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If I release an android app via gmail, do all of the native features work?

I can't discern from their instructions if the app goes to Google Play first or not...

Instructions from Google Play:

Releasing your application through email


Figure 1. Users can simply click Install when you send them an application via email.

The easiest and quickest way to release your application is to send it to a user through email. To do this, you prepare your application for release and then attach it to an email and send it to a user. When the user opens your email message on their Android-powered device the Android system will recognize the APK and display an Install Now button in the email message (see figure 1). Users can install your application by touching the button.

Note: The Install Now button shown in Figure 1 appears only if a user has configured their device to allow installation from unknown sources and has opened your email with the native Gmail application.

Distributing applications through email is convenient if you are sending your application to only a few trusted users, but it provides few protections from piracy and unauthorized distribution; that is, anyone you send your application to can simply forward it to someone else.

[Michael Westgate]

From link on google:

Usually, you release your application through an application marketplace, such as Google Play. However, you can also release applications by sending them directly to users or by letting users download them from your own website.

This means that once you have built your application, you can release it using ANY of the following delivery methods:

• Email to user
• Upload to website
• Upload to Google play marketplace
• Upload to alternative marketplace (such as Amazon Appstore)
• You could even copy it onto every device

To get your app into Google play, you have to create a developer account ($25), add some information, upload the application, and publish. Hence why emailing the application is a quick, free, and easy alternative in the right situation.

Which one it goes to first is up to you! If you didn't want to pay the $25 developer licence, then you could upload your application to your website or email it, without putting it in the play store.

Alternatively, you could go through all the steps of putting it in the play store and then email it out. HOWEVER, if that were the case, I would probably email out a link to the application in the marketplace (rather than the application itself) so that users would download it from there and thus contribute to the statistics displayed in the store.

An app is an app and all of the native features (such as camera and GPS) work regardless of delivery method used.