docs/html/distribute/googleplay/about/distribution.jd - platform/frameworks/base - Gitiles

 page.title=Distribution Control
 page.metaDescription=Reach the users you want, whenever you want.

 @jd:body

 <p>Deliver your apps to the users you want, on the devices you want, on <em>your</em> schedule. </p>

 <h2 id="instant">Instant publishing, instant updates</h2>

 <p>On Google Play, you can publish your products to customers instantly. Just
 upload and configure your product in the <span style="font-weight:500;">Google Play Developer Console</span>
 and press the Publish button&mdash;your app appears in the store listings within
 hours, not weeks.</p>

 <p>Once your app is published, you can update it as often as you want. You can
 change prices, configuration, and distribution options at any time through the
 Google Play Developer Console, without needing to update your app
 binary.</p>

 <p>Later, as you add features or address code issues, you can publish an updated
 binary at any time. Google Play makes the new version available almost immediately and
 notifies existing customers that an update is ready for download. To streamline
 the rollout across your customer base, Google Play also lets users accept
 automatic updates of your app, so that your updates are delivered and installed
 as soon as you publish them.</p>


 <h2 id="targeting">Reaching the customers you want</h2>

 <div class="figure-right" style="width:400px;">
 <img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-countries.png" class="frame">
 </div>

 <p>Google Play does more than connect your app with users&mdash;it helps you
 reach the broadest possible distribution across the Android ecosystem, while
 making sure that your app is only available to the audience that you want to
 reach.</p>

 <h3 id="geotargeting">Geographic targeting</h3>

 <p>You can use controls in the Google Play Developer Console to easily
 manage the geographic distribution of your apps, without any changes in your
 application binary. You can specify which countries and territories you want to
 distribute to, and even which carriers (for some countries). </p>

 <p>When users visit the store, Google Play makes sure that they are in one of
 your targeted countries before downloading your app. You can change your country
 and carrier targeting at any time just by saving changes in the Google Play
 Developer Console.</p>

 <div class="figure-right" style="width:400px;">
 <img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-supported-dev-requirements.png" class="frame">
 </div>

 <p>To help you market to users around the world, you
 can <a href="{@docRoot}distribute/googleplay/publish/preparing.html#localize">localize
 your store listing</a>, including app details and description,
 promotional graphics, screenshots, and more.</p>

 <h3 id="captargeting">Capabilities targeting</h3>

 <p>Google Play also lets you control distribution according to device features
 or capabilities that your app depends on. There are several types of
 dependencies that the app can define in its manifest, such as hardware features,
 OpenGL texture compression formats, libraries, Android platform versions, and
 others.</p>

 <p>When you upload your app, Google Play reads the dependencies and sets up any
 necessary distribution rules. For technical information about declaring
 dependencies, read <a href="{@docRoot}google/play/filters.html">Filters on
 Google Play</a>. </p>

 <p>For pinpoint control over distribution, Google Play lets you see all of the
 devices your app is available to based on its dependencies (if any). From the
 Google Play Developer Console, you can list the supported devices and
 even exclude specific devices if needed.</p>

 <h2 id="stats">Statistics for analyzing installs and ratings</h2>

 <p>Once you’ve published your app, Google Play makes it easy to see how it’s
 doing. The Google Play Developer Console gives you access to a variety
 of anonymized statistics and custom charts that show you the app's installation
 performance and ratings.</p>

 <p>You can view data and charts for active, daily, and total installs
 per unique devices or users, as well as upgrades and uninstalls.
 You can also view the app's daily average user rating and its cumulative
 user rating. To help you analyze the data, you can view install
 and ratings statistics across a variety of different dimensions such as Android
 version, device, country, app version, and carrier.</p>

 <div class="figure-left">
   <img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-stats-mini.png" class="frame">
 </div>
 <p>You can see your app statistics on timeline charts, for
 all metrics and dimensions. At a glance, the charts highlight your app’s
 installation and ratings peaks and longer-term trends, which you can correlate
 to promotions, app improvements, or other factors. You can even focus in on
 data inside a dimension by highlighting specific data points (such as
 individual platform versions or languages) on the timeline.</p>

 <p>So that you can “take your data with you”, you can download all of your
 installation data as a CSV file for viewing in the business program of your
 choice.</p>


 <h2 id="advanced">Advanced delivery options</h2>

 <p>Google Play offers convenient options for managing how your apps are
 delivered to users.</p>

 <h3 id="abc">Alpha and beta testing, staged rollouts</h3>

 <p>It's always valuable to get real-world feedback from users, especially before
 launch. Google Play makes it easy to distribute pre-release versions of your app
 to alpha and beta test groups anywhere in the world. You can start with a small
 group of alpha testers, then move to a larger group of beta testers. Once users
 are added, they access your app's store listing and install the app. User
 feedback from alpha and beta testers goes directly to you and is not posted as
 public reviews. </p>

 <p>To help you ensure quality and protect your app ratings, you can choose a
 staged rollout when launching an app or an update. With staged rollout, you
 distribute the production version of your app to a percentage of users. You can
 adjust the percentage as you go, starting small and increasing until your app is
 available to all users.</p>

 <h3 id="multiple-apk">Multiple APK support</h3>

 <p>In most cases, it’s easy to create an app that supports all of your targeted
 screen sizes and platform versions from a single APK. Distributing a single APK
 to all of your users is a highly recommended approach, because it’s the easiest
 way to manage and maintain the app. If you need to deliver a different APK to
 devices, Google Play provides a way to do that. </p>

 <p>An option called Multiple APK support lets you create multiple APK packages
 that use the same package name but differ in their OpenGL texture compression
 formats, screen-size support, or Android platform versions supported. You can
 upload all of the APKs to Google Play under a single product listing and Google
 Play selects the best APK to deliver to users, based on the characteristics of
 their devices.  </p>

 <p>The APK Expansion Files option lets you upload up to two secondary downloads
 for each published APK, including multiple APKs. Each of the two expansion files
 can be up to 2GB each and can contain any type of code or assets. When you
 upload the expansion files, Google Play hosts them for free and handles the
 download of the files as part of the normal APK installation.</p>

 <h2 id="licensing">Protecting your app</h2>

 <p>Google Play provides two key features to help you protect your application
 against piracy &mdash; Google Play Licensing and app encryption.</p>

 <p> Google Play Licensing is a network-based service that you implement in your
 app. The service lets your app query a trusted licensing server at runtime, to
 determine whether the app is licensed to the current device user. You can use
 the licensing service to protect any app, even apps that you distribute for
 free. For an overview of the service, see <a
 href="{@docRoot}google/play/licensing/index.html">Application
 Licensing</a>.</p>

 <p>Additionally, Google Play offers app encryption to help protect your priced
 apps. When delivering your priced apps to devices running Android 4.1 or higher,
 Google encrypts the app binary so that it can be run only by the user who
 downloaded it, on the device to which it was originally downloaded. Your priced
 apps benefit from app encryption automatically &mdash; there's no extra
 development work or configuration needed.</p>
	page.title=Distribution Control
	page.metaDescription=Reach the users you want, whenever you want.

	@jd:body

	<p>Deliver your apps to the users you want, on the devices you want, on <em>your</em> schedule. </p>

	<h2 id="instant">Instant publishing, instant updates</h2>

	<p>On Google Play, you can publish your products to customers instantly. Just
	upload and configure your product in the <span style="font-weight:500;">Google Play Developer Console</span>
	and press the Publish button—your app appears in the store listings within
	hours, not weeks.</p>

	<p>Once your app is published, you can update it as often as you want. You can
	change prices, configuration, and distribution options at any time through the
	Google Play Developer Console, without needing to update your app
	binary.</p>

	<p>Later, as you add features or address code issues, you can publish an updated
	binary at any time. Google Play makes the new version available almost immediately and
	notifies existing customers that an update is ready for download. To streamline
	the rollout across your customer base, Google Play also lets users accept
	automatic updates of your app, so that your updates are delivered and installed
	as soon as you publish them.</p>


	<h2 id="targeting">Reaching the customers you want</h2>

	<div class="figure-right" style="width:400px;">
	<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-countries.png" class="frame">
	</div>

	<p>Google Play does more than connect your app with users—it helps you
	reach the broadest possible distribution across the Android ecosystem, while
	making sure that your app is only available to the audience that you want to
	reach.</p>

	<h3 id="geotargeting">Geographic targeting</h3>

	<p>You can use controls in the Google Play Developer Console to easily
	manage the geographic distribution of your apps, without any changes in your
	application binary. You can specify which countries and territories you want to
	distribute to, and even which carriers (for some countries). </p>

	<p>When users visit the store, Google Play makes sure that they are in one of
	your targeted countries before downloading your app. You can change your country
	and carrier targeting at any time just by saving changes in the Google Play
	Developer Console.</p>

	<div class="figure-right" style="width:400px;">
	<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-supported-dev-requirements.png" class="frame">
	</div>

	<p>To help you market to users around the world, you
	can <a href="{@docRoot}distribute/googleplay/publish/preparing.html#localize">localize
	your store listing</a>, including app details and description,
	promotional graphics, screenshots, and more.</p>

	<h3 id="captargeting">Capabilities targeting</h3>

	<p>Google Play also lets you control distribution according to device features
	or capabilities that your app depends on. There are several types of
	dependencies that the app can define in its manifest, such as hardware features,
	OpenGL texture compression formats, libraries, Android platform versions, and
	others.</p>

	<p>When you upload your app, Google Play reads the dependencies and sets up any
	necessary distribution rules. For technical information about declaring
	dependencies, read <a href="{@docRoot}google/play/filters.html">Filters on
	Google Play</a>. </p>

	<p>For pinpoint control over distribution, Google Play lets you see all of the
	devices your app is available to based on its dependencies (if any). From the
	Google Play Developer Console, you can list the supported devices and
	even exclude specific devices if needed.</p>

	<h2 id="stats">Statistics for analyzing installs and ratings</h2>

	<p>Once you’ve published your app, Google Play makes it easy to see how it’s
	doing. The Google Play Developer Console gives you access to a variety
	of anonymized statistics and custom charts that show you the app's installation
	performance and ratings.</p>

	<p>You can view data and charts for active, daily, and total installs
	per unique devices or users, as well as upgrades and uninstalls.
	You can also view the app's daily average user rating and its cumulative
	user rating. To help you analyze the data, you can view install
	and ratings statistics across a variety of different dimensions such as Android
	version, device, country, app version, and carrier.</p>

	<div class="figure-left">
	<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-stats-mini.png" class="frame">
	</div>
	<p>You can see your app statistics on timeline charts, for
	all metrics and dimensions. At a glance, the charts highlight your app’s
	installation and ratings peaks and longer-term trends, which you can correlate
	to promotions, app improvements, or other factors. You can even focus in on
	data inside a dimension by highlighting specific data points (such as
	individual platform versions or languages) on the timeline.</p>

	<p>So that you can “take your data with you”, you can download all of your
	installation data as a CSV file for viewing in the business program of your
	choice.</p>


	<h2 id="advanced">Advanced delivery options</h2>

	<p>Google Play offers convenient options for managing how your apps are
	delivered to users.</p>

	<h3 id="abc">Alpha and beta testing, staged rollouts</h3>

	<p>It's always valuable to get real-world feedback from users, especially before
	launch. Google Play makes it easy to distribute pre-release versions of your app
	to alpha and beta test groups anywhere in the world. You can start with a small
	group of alpha testers, then move to a larger group of beta testers. Once users
	are added, they access your app's store listing and install the app. User
	feedback from alpha and beta testers goes directly to you and is not posted as
	public reviews. </p>

	<p>To help you ensure quality and protect your app ratings, you can choose a
	staged rollout when launching an app or an update. With staged rollout, you
	distribute the production version of your app to a percentage of users. You can
	adjust the percentage as you go, starting small and increasing until your app is
	available to all users.</p>

	<h3 id="multiple-apk">Multiple APK support</h3>

	<p>In most cases, it’s easy to create an app that supports all of your targeted
	screen sizes and platform versions from a single APK. Distributing a single APK
	to all of your users is a highly recommended approach, because it’s the easiest
	way to manage and maintain the app. If you need to deliver a different APK to
	devices, Google Play provides a way to do that. </p>

	<p>An option called Multiple APK support lets you create multiple APK packages
	that use the same package name but differ in their OpenGL texture compression
	formats, screen-size support, or Android platform versions supported. You can
	upload all of the APKs to Google Play under a single product listing and Google
	Play selects the best APK to deliver to users, based on the characteristics of
	their devices. </p>

	<p>The APK Expansion Files option lets you upload up to two secondary downloads
	for each published APK, including multiple APKs. Each of the two expansion files
	can be up to 2GB each and can contain any type of code or assets. When you
	upload the expansion files, Google Play hosts them for free and handles the
	download of the files as part of the normal APK installation.</p>

	<h2 id="licensing">Protecting your app</h2>

	<p>Google Play provides two key features to help you protect your application
	against piracy — Google Play Licensing and app encryption.</p>

	<p> Google Play Licensing is a network-based service that you implement in your
	app. The service lets your app query a trusted licensing server at runtime, to
	determine whether the app is licensed to the current device user. You can use
	the licensing service to protect any app, even apps that you distribute for
	free. For an overview of the service, see <a
	href="{@docRoot}google/play/licensing/index.html">Application
	Licensing</a>.</p>

	<p>Additionally, Google Play offers app encryption to help protect your priced
	apps. When delivering your priced apps to devices running Android 4.1 or higher,
	Google encrypts the app binary so that it can be run only by the user who
	downloaded it, on the device to which it was originally downloaded. Your priced
	apps benefit from app encryption automatically — there's no extra
	development work or configuration needed.</p>