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/
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I'm planning to release a mobile app, iOS/Android, to a specific set of users who operate in their personal gmails and apple accounts. In that case, I have to strictly stick to the following conditions.
The app should be available only for a specific set of users' personal devices.
PlayStore and AppStore registered for their personal emails.
Apps shouldn't be a TestFlight or Beta Apps
There should be a facility to push app updates to the users
There will be around 5,000+ users
Further, we have the following facilities
Apple Developer program and Apple Enterprise Program
Google Developer Console
Firebase with blaze plan
I have gone through Kaspersky MDM, Heka, Citrix, and Apple Business suite. None of those satisfies the total requirements. I'm looking for a solution for app distribution or OTA installation.
I have implemented Android license verification to protect users sharing APK files of my paid app. But what if they purchase the app from one Google account share the account details with each other? Is there a way to determine if such a thing is happening and limit the number of devices that can download that app with one account or outright ban that Google account if they share the details with, let's say 5 devices or something like that? Does Google Play Console let me see what Gmail accounts are used to install the app? How can I avoid users sharing the account/app without implementing a fully blown sign in system of my own? I am not dealing with the most advanced hackers or anything. Just avoiding an average Joe sharing account details in a group chat is my goal.
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.
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
To be clear, I am an Android Developer - and sold one of my apps (i have 5 in my account) to a business contact of mine. I want to transfer that ONE app from my developer account to his developer account.
It seems Android clearly defines how you transfer apps from an old account, to a new account (but both of those accounts are owned by you - and in this case the old account is closed down)
How do i transfer this one app i sold, with out affecting either account, or without hurting/losing the apps ratings/reviews/rank etc?
There is no official way to do this that I know of. As you mentioned, there is a support page that suggests that Google has this capability. I would recommend that you contact the Android Market support team and ask them directly, clearly explaining your situation. That page says:
Contact us from both the original email address and the new email address requesting to transfer applications. We require emails from both accounts so that we can confirm ownership.
So I think it's not so much about owning both accounts as much as proving that this isn't a fraudulent transaction. If you explain the situation and have both yourself and the contact you sold the app to email them, that would confirm that both parties have consented.
I'm not sure if the Android Market support team will actually do it, but it's worth a shot.
I don't have an answer to your question, but hope you realize that you can't change the apk signing key for signing the app. If you do, users can't update and you have to release the app with a new package name.
Verify you have everything ready in checklist:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/checklist/3294213
Ask to transfer your app to target Google Play account e-mail:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/contact/appt
Always remember to get original signing key for the app from developer. If he's using one singing key for all of his apps, it's his fault.