1page.title=Distribution Control 2page.metaDescription=Reach the users you want, whenever you want. 3 4@jd:body 5 6<p>Deliver your apps to the users you want, on the devices you want, on <em>your</em> schedule. </p> 7 8<h2 id="instant">Instant publishing, instant updates</h2> 9 10<p>On Google Play, you can publish your products to customers instantly. Just 11upload and configure your product in the <span style="font-weight:500;">Google Play Android Developer Console</span> 12and press the Publish button—your app appears in the store listings within 13hours, not weeks.</p> 14 15<p>Once your app is published, you can update it as often as you want. You can 16change prices, configuration, and distribution options at any time through the 17Google Play Android Developer Console, without needing to update your app 18binary.</p> 19 20<p>Later, as you add features or address code issues, you can publish an updated 21binary at any time. Google Play makes the new version available immediately and 22notifies existing customers that an update is ready for download. To streamline 23the rollout across your customer base, Google Play also lets users accept 24automatic updates of your app, so that your updates are delivered and installed 25as soon as you publish them.</p> 26 27<h2>Reaching the customers you want</h2> 28 29<p>Google Play does more than connect your app with users—it helps you 30reach the broadest possible distribution across the Android ecosystem, while 31making sure that your app is only available to the audience that you want to 32reach.</p> 33 34<div style="float:right;margin-left:18px;border:1px solid #DDD;margin:1.5em;"> 35<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-countries.png" style="width:400px;padding:4px;margin-bottom:0;"> 36</div> 37 38<h3 id="geotargeting">Geographic targeting</h3> 39 40<p>You can use controls in the Google Play Android Developer Console to easily 41manage the geographic distribution of your apps, without any changes in your 42application binary. You can specify which countries and territories you want to 43distribute to, and even which carriers (for some countries). </p> 44 45<p>When users visit the store, Google Play makes sure that they are in one of 46your targeted countries before downloading your app. You can change your country 47and carrier targeting at any time just by saving changes in the Google Play 48Android Developer Console</p> 49 50<div style="float:right;margin-left:18px;border:1px solid #DDD;margin:1.5em;"> 51<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-supported-dev-requirements.png" 52style="width:400px;padding:4px;margin-bottom:0;"> 53</div> 54 55<h3 id="captargeting">Capabilities targeting</h3> 56 57<p>Google Play also lets you control distribution according to device features 58or capabilities that your app depends on. There are several types of 59dependencies that the app can define in its manifest, such as hardware features, 60OpenGL texture compression formats, libraries, Android platform versions, and 61others.</p> 62 63<p>When you upload your app, Google Play reads the dependencies and sets up any 64necessary distribution rules. For technical information about declaring 65dependencies, read <a href="{@docRoot}guide/google/play/filters.html">Filters on 66Google Play</a>. </p> 67 68<p>For pinpoint control over distribution, Google Play lets you see all of the 69devices your app is available to based on its dependencies (if any). From the 70Google Play Android Developer Console, you can list the supported devices and 71even exclude specific devices if needed.</p> 72 73<h2 id="stats">Statistics for analyzing installs</h2> 74 75<p>Once you’ve published your app, Google Play makes it easy to see how it’s 76doing. The Google Play Android Developer Console gives you access to a variety 77of anonymized metrics that show your app’s installation performance measured by 78unique users and unique devices, across a variety of different dimensions such 79as country, Android version, device, country, carrier, and app version.</p> 80 81<div style="border:1px solid #DDD;margin:1.5em;margin-left:8%;width:608px"> 82<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-stats-mini.png" 83style="width:600px;padding:4px;margin-bottom:0;"> 84</div> 85<p>You can also view your installation data on timeline charts, for all metrics and 86dimensions. At a glance, these charts highlight your app’s installation peaks 87and longer-term trends, which you can correlate to promotions, app improvements, 88or other factors. You can even focus in on data inside a dimension by 89highlighting specific data points (such as individual platform versions or 90languages) on the timeline.</p> 91 92<p>So that you can “take your data with you”, you can download all of your 93installation data as a CSV file for viewing in the business program of your 94choice.</p> 95 96 97<h2 id="advanced">Advanced delivery options</h2> 98 99<p>Google Play offers convenient options for managing how your apps are 100delivered to users.</p> 101 102<p>In most cases, it’s easy to create an app that supports all of your targeted 103screen sizes and platform versions from a single APK. Distributing a single APK 104to all of your users is a highly recommended approach, because it’s the easiest 105way to manage and maintain the app. If you need to deliver a different APK to 106devices, Google Play provides a way to do that. </p> 107 108<p>An option called Multiple APK support lets you create multiple APK packages 109that use the same package name but differ in their OpenGL texture compression 110formats, screen-size support, or Android platform versions supported. You can 111upload all of the APKs to Google Play under a single product listing and Google 112Play selects the best APK to deliver to users, based on the characteristics of 113their devices. </p> 114 115<p>The APK Expansion Files option lets you upload up to two secondary downloads 116for each published APK, including multiple APKs. Each of the two expansion files 117can be up to 2GB each and can contain any type of code or assets. When you 118upload the expansion files, Google Play hosts them for free and handles the 119download of the files as part of the normal APK installation.</p> 120 121<h2 id="licensing">Protecting your App</h2> 122 123<p>To help you protect your application against piracy, Google Play offers a 124licensing service that you can implement in your app. It’s a network-based 125service that lets an application query a trusted Google Play licensing server to 126determine whether the application is licensed to the current device user.</p> 127
