I have an early version of my app that I want some testers to take a look at. But I am not ready to put it on Market. How do I distribute it to my testers and how do they install it on their phones. One of the beta testers has a Asus eeePC with Android 2.0 installed and I would like him to try it too. How does this work?
+3
A:
They can just download it from any URL (go to the URL using the device browser) and install it.
They'll need to go to Settings->Applications and check the "Unknown Sources" checkbox.
synic
2010-04-14 02:06:54
A:
You can just package the app up as a .apk from eclipse and host it anywhere. Then just have anyone you want visit the URL from their android an it will be installed. But as mentioned they will need to have the Settings->Applications and check the "Unknown Sources" checkbox checked first.
Tyler
2010-04-14 02:25:52
A:
On a device: In Settings-> applications, check "unknown sources. Now by putting the apk on the devices sd card you can navigate to its directory with a file manager such as Astro and install it.
On a simulator: While running an emulator, navigate to the /tools directory of the android SDK if you haven't added it to your PATH. Now execute "adb install path/to/your_application.apk".
jqpubliq
2010-04-14 02:26:02
You have to be kidding me. Astro wiped my SD card!!!!!!!!!!!
Don
2010-04-14 12:00:12
Update on the SD card wipeout: Astro did damage the file system on my SD card in some way. Neither Astro nor any other app can now find any files on the card but when I mount it on my PC with a separate card reader, I can see them. Maybe this problem occurred because this is a 8GB card rather than the original 4GB one. Whatever, it shouldn't have happened. I am in the process of copying the files to my hard drive and will reformat the SD card and copy them back and see what Android thinks then.
Don
2010-04-14 13:18:09
+1
A:
as mentioned in first answer you can download from unknown source by rendering to that URL
Apart from that, just make sure that your app hosting server supports MIME type downloading.(very basic but important)
Rajnikant
2010-04-14 04:31:23
Thanks for the help on this (Astro problems aside). My tester who has the Asus EEEpc with Android 2.0 installed could download the apk file OK but then got a Parse error: "There is a problem parsing the package". Ring any bells? It might just be the oddball nature of the port to EEEpc but I wonder if anyone else has heard of it.
Don
2010-04-14 19:04:46
You can also send email to Tester, S/He can open that email in configured email of device and install it. Me to has encountered such parsing problem on random basis, i too need to reed of it.
Rajnikant
2010-10-07 07:06:46