Automatic update of the application for Android bypassing Google Play?

Question

Java

In general, the problem is this: there is an application that is used on 30 tablets, and it is necessary to somehow implement it automatically, i.e. without user intervention, update. I will not upload it to Google Play, because. app for internal use and manual installation takes too long.

Answer 1

Google apps will not be able to upload for free + traditional delays of several hours, due to which it is impossible to quickly resolve problems. In addition, you will need to add each user to the domain, which can be problematic remotely, especially if on the other side the person who took the tablet for the first time...
I did this:
Always the latest version is uploaded to the site, and is available at a specific address where it is downloaded and installed on the tablet.
Updates are checked at the time of authorization, or synchronization. In my case, the application had to connect to the Internet at least once a day to synchronize offline actions, so no background checks were needed.
If a new version is found, the application notifies you that it is possible to install it, and that it is impossible to continue working without it. If you agree, the apk is downloaded to a temporary folder, and from there it is opened by the standard application manager for installation. Further, of course, the update is done manually, but there were no problems with pressing the OK and Continue buttons :)
On the technical side, it is implemented in brief as follows:
The application sends its own versionCode with each request, which is checked on the server with the current one, and in case of a mismatch, the server returns an error with a link to the new version.
To simplify the download of updates, I recently screwed the upload form, with automatic parsing of the APK and extracting its version, using php-apk-parser

Answer 2

correct solution: upload to a private channel via google apps
quick solution: check for a new version, download, tell the user to click on it and update