Auto Updating an Android App outside the Play Store
In my previous post, I explained how I was writing a private Android app that is only intended for personal use (basically a hobby project). Because of this, I do not intend to release it in the Google Play Store .. But that brings up an interesting question: How am I going to update this app over time? One of the benefits of hosting your app in the Google Play store is that you get the ability to auto-update your apps (amongst other things like in-app billing etc). But, as the official documentation explains, there are many ways you can distribute your Android app including: Distributing through an app marketplace Distributing your apps by email Distributing through a website This is an extra bullet point! This blog post explains the steps I went through to get my Android app to auto-update via a website. In a nutshell, I wanted the app to be able to: Check a website to see if an updated . .apk is available If so, give the user the option to download the upd