Can I build an app that accesses the sim-toolkit options (network-> send money, check balance etc) in the background (as if the user is actually accessing the sim-toolkit application). I want to do this because the standard sim-toolkit is limited and does not provide better search, history, saving options etc. I say ìn the background because I have read that direct access to the sim-toolkit is problematic.
The SIM toolkit just sends USSD codes and parses the results, which means that one does not need it. And it makes no difference how you access it, while the system is designed to keep this area out of reach. eg. just try calling *101# to see the current balance. Or just get some prepaid USIM from a provider, which offers their own API & management app... because else you have the next problem with SMS permissions, which may be required to change eg. the data plan via SMS. Even for such basic functionality ...every provider has another number and other keywords for that.
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I made a small Google Home App and my service returns a response with a SimpleMessage + Card.
It works perfectly when running the app in the console.actions.google.com simulator. I get the card all good.
But when I test talking to the Google Home, it only sends the text, no trace of the Cards anywhere.
However If i talk to the Google home app on my phone, it does send the card correctly.
Is there something to enable to be able to receive cards sent by Google Home? Is it possible at all?
There is no way to make cards that were sent while the user is talking via Google Home visible, but there are several techniques that you, as a developer, can use if cards are necessary.
First of all - good design suggests that cards should be use to supplement the conversation, not be the focus of the conversation. Make sure the voice conversation itself is important and use the visual elements only when necessary. If your action is overly visual - it may be better suited as a mobile or web app, rather than an Action.
If your device requires a screen, then you can set this in the Action Console when you configure your question. This will, however, prevent it from being used on a Google Home device.
If you don't want to go this route, and want to allow it to be used on a smart speaker, but still take advantage of a screen where it is available, you have a few options.
First is that you can just send the cards. As you've discovered, they won't show up, but they won't cause any problems.
If you want to act slightly differently if a screen is available, you can check for the surface capabilities that the user's Assistant is capable of at that moment. If you're using the node.js library, you can have a command such as
let hasScreen = app.hasSurfaceCapability(app.SurfaceCapabilities.SCREEN_OUTPUT)
to determine if a screen is available and take action based on the variable hasScreen. If you're using JSON, you need to check the array at surface.capabilities or data.google.surface.capabilities to see if "actions.capability.SCREEN_OUTPUT" is one of the available surfaces.
If not, and you get to a point in the conversation where you feel you need to send a visual result, you can also request to continue the conversation on a device that does support screen output.
First, you'll need to make sure that they have a screen available. You'll do this with the node.js library with something like
const screenAvailable = app.hasAvailableSurfaceCapabilities(app.SurfaceCapabilities.SCREEN_OUTPUT);
or by checking the availableSurfaces.capabilities or data.google.availableSurfaces.capabilities parameters in JSON.
If one is available, you can request to continue the conversation there with something like
app.askForNewSurface(context, notif, [app.SurfaceCapabilities.SCREEN_OUTPUT]);
where context is the message that will be said on the Google Home, and notif is the notification that will appear on their mobile device (for example) to let them continue the conversation. If using JSON, you'll need to use a actions.intent.NEW_SURFACE next intent.
Either way, the user will get a notification on their mobile device. Selecting the notification will start up the Assistant on that device and your Action will be called again with parameters that let you check if they are on the new surface. If so - you can send the card.
Is there a way to programmatically request current status information (location, tta, speed) from an active instance of the HERE WeGo app? I know I can use an alternate method for location but would like to access TTA and possibly additional current status information from a running GPS program without requiring the user to input data. Example: Current time, location, speed, ETA(TTA), logged with the click of a button or voice command. I would specifically like to be able to use HERE because of its off-line capabilities.
No that is not possible. It would violate the user's privacy and allow an unsuspecting application to track the user :)
I am new to android development. I came to know that Intent and Intent filters can be used to share data among applications but I wonder if it is possible to design an android application which can extract some specific information from other applications while running in the background. For example, if the user is using whatsapp it may get know the call drop rate or if a video is being played at user terminal in YouTube, Facebook or Netflix, it will get buffer playtime, video bitrate etc. I will be very grateful if answer to this question is provided with an example.
No, mostly no.
However, as wrote Tim Castelijns, if the 'target' app allows it, like via a content provider, its possible.
On a rooted device, after long hours of reverse engineering the targeted apps, it MAY also be possible to get some info. Only from rooted devices too.
Other case is you write several app and design that they can communicate together, like via intents, content providers.
There is also possible to get the list of running apps (user must permit it)
In Android, each application is running on its own "sandbox" that is supposed to be isolated from the rest of the applications running on the device.
In order for an application to communicate with other applications, the Android framework supplies several mechanisms to send/receive data to/from other applications: Intents, IPC (AIDL), Content Providers etc...
Each application that wants to expose its data to other applications on the device needs to implement an interface using one or more of the mechanisms described above.
That means that if an application doesn't implement an interface to expose its data or inner workings, it won't be possible for another application to access this information.
Keep in mind that some applications choose to save some of their data on publicly available disk spaces (i.e. a camera that takes pictures might save them on the SDcard that is accessible by all applications). In that case, if you know what to look for, you can tell certain things about certain applications.
In addition, the Android operation system exposes the states of several global settings such as: Device's connectivity state, Battery state, currently opened Bluetooth interfaces, running applications, last executed apps etc...
This configurations might give you an overall idea of what is happening on the device.
As indicated in other answers, you're mostly limited to what apps will explicitly make available to you; in fact, well-engineered apps will generally try to prevent "information leakage" beyond what they actually want to make available.
Some other people mentioned Content Providers but the one other construct to look into is Broadcasts. If an app broadcasts an intent locally (i.e. is using the Local Broadcast Manager) you won't be able to see it but if they're using a "system-wide" broadcast or receiving another "system-wide" broadcast you can receive the same event.
I currently have three activities for my Android app, two of these are for logging in. The first is used for authorizing a device and requires the user to input more user information (FullLogin), the second is used once a device has been authorized (ReducedLogin).
The idea is to show the FullLogin activity all new users until their device has been authorized. The ReducedLogin activity will then show for all logins thereafter.
Is this possible and how would I go about doing this? I've seen some posts online for using/accessing values from a preferences.xml file but am not 100% sure if this is correct for my needs.
This scenario is formulated quite generally. There exist many possible solutions.
You could save the information whether a user is fully authorized on an external server and each time you start the app, you request the server and then show the corresponding activity.
You could store this information locally on the smartphone (e.g. in SharedPreferences), but for security reasons i would rather recommend the first way. One big advantage of local storage may be the avoidance of the additional internet permission as you don't have to request a server.
You could use cryptography to create a challenge that can only be solved by an authorized user.
You could combine these approaches.
You can't modify the manifest, and that's what's going to control what runs when the user presses your launcher icon.
What you can do is have a "router" Activity that inspects the state of the system and starts the real Activity you want. You do have to put in some extra effort here to ensure you don't get a screen flash between the router and real activity (starting with no animation, not setting a content view in the router, using a blank theme, and probably other things).
Another solution is to use fragments. The "main" activity just inspects the state and adds the correct fragment ... full or reduced.
I am developing one GPS based application. in that i given few default values to user those are phone number which will used to make a phone call. and server address which is used to sent the location data to server.. In this I got 2 major and critical problems..
1) I have hide that default values in regular menu and that should display when user presses some key or combination of keys then only it should display.
2)When ever the Default phone number and server address is changed at provider side that should be updated at user side that should happen through SMS from a specific number in a encrypted format by accepting that SMS those values has to change
Please Any body knows about these things help which are very very very useful to me
Thanks for reading
Lots of good info here.
Having used SMSes to communicate with apps in the past, I highly recommend finding another way if possible. The messages coming in are often gibberish to the user, and practically never contain any information that the user needs to know about. They're confusing and they clutter up the user's phone experience.
I'd recommend using WAP pushes or periodic device-side checks instead. If you have to use SMSes, you may want to consider using the SMS content provider to delete the messages after your application responds to them. It'll still be annoying to the user, but at least you won't be leaving behind garbage in their messaging app. Be aware though that the SMS/MMS content providers aren't published, which means that they're not guaranteed to work, manufacturers can modify them however they want, and they could be phased out in a future SDK release.