Does localizing an existing Android app to several new locales constitute a new version?

Question

I published an app to the market one month ago but in English only. I called it Version 1.0 (after the recommendation). I have since added four more locales to this exact same app (no other changes!). So it is avail now in 5 languages:

1) English 2) French 3) Italian 4) Japanese 5) German

So, exact same app but localized for four new locales. How should I release it? Version 1.1? Version 1.01? Or leave it as 1.0 but call it an upgrade. I don't know and would appreciate some guidance from more experienced developers.

Answer 1

Whatever you want. Just increment the version, 1.1 or 1.01, doesn't matter, and release it as an upgrade. In Eclipse, just increment the version code and the version name can be anything you want.

If you change anything then I'd call it a new version. Whether you want it to be 1.01 or 1.1 is up to you. Usually 1.01 indicates a small change while 1.1 would indicate a bigger change.

Answer 2

You will want to increment the versionCode attribute in the manifest so the Market app on the handset will realize that the APK Google calls current is different than the one that's installed. (The Market should complain if you try to upload an APK with the same version code, but I haven't tried it.)

The versionName is completely arbitrary. You could, conceivably, leave it as it is, but I think it would leave people scratching their heads when someone says "Version 1.0 is localized for German" and someone else looks at their version 1.0 and finds that it isn't.

So my recommendation is call it a new version since it is materially different than the previous release. I number mine x.yy, where x is the major version and yy is the minor version, but the choice is up to you. I've been tempted just to call them "Version 1," "Version 2," "Version 3," etc.

Answer 3

Personally, I'd leave the name as "something something Trivia 1.0" (and no in case you're wondering, I'm not the one who initially recommended this naming scheme to him, I just don't see the need to change it)

I'd increment the versionCode to 2 (assuming it's the second version, it may be more, just be careful to only use an integer whatever number you select). That step will be necessary for people's phones to know that it's an upgrade, otherwise they won't get the 'update' notification.

And then, I'd change the versionName to 1.01 (this would keep the versioning scheme in tune with the name of the app, and if you think about it, this is how it works with Eclipse, we may call Eclipse version 3.4 or version 3.6 (or even assign it a proper name), but 3.4 is only its abbreviated versionName, it's generally a much longer number after the decimal point, something like 3.40422349).

For more information on versioning your app, check this out:

http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/versioning.html#appversion