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 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 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 id="targeting">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 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 48Developer Console.</p> 49 50<p>To help you market to users around the world, you 51can <a href="{@docRoot}distribute/googleplay/publish/preparing.html#localize">localize 52your store listing</a>, including app details and description, 53promotional graphics, screenshots, and more.</p> 54 55<div style="float:right;margin-left:18px;border:1px solid #DDD;margin:1.5em;"> 56<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-supported-dev-requirements.png" 57style="width:400px;padding:4px;margin-bottom:0;"> 58</div> 59 60<h3 id="captargeting">Capabilities targeting</h3> 61 62<p>Google Play also lets you control distribution according to device features 63or capabilities that your app depends on. There are several types of 64dependencies that the app can define in its manifest, such as hardware features, 65OpenGL texture compression formats, libraries, Android platform versions, and 66others.</p> 67 68<p>When you upload your app, Google Play reads the dependencies and sets up any 69necessary distribution rules. For technical information about declaring 70dependencies, read <a href="{@docRoot}google/play/filters.html">Filters on 71Google Play</a>. </p> 72 73<p>For pinpoint control over distribution, Google Play lets you see all of the 74devices your app is available to based on its dependencies (if any). From the 75Google Play Developer Console, you can list the supported devices and 76even exclude specific devices if needed.</p> 77 78<h2 id="stats">Statistics for analyzing installs</h2> 79 80<p>Once you’ve published your app, Google Play makes it easy to see how it’s 81doing. The Google Play Developer Console gives you access to a variety 82of anonymized metrics that show your app’s installation performance measured by 83unique users and unique devices, across a variety of different dimensions such 84as country, Android version, device, country, carrier, and app version.</p> 85 86<div style="border:1px solid #DDD;margin:1.5em;margin-left:8%;width:608px"> 87<img src="{@docRoot}images/gp-dc-stats-mini.png" 88style="width:600px;padding:4px;margin-bottom:0;"> 89</div> 90<p>You can also view your installation data on timeline charts, for all metrics and 91dimensions. At a glance, these charts highlight your app’s installation peaks 92and longer-term trends, which you can correlate to promotions, app improvements, 93or other factors. You can even focus in on data inside a dimension by 94highlighting specific data points (such as individual platform versions or 95languages) on the timeline.</p> 96 97<p>So that you can “take your data with you”, you can download all of your 98installation data as a CSV file for viewing in the business program of your 99choice.</p> 100 101 102<h2 id="advanced">Advanced delivery options</h2> 103 104<p>Google Play offers convenient options for managing how your apps are 105delivered to users.</p> 106 107<p>In most cases, it’s easy to create an app that supports all of your targeted 108screen sizes and platform versions from a single APK. Distributing a single APK 109to all of your users is a highly recommended approach, because it’s the easiest 110way to manage and maintain the app. If you need to deliver a different APK to 111devices, Google Play provides a way to do that. </p> 112 113<p>An option called Multiple APK support lets you create multiple APK packages 114that use the same package name but differ in their OpenGL texture compression 115formats, screen-size support, or Android platform versions supported. You can 116upload all of the APKs to Google Play under a single product listing and Google 117Play selects the best APK to deliver to users, based on the characteristics of 118their devices. </p> 119 120<p>The APK Expansion Files option lets you upload up to two secondary downloads 121for each published APK, including multiple APKs. Each of the two expansion files 122can be up to 2GB each and can contain any type of code or assets. When you 123upload the expansion files, Google Play hosts them for free and handles the 124download of the files as part of the normal APK installation.</p> 125 126<h2 id="licensing">Protecting your App</h2> 127 128<p>To help you protect your application against piracy, Google Play offers a 129licensing service that you can implement in your app. It’s a network-based 130service that lets an application query a trusted Google Play licensing server to 131determine whether the application is licensed to the current device user.</p> 132
