I followed this article (https://blog.expo.dev/sunsetting-expo-publish-and-classic-updates-6cb9cd295378) for migrating from expo publish to eas update. I completed all the steps without any error messages. After using the following command to publish my update eas update --channel production, I checked my app which was installed on an Android device directly via an APK. It is NOT receving any updates. Does eas update not work with apps installed via APK? If not, how am I supposed to update apps in this scenario as I can't put this app on the Google Play Store since it's an in-house corporate app which is only distributed via APKs. Previously, when using expo-publish, apps installed with APKs also got updated.
Update, I found the issues I have having.
app.json, the expo.updates.channel needs to be specified. So if updates.channel is production then the update command must be eas update --branch production. This means that the production branch update will apply to the channel that has production.app.json, the expo.runtimeVersion must be the same between the build and update - if they are different, the udpate won't apply.