How can people download an android app from my website to their phone?

I developed an android application for a study and need to mak开发者_Go百科e it available on the website that participants will be directed to. Preferably, I would like to make it so that participants can type in a url/click a link on their phone, download the .apk file, and install it. Is this possible? If not, how would you recommend I go about making the app available?

The best thing to do is to put your application on the Market and have a market link on your website. See here: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/publishing.html#marketintent

The less preferred way is you can also have the apk directly linked to on your website, but you need to get your users to enable "unknown sources" under applications in their system settings; something that many users would be hesitant to do. See mobile grooveshark.com for an example of this.

There are 3 basic ways to get an app onto the phone:

1) Android Market - Probably the easiest, but uploading it there would make it public.

2) Download form a URL : Your users would have to enable the ability install APK's from "unknown sources" (Typically found in Settings > Applications > "Unknown Sources" checkbox) - Note: This feature isn't guaranteed to be on all phones. AT&T typically disables this for phones they sell. T-Mo & Verizon do not. (International carriers, I don't know off the top of my head)

3) Side-load: If your participants are developers or have access to the Android SDK, they can connect the phone to a computer via USB cable and run the command "adb install (apk filename)". Note that for this, USB debugging would have to be enabled: Settings > Applications > Development > "USB Debugging" checkbox.

Most likely option #2 is the one that suits your case best. That said, it won't work if your participants bought their phone from a provider who disables downloading APK's from unknown sources, so you might want to think about #1 or #3 as a backup.

If people access an .apk file from their phone's email or web browser, I believe they are automatically prompted to install it. They will have to enable downloading apps from unknown sources in their settings though, but if they haven't, they are automatically redirected to do so.

In order to let your customers to install your app you can make it by two methods:

1. let your customers enable the unknown source from the security settings then your customer will be able to install your app, otherwise they can download it only
2. if you dont want your customers to enable this feature, you can publish it to the play store, then put that link in your website, when the customers click the link they will be directed to play store then they can install it without enabling unknown source which i mentioned in the first point

First develop your app for publishing.

Then make your website.

Then you can publish your app on your website and people can download your app.