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I'm building an Android app which for various reasons cannot be listed publicly on the Google Play store.
I have found information about the Google Play Private Channel but if I understand it correctly, this can only be used when all your users are within a Google Apps domain (which mine are not).
Are there any similar methods that I could use to deploy my app (and get the benefit of easy installation for users, an updating mechanism etc.), or is my only option to publish an APK file manually?
From what I can tell, manually publishing APK files is the only choice, but this seems strange to me since my situation must be common for "private" business applications.
In particular, I am concerned that it would look unprofessional to have to guide users through the process of turning on the "Allow installation of apps from unknown sources" setting.
Any advice welcome, thanks!
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If you don't want to release your app on a marketplace such as Google Play, you can make it available for direct download to your users (sideloading). Export the APK file of your application and provide users with the download link. Users must opt-in for installing unknown apps.
You can publish private apps to the Play store from the Google Admin console or the Google Play Console. After you add a private app to the apps list, users can download it from the managed Play Store on their Android device. It can take a few hours for the app to be available to users.
Step 1: Go to the Google Play Store application on your Android smartphone. Step 2: Tap on the Menu option located at the top left of your screen. Step 3: Click on the Settings option. Step 4: In the Google Play Store Setting window, tap on the Parental Control option and turn it on.
Go to Release > Setup > Advanced settings. Select the Managed Google Play tab. In Organizations, click Add organization. For each organization that you want to publish the app to, enter the Organization ID and a description (or name) and click Add.
I would just deploy your app using Google Play "Beta testing and staged rollout":
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213?hl=en
Your users have to join a Google Group or Google + community that you create so you can limit you audience and make the app non-public on Google Play but still allows your non-public users to update the app via Google Play instead of manual APK installation.
The only downside is that the members of the Google Group or Google + community will only be as private as their Google account provides. So, app users are known to each other but your app will not be public on Google Play.
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