Hi All,
I'm looking at getting more into android development and have a question.
If I develop an app for a client and wish to use a subscription (monthly / yearly) and would like to be able to use the convenience of the Play Store to do so, is there a way to restrict or distribute an application to one client, without the general public seeing it?
Would it be better to have some kind of built in in-app license system to deal with this kind of thing? (obviously there are many things involved in this type of system to avoid problems with the end user).
I have heard you can do private Beta's, but I have no idea if this can be paid and go on indefinitely...?
I have never released an app on on the play store and don't even have an account yet, but wanted to try and understand how best to go about this kind of thing.
Many thanks in advance
Logicalstep
Related
This is my first post, so hope to get some good replies here .
Lots of Android users complain about a few issues related to Google Play.
a) country restrictions
b) access to paid apps
c) access to "device-specific" apps
For me, I'm really curious about how the Google Play app is creating these restrictions. I've noticed that Deeco7 and xinfinityoO have created mods to the stock APK in order to help people get around these restrictions and access more apps.
But how is Google Play specifically running its restrictions? I know one small part of device authentication comes from build.prop's ro.build.fingerprint. But does anybody have a good explanation for the overall restriction/authentication process? What is it about apps like MarketEnabler that allow (or not be able to allow) devices to circumvent Google Play restrictions?
Officially, manufacturer firmware builds need to pass Google CTS tests in order to get a "license" to use Google Play. Not sure if anyone knows whether or not an authentication key is signed for a particular device once it passes CTS, and if that plays a role in granting specific Google Play app access.
Look forward to any helpful facts.
Hey guys, lately i've been developing an Android online game that i pretend to sell on Google Play for about 1€, and as i am about to launch it to the market within a week or two, the question i have is: what should i do to make it as hard as possible to crack and be distributed for free? I am not rich and i need the money i hope to get from the downloads to pay for the server... so i wouldn't like to have loads of people loading my server and not paying
Any ideas? I thought about making regular updates to the app and making the server to only accept the latest app version and denying access to old app versions, but i'm unsure about how efficient that is.
If the app requires additional data, you could have it verified online each time a user attempts to connect.
http://android-developers.blogspot.pt/2010/09/securing-android-lvl-applications.html
found this, the last solution "You can offload license validation to a trusted server." is exactly what i'm looking for, having the server checking license and only accepting sockets from legit clients, not really sure how to do it yet, but i'll try to implement that.
Ok, I am looking at an online Android/iPhone app builder. They either offer the option to build one for free with unlimited downloads or you can pay yearly with different tiers for different download limits. The difference being that the free one has ads.
Anyways, when asked about just creating the app with their site, then hosting it on your own server and having everyone download it from there instead of paying the yearly fees, the site owner made this statement.
" my personal opinion in the long run you will pay more in this case because every time when apple releaes new iOS (like 6 now) or android has new phone (like samsung galaxy S 3 now) you will have to purchase new binary code from us that supports the latest updates/fixes."
Is this true? I don't see how each new device that comes out will require an update in your app.
Also, as stated, if you pay the yearly fee for the lowest amount of downloads, I assume they can only track downloads from Google Play or the Apple app store. I don't see any way they can track downloads from my own server hosting the .apk file. Anyone have any insight on this to correct me if I'm wrong?
For the record, I'm just looking to develop an app to play my Shoutcast Streaming audio station. I make no profit on the station, so have no capital to spend over $1K a year to have an Android and iPhone app. I mainly want to give it to my friends, and make it available to anyone who visits my Website. I really like the design that I did with this site, and am willing to pay something for it, just not worth $1K./year....
Anybody?
Have you tried installing the official Android Software Development Kit on your computer, and making the app yourself? You don't need to use an online service, and you choose exactly what gets compiled into the apk (ads, Google analytics, etc.).
post-mortem said:
Have you tried installing the official Android Software Development Kit on your computer, and making the app yourself? You don't need to use an online service, and you choose exactly what gets compiled into the apk (ads, Google analytics, etc.).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the reply.
I actually do have the SDK installed, and am looking into what it takes to make my own app. But, don't I have to know xml and Java to create apps using the SDK?
You do need to know those two languages.
Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium
The Lepricon said:
But, don't I have to know xml and Java to create apps using the SDK?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That online service allows you to write apps without knowing xml or Java?
post-mortem said:
That online service allows you to write apps without knowing xml or Java?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's kind of like Appinventor, all visual, just assemble the parts and stuff.
It's nice, just kinda pricey. I once posted the job on freelancer.com and got offers for about as much as this company is asking, and with freelancer I would have owned the app afterwards.
But, again, it's kinda hard to foot the bill when it's a non profit app.
Ok, I'm off to learn XML and Java.......
Oh, almost forgot.... the original questions...
" my personal opinion in the long run you will pay more in this case because every time when apple releaes new iOS (like 6 now) or android has new phone (like samsung galaxy S 3 now) you will have to purchase new binary code from us that supports the latest updates/fixes."
Is this true? I don't see how each new device that comes out will require an update in your app.
Also, as stated, if you pay the yearly fee for the lowest amount of downloads, I assume they can only track downloads from Google Play or the Apple app store. I don't see any way they can track downloads from my own server hosting the .apk file. Anyone have any insight on this to correct me if I'm wrong?
any ideas anyone?
I think he means every time Google releases an update to Android (updated OS, not new device). So, for example, you build your app to run on Jelly Bean. But when Key Lime Pie comes out, your app may not work as expected on those devices running KLP. Then, you'd have to pay them to recompile your app with updated binaries, or risk losing market share.
If your app is really simple and would run fine on Android 2.2 and up, then that "purchase new binary" thing is not applicable.
But, hell, if you're willing to learn XML & Java... go for it!
Was just wondering what peoples thoughts were on using the Android Licensing copy protection in their apps? Do you use it and do you spend a lot of time on it or have any creative ways to help enforce it?
As we all know any kind of drm will always be cracked but I just wanted to know if people found it worthwhile to have..
I'm using In-app-billing, because I found that even licensed apps can be copied.
And yes, all apps can be cracked eventually, but most of the publishers of cracked apps remove them if you ask to. So that's what I'm gonna do!
Sent from my Nexus 4 running Android 4.2 JB
I don't like license checks that force you to be online, but I do like to have 'something' in place...
Recently I started working with some OEMs in India who wanted to pre-load my apps on their devices. Very exciting obviously, but I didn't know if I could trust them as I'd never heard of them.
So what I did was get the app to load a web page on one of my servers off the screen (9000%x...) so that it couldn't be seen. The page it linked to was empty, but if I wanted to I could modify the code to include a redirect that would send it to another page. Then in my 'onPageOverride' event I just said if URL = 'stopapp.htm' then do whatever it was I wanted to do.
What I actually have it do in that event is to fill the entire screen with that web page. The user then can't interact with the app underneath, but they get a message that I can create at the time saying 'This app has been illegally distributed' or whatever else I want to say. I can even forward them on to the download page if I want this way.
This works well too because if the user isn't online, the page just doesn't load and nothing happens. But if I want to stop offline use as well I can save a file in File.DirInternal and have the app check for that. 'SwitchOff.txt'. They get caught once, then they can't use the app.
Obviously this doesn't work quite like a license check, but what you *could* do with it is to have the app pop up with a message to people using an old version that's not updated. That's probably downloaded off of some file sharing site, so you could then just keep pestering them to 'update' and send them to the Play Store to do so. You can also check how many of the users on that version of your app are legitimate by looking at your Play Developer Console.
One thing to note is that the redirect URLs you use will need to be different in every version of your app that you release.
Hope this helps someone! I wish I'd done it sooner, one of my apps is all over the web grrrr...
pretty much the same as what I'm doing atm except I just ping a server in the background and display a popup if the result meets certain conditions.. I don't disable the app either as I can't be 100% certain it's pirated, instead I display a "scary" popup saying if they're using a pirated copy this is illegal etc.. your average user won't know how the popup was generated so it should be enough to make them think "someone" is onto them and go the proper route.. With the added bonus a genuine user can just press ok and carry on using the app
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
Currently, none of my apps use licensing.
For one of my paid apps, about 5% of the downloads are from non-Google Play sources, meaning, I'm not seeing any revenue from those 5%.
There is an Android API, that allows developers to see which platform their app was downloaded from. So, I've been thinking about adding that hidden feature to my apps and maybe do something fun with it. But, haven't got around to it yet. My thinking has been that if somebody downloaded a pirated copy of my app, then they probably weren't going to pay for it in the first place. And, hopefully, they will tell their friends about it and maybe one of them will actually purchase it through Google Play.
I already have all my licensing code in place and commented out. Since my app is pretty new I want to see how it does before adding licensing. Since the app is free and income is from IAP its not too bad. I'd only turn on licensing in the next release if I see a pressing need for it.
Currently, none of my apps use licensing.
Hi!
For privacy reasons, I'd like to use my CM7.2 Atrix [Neutrino ROM] without any ties to Google. I've got all servers set up myself [Contacts, Tasks, Mail etc.], so this would be perfectly possible, except that I basically need the Play Store. ATM, it's still the only decent source for apps at least here in Germany, so I'd like to retain the functionality somehow while being able to remove it and the Google account it requires from my device.
Are there any decent solutions for that? I know that there's been some work going on to get it to run in an Android emulator, but this seems to include a lot of unreliable hacking, and I'm not sure how usable it would be for practical purposes. Basically, I'd just like to have some way to retrieve the APKs for free apps and those I paid for without resorting to dubious third-party download sites.
Please not that I'm not trying to do anything illegitimate here, for some reasons someone looking for privacy seems to get accused of that a lot. I could just get the APKs from the phone itself if I wanted to redistribute them or similar.
Thanks!
David