Is there any downsides to using Google Account? Is there any limit?
Why ask this? It's because I played some android games for research and found out many of them don't save the user data just warning the users removing the games will remove whole data as well.
Ironically, all of them provided world rankings using Google Accounts.
So, I became curious and wanted to get some opinions of experienced people if there is no problem for beginners like me to use Google Account for backing up data.
The data is going to be created with SQLite so I cannot let users save in their own SDCards. If Google Account is not good for saving data, I need to get an FTP server instead. (I'm not sure if I can deal with it well, though.)
But I really wanted to use Google Account, so was just about to start to study it.
Can I just use Google Account for user data? or better to get my own FTP server?
There is something that Google offers which is known as the Android Backup Service. It's precise use case is when you want to save user's data online. There are several advantages to this:-
Easy API to call Backup Service
No need to maintain a separate FTP server, hence reduced cost saving both domain and hosting charges.
Unlimited Backup space for your user's individual app installation.
In case the user deletes the app, your app's data can be retrieved from the Android Backup service.
The developer page gives a fair amount of idea to anyone wanting to implement that kind of data backup support cost-effectively.
Related
I am implementing an Android application but I can't make a final decision about which database will be the most suitable. You can think of my app as Instagram but there will not be photos or videos, there will be texts instead. There will only be images for profile pictures.
Users may insert data to database and make advanced search inside the app. So the database must be somewhere where anyone using the app can communicate. What is the best choice?
Not everything you read on the internet is always true. There are MANY services out there for you to use. Parse-Server, Firebase, AWS, MySQL, PHP...etc etc etc.
I, for one, am using Parse-Server. Why? It's simple. I make my own calls for statistics that will get stored in mongo. If I was to do it over again, I would use Firebase for it instead. Why? Google is king.
Now, Parse-Server and Firebase for example claim they are secure, and I haven't done much testing to see if I was able to crack into it. Perhaps someone can comment on this. Parse-Server is stored locally on my Mac, and as long as your keys stay secured, the app is secured. The db (which is stored on mongo) is secured. You can store images, text, users, and just about ANYTHING on mongo which again, is similar to Firebase.
If you want to best for production, I don't think you need to worry about Firebase, Parse-Server, AWS, etc, you need to worry about security. If it's hard to crack then that service might be the way to go.
Sure, maybe storing images separate from the text would be good, but again, if Parse-Server is secured, then I'm happy to use it for my needs.
edit: typo(s)
Is it possible that I store my SQLite table over a dropbox account and have all my users sync their tables with the stored table? Also be able to make changes to that table?
Your approach could work in theory, but there are so many issues involved, that you're better off not doing it. If you wish to store and make data available across all devices belonging to a user, I strongly recommend looking into Datastore API by Dropbox. The API will take care of storing data locally as well as synchronize it over connected Dropbox accounts.
If you want a bit modular approach, you can use Windows Azure Mobile Services. These give you REST APIs to store your data in cloud. However, synchronization has to be handled by the developer - you. I have written a small library to do that here: http://bit.ly/ProjectMirror It's for Windows Phone, but Android version is already in a sister repo there. You could extend it. Let us know how that goes.
In addition to these services, Parse SDK is a good option. It requires you to pay after a while, though. In addition to what you want to do, it also provides other things like user management and so on. But, be aware that some of those operations may require you a live Internet connection.
So, in essence, if you want seamless data storage and sync, use Datastore. Be aware that you'll have no control over the server side. Also, your data will be restricted to the Dropbox ecosystem forever. If you plan on further expanding your app to other platforms, go with Azure and handle the sync. If you want lots of features, go with the Parse.
I would suggest looking into Google Play Game Services using the Cloud Save feature. Even if you are not building a game this feature lets you sync sqlite data in the cloud and Google will handle most of the work for you.
OR you could use a cloud based database which supports both push and pull. That means:
Scenario 1:
Your users change something on their phones. Changes are uploaded to the database. The database then pushes these changes to all other users.
Scenario 2:
Your users change something and upload this to the database. But instead of the cloud based server pushing the changes to all users, the users phones can ask the database for new data at intervals.
All this is very easy to set up. It took me about five, ten minutes. Just follow this easy tutorial:
https://parse.com/docs/android_guide
and for push:
https://parse.com/tutorials/android-push-notifications
We now use this for our company app, storing statistics for example.
Bear in mind that syncing can become complex. Try to keep it very simple, especially if you are new at programming.
I am planing to implement an app and I have come to a point where I don't know what is the best approach.
Scenario:
I have an app where I am making a todo list and I am adding 3 items. I use my phone for this.
Then I take my tablet and want to continue adding another task. Then after a while I take my wife's phone and want to add 2 new tasks.
Basically I want to have a very simple way of storing the tasks online and be able to sync it with the app.
I am seeing two possible ways:
have a web server with a database + web service calls. This has the disadvantage of having a host paid, learn some extra mysql + web service techniques.
store somehow the data on cloud and allow the app by login to access an account which stores the file. I am thinking here at something like Google Drive / Dropbox. But I don't know how I would be able to sync only the updated values, not the whole file. Because I am thinking, if I store all the tasks into one file, each time I update the file, I'll need to upload it fully, which is not the best approach.
I am open to any advices. What approach would you recommend ?
There's also Google Drive's "Application Data" folder.
https://developers.google.com/drive/android/appfolder
This has the advantage of using the user's storage space.
I would look into either Google App Engine or Amazon Web Services. They both give you free allotment of usage per month and if you go over then you start paying, chances are you wont get past the free tier for a while.
AWS is a bit more mature than GAE currently and seemed to be a bit easier to implement that GAE was when I was researching them
Take a look at the new training class for sync adapters:
http://developer.android.com/training/sync-adapters/index.html for the basics of sending data from your device to a server.
On the Android device, I suggest you store your tasks in a content provider. This helps you keep track of updates since the last time you synced. You can then query the provider during your sync, send only the data that's been updated, and store the data on the server.
You should probably store the last update time on the device, so you can tell if the server contains data that isn't yet on the device. Remember that you'll have to download tasks as well if you want all devices to be in sync.
You can try Google's Firebase. Firebase provides SDK for Android and iOS devices. And also, firebase supports offline and syncing. Firebase also provides object storage service. It easier to create firebase app than you think. Have look at this firebase's firestore service.
You can take a look at our Rethync framework (freeware with source) . Using it you can simplify the task of detecting modifications and sync only updated data. Next, Rethync provides both client- and server-side API so you can create your own service (and host it on the web side) or you can write your own transport for the cloud service of your choice (we will provide some transports in future, they are under development now).
I want users to send textual feedback to myself(the developer) directly(without involving Google Play).
Hence, I can get the suggestions to improve my app directly to myself, instead of users writing negative reviews on Google Play.
I do not own a website nor have access to any server.
I do not want to use ACTION_SEND, as that opens an email app.
I'm an android beginner and this is my first app.
Maybe that data can be stored in a database(on cloud, common to all users) that I can access at any time I want?
After researching, I think GCM is supposed to be used, but I no idea how to go about it.
Please tell me the easiest way to implement this.
Thank You.
That is not what exactly what GCM is for. GCM is primarily for sending data from the cloud to the the devices.
You are correct in thinking that one option is to store the data in a database in the cloud. You could use http://pythonanywhere.com free account and build a web app that provides you endpoints which will save and retrieve data to a SQLite db pretty easily (if you have knowledge of python and server side web concepts).
Another perhaps simpler option is to use a pre-existing cloud database solution http://www.parse.com is a cloud backend that also has a free-to-use option that you can use to store arbitrary data. It is pretty easy to get up and running if you follow their many nice Android tutorials.
One last option I will present is to use a Google Spreadsheet with a Form associated to it. Once you create a form if you know the right url and parameters you can send a post request to insert arbitrary data into your spreadsheet. I've created a library that simplifies the process of uploading. GoogleFormUploader. If you need help getting your form set up you can watch the relevant portion of my video tutorial covering this topic
I used to use Google Analytics for tracking of my application's different features on my users device but since I need to get more information, I'd rather create this analytics on my own so that I can have many other features like how often my users are using the app and other stuff.
The solution I have in my mind is to add a jar file to my application where it retreives the data whenever user is using the app and stores the in the SQLite database of phone and when user is connected to the internet, the data are sent to my webservices on my server-side.
I need to know have a feedback, that what drawbacks this method has. Does it affect the quality of the app in terms of its speed etc ?
Anyone has any other suggestions for solving this issue?