What to Do Before You Submit to the Android Market

Here is what you want to have sorted out in advance on your application before you submit it to the Android Market:

• The application should run without any bugs. This may sound obvious, but it is sometimes difficult to find them. The last thing you need is an application that has even one “Force Close” window. If this kind of error happens even once, your users could give your application a one-star rating. Before you submit to the Android Market, you will want to test every button, feature, and activity to make certain that it runs without a problem. You also might want to do a round of beta testing; I will go into detail on this in the next chapter.
• Test it out in portrait and landscape mode. You might have a terrific application that looks awesome, but you had better make certain that it looks just as awesome when you turn your Android device sideways. Auto-landscape is a great built-in feature for Android, but it may inadvertently distort your application’s look. It is possible for a developer to turn off this feature. Your emulator is able to show you what your application looks like in both views, and make certain you get a good look at your application on a few actual Android devices and Android versions before you do an official release.
• Make it easy for someone to give you a review. If you have a good application, and you think it is worthy of five stars, then you will want to make certain that the user can easily give you the rating that you feel you richly deserve. You can set up the application to prompt the user to give you are review. See Chapter 5 for how to set that up.
• If you have other apps, set up your own in-app store. If you and your company have other applications that you want to sell, then you should set up that store before officially releasing. Also check Chapter 5 if you want to learn more on that.
• Set up your ads. If you want to maximize your profits, you want to make certain that those ads are in place with AdMob, Mobclix, or whatever ad method you decided to go with. See Chapter 6 for how to set that up.
• Have your in-app billing set up. This is for those who are planning on promoting other applications within their own applications, as well as planning to put a market within their application. See Chapter 7 for how to set that up.
• Have a good description set up. Your Android application is required to have a description that is less than 4,000 characters. It would be wise to have one that is well thought out, rather than one that sounds like you winged it.
• Get some good screenshots ready. I will detail how to get a decent screenshot for your application in this next section.