Google Play Store for private channel distribution - google-play

Question

In my company, we want to distribute an android app for only internal users.
We have one Google apps account (admin account) with our own company's domain name (xyz#sample.com).
We have other employee's email id with the company domain name(xyz#sample.com) and these are not under the Google apps.
Do we need the same Google apps account for all the employees under Google apps admin? As we need to make the app downloadable to all the internal employees too.
OR
Is it possible to make the android app downloadable with our own server's created email ids.
For Google APP account, do we need to pay Rs.150/employee/month?
EDIT:
I do not want to publish my android app on other play store where Google can not interfere.Is there any store? I have searched and found that there are many stores available but which is trustworthy.

Answer 1

All you need is your app available on the web for a common download. After in android, you need to download the apk and notify the user to update.
Below is the code I use to download the .apk and install it.
public void UpdateApk(){
String nameapk = "youapp.apk";
String urlDownload = "http://youserver/" + nameapk;
HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) new URL(urlDownload).openConnection();
conn.setDoInput(true);
conn.setConnectTimeout(20000);
conn.connect();
InputStream is = conn.getInputStream();
String PATH = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/download/";
File file = new File(PATH);
file.mkdirs();
File outputFile = new File(file, nameapk);
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(outputFile);
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
int len1 = 0;
while ((len1 = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {
fos.write(buffer, 0, len1);
}
fos.close();
is.close();
// till here, it works fine - .apk is download to
// sdcard in download file
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
intent.setDataAndType(Uri.fromFile(new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/download/" + nameapk)), "application/vnd.android.package-archive");
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
youcontext.startActivity(intent);
}
To check the version of the app, see this answer:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/14313280/185022