Signing and publishing your app on Google play

In this post I will explain how to self sign your application and how to publish it on Google Play store.

First you must signup for a developers account here .It is a fee of $25 that you pay only once and your account will exist as long as it is not closed i.e for a lifetime. After you finish registration, you will be redirected to a screen for uploading new application. But before you upload your app you must be sure that it is signed and zip aligned apk package.

Using Eclipse it is very easy to sign and zip align your application. There are two types of signing: debug and release.

Debug signing:

When installing Android plugin for eclipse, one debug keystore (debug.keystore) is generated for you and it is located in Users/username/.android folder on Windows. You cannot run your apps even on AVD unless they are signed. But since there is debug keystore trough eclipse, you can test your apps without problems. Note that you can use keytool in java sdk bin folder to generate key for you manually.

Release signing:

About release signing you can again use Eclipse to generate new keystore and your key with your password and therefore sign you application for publishing. Just follow the instructions in Eclipse after clicking right click on the app project node in Package explorer and then selectiong Export menu item. In the next window select Android -> Export Android application.
Once you have signed your app it is ready for publishing.

Publishing your application

Go to this page for publishing. Click add new application to create your Google play application. Choose language and call it MyTestApp. Press upload APK. Give the new app a description, add two bigger images for the specific device that you plan your app to work on and also don't forget app icon 512x512 size. Choose App type, Category and Content rating. Add your website and email and click save. You are one step closer to publishing. Now on the left menu click Pricing and Distribution.

Select all countries and choose below options as you like. I choosed only the last two. Click save.

Now go up and on the right click publish button. You are done, now several hours are necesary before your app becomes available on Google Play.

Cheers :)))