Hello buddiesJ!! Today we shall learn something really materialistic which would help in earning money from what you have learned so far and the platform is none other than Google Play.
14.1.1 What is this Google Play?
Android market is known as Google play or in other words new name for android market is Google Play. It can be rightly tagged as a distribution platform which operates digitally and it is operated by Google. Official app store for android operating system is Google Play. Users can browse and download android applications which are published under Google. Applications can be free or chargeable according to certain terms and conditions. Android platform, unlike other platforms, distribution mechanism supports free applications and price plans.
14.1.2 How Google Play is going to help us?
In-app billing is a service which is maintained by Google Play. This lets us charge for upgrades or digital content in app. The in-app billing API helps in integrating in-app billing service into our applications. We can question the Google Play service for details about in-app products. This query may include problem statements like availability or local service etc. We can request for product details from Google Play. We can issue orders for in-app products. We can easily retrieve ownership information on the basis of user’s purchase history. A checkout interface is provided by Google Play. This allows the user interaction crossing the horizon.
We must register as a developer before publishing applications via android market. For signing up as an android market developer these are the following steps:
- We have to go to android market website and sign in with Google account which we want to use
- We need to enter our developer information which includes our name, email address, and website, etc.
- We have to confirm the registration fees. Google checkout is used for the registration payment processing.
- Signing up and paying to be an Android Developer also creates a mandatory Google Checkout Merchant account for which you also need to provide information. Google Checkout Merchant account is used for payment processing purposes.
- Finally we need to agree to link our credit card and account registration to the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement
When we have an account registered for publishing applications through Android Market and a signed application package then we are ready to upload it for publication. In the main page of Android market website we need to sign in with our developer account information. From this page we can check our payment transaction history, manage our published applications and configure the developer account information as well. To publish the application we need to hit the Upload button. This would present you a form to fill for uploading the application package and some of the important fields are as follows:
- application package file (.apk)
- The application title and description in different languages
- Graphics for the market listing and promotional screenshots
- Category and type of application
- Price of application (free or chargeable)
- It also have Copy Protection information and this option prevents application from being copied from the device and distributed without our knowledge or permission
- Choose the countries where the application should be published i.e. location to distribute to
- Support contact information which defaults to the information you provided for the developer account
- Consent as name suggests check the checkboxes to agree to the terms of the current Android Content Guidelines etc
Congratulations ladies and gentlemenJ!! We have successfully completed the introduction to Google Play. See you in the next section. Till then keep enjoying the feeling of android developer. Happy App developing!!!