Prime31 says that Google Play IAP’s now cannot be tested unless an app is published (alpha channel is ok). I’m going to be making probably 40-60 different builds with code changes before I’m done here, so what’s the workflow for repeatedly testing things on my Android phone?
My app is already published in Alpha, but I’ve made code changes since then…do I have to re-upload to Google Alpha channel every time or can I simply put the APK on my phone after building it to a desktop folder?
If I can’t simply install the APK from my desktop, do I have to get it from Google after uploading? Pretty confused about this.
Thanks for any answers!
-Brian
From my experience, in order to test IAP, you should have a build on the alpha or beta channels, that has the same bundle version code as the one you are deploying to your phone.
For example, our process for a new release:
- Update app version to 1.5 (this is the public version. Users can see this in the store).
- Update app bundle version code to a higher number (if previous release was 50, now will be 51).
- Upload 1.5 bundle code 51 to the Beta channel.
- Continue development, push new builds to QA every day.
There’s no need to upload new builds once you have the first one available in the beta or alpha (haven’t used alpha but i imagine it’s the same as the beta).
Keep in mind that once you plan to move to production and release the game, you’d have to upload a new build, since you must increment the bundle version code for every new build.