Note: This post was written a while back but sat in draft. I’ve published this now, but I’m not sure it’s relevant to the latest versions etc. so please bear this in mind.
The Google Play console allows you to submit your application to the Google Play store. Obviously you’ll need to go through the store for a Production release but the Google Play Console also allows you to go through testing phases with your application in a controlled manner (as opposed to just supply a .apk from your own web site or similar).
There are three testing options, Internal, Closed and Open.
Internal Testing
Internal testing allows us to pretty much just upload our .aab to the Google Play Console, supply a list of tester’s emails (these seem to need to be gmail email apart from the dev owner of the account). There is a limit of a maximum of 100 testers for Internal testing.
Once uploaded and assuming you’re supplied required information (as will be highlighted by the Internal testing page) and you’ve set up your list of testers, you can simply send a link to each tester and they will then be given access to your application (obviously the email they sign into Google Play will need to match the one supplied in your list of testers).
Internal testing is very useful in that you can put an application out to test with minimal “form filling”, no need for an application name even, or descriptions or screen shots etc.
Google Play will run a cutdown Firebase Test Lab (I believe) which will run some UI testing on your application against different devices and OS versions, take screens shots and even video on the automated interactions – this is extraordinarily useful. A repot (see Pre-launch report) will also display performance issues, accessibility etc.
Closed Testing
Closed testing can be seen as, maybe, an alpha release. It’s similar to Internal testing in that you again dictate who can access your application, but unlike Internal Testing you will need to supply assets along the lines of what your final release would look like, i.e. description of the app, images, screenshots etc.
Open Testing
One might see this as a beta release phase, after Internal and/or Closed testing you may want to open the application to a larger group of potential testers – at this stage anyone can join your test programme. If you’ve gone straight from Internal to Open testing, as per Closed Testing, you will need to supply assets, descriptions etc. that will be displayed in the Google Play store.
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