I have created an Android app after months of hard work and when it came to publishing, Google straight away rejected it.
Google says i am using a sensitive permission PROCESS_OUTGOING_CALLS. To use this permission either my app shall be a default call handler or my core feature shall fall under the exceptions they have provided. If my core feature doesn't fall under those exceptions which it actually doesn't, then i must report a new use case. I reported new use case properly and waited for two weeks NO RESPONSE. I tried publishing my app again as exception "device automation". It got rejected again saying my app doesn't fall under this exception.
Basically what my app does is, base on phone number to which call is being made, it shows some personalize data on an overlay screen over dialer. ( Cannot tell you the complete details, i am really sorry for that). No it is not a caller id or spam detection either.
I went through Google document over and over to see if i missed something.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9214102?hl=en
I couldn't find any.
My time and money has been invested in this and i can't start showing it to people.
If someone came across same issue and able to resolve it please help.
And if more details required please comment i will provide.
I've encountered the similar problem with Google a while ago but with this sensitive permission.
From my experience - the chances that the use case you submitted will be approved is near zero.
There are two things you can do in this case:
either extend your app to fall under one the exception cases.
or go the path I went - change your app main purpose to be the default dialer and your current main feature would be just a minor perk. (make it extendable to add more minor features in future)
This is the easiest way to publish your app. Well frankly I see it as the only solution possible - Google is known for its strict "You are banned and I'm not gonna change my decision" policy. Youtube and Play Store have tens of thousands ban stories non of which is ended in a user beneficial way.
Hope it helps.
Related
When developing Java apps used internally by users in the company I work for, I would have the app display a message such as "An issue occurred. Please contact the Help Desk and report it", when an issue occurs with the app that is being used.
Now that I am learning to develop mobile apps on my own, I am faced with the question of how best to handle app issues in this environment, since there really isn't a help desk.
My initial thought was to asynchronously call a service to log the error. But, remote communication may not be possible. Then, I thought to display an error alert with a number to contact or e-mail address to mail to report the issue. But, is that really best practice?
So, for mobile apps, what is the best practice for capturing issues or having users report them, so that they can be properly addressed and not have them become very frustrated with your app, especially if the root cause may be related to something that is out of your control, such as an issue with a godaddy server, which hosts a database used by the app?
Thanks in advance
For recording crashes, you could use Crashlytics, so that you can see the device log when that crash occurred and investigate the reasons to improve your app / prevent the crash from happening again in the future, or reaching out directly to the specific user (as you could record user id / email addr in Crashlytics) if you for instance see the app crashes for her/him repeatedly.
For issues/problems the app experienced (but it didn't crash), you can use things like Rollbar to record the incidents. You can put special logic in your app, especially places that are prone to failure, or whenever your app recognizes "an issue".
If you want to have a place in your app that users could search for FAQs, ask questions or provide feedback and concerns, you may want to use things like UserVoice to provide a central hub.
[Things aforementioned may not be free software.]
You can use Crashlytics and if you do not want to go for third party then you can read all of your logs from iOS SDK for your app,so you can go for it as well
or there is always solution with third party softwares
I have been getting some amounts between $0.2 to $0.7 debited from my final payment from AdMob ads under the title "invalid activity" in my payment details.
Yes the amounts are small but i am still worried as i have been extra careful while testing i used the test keys and i have not told any of my friends to click on my ads or have clicked on them myself.
I did have the same issue for my web-site but that was due to some bots which i black-listed in the server access files so i am no longer getting such "invalid activity" on my blog earnings
I have built my apps in Ionic Framework.
So my question is how can i detect where the invalid activity is coming from in my app and how can i prevent it.
How can i detect where the invalid activity is coming from in my app
You can check a country wise view of requests on Google Adsense at this link. You can analyze and check where major traffic is from, where clicks are from, etc.
Fore more detailed reporting use Google Analytics for Android
How can i prevent it.
There is no fixed way of how you deal with that. You will need to take steps and write algorithms in your app based on your analysis. But, I dont think that is really required. If it is an invalid activity from a third party (NOT You) Google will take corrective actions. But, if it is by You, you are in trouble and may get the app suspended or account blocked.
google doesn't provide actual invalid activity because of security reason according to google terms& conditions
We run a web application with a Java Script- and an Android front end. We use Google IDs with OAuth for authentication. Everything worked find until today authenticaiton suddenly stopped working. There was no new software version deployed or any operational changes. Now, when a user tries to log on via the browser application, Google issues
401. That’s an error.
Error: disabled_client
The OAuth client was disabled.
Request Details
scope=openid profile email
response_type=code
redirect_uri=https://***.net/signin-google
state=***
client_id=******.apps.googleusercontent.com
That’s all we know.
When logging in via Android App, authentication fails too, GoogleAuthUtil.getToken raises an unspecific exception.
I couldn't find much information when googling for this error message. Some say, one should try to change the application name in the consent screen. This didn't help in my case.
In developer console I noticed, that I cannot create a new Client ID for this project. I always get a technical error ("Server Error Whoops! Our Bad.") with a tracking number. Seems to be related.
I have a total of 7 Client IDs registered for this project and 3 public API access keys.
Is it possible, that Google explicitly disabled our project? That's how it actually feels. For what reason? I didn't get any notification. Our product is an application for access control, nothing special or illegal here.
Any ideas? This is a production environment, so for us the problem is absolutely severe.
Thanks for any help!
In the meantime we found out, that our Android App was removed from the Play Store and we got following notification:
This is a notification that your application, <...>, with package ID <...>, has been removed from the Google Play Store.
REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of the Personal and Confidential Information provision of the Content Policy.Please refer to the policy help article for more information.
We don't allow unauthorized publishing or disclosure of people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, government identification numbers, driver's and other license numbers, non-public contacts, or any other information that is not publicly accessible.
We are very careful about the data inside our application and we take privacy and security extremely seriously as the hole app is about security and our customer's trust is absolutely essential. However, we recently introduced a feature that periodically sends the LogCat output to our servers for debugging reasons. Our app is in an early preview state which we make clear in the app description. It's used by a very limited number of people as it can only be used with a special piece of hardware we provide. The LogCat output only contains data from the app itself, no confident data of any kind. We published a couple of related apps and not all have the feature even included but all were suspended. However, we guess that this feature is the reason for removing.
Edit
In the meantime we wrote an appeal via the form provided on Google Play. The ban was removed from Google Play and the related Google OAuth Client shortly after.
We were informed, that our App collects names of running tasks and sends them to our servers, which is not the case. However, we used the crittercism library and the crittercism docs suggest to require the "GET_TASKS" permission, what we did. I don't think, that Crittercism is considered as dangerous as it's used by lots of applications. But maybe the combination of a Logging Service on the one hand and the GET_TASKS permission on the other hand, although not dangerous in our case, triggered some automatic rules at Google.
To fix this we simply removed Crittercism and all related permission requirements as it wasn't very useful for us anyways.
I'm looking for an .jar or library project that will allow users of my application to easily send feedback from inside the application about their experience.
As asked in this question, I am looking for something similar to the crash reporting tool used in Google Plus, that allows the user to get in contact with me, besides leaving bad reviews.
Some not-quite there solutions that came up in answers to other questions:
ACRA : Application Crash Report for Android (functions as a crash reporting tool)
Hockey Kit: Helps distribute betas, nothing related to send feedback to developer.
Does a library like this exist? Is there an easy way to gather user feedback from within the application?
For a full-featured user support service, you can have a look to Capptain: http://www.capptain.com/
But with ACRA you can also trigger a report programmatically. You could call the method handleException(new UserRequestedException()) when the user selects an option in your preferences screen, for example.
You would then filter your ACRA reports spreadsheet for all stacktraces containing UserRequestedException.
UserRequestedException would be a custom Exception that you would implement.
The NOTIFICATION mode can be configured to display a form containing an e-mail field and comments field. The e-mail given by the user the first time is saved in the apps preferences.
A bit late to answer your question, but you might want check out this: http://www.android-feedback.com/ . Its an in app feedback / support system. Its not live yet, but the beta stage is going to start in a few weeks. (and beta testers get bumped to the premium/paid plan once live)
Edit: Disclaimer: its my project
i think you need to use a tool like instabug it provides you a way for collecting bug reports and feedbacks about user experience and also you can talk back to them
As of this date (27th April 2018), HockeyApp can handle this issue. It enables users to send In-app Feedback to developers, which then developers can access through a Dashboard.
Check out: www.hockeyapp.net
The problem I've had with implementing HockeyApp, is that, the feedback form requires the user to add unnecessary details like name, email, etc. I can't seem to find a way to add these detail programmatically.
My app is having success in Google Play with several million downloads. However, almost 50% of users have uninstalled it already.
I don't think that's a critical number but I'd like to find out why users uninstalls it, so I'd like to ask it to users using a simple form, only to the ones who want to answer of course.
Now problem is when to show that optional form. I've seen I can't use ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVED because app that's being uninstalled won't receive that broadcast.
Of course I don't want to ever forbid the user to uninstall my app, but I do want to know when to start my optional form. Can you think of any idea how to do this?
Also, I've seen that Google Play asks the user why he's uninstalling any app and gives a few options (missing space, don't need it, ...). Is there any way to get those responses from Google, regarding my app?
If you can give me any other ideas how to investigate main reasons why users uninstall my app, to improve it, I'd be really thankful.
Once the user uninstalls the app, there's nothing you can do. 50% retention rate isn't actually that bad..
I would propose you look at how the users are using the app, whether it's crashing and how often it's being used: these can then lead as indicators to make an educated guess why they might be uninstalling your app.
Crashes:
These aren't always reported - it's only if the user elects to report it you'll see it in Google Play. Try Crashlytics for a more detailed analysis of how/when/why your app crashes.
Analytics:
I use Flurry to log events and work out what my users are doing. You could also look in to some A/B testing.