Releasing our app to Play Store

Finally, our app is ready! This is the best moment while developing a new app; it is time to upload it to Play Store, get feedback from users, and hopefully get thousands of downloads.

We need to export the app to an APK file; in order to be uploaded to Play Store, it has to be signed with a release certificate. This point is very important; once an application is signed with a certificate, if we upload it to Play Store and want to upload a new version in the future, it has to be signed with the same certificate.

This certificate will be created by us during the release process. It needs an alias and a password, so ensure that you remember these details and save the certificate file in a safe place. Otherwise, say your app gets good ratings and a good number of downloads, and you want to update the version, but you don't have your certificate or have forgotten the password. In this case, you won't be able to update, you will have to upload a new app...