Today i saw this: understanding-android-s-application-update-cycles
Basically is an statistical analysis about how Google Play updates apps based on amount of downloads, popular ones get updates faster, while unpopular ones or new ones who have less than 1000 users will get an update cycle every 95 days which is a long time.
So to solve this for my app i can understand 2 ways to get the app to update:
- Setup a server that holds at all times your production build of the app and the server should have a route to get the version in the app’s
package.jsonand compare it withsemverand respond the request telling the user that the app has an available update. - Get the app details from the web version of google play and crawl the response for the most recent app version.
The first one requires to set up a server that will eventually get many request for a silly piece of data, aside from needing maintenance and setup.
While the second just needs a request to the correct url of Google Play website, then use the string functions to seaparete the app version available in Google Play, i think this way is better but what do you think guys?
setup