So I made a small Android App for inhouse use in my company.
The App is supposed to run on dedicated Android 6 devices (portable computers with bar code scanners attached) to scan bar codes and talk to our servers within the company wireless network.
This inhouse wireless network does not allow internet access for security reasons.
Now I am looking for a simple way to roll out version updates of my Android App. With no internet available, the normal app stores are ruled out.
I would prefer, if version updates could be installed silently without user interaction.
I am aware of F-Droid Server, a custom App Store Repository. As far as I understand, it would be quite some effort necessary to get that up and running in my environment. Maybe too much, considering that the devices need to run only one single app.
Is there a more simple way?
Maybe like programatically downloading a new version of my .apk from a url and then autoinstall?
Any ideas are appreciated.
Is there a more simple way? Maybe like programatically downloading a new version of my .apk from a url and then autoinstall?
Yes, it seems more simple (25 lines of code) to programatically download an apk from your own server and launch an install. Here is a question with lots of details (and checkout the 2 questions it links along to):
Android: install .apk programmatically
The install may require user interaction; a prompt where the user clicks ok or cancel.
Also you have to host the APK somewhere. If you don't want to build a web service for this you could host static files and use a naming convention or timestamp to decide what/when to download and install.
Any ideas are appreciated.
A suggestion about programatically updating is to write a separate simple and robust app that only does that, vs having code in the main app to self-update.
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best regards from Venezuela, I am new to stackoverflow, and this is my first question on this site.
This question will be long because I am providing a lot of detail, so this question is as clear as possible.
Brief introduction.
I have created an app that runs on Android devices, this app allows you to share files between devices that are connected to the same WI-FI network. but with a different methodology to that used by apps that are intended to fulfill this same purpose.
On the device where my app is running (which we will named device one), a url similar to http://192.168.1.102:7898 is generated, and said url must be entered in a web browser installed on the device with which you want to share the files (which we will named device two).
The main purpose is to offer a way to share files between devices, using WI-FI. without the need for device two, my app has to be installed.
You can find more information in https://labs.xda-developers.com/store/app/com.tecnoelias.ipfiles
...
So far everything works fine. But, it is annoying that every time someone wants to share files using my app, on device two, they have to enter the url described above. keeping in mind that said url will change as the WI-FI router decides, and therefore, you should not use shortcuts to the url (bookmarks or navigation history).
Having said all this, the following question arises.
Is there a way to get device two to access that url without having to type it manually by the user?
To accomplish this, three ideas occurred to me.
1: Generate a QR code in the app. but this requires that on device two, an additional app is installed that can read QR codes. which violates my purpose.
2: Implement in the app, a mechanism that allows you to find other devices that my app is working on, and in this way, interact with those devices (through my app, similar to how other file transfer apps do). This is a good idea, but it nevertheless requires that my app be installed on both devices.
3: My third idea and the one I would like to implement is the following:
On device one, it will open my app and then activate it.
When the app is activated, the app will search for other devices that are connected to the same WI-FI network, until it finds device two.
If successful, a SOMEWHAT will be sent programmatically to the device two, that SOMEWHAT can be, a message, a bit, a data packet, or anything else that helps to realize this idea .
After device two receives that SOMEWHAT, it will show a notification or a pop-up window, which will allow access to the url generated in my app (on device one).
Consider two things. 1: NO additional app MUST be installed on device two. and 2: Because device two can be running any operating system, the SOMEWHAT will be a different mechanism for each operating system, (operating systems can be, Android, IOS, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, Windows, Linux, Mac, among others).
If for example, device two, runs Android 10 (not rooted), and has the most common applications installed, which can be: WhatsApp, Facebook Messeinger, Google Play Services, other Google apps, and system applications.
My thought is that you should be able to use one of those apps, to receive the url, and after clicking on that url, the web browser will open, and then it will load the corresponding webpage (which in this case, is to access the files shared by device one, through my app).
Any ideas?
You can give me your opinion, some code, or you can just tell me that this can't be accomplished.
Any response or suggestion are appreciated.
I have been searching the internet wildly for an answer to this question.
We are creating custom android app for internal use only and we would be installing that on custom andoid devices. We would like to have full control of the device through the app. The end user of this device is not meant to use anything other than the app on this device. I have sealed out all the possibilities of getting out of the app except this one possibility where the program tries to update itself and asks for user permission.
Let me repeat again, This app is not meant to be put on market, only for use with custom devices designed for specific purpose. So security is not an issue here.
The device is rooted and we have done a lot of alterations with it. But I cant quite figure out how to make this update work.
If you have any ideas/solution please share it with me. I can do anything with my device, (even dig a hole in it if required :P) as they would be custom made, and would be packaged with us before going out. Just have to make it work.
If you are talking about internally installing the APK with like an update application specifically designed to update your other application which is not managed by Google Play you may want to look into this. So between xjaphx's answer and the link I just shared you will be able to install and maintain updates.
This is as simple as how it works.
Pre-condition:
Get devices rooted
Prepare Android development environment (Android SDK, platforms-tools)
A cable to connect PC and devices.
Steps:
Open command-line if Windows or shell if Linux
type: "adb push YourApp.apk /system/app"
That's done for installation of the app. Reboot and check whether your app works or not.
Could someone give me some advice on how I can deploy the Android app remotely?
Things to take note are:
1).No access to android market (it will run on intranet)
2).About 300 devices
3).I don't want the user to do many steps to update the app.
If there is no easy way to do the deployment, I can do it manually(probably down load from Intranet website and manually run it) for the first time but for the subsequent updates, is there a way to update the application by itself?
I don't think there's anything in the standard device to do this; the Android Market client doesn't provide that kind of flexibility. You can certainly download and install .apk files through the browser (provided the server is offering them up with the right MIME type), but that doesn't solve your update problem.
The only approach I can think of is what Amazon did: write your own app management app. It could also run as a service that would periodically check for updates (or, better, receive push notifications of updates) and download and install them in the background. It's a lot of work, but probably fairly straightforward to do.
(Sorry for my english)
I'm new using Android (in fact, I'm just testing android) and I have a lot of questions...
Well, let me explain you the situation. In this moment, in my job, I am writing my code with C# and run it on Windows Mobile 6, the apps are used to make sales, send bills, reserves, etc. The devices (iPAQ 216) are given to the salesmen, and they must use the apps and update them via internet.
Each salesman have a unique client list, unique data and (in some cases) an unique set of apps, which means that I need to prepare a different package for each salesman. Using a Microsoft tool (cabwiz) I can prepare automaticaly a different package for each one of the 150 salesmen. They download their specific package using a tool wirtten by me, and install it and everyone is very happy (maybe)...
Is that possible in Android? How? and if it is not possible, do you know an idea how to accomplish somewhat like that...?
It's not going to be as easy as cabwiz, I can tell you that. But it would be possible, theoretically, to write a script that modifies/generates the unique portions of the source and then compiles a new copy for each user.
If the only difference between the apps is the data on them, then there is no need to generate a different package for each user: have the app download the data from your server and save it after the app is installed. You could also make some modules (I can only guess what kind of functionality you're talking about with regards to different apps per user) only accessible to particular users.
Yes, it's possible however:
You may want to look into writing in java rather than C# as that's more officially supported on android
There are some limitations of the android APIs, in particular there are basic behaviors of the device that can't be altered - without rooting there's no equivalent to the "hook" functionality of windows.
Make sure you get devices with the menu option to enable installation of applications from 'unknown sources'; otherwise deployment will be a lot more difficult. At that moment, this amounts to avoiding AT&T, as their devices presently confine you to the android market or physical connection to a machine running the developer tools as distribution channels. (As a work around you can upload your apps to the market and not publish them, though that won't fully keep them private unless you also include something to require authorization when they run. You could also install the minimal set of dev tools on the salesmens' laptops)
You will probably want to learn about the command-line application build tools and scripting in order to generate a custom apk for each salesman. Once the devices are set to allow unknown sources, you should be able to email the salesman the apk (or a link to it) as an attachment. You should also be able to make the custom apk refuse to run except on a device matching some fingerprint data you've previously collected. While you can develop for android under windows, you may want to look into switching to linux in order to make some of this scripting a little more natively elegant.
I have an app in Android Market which is a standalone app that's essentially a full conduit to an SQLite Database(add, change, delete, inquiry). Some of my potential clients have asked to see a sample of my work, but they don't have an Android device.
Other than just showing them screenshots etc., is there a way I could have them go to a website where they can actually run it & check it out.
I'm thinking there would be a programming element involved (convert app to a mobile website essentially?), hence posted this question here.
Not quite sure where to get started. Any help would be appreciated.
You can use one of the patterns like MVC/MVP/MVVM to create your core library and then develop additional UI variants for different clients: Android, java applet etc.
Alternatively you can develop a mobile web site as you suggested and use simple android app to navigate built-in browser to it. This might be somewhat transparent to most users. I think Android MSN client uses such an approach.
I see 2 relatively easy options.
Give them an .apk designed to only
run on the emulator (you can check
the ID, the emulator ID is 00000...)
and they can boot up an emulator and
run it. If you're worried about them
reverse engineering your .apk you
probably shouldn't go down this
route. Or if you don't want them to
have to install the emulator
Set up a virtual machine and let
your clients remote desktop into it.
Give them permissions to only run
the emulator or however you want to
set it up