What you need
| You need | Why | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A Google Play developer account | Google only accepts apps from registered developers | A one-time US$25 registration fee, paid to Google |
| Your app's server online | The app gets its data, sign-in and payments from it, and Google's reviewers sign in on the live app | Your host's price |
| For Expo apps: an Expo account | Expo builds the app in its cloud | Free to start |
Create your developer account in Google's Play Console. Google checks your identity (you may be asked for an ID), and you choose a personal or an organization (business) account.
Personal accounts: testing first
Google asks newer personal accounts (made after 13 November 2023) to test each new app before it can go to everyone: a closed test with at least 12 testers who stay opted in for 14 days in a row. Then you apply for production access. Business accounts can go to everyone once Google approves the app. Piye asks which kind you have and guides you through the testing when it applies.
See Google's own pages for today's rules: registration and testing for new personal accounts.
The steps in Piye
Press Publish and choose your phone app. Piye opens each step when the one before is done.
1. Your app's server
Put your app's server online first (see Publish your website). Piye then points the phone app at it.
2. The store check
Piye checks what Google asks for, puts right what it can by itself, and tells you what's left. If something is missing in your app, press Ask the AI to do it, then check again. When it says Ready for the stores, carry on.
3. Sign in to Google Play
You sign in to Google once, in your browser. Piye then sets up publishing in your Google account: it makes a publishing account for Piye there (Google calls it a "service account").
One thing Google keeps by hand, once: in Play Console, Users and permissions, Invite new users, invite the address Piye shows, with Admin (all permissions) under Account permissions. It then works for every app you make with Piye.
4. Google Play's first upload (once, by hand)
Google takes a new app's very first file only in Play Console. Piye builds and signs your app and shows you the file:
- In Play Console, create your app.
- Go to Test and release, then Internal testing (or Closed testing, for a personal account's 12 testers), Create new release.
- Drop the file in, then Save and roll it out.
From then on, Piye sends new versions itself.
5. Your testers (personal accounts)
Write your 12 testers' Google emails in Piye, one per line (friends and family are fine). In Play Console, under Test and release, Closed testing, Testers, make a list and paste them in. Then send them the link Piye gives you: they tap Become a tester, then install the app.
6. Build and send it
Press Build it and send it to Google Play.
- Expo builds it in the cloud, usually in 10 to 20 minutes.
- Native apps are built and signed on your Mac, usually in 5 to 10 minutes.
It lands on the internal testing track first. Choose Send to closed testing when you're ready for your testers.
7. The store page and review
Piye prepares what people see on Google Play:
- The words people read: the name, a short description and the full description.
- Category.
- Pictures: the screenshots, the icon (512 by 512) and Google Play's banner (1024 by 500).
- Privacy: from what Piye finds in your app, it answers Google's Data safety form for you, and gives you the exact answers to click for questions Google keeps on its own site.
- How Google reaches you: an email (shown on your store page).
- A sign-in for the reviewers: an account of their own on your live app.
Then send it for review in Play Console.
After launch
- Expo apps can send many changes straight to people's phones in minutes, without a review. New permissions or native features need a new release.
- Native apps change through a new release each time.