I'm in final stage of my project, and I was looking for what to do before publish the app then I came across this App Licensing on https://developer.android.com/google/play/licensing/index.html and this quote
The Google Play Licensing service is primarily intended for paid
applications that wish to verify that the current user did in fact pay
for the application on Google Play.
My app has a free version and a pro version, both have a different package name, the user buy the pro version and after that have anything more to buy (no itens inside to buy).
My doubt is should I implement this Licensing, or it is no needed?
The google play already do this control to not allow that other people can download of .apk and use this pro version without pay for it?
And what I have to do to do the Android on user device delete the .apk and this way avoid that the user give the .apk of pro version to someone else? Has any code that I can implement to do that? Or Google Play take care of it?
Thanks
Related
Is it possible to deploy an APP to android play store, but only allow internal company user to download the APP. Actually, we can distribute the android APP apk to staff to install, but the version upgrade is difficult for apk distribution.
Don't know if there has any method to do so for allowing internal staff install only
Even though you could use the Google Play alpha/beta testing & staged rollouts for this, it does feel a lot like a hack/workaround to me.
As far as I know, those are the "official" options for internal distribution:
1. Private Channel
Pro:
all the benefits of Google play, but only visible to your internal users
Contra:
requires all users to be in your Google Apps domain
no targeting per user or group, will be available to everybody in the domain
app can only be published to public or private channel, not both
2. Custom .apk distribution
Pro:
easy distribution (simply setup internal page or email with .apk link)
Contra:
no automatic app updates via Google Play --> you need to implement an own mechanism
users will have to deal with "unknown source" warning upon installation
3. MDM / Android for Work
Pro:
full control over who will get the app and updates
Contra:
way higher effort and/or cost to implement and maintain
I use the Alpha/Beta system for that. You can make a group on GoogleGroups and allow only the email address in it to download the app from playStore. Maybe, it is available in release mod.
you can use push-link.com, they would provide a great solution for you
Disclaimer : I'm a customer of them
You can create a Beta distribution for a private community for test.
See this link
Have a look at this Deploy apps for in-House usage. This is a late answer. But it might help someone.
Is there any way android provides to restrict my custom application to get it published other than Google play store? And this app will not be a paid app so I can't use LVL feature and as per below discussion, we can't publish free app with licensing check:
LVL behavior on client side license validity check for free apps
So, not able to find any ways to restrict it to publish my free app to other stores :(.
Why I want to restrict it to publish it to other stores:
Because any hackers can download your app from google play store and inject malware in it and publish infected app to other stores.
Please provide me the guidelines to achieve it.
It doesn't matter. If you're worried about someone injecting malware into your APK just think- they can just as easily lie, say that they're your app, and upload pure malware. They don't actually need to be your app.
Beat them to it. Publish your app on the alternative app stores so that when they try to upload the package name is already taken by your original, clean version.
Here's an idea. Get the installer from here when your app opens and check if it is from Google Play by comparing it to com.android.vending. If it is not, block any use of the app.
But of course hackers can still download your app, remove this kind of security and upload it to other stores. But I guess this can give you an idea? Also Gabe Sechan's answer is possible too.
I have just created a developer account at Google Play. Now I got to upload the application but I have a few doubts:
Can I add more then one android APKs for different applications?
Is it possible to upload an application for a testing and after that set the price of the app?
Is it possible to set such criteria where first 500 users get a free download and then the app will be paid?
Is it possible to delete an app and re-upload it if something gets wrong while uploading?
Multiple APKs for one application:
Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to
publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to
different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and
independent version of your application, but they share the same
application listing on Google Play and must share the same package
name and be signed with the same release key.
Besides that, with your developer account you can create multiple application projects and provide your APKs for them of course.
No. After you have released an application for free you can not introduce a price for it. You'd have to create a new app project with a different package name.
This is not naturally supported by the Google Play Store. But you could implement this by writing a counter function that synchronizes over the web. You could also crawl/scrape your app page in the Google Play Store to get the install number. There are various ways.
After you upload your APK, there is some kind of sanity check integrated in the Play Store routine. This should prevent that anything goes wrong during the upload. Anyway, you can also upload a new APK, replacing the previous. That's how app updates work.
Your case overall sounds like you could use In-App-Billing to let your users access most functionality in your app for free, and after a certain time period has passed, offer them the full functionality after a payment.
Keep in mind that it is not a good practice to promote your app for free in the Play Store but then hide everything behind a payment wall inside the app.
Updated answer:
You need to have different package names (i.e. different app projects in your developer account) if you want to offer a free and a paid APK. It's actually a common practice and you'll find many apps in the Play Store that have a "free" and a paid "premium" version.
Very often, it would be easier for you to maintain and to update your app if the premium version only functions as a key (i.e. without actual functionality) that unlocks certain features of the free version. Therefore, you can check in your code if the user has installed the premium version.
Still, it would be more elegant to not "pollute" the Play Store with a dummy premium app and by implementing this with an In-App-Purchase of your premium functionality. Here is a good tutorial (besides the Android guide that I have linked above).
1)Yes, your account can have multiple applications. Or did you mean for the same app multiple apks?
2)No, once an app is free it can't have a price added to it later. If it has a price you can change what it cost though
3)No
4)You can always upload a new version, which seems to be what you want here.
So, I have a few little android apps now, and am thinking about releasing the in the Amazon App Store. However I have one fundamental question I don't see answered anywhere.
How is Licensing handled if you release the app on the amazon store? I am currently using the Google LVL licensing in my paid apps to ensure the user is licensed to run them. I assume that an app sold on Amazon, isn't going to have any connection to tell Google, hey, this app was purchased, they are licensed, so send them an OK TO RUN status when they launch it. Or am I mistaken?
Does Amazon have its own LVL type code? Or do you just have to forget licensing all together if you want to sell on Amazon?
Simply remove all LVL code from your app (making it unprotected), then select the copy protection radio button when submitting your app to Amazon. They'll add the licensing code to your app before resigning it and releasing it on the Amazon Appstore.
No store-provided licensing code works in other app stores. Many have rolled their own, with varying degrees of simplicity.
I have an app in Android Market. What should I do to ensure the app
works in the Amazon Appstore?
You should make sure that your app does
not include any copy protection functionality (you have the option to
apply Amazon’s DRM technology – see our FAQ on DRM). You should also
take a moment to understand the different signing options available to
you (developer signed or Amazon signed) and choose the option that
works best for your users.
Source
I have a paid app that I'll be uploading to the market and maybe amazon market. I always thought that when you bought an app, it was automatically linked to your account. Reading the application licensing info on the dev site, I'm wondering if I do in fact need to implement that manually to prevent somebody from downloading my app and then putting a free copy of it online. Or is this used to control more advanced licensing issues?
It isn't required, but it's recommended. Android License Verification Library (LVL) makes really easy to implement licensing in your application. With LVL you query the Android Market to see if the user purchased the licence of your application, and you decide what to do (close the app, enter a trial mode, etc).
For Android LVL see http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/licensing.html
Remember that this only works for the Google Android Market. If you upload you application to another market (for example, the Amazon market) remember to turn off Android LVL and switch to the mechanism provided by that market (I think Amazon injects a DRM system automatically when you upload your apk).