problem and found a better solution.
You can't do this, unfortunately. Android identifies apps using the package name. Different package names mean the apps are installed separately, whereas the same name means the app will (try to) install over the existing one. On the play store, each track (internal, etc.) has the same package name so you can't install these apps side by side.
One possible solution is to set up another app with a different name (probably using productFlavors and the applicationIdSuffix setting in build.gradle). You could then distribute that app either through a different non-public app in the play store, or using something like app centre that's designed for this kind of app delivery for QA purposes.
I wanted to know if it is possible to submit multiple versions of the same app to the Google Play store. I know that Google Play allows developers to submit multiple APK's to the target certain device configurations, but we would like to release a different name of the app to each of our clients. Things that would be different in each app are the logos, app names, access to different types of information for each customer. I wanted to know if this would violate the Google Play Store's submission guidelines (it is an app built using Adobe Phonegap build, each app package name would be the same), would it be subject to rejection? I know that there are multiple questions on this site similar to this, but they are older questions and I wanted to see if this is something that Google Play is offering. Thank you.
"each app package name would be the same"
AFAIK, that not possible, since package name is used as ID in play store.
The package names must be different. Ideally, you would have unique security keys that signed the APKs as well. It prevents one app from accessing the private data of another app. Other than that, there's no policy or technical block stopping you from posting the same APK with different flavors.
As has been said - the package name is used as the ID in the Play Store.
But the way around this is very simple - just use different package names!
You'll be making the same app with different branding anyway so you'll already have different code bases.
Copy your entire app folder.
Find the config.xml. It looks like this (from the docs): http://docs.phonegap.com/phonegap-build/configuring/#example
Change the id. If you have two apps you'd have:
com.phonegap.appname1
com.phonegap.appname2
Upload each app to a different PhoneGap Build repository. This will create two different apps. Easy.
I'm building an Android game and I'd like to have a free and paid version. I can add these just fine in my code, but the problems come when I have two different package names:
you need to add the package name on the Google Play dev console
you need to add the package name for Facebook
Do I need to have two of everything? Two apps on Google Play, two facebook apps, two Google Play Games with doubled all content (Achievements, Leaderboards)? Is there a way to have one app but an easy way to unlock a "pro" version? Maybe with in-app purchase?
What's the best way to do this? Seems like product flavors arent really flavors if Google Play treats them as separate apps...
If you're using Android Studio, I would suggest going through Build Variants wherein using Android Library Projects was also mentioned as an option if you will be creating same application.
Lastly, you may also check this SO post - Best way to have paid and free version of an Android app for few more options. Hope something fits what you've been looking for.
Happy coding!
I know it's better if there is only one app with different specifications for layout. But I have different drawable folders that doesn't fit into 50mb limitation, there is certain problem with having expansion files. So I kinda need to. But is it allowed? Will I pay for that?
From the docs:
Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and independent version of your application, but they share the same application listing on Google Play and must share the same package name and be signed with the same release key. This feature is useful for cases in which your application cannot reach all desired devices with a single APK.
So there's no problem doing what you want. There's no extra charge for that, either. The docs go on to explain how you set up multiple APKs.
I know it is technically possible to put the same application into the app store with 2 almost identical APKs (different package names and titles), although probably a bit dodgy - I imagine this would not be allowed by Google, but I don't see anything in their Ts & Cs that prohibit this
https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html
E.g. "My cool app free" And "The awesomest app trial"
Question: Is this allowed?
Reason: A colleague and I were debating the effect of titles and descriptions of downloads (based on different indexes/user searches) and wondering if people ever post a game/app with 2 different ones to see which is more successful
You can if the package name of the app is different, as you said. This is done quite often for apps with trial and paid version. Regarding your question, we have right now around 6 apps in Google Play which are different branded versions of the same app. This means, they have their own package name, splash screen, and some database data, but the app is really the same. So far we didn't get any trouble with Google, so I would say it's possible.
Just for reference, in case you are interested in doing something similar, the best option in terms of maintainability of your app, consists in using an Android library project.
Basically you have one main big project with the "Android Library" option checked in Eclipse. You have all the main code there.
On the other hand, you create two additional projects linked to your library. They will just need their manifest.xml and some activity to call the main activity of the library. Their package names must be different if you want to publish both apps in Google Play.
Additionally, you can override some resources for every project. For instance, you could have a boolean in /res/values indicating whether the project is a trial or paid version, with different values for them. Then, in the library you could check this boolean to show advertisements if it's a trial version.
Another useful thing you can do is using a custom splash screen for every app, by having different image resources in every project with the same name.
As far as I know, it is allowed and certainly has been done in the past (malware masquerading as popular games). Provided the app you're publishing is your own work (and really only the name is different), then I can't see anyone reporting it either.
It is prohibited according to Play Console Developer Program Policy (effective October 21, 2020).
We don't allow apps that merely provide the same experience as other apps already on Google Play. Apps should provide value to users through the creation of unique content or services.
Here are some examples of common violations:
Copying content from other apps without adding any original content or value.
Creating multiple apps with highly similar functionality, content, and user experience. If these apps are each small in content volume, developers should consider creating a single app that aggregates all the content.