I've run several large (hundred to five hundred users) beta programs with our current app. It's a great way to work out the bugs but not at all fool proof. After our beta test we released the app to the real world and within days found numerous bugs that weren't caught during the beta. Of course, we went from 100 users to 250,000 users in that time frame. It's pretty much impossible to catch all possible bugs with just 100 users.
We use a moderated, private Google Group to deal with the beta. We started with a website where the users can download the app instead of using the market to keep it private but that prevented any users on AT&T from participating due to AT&T's silly block on the "unknown sources" checkbox in the settings. This worked well for a small group (100) testers. Now we have our beta on the market itself which opened it up to a much larger group (500+). The downside is the app can be downloaded by anyone, although for us at this point, that's ok. If you want to limit the life of the beta, you can always use a server side process to control it. Add a simple web page or program that if missing will cause the app to stop working. Pretty easy and simple control method. If you don't have a website, then buy one for now. It's worth the $15 a year (or whatever they cost) to control your app. You can also use the server side process to collect information on usage which will be valuable in your analysis of how the beta is going. Recruiting for a beta program is easy if you already have access to a user base who have Android devices. If this is your first app, then recruiting is going to be a lot harder. You might consider purchasing an ad from AdMob for the effort. -John Coryat, USNaviguide LLC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
