Closed Bug 1289388 Opened 8 years ago Closed 8 years ago

Create (English) Google Play listings for Aurora

Categories

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P3)

Product:
Firefox for Android Graveyard
Component:
General
Platform:
All
Android
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: sebastian, Assigned: mhan)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [MobileAS])

Attachments

(1 file)

_GooglePlayStore-FeatureImage-Browse-Freely-3_1024x500_EN.png
138.22 KB, image/png
Details 
In order to publish Nightly and Aurora to Google Play we need to create a separate store listing (see bug 1241114).

To start with we can upload a Nightly/Aurora APK to the beta or alpha channel of the new listing. This way we can update and tweak the listing without it being public yet. We can then register as alpha/beta tester to see the listing on the web and in the Google Play app.

If everything's okay and automatic uploads are available (bug 1286297) we can make it public later; or make the alpha/beta test public with an opt-in link if we are not quite ready to make it fully public yet.
sledru/mhan: Can one of you create those listings? See above, we do not need to make them public until everything's in place.
Flags: needinfo?(sledru)
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
Depends on: 1289389
Before we upload anything we need to take care that the APK is signed with Mozilla's release certificate (Do not upload a random APK).
That would be Mike's duty (I am not the best person anyway ;)
However, as I said, I don't think we should do nightly now, we should focus on aurora first.
Flags: needinfo?(sledru)
We can start with Aurora but it would be very helpful to get Nightly out too:
* Automatic updates (The daily manual updates are super annoying)
* We are creating more and more prototype features and having a larger Nightly audience would help us tremendously getting feedback earlier
* Just in general it's helpful to crash early ;)
Ill need someone to add the app for me, then I can go in and update the store meta data.  What is the timeline for this?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
> We can start with Aurora but it would be very helpful to get Nightly out too
I am concerned that we would have 4 applications in the Google play store. This is too much.
For nightly, we could use the testing program on the aurora application.
I agree that there can be a lot of confusion about all the different apps, even though we are explicit about the differences in some of the marketing touchpoints.

Whats the background around this initiative?
We've talked about it rather extensively on bug 1241114. Highlights are having about 1k users of Aurora and Nightly makes the feedback cycles useless. Crash data is noisy, individual feedback and aggregate feedback is too low to draw conclusions from. Beta has 100k which is our first good round of feedback leaving us less than 6 weeks to try to solve the problem. The update process for the local builds is noisy and slow leading to people running out of date builds.
According to bug 809700 we already uploaded Aurora. @mhan: Can you see it and modify it?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
(In reply to Sylvestre Ledru [:sylvestre] from comment #6)
> For nightly, we could use the testing program on the aurora application.

We will still need a separate app listing (because of the different package ids and the way we generate app version codes) but as long as we only upload to the testing program of the new listing it won't be public. And I'm okay if we start with that for Nightly. This will help us tremendously already and we can have the discussion about making it public or not later on. Let's just not stall this again. :)
Sebastian,  I see the app.

I've started hacking on the meta data (short description, title and long description)

We need screenshots - Im thinking of using the existing release ones, but with a badge that says "firefox Aurora ...." over them.

What do we need to do with localization?  Whats the timeline for this to go live?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
(In reply to mhan@mozilla.com from comment #11)
> I've started hacking on the meta data (short description, title and long
> description)
> 
> We need screenshots - Im thinking of using the existing release ones, but
> with a badge that says "firefox Aurora ...." over them.

Sounds good!

> What do we need to do with localization?

Good question. How do we normally handle those? Do you think it's reasonable to start with English and update the other languages along the way? Or do we have a minimal set of languages that have to be present to ensure "quality"?

> Whats the timeline for this to go live?

There's no timeline so far. The goal is to get the builds into google play and I'm trying to identify the work that is needed for that and people who can help me with that. On engineering side Aurora 50.0 should be the first release that is ready for Google Play (available in a week) and release engineering is looking into automating the release process (bug 1286297).
Assignee: nobody → mhan
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Whiteboard: [MobileAS s1.1]
(In reply to Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian) from comment #12)
> > What do we need to do with localization?
> 
> Good question. How do we normally handle those? Do you think it's reasonable
> to start with English and update the other languages along the way? Or do we
> have a minimal set of languages that have to be present to ensure "quality"?
Once we are happy with the english string, this would be managed by Flod and Delphine with this interface:
https://l10n.mozilla-community.org/stores_l10n/

This will be a smooth process and we will get quality translations very quickly.

> > Whats the timeline for this to go live?
> There's no timeline so far. 
Once we get a sign off from product, I think we should take the time to do thing. 50 will probably be too early but we can always prepare everything and push the "go live" button when we are ready.
Adding Nightly and Aurora for the first time is not a quick process, because it requires changes in the app, and I have no idea when I'll have cycles to look into it.

I'm also a bit concerned about asking localizers to work on something that will have a limited visibility. Also, how frequently do you expect this content to change?

Does it make any sense to start with English content and verify the number of views these pages will have (assuming you can measure that)?
+1 to Flod's point - Whats the language distribution that we expect?  Did I see somewhere that only 1000 people download in Aurora and/or nightly?  If thats the case then I think its an awful lot of work to localize in all the languages.  We should prioritize.
I agree with comment 14 and 15. This is going to be a difficult process on l10n side, both technically and for our contributors. Given the information I see here I have to admit I am doubtful at this point that we should move forwards with this. We will need to study carefully more data in order to consider this relevant.
Okay, let's transform this bug to be just about the English listing for Aurora. Nightly is a bit more complicated because we need a new build (bug 1289734) and I'll file a new bug for L10N (Aurora). As soon as Aurora is public we can look at the numbers and add languages if needed.

> Also, how frequently do you expect this content to change?

We should make it as "stable" as possible.

(In reply to mhan@mozilla.com from comment #15)
> Did I see somewhere that only 1000 people download in Aurora and/or nightly?  If
> thats the case then I think its an awful lot of work to localize in all the
> languages.  We should prioritize.

Yeah, that's right. However with publishing the app we hope to significantly raise this number. The reason we have only a bunch of users on those builds is that it's complicated and annoying to install apps outside of the store. But yeah, let's start with English and then look at the numbers.
Summary: Create Google Play listings for Aurora and Nightly → Create (English) Google Play listings for Aurora
Whiteboard: [MobileAS s1.1] → [MobileAS s1.2]
Whiteboard: [MobileAS s1.2] → [MobileAS backlog]
Whiteboard: [MobileAS backlog] → [MobileAS]
Talking to barbara and the legal team we decided to start with the testing program for Aurora (and Nightly later). Later we will revisit and decide if we can make Aurora more publicly available.

@mhan: Are the screenshots the last part needed for the listing?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
Sebastian,

The screenshots fell off my radar but Ill work with our designer and have the english screenshots completed in the next couple of week.  We'll likely use the existing play store screenshots and put a badge over them to call them out as Aurora.

Can you confirm if we are going live with Aurora or nightly?  Your second sentence is a little misleading.

Also:

-Does anyone have the files for the screenshots in our beta page?
-Whats happening with the icon?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
Priority: -- → P3
(In reply to mhan@mozilla.com from comment #19)
> Can you confirm if we are going live with Aurora or nightly?  Your second
> sentence is a little misleading.

* We will start with Aurora

* We want to publish Nightly too, but we have to deal with some technical issues before. So we only care about Aurora right now.

* We won't make the store listing public (until further discussion). Instead interested users will have to opt in on a website like this: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/org.yaaic (This is one of my apps). After opting in a user will be able to see the app on Google play.

* After everything is setup and running we will continue the discussion with release management, product and the legal teams whether we can publish Aurora publicly without opt-in.

* After Aurora is available in the testing program we will have a look at Nightly and how we can get Nightly uploaded as well (Testing program only too).
Hi Sebastian:

Wanted to get feedback on the following:

1.  Adding a banner to the screenshots (only 2-3% of people ever see this):
"This is a developmental version of Firefox.  
Your experience may be unstable."

2.  Long description (taken from cnet download page) and other links are from our firefox beta.. please confirm these are the right links we want to use:

Firefox Aurora is a developmental channel for new Mozilla Firefox releases. 

Download the GA version of Firefox here: <link>

Firefox Aurora is designed to showcase the more experimental builds of Firefox. The Aurora channel allows users to experience the newest Firefox innovations in an unstable environment and provide feedback on features and performance to help determine what makes the final release.

Find a bug? Report it at http://mzl.la/android_bugs.

Want to know more about the permissions Firefox requests? http://mzl.la/Permissions

See our list of supported devices and latest minimum system requirements at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/platforms/.

Mozilla marketing: In order to understand the performance of certain Mozilla marketing campaigns, Firefox sends data, including a Google advertising ID, IP address, timestamp, country, language/locale, operating system, app version, to our third party vendor. Learn more by reading our Privacy Notice here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

3.  Short description:
For Developers - Be the first to test future releases of Firefox 

4.  Title:
Firefox Aurora- for Developers
(In reply to mhan@mozilla.com from comment #21)
> 1.  Adding a banner to the screenshots (only 2-3% of people ever see this):
> "This is a developmental version of Firefox.  
> Your experience may be unstable."

Sounds good! On the phone and tablet the banner is at the top of the screen, so I guess that's very helpful to communicate that this is an experimental version.

> 2.  Long description (taken from cnet download page) and other links are
> from our firefox beta.. please confirm these are the right links we want to
> use:
> [..]
> Download the GA version of Firefox here: <link>

GA version?

The other links look good!

> 3.  Short description:
> For Developers - Be the first to test future releases of Firefox 
> 
> 4.  Title:
> Firefox Aurora- for Developers

Perfect!
thanks Sebastian - 

GA - General Audience.  Was trying to actually find a better way to say "release or final version" and thought GA was a developer friendly word.  Any recommendations?  Ill do some thinking here.
also, whats the current status on the timing of this?
(In reply to mhan@mozilla.com from comment #24)
> also, whats the current status on the timing of this?

From engineering and legal side everything is okay. @sylvestre: Do we still need to do something to automate uploading aurora builds to Google play?

Aurora 51 release will be Sep. 12. If we can get something uploaded (maybe even manually) to start testing this ourselves then this would be amazing. And then let's see if we find any new blockers.
Flags: needinfo?(sledru)
Let's work on this next week. I can do an upload by hand next week, we work on the automation part and we should be ready for 51. Mike, do we want to sync these two events?

GA is clearly not a dev friendly work. I learn it when I started at Mozilla :)
Flags: needinfo?(sledru)
@Sebastian,

I have the new screenshots to upload but looks like I dont have access.  Do you want to upload them?  they can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxiQvPDzee3EQlZJbURmbkJadlU
> I have the new screenshots to upload but looks like I dont have access.  Do
> you want to upload them?  they can be found here:
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxiQvPDzee3EQlZJbURmbkJadlU
I am taking care of the upload.

We are limited to 8 images, you sent 9, which one should I remove?
Thanks
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
I also need the "Feature Graphic" image
This is the last thing that we need to go live!
@sebastian,

you can eliminate "home alt"  

Feature graphic is attached.

*can you also update the fx beta screenshots with these same ones?
Flags: needinfo?(mhan)
I also updated the feature graphic in beta.

However, I cannot use the images for beta because we have "Experimental version" on top of the image. I will need them without this wording.

PS: my name is Sylvestre, not Sebastian ;)
(sorry, Sylvestre)

We dont consider beta "experimental?"  I think its safe to include the same screenshots.
Experimental is too strong and "scary" for beta. We should have a less strong wording to avoid discouraging our users to install it.
Thanks for taking care of this while I was away.

So for Aurora we could go ahead upload the latest APK and do some internal tests before making this more public. Let's move this to a new bug.
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 8 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Product: Firefox for Android → Firefox for Android Graveyard
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