Why it exists
On a personal developer account, a finished Android app does not go straight to production. Google Play first asks for a closed test with 12 testers opted in for 14 days in a row, then a form about how those testers used the app and what they said about it.
Finding twelve people is the easy part. Keeping them opted in for two weeks, getting them to actually open the app, and having something honest to write in that form is where it gets hard. Friends install and forget. Exchange threads run on trust, and nobody can tell who really tested what.
The developers stuck at this gate are the best testers for each other: they need the same thing, at the same time, and they know what a useful bug report looks like. TestBuddy puts them in a wave, gives each one a short daily list, and checks that the testing really happens.
The principles
Real testers
Every tester is an Android developer with their own app in the same wave, signed in with a Google account, opting in to your closed test and installing your app from Google Play.
Measured use
A day counts once the SDK has seen the app in the foreground for its minimum on a phone linked to a tester. Not an install, not a screenshot, not a promise.
Reciprocity
You get testers because you test. Miss a day and your own recruiting pauses until you complete the next one. Credits keep the accounts even and have no money value.
No fake installs
No bots, no automated sessions, no exchange of reviews or ratings. Faking activity or tampering with the SDK can get an account suspended (terms).
Independent from Google
TestBuddy is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, and does not promise production access: Google decides, with the numbers you give it. TestBuddy is also a web app, not an app on Google Play: Play's User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs policy rules out "incentivizing users to install other apps as the app's main functionality", so the only TestBuddy code on a phone is the SDK inside the apps being tested.
Contact
TestBuddy is operated by Morgan Brunot, France. Questions, bugs, ideas, or a wave that went wrong: hello@jointestbuddy.com.