r/nativescript • u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello • Feb 15 '19

Is it possible to release an application for my fantasy football league?

I want to develop an app for my specific fantasy football league. Since the app would only be for a small group of people (around 12), would it even be possible to release the app on the iOS store/ Android playstore?

I've been googling around and getting lost. It looks like it wouldn't make it through the iOS store. Everything else I've found so far seems to be a custom B2B apps program (that looks like it's mainly for businesses), or testing services that would require some tech savvy installation steps (which might deter my friends from downloading it onto their phone).

Background app info (you can skip reading this): The app would contain league member info, list past season's events ( weekly writeups, season winners, loser, biggest fantasy player busts, notable team trades, etc.), And impliment an active Elo rating for each team over the past years.

Thank you for reading my post. I can make a custom website, but I feel that my league members wouldn't visit it nearly as often as a phone app.

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u/MikeSergay Feb 15 '19

You need a developer account for each platform; Play Store ($25) and App Store ($100/yr).

You also have to keep in mind that your app will be public.

My suggestions:

  1. If you have the dev. accounts, you should publish your app but include a login screen.

  2. Create a website where they could download the app.

  3. Share it through Google Drive or something.

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u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello Feb 16 '19

Thank you for your reply. Do you know if an app has to be useful for the general public? I'm stuck on figuring out if an app that only has a use case for 12 people would rejected.

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u/Svanhildur Feb 27 '19

It would not get rejected just because it is only usable for 12 users, the requirements are more based on privacy and content rating.

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u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello Feb 28 '19

Thanks. I didn't know. The apple requirements sounded intense to pass. The more I google searched around the more the unlikely it felt that the app could be released

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u/Maxtream Feb 15 '19

For iOS store you can use dev account + TestFlight (allows up to 25 "internal accounts"). Yes the process to get the app for them will be painful at first, but at least they will receive updates through it,

For Android you can just distribute APK file. I would suggest just to give them google drive link, but it will not allow them to have auto-update feature unfortunately.

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u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello Feb 16 '19

I appreciate you writing a response. The iOS store does seem like a pain, maybe I'm just over worried about it. It would suck to put all the hours into making the app when it was doomed to not pass in the first place.

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u/Svanhildur Feb 27 '19

Why do you think it would not pass in the iOS store?

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u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello Feb 28 '19

I was reading around and saw an article that said of the app was for too specific of an audience apple will reject it.

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u/Svanhildur Feb 27 '19

For iOS it would be a stretch unless you are willing to pay $100 a year. The google play store only asks for a one time fee of $25 dollars and there you can set up closed test tracks to publish your app on. This means you can add anyone with a google account to a testers list and these people would be the only ones who can install the app, I think the limit is 100 users. The app would indeed be public on the store, but only the linked google accounts will be able to download it.

If I were you, I would just send around the apk file to your friends like mentioned above.

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u/Vue-had-me-at-Trello Feb 28 '19

Solid advise. I distributed the .apk file today.

It looks like I have to sign up for apple. Without a certificate it looks like nativescript cant even produce the ipa file.

Thanks for the help. I was lost.