As I mentioned earlier, my students and I published an Android app to the Android Market. See those links for more information on the background. This post is decidedly technical.
First, once we finished the coding process, we packaged the app for to download to the computer. This is an option in App Inventor. This downloaded an .apk file. It is possible to install that .apk file directly to the phone, but it is not possible to publish that file directly to the market. Here’s how to put the finishing touches on your app and get it ready for publishing.
First, save yourself LOADS of time and go download the amazing conversion program located here. Then follow these steps.
- Start up the app 2 market app by running the batch file in the folder.
- Create your security certificate. This is a super important step because all future iterations of the app have to be signed by the very same certificate. In other words, you have to enter the very same information. Once you get it entered, click Save Config. This is a critical step.
- Go to the next tab and browse for the file.
- Decompile it.
- Make any changes you want. If this is the second time you are uploading (in other words, you’re upgrading the app) you need to change the version code and version number.
- Make the new apk.
- Sign it.
- Verify it.
- Zipalign it.
Publish it! Just go to http://market.android.com/publish and create a developer account (costs $25) and publish away!
Here is the app2market process in pictures.
Great. It works!!!!! Here’s an example of it working.
https://market.android.com/details?id=appinventor.ai_trade1.Tax_Rates_2011_copy3_copy1
[...] The App Inventor FAQ says no, you can’t. But it’s a well-known secret that you can perfectly well, as long as you know how to turn the file App Inventor creates into one that the Android Market will accept. Fortunately, there are a bunch of tutorials online that explain how to do this. Click here to read one of them. [...]
[...] The App Inventor FAQ says no, you can’t. But it’s a well-known secret that you can perfectly well, as long as you know how to turn the file App Inventor creates into one that the Android Market will accept. Fortunately, there are a bunch of tutorials online that explain how to do this. Click here to read one of them. [...]
[...] The App Inventor FAQ says no, you can’t. But it’s a well-known secret that you can perfectly well, as long as you know how to turn the file App Inventor creates into one that the Android Market will accept. Fortunately, there are a bunch of tutorials online that explain how to do this. Click here to read one of them. [...]
[...] The App Inventor FAQ says no, you can’t. But it’s a well-known secret that you can perfectly well, as long as you know how to turn the file App Inventor creates into one that the Android Market will accept. Fortunately, there are a bunch of tutorials online that explain how to do this. Click here to read one of them. [...]
this is exactly what i was looking for thanks for the info, but im a bit worried because googles killing google labs, my question is, is there a way to continue using google app inventor once they shut down the website in 3 months
This also works great, same principal, just more simple, just download a couple files, and move files around, and copy and paste what i wrote into command prompt, It works and made as simple as possible so anyone can understand.
http://bit.ly/qIUsHG