Publishing Your Game - Beginning Android Games - page 653

Here's a list of devices we commonly use for testing applications before release:

� Samsung Galaxy Leo/I5801, 320×240-pixel screen

� HTC Hero with Android 1.5, 480×320-pixel screen

� HTC G1 with Android 1.6, 480×320-pixel screen

� Motorola Milestone/Droid with Android 2.1, 854×480-pixel screen

� HTC Desire HD with Android 2.2, 800×480-pixel screen

� Nexus One with Android 2.3, 800×480-pixel screen

� HTC Evo 4G with Android 2.2, 800×480-pixel screen

� Samsung Galaxy S with Android 2.2 and 4.0, 800×480-pixel screen

� Samsung Nexus S with Android 4.1, 800×480-pixel screen

� Samsung Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.1, 800×480-pixel screen

� Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with Android 3.1, 1280×800-pixel screen

� Google Nexus 7 Tablet with Android 4.1, 1280×800-pixel screen

As you can see, we cover quite a range of screen sizes/resolutions and device generations.
If you look for outside testers, make sure you get coverage of most of the device generations
outlined here. Newer devices should, of course, also be on your list, but less for reasons of
performance testing than for compatibility testing. If nothing else, make sure you at least are
testing on a few of the official Google devices, which include the Nexus 7, Galaxy Nexus,
Nexus S, and Nexus One devices. If your game isn't working well on these devices, you are sure
to have trouble heading your way if you don't make changes.

Finally, you have to accept the fact that you can't test your application on all the devices out
there. You are likely to receive error reports that are inexplicable and might well stem from the
fact that a user is running a custom ROM that doesn't behave as expected. In any case, don't
panic; this is normal to some extent. If the problem with errors goes overboard, though, you'll
have to try to come up with a scheme to battle it. Luckily, Google Play helps us out in that
regard. We'll see how that works in a bit.

Note Apart from Google Play's error reporting feature, there's another nice solution called Application
Crash Report for Android (ACRA), which is an open source library specifically designed to report all
crashes of your Android application. It's available at http://code.google.com/p/acra/ and is very
easy to use. Just follow the guide on the Google Code page to integrate it into your application.

Becoming a Registered Developer
Google makes it really easy to publish your application on the Google Play store. All you have to
do is register an Android developer account for a one-time fee of $25 USD. Assuming you live in
one of the countries on Google's long list of supported locations for distributing applications, this
account will allow you to post your apps on Google Play. Whether you can post free apps only or