Publish Android App is a procedure of publishing your application in a marketplace. Publishing is the last phase of Android application development process that makes your Android applications available to the users. Generally, developers release applications in an application marketplace such as Google Play, phoload, and 1mobile. In this lesson, we will give you an idea about how to publish an Android application. The following diagram illustrates how the publishing process fits into the Android Application Development Process. The publishing process is typically performed after testing your application in a debug environment. Also, the best practice is to ensure that your application meets all the release criteria for functionality, performance, and stability before you begin the publishing process. To publish an Android application, the following tasks should be performed: • Configuring your application for release You need to remove log calls and the android:debuggable attribute from your manifest file. You should also provide values for the android:versionCode and android:versionName attributes, which are located in the <manifest> element. Also, developers need to configure several other settings to meet Google Play requirements or to accommodate the method that they are using to release the application. • Building and signing a release version of the application. • Testing the release version of the application. Before you distribute the application, you should thoroughly test the release version on at least one target handset device and one target tablet device. • Updating application resources for release You need to make sure that all application resources such as multimedia files and graphics are updated and included within the application or staged on the proper production servers. • Preparing all the required remote servers and services. If your application depends on external servers or services, you need to make sure that they are secure and production ready. You may have to perform several other tasks as part of the preparation process. For example, you will need to get a private key for signing your application, and may require a Maps API release key if you are using the Google Maps API v2. You will also need to create an icon for the application. When you have prepared your application for release, you will have a signed .apk file which you can distribute to the users. Signing your Application Manually: To get SHA-1 finger print • General Form:

 keytool -list -v -keystore <your_keystore_full_path> -alias <your_alias_name>

For Debug, replace with your debug.keystore path, for Example :

keytool -list -v -keystore C:\Users\JOHN\.android\debug.keystore -alias androiddebugkey

Password: android For Release, replace with your keystore path and alias password, for Example :

keytool -list -v -keystore E:\my-release-key.keystore -alias alias_name

or in eclipse • Right click on project, export • Android->Export Android Application • Create new keystore->choose path and enter password • Fill the form->next->choose path->finish Releasing Your Application to Users: You can release the Android applications through several means. Mostly, you release the applications in Google Play. However, you can also release your applications in your website or by sending an application directly to a user. If you want to distribute your apps to the widest possible audience, releasing the application through an app marketplace such as Google Play is ideal. Google Play is the premier market for Android apps and is especially useful if you want to promote your application to a large worldwide audience. Nevertheless, you can distribute your apps through any app marketplace and you can even release the app in multiple marketplaces to increase the visibility.