Android Market Getting Multiple Developer Sign-in, Permission Support

Yesterday I took a visit to the Android Office Hours at Google IO and expressed one of my biggest irritations with Android Market. I signed up for an Android Market Developer Account with my personal Gmail account way back in the day. I have Android developers working on projects such as the Phandroid Application and other mysteriously awesome missions of which you’ll soon learn. Unfortunately, I can’t grant these developers access to my Android Market account because I’d have to give them my personal GMail password.

In my opinion, access to a developer account on Android Market should work much like Google Analytics. There should be one admin account with the ability to add sub accounts with various levels of privileges. For example, you may or may not want certain people uploading new APKs, changing promotional images/videos, accessing error logs, viewing download and sales information and more.

It was actually pretty hilarious to hear that Google themselves only have one person with access to updating APKs on Android Market. Should Google Maps be updated? Better hope the guy isn’t on vacation! YouTube needs an urgent update to prevent force closes? Better call him at home! A representative from Verizon mentioned they’re in the same boat. In addition to being an inconvenience this could also pose security risks.

They acknowledged the request was legitimate, something they’ve discussed, and suggested that better account/access management features for the Android Market Developer area would certainly be seen in the future. While no timeline was indicated, clearly it’s something they’ve considered, so let’s hope they move their experience from Analytics over to Android Market in the near term.

On a related note, acquisitions of apps and companies are all done manually as there is currently no way to transfer ownership of an app to another party. I asked about this issue too, but it’s clearly low on the totem pole as it isn’t a frequent occurrence.