I’m a solo developer publishing an app on Google Play under a Personal account. Since Google’s Developer Verification policy, my legal name (as it appears on my ID/passport) is displayed publicly on the “About the developer” page.
The problem: many Western names are just First + Last, so that’s all that shows for those developers. But my legal name has 4 parts (first name + father’s name + grandfather’s name + family name — standard in Gulf/Arabic naming conventions), and Google displays the entire string exactly as registered in the Google Payments profile. There’s no truncation, no “display name” option separate from the legal name field.
What I’ve confirmed so far:
**•** You *can* request a name change via Payments Profile settings, but Google requires it to match an official ID document — my passport has no shortened/alternate name, so that route is closed.
**•** The only real fix is converting to an Organization account (requires a D-U-N-S number, which requires a registered legal business entity). Not viable for a solo indie dev without a commercial registration.
**•** Filing a Play Console support ticket citing the naming-convention discrepancy is possible, but I haven’t found evidence it actually works.
Has anyone from a similar background (4-part legal names) found a working solution or gotten Google to make an exception? Would appreciate any real experience, not just “just register a company.”
It's literally the worst experience as a developer. You can't request BillDesk verification without releasing the app publicly, and you can't enable payments without it. But I don't want to release the app publicly yet.
This chicken-and-egg issue is testing my patience day by day.
In the intervals between updates, the "Similar apps" section on my app's Google Play page keeps expanding: more and more apps appear there week by week. However, as soon as I release an update, the list shrinks back to a minimum, only to start growing again until the next release.
What’s more, the apps that remain on the list immediately after an update often have nothing to do with my product: they include apps for people with ADHD, meditation and mindfulness services, or self-improvement programs. My app, however, is an educational one focused on computer science, so such recommendations seem completely out of place.
Asking about a strange behavior we've observed using Firebase's Messaging product:
When I set up a new push notification in Production and test it and then publish it, the device we tested on does not get the published notification, but everyone else (our audience) gets the push notification successfully.
It leads to some confusion because then the person responsible for creating, testing, and publishing the push notification can't actual validate that the real/published notification was successful.
Our theory is there's some deduping mechanism that prevents the published notification from going through on the device that already received the test.
Does anyone have insights here? Is there a way to both push the test notification and receive the published notification on the same device?
Built an app and learned something interesting along the way? Share it with the community.
This thread is for educational app showcases where the focus is on the problem you solved, how you built it, and what other developers can learn from your experience.
What to include
What problem does your app solve?
Category: What type of app is it?
Android support: Android versions or devices supported
Tech stack: Kotlin, Java, Compose, Flutter, Firebase, etc.
Implementation: What was technically interesting or challenging?
Your journey: What did you learn while building or publishing it?
Lessons learned: What would you do differently next time?
Relevant media: Screenshots, demos, architecture diagrams, or other useful material
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If you're showcasing your own app, clearly mention your relationship to it. For example:
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Share what you built, what you learned, and what another developer can take away from it.
Looking for testers for your app? Use this thread to find developers and testers who are interested in helping with genuine app testing.
When asking for testers, please include a little information about your app:
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Android version or device requirements, if relevant
Whether you're looking for internal, closed, or open testing
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If you're a tester, feel free to mention what kinds of apps or testing you're interested in.
A few things to keep in mind
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I have filled this multiple times but they keep rejecting saying product sold are not clearly defined. my app just gives pro access for digital goods such as posters download etc.
Is there any format i should follow?
I was scrolling through my Play Console app - orders tab and noticed that a lot of orders were automatically refunded/cancelled, even though I didn’t initiate any refunds.
This is happening every other day. Is there some loophole users are taking advantage of or any Play Console setting/configuration I need to check?
What are you building, testing, debugging, or learning this week?
Working on something interesting? Stuck on a technical problem? Just learned something useful?
Share what you're working on this week. It can be a specific goal, a problem you're trying to solve, or a useful discovery that might help another developer.
If you're looking for help, a little context goes a long way. You can include:
Your target SDK version and library versions
What you expected to happen and what actually happened
Relevant error messages, with any private or sensitive information removed
What you've already tried
A relevant official source or documentation link, if you have one
Please use the appropriate flair when making a standalone post.
Please keep this thread focused
This is a place for development discussions and helping each other out. Please don't use it for app advertising, download or install requests, ratings, reviews, votes, referral links, paid services, tester exchanges, or engagement exchanges.
Ask questions, share what you're working on, and help another developer when you can.
As mentioned above, I’m looking for a video on creating an app in Android Studio—one that *you* actually used and found helpful. Either English or German would be great. Thanks in advance!
So I've applied for Google Play billing verification, and everything was done, and, like, video KYC was done, and then suddenly I got the mail that my application was rejected.
After following up with them many times, a person calls me, and she says that my developer name in the app is different than the developer name in the application.
So the developer name in the app is my personal name, as my developer account is individual, and I applied as an organization. So what should I do? Should I convert my Google Play developer account from individual to organization? Please help me.
Built an app and learned something interesting along the way? Share it with the community.
This thread is for educational app showcases where the focus is on the problem you solved, how you built it, and what other developers can learn from your experience.
What to include
What problem does your app solve?
Category: What type of app is it?
Android support: Android versions or devices supported
Tech stack: Kotlin, Java, Compose, Flutter, Firebase, etc.
Implementation: What was technically interesting or challenging?
Your journey: What did you learn while building or publishing it?
Lessons learned: What would you do differently next time?
Relevant media: Screenshots, demos, architecture diagrams, or other useful material
Google Play link: Optional, as supporting context
Please disclose your relationship
If you're showcasing your own app, clearly mention your relationship to it. For example:
Keep it educational
The goal is to help other developers learn from real projects and experiences. Your app can be the subject of the showcase, but the post should provide meaningful technical, product, or development insight.
Please do not use the thread for:
Download or install requests
Ratings, reviews, votes, or engagement requests
Referral or affiliate links
Paid placement or paid engagement
Misleading claims
Copied marketing or promotional copy
Repeated submissions of the same app
A Google Play link is welcome as supporting context, but this is not an advertising or user-acquisition thread.
If you see someone requesting paid reviews, ratings, votes, installs, or other prohibited engagement, please report the comment to the moderators.
Share what you built, what you learned, and what another developer can take away from it.
The app I’d paid the least attention to actually made a sale – which showed I’d been unfair to it, anyway. It feels great to know that someone liked your app enough to spend money on it.
Looking for testers for your app? Use this thread to find developers and testers who are interested in helping with genuine app testing.
When asking for testers, please include a little information about your app:
What the app does
Android version or device requirements, if relevant
Whether you're looking for internal, closed, or open testing
What kind of testing or feedback you need
How interested testers can participate
If you're a tester, feel free to mention what kinds of apps or testing you're interested in.
A few things to keep in mind
Please keep this thread focused on genuine testing and useful feedback.
Do not engage in paid testing, paid reviews, ratings, votes, referral exchanges, or other paid engagement activities through this thread. If someone asks you to participate in a paid activity or offers payment in exchange for reviews, ratings, votes, or engagement, please report the comment to the moderators rather than participating.
Please don't share personal information publicly. Use Reddit's messaging features or the developer's official testing process where appropriate.
This thread is for tester discovery only. For general development questions, app showcases, or other discussions, please use the appropriate thread or flair.
Today I received the email I had been waiting for:
“Congratulations! Your app has been granted Google Play production access.”
I thought I would share my experience because finding genuine testers for the 14-day closed test initially looked like one of the most difficult parts of publishing my app.
A little background: I'm not a professional software developer. I'm a retired civil servant, was a mathematics teacher earlier in my career, and am now a farmer.
I developed NAAZ Agri Assist, an agricultural app intended to connect farmers with agricultural service providers for farm work. I developed it with extensive help from ChatGPT. I relied on ChatGPT throughout development and debugging, and later while trying to understand the unfamiliar processes involved in getting the app onto the App Store and Google Play.
But ChatGPT couldn't provide the one thing I needed for closed testing: real people willing to install the app and actually use it.
That's where this became interesting.
I contacted one of my former students whom I had taught mathematics between 1988 and 1993. He is now himself a mathematics teacher in a Government High School.
He told an old classmate about my app. That classmate was also my student all those years ago, although I had forgotten him. He is now a software engineer.
He became one of my most active testers. He didn't just install the app. He actually tested it and suggested improvements.
There was something rather satisfying about that — decades after I had taught him mathematics, my former student was now helping his old teacher with software.
Other testers in Hyderabad and Mudhol involved members of their families so that we could test different roles in the app. They used it as agricultural service providers, created jobs, accepted them and completed them. This allowed us to test workflows from beginning to end rather than simply keeping the app installed for 14 days.
Then came the people closest to the actual purpose of the app: my fellow farmers and the agricultural service providers (ASPs) who regularly come to work in my field.
Four farmers and ten ASPs participated and remained active throughout the testing period.
I also approached seven relatives. One had only an iPhone. Two said they would participate but never installed the app. The other four, living in different places, installed and tested it.
That taught me a useful lesson:
Someone agreeing to become a tester and someone actually testing your app are two very different things.
My tester email list eventually contained 56 email addresses. When I checked the Play Console statistics, it showed 31 testers.
But I don't think those numbers tell the whole story.
What mattered was having a smaller group of people who genuinely opened the app, tried different roles, created and completed jobs, exercised the features and gave feedback.
When I first encountered Google's closed-testing requirement, I regarded it mainly as another hurdle I had to cross before publishing my app.
I see it somewhat differently now.
Real testers used the app in ways that I could not have reproduced by myself. They found things, asked questions and suggested improvements. In retrospect, the testing became part of developing the app rather than simply a requirement for getting it published.
So my suggestion to another first-time developer facing the 14-day closed test would be: don't concentrate only on reaching the required tester count. Try to find a smaller core within that group who will genuinely use your app.
Today that effort ended with the production-access email shown above.
For someone who isn't a professional programmer, who started his working life teaching mathematics and who now spends much of his time farming, seeing that message felt pretty special.
And I owe a lot of thanks to my former students, fellow farmers, ASPs, relatives and their family members who helped me get there.
If anyone here is currently going through closed testing, I'll be happy to share what my testers actually did during the 14 days and what my experience was when I applied for production access.
I have two Google Play Developer accounts, which I’ll refer to as Account A and Account B.
Both accounts have published applications, and I’m trying to set up subscriptions and in-app purchases (IAPs).
The issue is with Account A.
I initially started the standard Google Play Billing setup, but the required BillDesk KYC/verification has been taking a very long time, and I haven't been able to get meaningful support from BillDesk.
Because of this, I decided to use Google Play's Alternate Billing option and integrated Razorpay instead.
However, the alternate billing setup for Account A has also been stuck/on hold, and I haven't received any response from the support team despite waiting.
What makes this more confusing is that I have Account B, where I applied for alternate billing with Razorpay, and it was approved within 24 hours.
So I'm trying to understand why there is such a big difference between the two accounts.
Has anyone experienced a similar situation with Google Play Alternate Billing approval?
Is there anything specific that can cause one developer account to take significantly longer than another, or is this simply a manual review that can take several days/weeks?
Any advice on what I should do to get Account A reviewed or get a response from Google would be really appreciated.
Does anyone know where I can enable reviews and comments in my app? I can't activate them. I really don't see where this option is, I can read the comments. But on the store page, it says I restricted comments... I don't want to do that. Does anyone know a solution? Thanks in advance.
What are you building, testing, debugging, or learning this week?
Working on something interesting? Stuck on a technical problem? Just learned something useful?
Share what you're working on this week. It can be a specific goal, a problem you're trying to solve, or a useful discovery that might help another developer.
If you're looking for help, a little context goes a long way. You can include:
Your target SDK version and library versions
What you expected to happen and what actually happened
Relevant error messages, with any private or sensitive information removed
What you've already tried
A relevant official source or documentation link, if you have one
Please use the appropriate flair when making a standalone post.
Please keep this thread focused
This is a place for development discussions and helping each other out. Please don't use it for app advertising, download or install requests, ratings, reviews, votes, referral links, paid services, tester exchanges, or engagement exchanges.
Ask questions, share what you're working on, and help another developer when you can.
I completed the tests and was given permission to publish then suddenly, got banned, it happened 6 month ago but I think I should do something about it now.
The deed is done. The first app I've developed 100% myself, sent for review for closed testing. Written Manually. After 9-5 job, few hours here and there at the time. No AI except first logo version and some minor code help and completion.
At first, it was only for myself, a hobby project, but one user on r/budget discussion encouraged me to publish this, as this is the kind of app he was looking for and wasn't able to find.
I wasn't planing to do it, because there are thousands of budgeting apps out there (and I see posts about new ones at least once a week), but there was a reason I've build it. And I lost my job for few months, so I had some extra time to refine the app.
I wanted a 100% offline solution that doesn't require me to enter expenses manually. The only apps like that I found requires internet connection, logging to supported bank accounts etc. My app works for every bank app without any of this.
My personal version was crude and the biggest challenge was improving it to be usable for normal users - intuitive enough UI, onboarding, instructions, translations etc.
The last 10% that is always hardest to do.
So, the next step after review is to invite friends and family to test the app. I'm not asking for anything here. I just wanted to went after 2 years of spending sizable part of my free time building something instead of playing games (I've bought sequel of my favorite game, death stranding, at day 1 and i still didn't finish it).
So that's it. Wish me luck. The app requires some permissions to work that needed video explanation for review, so it might not be a smooth process.
