How I released my first app to the Google play store

How I released my first app to the Google play store

I just released my first app to the Google play store.

It was surprisingly not as difficult as I thought but it involved a lot of steps. I'll detail all of them here from idea to publishing.

Idea

I've been using habit tracking apps for more than 3 years now and they have helped me keep track of what I need to do every day really well (even when I intentionally decided to slack off).

It made sense in that case for my first app to also be a habit tracker. But if my app was similar to all the rest then there would really be no point so I decided to build mine around one core feature... streak freezes.

If you've ever used Duolingo to learn another language, you might be familiar with their streak freeze option in order to save your language learning streak. This single feature allowed me to keep going with Duolingo for 1 year (others have had streaks that are as long as the age of the Duolingo app itself).

I eventually stopped using Duolingo because I found that my language ability didn't increase by much from using the app but the fact remains that the reason I stuck with it for so long was that I didn't want to lose my streak and the streak freeze was the thing that saved the day in a pinch.

Design

Going into this, I had no clue how to design anything. I've always thought that designers had an "eye for design" but what I realized in the process of creating the UI for my app was that this "eye for design" was a learnable skill like any other.

The resources I used for learning UI design were both skillshare classes, namely Figma UI UX Design Essentials and Figma to Webflow: Complete Web Design Course

In just a couple of days, I went from no knowledge at all to creating designs that I was satisfied with.

Home Page (Empty)Home Page (Habit)Edit Habit
Home Page (Empty)Home Page (Habit)Edit Habit

They're not perfect but the fact that I could get this far in just a few days leaves me in awe. I recommend Figma to all beginner designers cause without it, I don't know how long this would have taken.

Development

This step was by far the longest. I used flutter to create my app as I've always wanted to delve into that tech and my review of it so far was that it's great if you know you're doing (although widget hell is a real thing)

For the database, I used a library called sqflite that allowed me to integrate sqlite with flutter. I chose sqlite because I didn't want to pay for hosting (or firebase). This will allow me to keep my app free forever without paying a cent no matter the scale since all the data will be on the user's local device.

All in all, it took me about two weeks to create the MVP + Fixing all the bugs that came up.

Publishing

Originally, I wanted to publish my app on both IOS and Android but the $100 dollar sign-up for IOS was discouraging, to say the least. I went with the play store option since it was only $25 to create an account.

Once I created the account, I created a new app and I proceeded to fill up all the required data in the Main Store Listing section

MainStoreListing.png

The play store requires that all apps have a privacy policy and a "terms of service" page associated with them. You can easily create them using this privacy policy and TOS generator but if your app collects sensitive information from your users then I suggest you consult a lawyer since this is not legal advice. In my case, my app collected zero info from the user so I was comfortable using this generator.

Flutter makes it very easy to create a production-ready version of your app. For android, simply add a keystore.jks file to your android folder in your project and run the following command in your command line.

flutter build appbundle

For more detailed instructions, follow this tutorial from the flutter docs or watch this awesome video by Johannes Milke on Youtube.

After publishing your app, you'll have to wait for manual review which should take anywhere from 1 to 7 days. In my case, it took about 3 days for my app to show up in the play store.

And that's it, the journey of how I published my first app on the play store in 2 weeks.

TL;DR

  • Idea: A habit tracking app with streak freezes.
  • Design: Learned how to use Figma and designed quick UI mock-ups.
  • Development: Flutter and SQFlite were a great combination for indie development.
  • Publishing: The google play store makes it seamless to publish your app.

If you enjoyed this article, make sure to follow me here and on my Twitter @Kiromoth where I share similar content + some memes for your enjoyment.

Be sure to check out my app if you want to build long-lasting habits.