I have written an app that is hosted on our private server. We release updates to our customers via a push notification. All this works fine.
We always intended to publish the app on Google Play Store eventually but one of our customers that is a council, has published the app on the store without asking us. I think he wanted control of updating the app and the benefits of Alpha/Beta testing. This is causing us problems as when i try to upload the apk from my developers console, Google is saying the package name already exists on the Play Store.
I understand that once an app has been published on the Store then it cannot be deleted. It can however be unpublished. The following things concern me.
If the other person unpublishes the app, will i be able to upload the app from my developers console?
Will what i want to do require the other person to delete his developers console account?
If the other person does delete his account will there still be a reference to the package name after this deletion of account, meaning i still can't upload my app.
Now that someone else has published my app first, will i have to re-name the package of my app to upload to the store?
Any advise is appreciated, thanks in advance
Matt.
Related
I've been working on my first app but haven't yet submitted it for review on the Play Console, only internal testing. Long story short, I trashed my project folder that had been configured with signing keys and am now trying to re-upload my app (recovered via Git) to the Play Console. I resigned it with new keys and as expected this prevents me from uploading my current app as a newer version of the original (now trashed) app. If I try to submit my app as a new app I receive an error:
You need to use a different package name because "com.example.app" is already used by one of your other applications.
I have a strong preference to keep this package name. Is there any way to delete the existing draft app? The only workaround I have found so far would be to create a new Google account and start fresh. Any help is appreciated.
I googled "delete app google play console".
This led me to this SO post that had this answer which points to this help article that says:
Delete an app or game
You can permanently remove draft apps or games from Play Console. You can also delete:
Published apps or games that haven't been installed on any devices
Published apps or games that no users are entitled to re-install
In these cases, contact our support team to request that your app's or game's data be permanently deleted.
Where "contact our support team" lead to this page.
I released android app "E numbers detector". App passed google review and I got mail that it is on play store. Weird thing is that I can acces my app only through google play developers console. F.e. If I want to tell my friend to install the app, I can not tell him name of app so he can find it on google store. I must enter my GP console and share url to my app with him via WhatsApp. That is so bad and I don't understand why this happens? I even tried searching my app with app name and developer name combined, or with the package name, but nothing helps.
Here is my app link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=myAndroid.app.hhodzic.foodinspector
I thought also that it has something to do with a number of downloads. But than I found out that the first app that is recommended when you write "E numbers detector" is app with ONLY 10+ downloads.
Please can anyone explain to me how does this works and how can I make my app visible on the google play store. Thanks in advance
You should just wait for 24-48 hours, Google takes time to index your app in the Google Play search.
I just searched for you app and it did appear in the search results. as I said it just need time.
Check your app status at Google Play Console.
App status: Helps you understand your app’s availability on Google Play and who it’s available to (such as testers, all Google Play users, etc.).
More info here
After generate signed APK (Release Version 1.0) ,i tried to test it in my phone but i get this message
Play Protect doesn't recognize this app's developer. Apps from unknown developers can sometimes be unsafe.
i don't know why i get it , i have released to many apps without problem, but in this one i get this message , i tried to create a new key-store also i tried to create a new project with different package name but i still facing the same issue.
How can i fix this?
I think it is just because you tried to install your app directly from APK, and the device or Play Protect can't verify your developer's ID. You can try to upload your apk to Google Play Store then install it from there to see if the problem still persists or not.
Google Play protect recognizes the developer from the signing key the app is signed with. You can learn more about App Signing here. Google Play protect gets this information from the key used to publish the App in Google Play.
Most new apps are enrolled in Google Play App Signing (Help article). You don't say whether yours is or not, but I suspect it is. That is a good thing - it lets Google Help you if you lose your signing key or it gets compromised.
To see what the experience will be for your users, the best thing to do is use an Internal Testing Track when you publish your app during development. The release process is almost instant. And it lets you get the exact same experience your users will get, as the app is downloaded from Google Play, signed with the same key, etc.
You can find more about Internal Test Tracks here.
I am new to firebase and android development, therefore, I have not totally understood how it works. I want to know if after adding project to firebase, does it mean the app is launched and will be accessible by anyone who have android or how do I tell someone to try the app when it has not been uploaded to playstore?
You are misunderstanding Firebase with Play store console. Firebase is a BaaS (backend-as-a-Service). In simple language Firebase is platform which allow to build web and mobile applications without server side programming language.
Adding your android project to firebase have nothing to do with publishing app. It will not publish your app.
Play store console is what that is used to publish android apps.
What is Firebase?
In a simple way, firebase as a server and many more log details related to your app and user behavior. It's a complete package to monitor app, users and many more. It will also give you scope to build app without having your own server and also no need of any language.
I want to know if after adding project to firebase, does it mean the app is launched
No adding project does not mean your app has been published or launched, but you can see crashes, save data, authenticate and can use available features in firebase.
and will be accessible by anyone
What you want to make accessible? If it is app, then it will be only accessible to users when you publish app in play store in production. There are some other options such as alpha, beta, internal test - each of these have some own functionality. Here you can add users email ids as tester and invite them to test or about your app. When you have not published an APK in production mood it won't be visible publicly.
how do I tell someone to try the app when it has not been uploaded to playstore
After adding firebase project nothing mean to release/publish your app. Publishing in play store does mean that. Here I will suggest you upload your app APK in play store ALPHA/BETA/INTERNAL test release mood then add/invite people to test your app.
I'm currently developing an Android application using InApp Billing functionality. In order to perform testing with real end-to-end payment scenarios I need to upload the application draft to Google Play - as described here.
However, my customer wants to publish the application later using its own Google Play account.
Is it possible, that I upload the draft first, remove it after testing, and then my customer releases the application (with the same package name) with a totally different Google Play account? Would Google Play allow for that?
I don't want to mess with package ID, it is annoying (but perhaps safest?).
Answering (sort of) my own question:
it seems perfectly fine to remove the application draft from one profile and re-upload to another one
for the time being I only checked re-uploading APK signed with the same private key
funny enough, all configured in-app items that I configured for this application on my own profile reappeared after uploading to the second profile!
Nopes, when the applications are export, the are exported and signed with certain certificates and private key, so that if anyone have that private key, the will be able to upload the app with the same identifier,
i.e.
com.yourcompanyname.appname
This is unique identifier, identifies your app to update it further.