How to notify users about an Android app update?

Question

I\'ve built an Android app which is now on Play Market. From time to time, I make updates to it, and I\'d like to let users know that a new version is available.

How

Answer 1

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:versionCode="1.5b" 
android:versionName="1.5b">

When you re-upload your app to Google Play, if these two attributes have been changed from the previous upload, Google Play will automatically send notifications to users who have installed your app. This is the AndroidManifest file.

Answer 2

There is also a very good approach for checking version and give user in app notification or when you want to forcefully update the application if you can decide the first connection of your app with the server.In the response of the first request you can send the current version of app stored on your server and then on client end you can take the appropriate action. Advantages of this approach-:
1-No extra request for version no.
2-It is also applicable if you are downloading the app other than the google playstore.
3-you can also use this idea if you want to check the version at particular operation of your app ex- transaction(if you add a new payment gateway.)

Answer 3

Update 2020: now you can use in-app updates mechanism

Docs: https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/in-app-updates

Answer 4

I know this is an old question but still if people are coming here to check this question, Google is now providing official support for in-app notification for application update the full documentation can be found here

Answer 5

@Davek804's answer above is wrong. android:versionCode is an integer value that represents the version of the application code, relative to other versions, so using "1.5b" there is incorrect. Use "15" (or "150") instead

Answer 6

You can do this in a lot of ways, depending on when you want the user to be able to see that there is an update available.

If you want the user to know about the update when the app is started, just create a utility method (inside the onCreate method of your main/first Activity) that checks if a newer version is available in Google Play. If it does, display an alert dialog with a relevant message and an Intent which opens your app in Google Play when the user clicks on the positive button of the alert dialog. If you are updating the app regularly, the user will keep getting this alert dialog every time the app is started and hence, may get irritated. Thus, this is not the best approach.

If you want the user to get a notification on the phone (and not when the user starts the app), you can use the AlarmManager class to schedule a background service which checks for an update at regular intervals. If the service finds that an upgrade is actually available, publish a notification with an intent that opens your app in Google Play.

Of course, another approach is to leave it to the OS itself. If the user has not set the "Automatically update" preference for your app, the user will get a notification regularly about an update available for your, as well as any other apps. But not all users enable background data on their devices, so this is not completely reliable.

In the end, you must respect the users preferences. If the user does not want to automatically update the app, or does not want to see a nagging dialog box whenever he/she starts your app, don't alert the user about the update.

In my opinion, you should create a PreferenceActivity that has a preference like "Check for updates regularly", which can be set from within your app. If it is set, do the needful in your own service. May be even give the user an option to select the period after which the service will check for an update.

I hope this helps!