Staged rollout

A staged rollout releases an Android update to a chosen percentage of users rather than all of them, with the percentage under your control rather than on a fixed schedule.

You set a starting figure when you create the release, then raise it when the numbers look right. Crash rate and ANR rate in Play Console are the reason the feature exists, so give each step long enough to produce data before you increase it. Percentages are of eligible users and assignment is Google's, not something you target.

Halting a rollout stops the update reaching anyone new. It does not remove it from devices that already have it. There is no button that pulls a bad build back, and this is the difference between halting and rolling back that costs people a bad afternoon. If 20% of your users have a version that crashes on launch, halting protects the other 80% and does nothing for them.

You cannot decrease a percentage either, only halt or increase.

The recovery path is forwards. Halt, fix, and publish a new release with a higher version code. If you need the previous build back, that means re-releasing the old code under a new version code, which is legitimate and worth having rehearsed.

Compared with Apple's phased release: the percentages here are yours to choose and Apple's are on a seven day schedule you can only pause.

See also: track, phased release, Play edit.