I want to publish my app to a limited set of users (Not country and carrier specific). I searched on the internet and found this. However this has lead to confusion, at the start the document says that we can create a private channel to distribute apps throughout an organization.
A Google Apps for Business, Education, or Government domain can have a Private Channel on the Google Play Store. The Google Apps domain administrators can allow domain users to register with the Android Developer Console to publish Android applications to the Private Channel. The publisher account owner who registered with the Android Developer Console must be a Google Apps user in the same domain, such as internal IT staff, and not external developers.
But at the end the document says:
Can I publish an app to a specific group of users?
No. But you can publish an app targeting a specific country or specific device models.
If anyone has a better insight on this, please enlighten me. I want to publish an app internal to my organization what are the possible ways?
I think its better to do like following:-
Alpha- and beta-testing
If you are planning to go alpha- and beta-testing route, it’s best to start with a small group of alpha testers (perhaps employees of your company, or a few fellow developers) and then move on to a larger group of beta testers.
Follow this link:-
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213?hl=en
Its just simple you have to create an community of the employees with their google account.and simple add this community as a beta tester.so everyone get the mail regarding the link to download an app and acceptance of permissionbecome an tester.
My understanding of the document you quote is that the app developer must be inside the domain serviced by the Private Channel. An external developer (one who is outside the domain) cannot publish to that specific domain.
Thinking it through, we have to ask "how could Google control publishing to a specific domain?" As soon as we ask that we can see all sorts of security and control issues. We could imagine a malicious developer publishing a trojan app that is targeted at a particular business they wanted to damage.
So there are the two paths: a private Channel publishing to a given domain, and the Alpha / Beta path recommended by Born To Win.
Related
I would like to deploy android apps to my employees. We have roughly 900 employees.
I was looking here, and it indicates that I have to setup a private channel by enabling Google apps for my domain. I've also read that it costs $50/employees to have my entire company on google apps.
Are there any other ways to deploy android apps strictly to my employee base? Am I really going to have to pay $50 per head?
Any advice is welcome.
No you don't need to pay that.
Get a developer licenses from developer.android.com ($25)
Then create a google group for your Employees and invite them all using their gmail (or other google, see screen shot below) accounts they have installed on their devices.
Step 1 complete, they are all inside the google group you have specified.
in the developer console:
Upload your apk as an alpha or beta apk (see screen shot below), set up the app as normal with all required fields, but when specifying the testing group you can reference this google group you have just created, which will give you a url that can only be accessed by those google accounts in the group.
Send this link out to all the employees that you previously invited to that google group and get them to accept the link for alpha/beta testing.
Once, accepted the employees will be able to download the apk from the Android device with that google account. (The app can then be found in the PlayStore app under Apps & Games -> My apps & Games - > All)
Now anytime you upload a new Alpha/beta apk all users of this group will see the app update or if auto update apps is enable for them, it will happen automatically.
for more details on beta setup: Alpha/beta help
Good Luck and happy coding!
you can always just install the apk file.
but in that case all your users/employers would have to enable other sources in the settings and get the file on the device somehow and start it(which might require an extra app).
How about just making it a public app and restrict the access to the app somehow (e.g. with a company login)
How do I invite users to beta test an app without compromising their privacy?
As far as I know, if I invite them to a Google+ Community and/or a Google Group, their presence is essentially public to the rest of that community or group. Ideally I am looking for the ability to invite individuals privately via their email address, and with no unwanted publicity.
You are correct. In order to beta test via Google Play, the user will be "known" to others in the test group to the extent of the personally identifying information provided by their Google account.
We use Hockey for beta testing our Android apps and other platforms, such as Mac and iOS. Relatively cheap service and beta users only need to enter in name and email. That info can be easily anonymized and is harder to correlate identity when compared to a Google account.
http://hockeyapp.net/features/
I've got my personal Google Play Developer account, but within the company I work for, I'd like to start distributing an app. We have a Google Apps account with a very limited number of users - (we only have 5 people on the account), while the company itself has a few thousand employees.
Ultimately, we'd want to distribute to a wider array of people (people who are not on the Google Apps account) and potentially even include users who are not employees.
I imagine setting up a "white-list" of external users who can see the app, download it, get updates - but I can't find out whether this exists or not for private channels. Before I request the company pay the $25 for a developer account so that I can see whether or not this is possible, I was wondering if anyone knows the answer?
"Can I publish an app to a specific group of users?
No. But you can publish an app targeting a specific country or specific device models."
"Can I publish an app to both the public Google Play store and a Private Channel?
This functionality is not supported in the initial release. An app can either be published publicly or to a Private Channel, and not both."
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2494992?hl=en
I'm developing an Android Personal App which I want to make this app to visible only for specific people.
Is there any way to provide access through Play Store login ID?
Is there any way to provide access through Machine ID?
After a lot of searching I got an idea for 1st requirement Private Channel may be preferable. But I'm not getting this:
To enable the private channel feature, administrators and developers must use Google apps for an education, business, or government domain.
My app doesn't belong to any of the three categories(education, business, or government domain). Anybody, please share your ideas regarding my requirement. Thanks in Advance.
You can use the Alpha and Beta testing feature in the PlayStore.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213?hl=en
A production APK is not required to publish an alpha- or beta-test app
You can create a google+ group and only release that app to members of that group.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213?hl=en
I have an app which is planned to be released in several phases:
Testing phase using email distribution to small testing population (in-process).
To a small group of users. It will be a diverse group geographically and it is important that the app is not given / spread to wider audience.
For broad distribution to who ever might want it, free or paid (logically google play).
Given this, can the Google play licensing scheme be used to facilitate the first phase? I read in the following link that google does not want any form of selective distribution (other than testing). I did not see any references for selectively enabling an app (second link).
How i can offer a licensing Android application
http://developer.android.com/guide/google/play/licensing/adding-licensing.html
The alternative for phase 1 would be to develop an authentication mechanism with a server using a distributed key. The key would be matched against either a uuid or google id on a server before the app could be activated. Distribution to new users would be involve providing a new key.
Comment appreciated on both.
The Google licensing scheme (LVL) only works for paid applications. What it does is basically check that the current app is in the history of purchases associated with a particular Google account. If it is, you have legitimate paid user; if not, well, something went wrong, or somebody is trying to pirate your app. It has had mixed success. It doesn't allow you to control who can use your app in any other way.
So if you want to distribute a private beta, you can either:
Distribute directly via email, etc. (first phase)
Host on Google Play and develop your own activation scheme (product code, etc). Then only the people who receive the code can actually use the app. (phase two)
(1+2) Distribute via your web site to anyone, but require activation. (phase two)
For 2., you are bound to get some 1-stars from people who don't read the description/instructions ('Doesn't work', 'Activation required, boo', etc.), so it is a good idea to use a separate package from the final one (com.myapp.beta, etc.).