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Lizzie
LizzieCommunity Manager
Community Manager
May 29, 2026
survey

[Survey] App Distribution to Unmanaged Devices

  • May 29, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 450 views

Hello everyone,

 

As mentioned in my other post on; Enterprise Usage of the AFW# Enrollment Method, here is the second survey we have in the community on App Distribution. Just to recap, as you can probably gather these two surveys are not specifically related to each other. 😀

 

Background to this survey: 

We are exploring how organizations would like to distribute private apps to unmanaged devices. We want to understand what drives the demand for this capability. Please take a moment to complete this brief survey.

 

This survey should take around 3 minutes to complete.

 

What is an unmanaged device?

Unmanaged devices are devices which are used for work that are not fully controlled by an organization's IT policy. As an example, these devices might be personal devices with some work apps on them, or contractor devices which might be managed by another organization. 

 

Click to take the survey: here

 

Have more to share? Please share any use cases or experiences to provide additional context. Thanks so much for taking the time to provide your feedback, and if you have any questions please just let me know below. 

 

Lizzie & the Android Team

    4 replies

    Moombas
    Moombas
    Level 4.4: KitKat
    May 29, 2026

    We don’t distribute apps to unmanaged devcies yet.

    Most likely just because of 2 factors:

    1. license costs
      • instead of 1 device for ex. 2 people in 2 shifts, you have 2 devices licensed
      • and this stacks up a lot when we talk about thousands of locations
    2. organisation thinks “managing” private phones (BYOD) is a nogo
      • even when we tell them it’s not a management but providing and content control

    So employees are able to use some apps privately which are publically available but when it comes to apps that are very company specific or developed internally only provided to managed devices and not made available to their private devices.

     

    Kris
    Kris
    Level 1.6: Donut
    June 1, 2026

    I really like this topic 😁

    Kris
      Alex_Muc
      Alex_Muc
      Level 3.0: Honeycomb
      June 1, 2026

      We actually have some cases where we would like to make a private app we developed ourselves available to just a few devices outside the organization. Since the apps don’t process any sensitive data, there is no need to enroll a separate company device for this purpose.

      We released such a public app a while ago. That’s not ideal, because it’s intended for a small group of external people, and other Google Play users can’t really use it at all. I haven't found a good way to restrict an app to a specific organization and individual users.

      Kirk
      KirkCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      June 16, 2026

      Friendly “last call” bump on this!

      We’ll be looking to close this survey soon, so if you want to contribute and share your thoughts please make sure you do so before the end of the week.

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