Develop Reference

How to send update to a mobile app (Android & IOS)

I've a made a really basic chat application(no need to see the code)(from the course of Angela Yu, flutter)it is integrated with google firebase which uses firebase_core, firebase_auth & cloud_firestore packages for authentication and uploading chat data in cloud Firestore.
I've installed the app through debug.APK( 1. would it matter if it was release.APK?) in my & my friend's phone both android ( let's take a neutral approach i.e the phone could be either IOS or Android).
What I aim is if I change my code( or we say update my app) I would want my app on both the phones to get updated( either automatically if possible or send a alert when user opens the app to update it), all this should be done with free of cost. 2. How can I achieve this in simplest manner?. I know there is a standard way for this if the app was in Google play store or App store but I don't want to upload it on stores.
My guess for this is that we integrate our app with a server so that every time the app starts it checks for a update with the server and ask the user to update and gets updated. If this is achievable can someone please guide me with these two methods mentioned below:
3(A). through free online server( can we use github or firebase?)
3(B). and can I make my own laptop as the server and code the app such that it doesn't need the server to be always online.( as in if my server is online it checks for update else it continues)
3(C). through paid servers ( just for information)
(4) Also please tell me why we chose cloud firestore over real time database for a chatting application?
(I don't want to create a web app)
I've no idea how would any of this be achievable like nothing like what server would be used or is this even possible. So please help me with a detailed explanation on all( 1,2,3(A),3(B),3(c) ). Any help would be really appreciated!

Since you already use Cloud Firestore, consider creating a document in there with a field that contains the version number of the latest app release.
In your application code you then read this document upon startup, and check it against the app's own version. If the version from the database is newer, tell the user to upgrade.
You could even include instructions on where/how to get the latest version in the database too. That can come in really handy of you suddenly have to change your release mechanism in between versions.

Mobile Device Lockdown (Android)

So, I'm creating my first custom android app and expect to deploy it internally on company-owned devices. There's offline data storage that happens in a SQLite database. I want to ensure that the users cannot remove my application and/or destroy this database (which seems to happen when the app is uninstalled). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

How Can I Share a Database Between Apps that Persists After App Removal?

Is it possible to have a local shared SQLite database between different android apps where if the user removes any of the apps (including the first installed app) it won't delete the shared database?
I know that Content Providers are usually the way to go with sharing data between apps but my understanding is that a content provider and database will get uninstalled when the original installed program is uninstalled. Is this correct?
I realize that storing the data online solves the shared database problem but it also brings along problems like app slowness, connection issues, if the app grows large then large server fees, etc.
Is there a good solution here?

Is it possible to have a local shared SQLite database between different android apps where if the user removes any of the apps (including the first installed app) it won't delete the shared database?
You would have to put it on external storage. From a privacy and security standpoint, this is horrible. Plus, the user can delete it.
I know that Content Providers are usually the way to go with sharing data between apps but my understanding is that a content provider and database will get uninstalled when the original installed program is uninstalled. Is this correct?
Yes.
Is there a good solution here?
Have one app, rather than several apps.

Two Android apps + web app sharing one Firebase db

I have 2 android apps and a web app catering two user groups,
android app + web app for mostly writing data to the database
another android app for retrieving these data
I need my applications connected to the same database, I want to know whether this is possible with Firebase and is considered valid.
I've seen older posts with workarounds but I need to know whether the new Firebase version supports this out of the box.
This is my first time trying to integrate Firebase into one of my projects therefore some guidance on achieving this task would be really useful.
Thanks!

As long as I can remember Firebase supported this even before the "new Firebase 2.0". Following just an excerpt taken of the Realtime Database feature list:
A cloud-hosted NoSQL database. Data is stored as JSON, synced across
connected devices in milliseconds, and available when your app goes
offline.
Accessible directly from client SDKs, or from your server with the REST API
tl;dr
That's totally possible with Firebase.

Get data from installed android app

I recently wrote and installed an Android app on my device. The app wrote data to the local SQL database and uploaded this data to my webserver. But due to network problems, there are a few records that were skipped, so they aren't on my webserver.
Now i want to get those rows (or my full SQL database) from my android device. But my question is how?
If I write a new version of my app and reinstall it, then all my data will be lost.
Isn't there a way to access my SQL database without losing my data?
My device is not rooted, so those backup app's won't work...

You may get access using DDMS.