In this part of the article, I will explain and demonstrate to you on how to prepare your app for the market.I separated this part of the article because it is an important and an exciting part of the mobile development.
Introduction
This is part IV (4) and the last part of the series I wrote for you. I separated this part of the article because it is an important and an exciting part of the mobile development. When this article ends, my daughter Ophrah Maseko will have an app on the Android market or GooglePlay.
Objective
The main objective of this article is to demonstrate and explain clearly on how to submit your app to the Android market. In the Previous article, we prepared the app for the market and in this last part of the series my daughter will have an app on the market.
How do I Publish to the Market
To publish your app to the market is free is certain markets. In Amazon is free, in Nook is free, Tizen Market is free, Google Play not free, Windows Store not free, iTunes not free. Now I want to take you to all the markets and explain on how to go about this, but for the scope of this article I will explain the Android which is Google play, I will explain other markets on articles that I will write later on regarding those devices.
How to Publish your app in Google Play
To publish an app in the GooglePlay market, you need to be a registered developer and pay an annual developer fee of $25.
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.1 shows your working area, as the first time user of GooglePlay, you will not see anything, but as I have published many apps my list is long. I have tried to conceal sensitive info for the sake of my clients. In this Panel you can see the name of the app, if the app is free , number of installs on the app, Rating by users who installed it , Crash reports by users who had problems with your app , Last update that you made on the app and the status that tells you if you the app is published or not. At the top of the control Panel you will notice a button “Add new Application” This button is used to add my app details and also upload the apk that we created in XDK.
Add an App on Google play
Click on the button “Add new Application and you will be redirected to a new page as depicted in figure 1.2
Figure 1.2
Now I have entered the name of my app, this will be the name of my daughter because it will be her app. This name is important because it is going to be used when search for app in Google play and Ophrah and Maseko can be used in the search separately.
The First thing that we need to do is to upload the APK file, but we can also choose to upload it later, but for simple demonstration, let us first upload the Apk.
- Click on the button “Upload APK” and a page will appear as depicted in figure 1.3
Figure 1.3
I have labeled the screen to give you a hint of what other parts of the screen do. What we want to achieve
here is to upload the APK.
- 1.Click on the button “Upload your first APK to Production” and dialog box with an option to browse to
you apk will appear as depicted in figure 1.4
Figure 1.4
Browse to your apk and it will upload your apk. The Progress of the upload will appear.
Figure 1.5
When done with that you need to setup the app details so that your users will know what your app all about is.
STORE LISTING:
Click on the “Store Listing” menu item as depicted below in figure 1.6
Figure 1.6
Figure 1.6 needs your attention, fill in the Description of your app and the Promo Text. Now let’s move below
so because of the page was a bit long. Figure 1.7 depicts part where you need to fill the change history of
your app.
Figure 1.7
Figure 1.7 shows the changes part. If you make changes to your app, you need to let your users know what
changed, what features was added, what bugs were fixed.
Let us scroll down the page again, and figure 1.8 shows the graphics part. Your App need to attract the
audience these are the images that get shown on the market when your app shows on the search criteria that
has been used. Here you are expected to upload images and the sizes have been specified. Below are the
Images that I have uploaded for my daughter’s app
Figure 1.8
Now the app is nearly there, I have uploaded the Screenshots created from emulators of XDK for different devices. Now the next image requirement is specific in the dimensions. Figure 1.9 shows the uploaded pictures of the app
Figure 1.8
Figure 1.9 shows more info that is required for your app.
Figure 1.9
Here you can give contact details and if you have policies like your terms and conditions, you can add it here.
PRICING & DISTRIBUTION
Now we move to another section of our control panel, which is the part where we setup the pricing of our app and also the countries that our app should be available. If it’s a paid app you need to be registered with a receiver of revenue in your country so that the government can also get part of your wealth. For this App i will give it our for free and I will use my own payment method that I will discuss later in other articles when I a ready to share my secret. Well the people that work for me as interns they already know the secret. Figure 1.10 depicts
Figure 1.10
There are other options that you can choose but they are not a show stopper. When you are done , you can move to the next step.
IN-APP PRODUCTS
In-App Products are Products that you sell within your application. You need to setup Google wallet in order to use them. For now you can just ignore this, it will not hinder you from publishing
SERVICES & APIS
Services and APIS these are just extra things that might be needed maybe in your app if you are doing some advance integration, but for now you don’t need this and you might not need to use this feature.
What is the next Step
Now you have done all in your power to supply the market for your app. figure 1.11 depicts the final step
Figure 1.11
- On the far right there is a button captioned “Ready to publish” click it and there are two options that will appear.
- Please choose the first one “Publish this app”, I am not sure why Google put that other option there. After you click that button, you will be sent to the market. An important message will appear at the top and disappear immediately , so you must take notice as depicted in Figure 1.12
Figure 1.12
The message says in an hour’s time or even 30 min because I have seen some of my apps appearing within 30 min on the market. You can go to the market and view your app. since the article has been written hours before , My daughter’s app appeared on GooglePlay, if you want to search it , you can go to Google play in your Android Phone and Type “Ophrah Maseko” or “Ophrah” or “Maseko” and you will see the app as depicted in Figure 1.13
Figure 1.13
Now my daughter has an app. this is how you can create an app and publish it on the Market. There are many other Android market, but the popular one is GooglePlay.
Conclusion
This was the last article of the series on Android. The next article i am going to write is the Apple series. My daughter’s app will have an Apple version that will be published on iTunes. Be on the lookout for the next series. I will announce on my Facebook wall when I start to write the series. Also you can check the announcement here on DNF.
As promised my daughter has an app. if you want to be my intern and want to learn from me, you can join other interns in the Inter Program. Please contact me for more info.
Thank you for visiting Dotnetfunda
Vuyiswa Maseko