Application Versioning

The version in the manifest isn't really used.  When you upload to the store, the dev defines the version that's shown to the user in the store.  There's also an internal version number that only the dev sees (it's incremented each time the dev uploads a new version.)

Some apps display a version number in app settings, but that's only possible if the app is in the store, as that's required for app settings.

For a sideload, your app can display a version number, but that's something within your code.  You have no access to the version number in the manifest.xml

So if I am understand correctly application versioning is handled completely via the Garmin app store and the users IOS/Android mobile Garmin IQ app will ensure the user has the latest released version from the app store?

If a user has any issues do we know 100% which version of the app they are using; are we sure it is the latest version in the app store and if they experience any crashes I assume the crash report gives us the version number?

How is that done in code, do you have an example for displaying the app version in settings menu? Thx.

You need to have the version defined in your app and write it to settings using Application.Properties.setValue() when your app starts.

Is it possible to re-use the value given for version in manifext.xml?
(otherwise there would be two redundant version values to maintain?)

The only time the version in the manifest is used is with a barrel.  

so for a datafield i can delete it from manifest.xml?

I would just leave it and ignore it if it's not a barrel.  You want to avoid manual edits of the manifest.xml

I also tried installing the app manually using a USB connection but found there was no direct interface slope.