Publishing Your App to the Android Market

193

Chapter 8: Publishing Your App to the Android Market

Figure 8-3: The Key Creation dialog box.

10. Click the Next button.

The final screen you encounter is the Destination and KeyCertificate Checks dialog box, as shown in Figure 8-4. Figure 8-4: Choosing a name and destination for your first APK file.

11. Enter a name and location for a file with an extension of .apk.

I have chosen c:\android\SilentModeToggle.apk. 194 Part II: Building and Publishing Your First Android Application

12. Click the Finish button.

This creates the .apk file in your chosen location as well as a keystore in the location you chose in Step 5. Open these locations, and you can see a .keystore file as well as an .apk file, as shown in Figure 8-5. Figure 8-5: Providing a destination for the APK file. You have now created a distributable APK file and a reusable keystore for future updates. Creating an Android Market Account Now that you have your APK file created, you can now release the application on the Android Market. To do so, you need to create an Android Market account. To create such an account, you need a Google account. Any Google-based account such as a Gmail account is fine. If you do not have a Google account, you can obtain a free account by navigating to www.google.comaccounts. To create the Android Market account, follow the steps shown here. Note that to complete this step, you need to pay a 25 developer fee with a credit card. If you do not pay this developer fee, you cannot publish applications.

1. Open your Web browser and navigate to http:market.

android.compublish. 2. On the right side of the screen, sign in with your Google account, as shown in Figure 8-6. 3. Fill out the following fields: • Developer Name: The name that will show up as the developer of the applications you release. This could be your company name or your personal name. You can change this later after you’ve created your account. • E-mail Address: This is the e-mail address users can send e-mails to. They normally send questions and or comments about your application if they are interested in it. 195

Chapter 8: Publishing Your App to the Android Market