Facebook - default app visibility and info missing in insights - android

I am working on getting our app into good shape Facebook-wise and there are two issues I cannot seem to figure out no matter how hard I try.
Is there any way to change the Default App Visibility? When our users sign up with Facebook, the default app visibility is set to Only Me. Is there any way to change this or does it depend on user's personal settings? Or can it be done from the mobile app somewhere in the e.g. Facebook SDK session?
We have been using Facebook for a while and in the Insights under the Login tab, there is the Demographics of New Facebook Logins section. I can see still the Geography data but for Gender & Age I now get No data is available for the current selection. even though I swear it worked about a month ago or so. Any ideas?
Any kind of advice or help is more than appreciated, seriously!

If you're only requesting read permissions, then there's no way to change the default audience (it's not really meaningful anyways in that case). If you're requesting publish permissions (like publish_actions), then you can set a default audience when you're making the request. See https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/android/current/class/Session.NewPermissionsRequest/#setDefaultAudience This can only be done once, and the user can always change it to a different setting later or deny that request, so you should not rely on it being the value that you chose in code. There's also no way to see or detect (from your app) what the user changed it to later, this is by design.
You're likely getting "No data is available" because there's not enough usage (or individual users) in that date range to generate a breakdown. This is to protect user privacy.

Related

How to detect a user after reinstalling the app

I am creating an iOS and Android App and I want to create a screen where the player can start with a guest account or can connect his account with our own accountsystem.
But my question is: Can I detect a user after the app was uninstalled and installed again?
I know that there is something like the vendor. But this will change.
I know that other apps also can do this.
With the user's permission- have them log into an account. Or provide you with their google of facebook account info. So far as hardware ids, those are discouraged and actively being removed to prevent people from the API to prevent this.
Also remember- that unless the user logs in with an account, you don't really know whether it is the same person. You could know its the same phone, but you don't know if he gave it to his kid sister to play on. Or sold it when he got a new one, and now you've given the new owner access to someone else's account. Also, if you rely on hardware ids you won't know its me when I buy a new phone and download it on that.
So yeah- either have him log in with a username and password, or use a 3rd party signon mechanism like Google or Facebook.
For iOS, there is a recommended approach to do that: by using the DeviceCheck framework. The idea here is that it allows you to persist 2 bits of data across app installations on each device. You can set the first bit to 1 if the user has already installed the app or 0 otherwise. And use the second bit, for example, to check if the user has signed in or not.
The official documentation is pretty good, please check it out.
The downside of this approach is that you will also have to do some work on the backend side.
UPDATE:
If you specifically want to detect the account, there is no reliable approach. One of the options is to use identifierForVendor or generate some kind of device fingerprint (for example, by combining the device model, timezone, locale, etc.), but of course, this will not work every time.
Uniquely identifying a device is a security leak, and all platforms are putting serious restrictions on unique persistent identifiers because of privacy concerns.

Showing last calls inside android app in Google Privacy Policy compliant way

I've got an app which shows user's contacts inside device and allows him to make a call.
I want to show my user the last calls he has made. I was using READ_CALL_LOG permission (and was reading call log) until Google restricted access to it, then I switched to ContactsProvider to retrieve contacts and sort them by LAST_TIME_CONTACTED but now Google says this column is deprecated and effectively it will have 0 value for new versions of Android OS (see https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/contacts-provider#ObsoleteData)
My app is not a default dialer (only default dialers apps are allowed to access call log) so I was wondering how I can achieve what I want in Google Policy compliant way.
I tought about storing the last contacts selected inside my own database (I know it won't be a full call log, as I will only have access to calls made from my app but that's fine for me), but don't know whether it's compliant with G Policy. I wrote an email to Google, however the person who replied said he can't help me with my question and I have to create new version of my app and ask them for review.
Does anyone know if my idea about saving contacts in my own database is compliant with G policy (please provide links from official sites). From my link (which I've provided above) I can only see that Google says
If your apps are accessing or updating these fields or APIs, use
alternative methods. For example, you can fulfill certain use cases by
using private content providers or other data stored within your app
or backend systems.
However it doesn't convince me to whether my idea is compliant
Thanks for help!
I believe you may store and use any user actions that had happened within your app.
The purpose of the policy (as stated here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9047303?hl=en) is to prevent apps from getting access to the call-log in order to make use of it for purposes other then what users' expect, that's why the emphasis on critical core functionality of the app.
In my experience, different Google reviewers tend to review the same app very differently, and while one may reject a certain use-case based on this policy, another might approve it.
I would suggest phrasing the screen you want to create in a way that will help the reviewer understand that this data was not acquired from the call-log but some app specific actions, so for example instead of title "Call Log" which might confuse some reviewers with the risk of rejecting this update, you should title it "Recent app actions" or something like that.

How can an age restriction be applied to an Android app?

I'm working on an Android app where a user must be 18 years or older to apply.
If there will be people under 18, the app would have negative public view which I do not want to deal with.
Is it somehow possible to be sure that my users are older than 17? Is there any service which could possibly accomplish this?
Ideal fictional solution: in my registration form the user writes his/her id number and I would check if he/she is old enough with fictional service.
One not very good solution which I found. There is an app called Muzmatch. It is dating app for Arabs. When the user register he have to use device camera to take picture of himself and send it to server.
I can do the same in my app and check if the user seems old enough but I think it's stupid idea.
Yes this is possible through the Google Play content rating system.
Check out the link: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/188189?hl=en-GB
Scroll down to the Take your app’s rating questionnaire section and it'll run you through the steps to apply an age rating to your app.
In addition to this, maybe you could create a free in app purchase, that the user will have to buy when first entering the app. They would then need either a password or finger print in order to pay via Google Play.

How to "flag" users in firebase?

I have developed an android "Group Chat" app. Me and 20 of my friends are using this app to group chat with each other. When I look at the firebase database, I obviously see 21 users (including myself). However, I can't know whether all of them actually have the app installed on their phones, or some of them have uninstalled it. Is there any way I can differentiate among my uses? Generally speaking, can I "flag" my users as, say, active, inactive, and the like?
What is if you add a timestamp every time a use log in. With this timestamp you can see how long the user not log in and so if he is in active for a long time or not. It's not say if the user have delete the app. It's only a prognosis.
If i understand correctly your question, it can be split in two parts.
First part is whether you want to know if your users are online or offline this could be achieved by an online presence system as described here
The second part is whether or not users have installed or uninstalled your app.
In my opinion easiest way to do this is by using the Firebase Analytics SDK. This way you can check the app_remove stats and whenever a user uninstalls an app, it gets updated in the console under events section.
This will give you how many devices uninstalled the app and some info on country, gender and age of the user but you could couple this with a "last login" timestamp to pinpoint the exact user.
More details along with how to include analytics SDK to your app can be found here
Or you can use the .info/connected to have this functionality in your client code. You can read more info about this here and the sample presence app at the bottom of the page will help you get a grip on how to do it.
One possible solution is to add a flag in the database as the child of the user. This flag will have an initial value of active.
And instead of uninstalling the app directly, you can have a delete account functionality in the app, and whenever someone wants to delete his/her account, it simply updates the flag to inactive in firebase database.
Now you will know actually who is active / inactive.

Disable single user

Hiho,
is there a solution to disable my App for one single user?
There is one Person, who buys my app every few days to use the app for calculations, and than deinstalls the app within the 15 Minuts window.
Over 10 times he did it and with the next update i want to create a method, that checks the user mail from market and if its these person, the App should close instantly.
Thanks for Help
Alex
Are you sure this is the same user (and not just a usage trend of one refund every few days)? A user should only be able to refund an app once. According to the App Refund article in Android Market Support:
You have 15 minutes from the time of download to return an application purchased through Android Market for a full refund. You may only return a given application once; if you subsequently purchase the same app again, you may not return it a second time.
EDIT: If it looks like it's the same user, please contact Android Market Support and let them know. Follow the relevant "Contact Us" link at the bottom, and include all relevant information: App name, user's email address, order ID's, etc. Abusing the refund policy like this shouldn't be possible. If it is, they need to know so that hole can be closed :)
you can get the accounts from accountmanager, as I know to do what you want, checking account is the only way I think. you will need GET_ACCOUNTS permission.
Instead of putting in hate code for this single user, I'd suggest you put in a little more effort and put in a more generic check.
Whenever a user signs up, check if the user has already used your application, and if he/she has not, save the user's account information on a backend. Else notify him saying that he/she has already checked the application out and if he/she has some feedback. Try to make the user 'guilty' here!
Building a backend system is pretty simple with a service like stackmob.com. Though for this, you'll need to acquire the GET_ACCOUNTS permission, and for a service like calculator, asking for this permission might seem fishy. So you need to make that call here!
If you do figure out how to identify your user rather than close right away you should do stuff that delays them for 15 minutes.
Make them fill out some forms first (Just for that user), stuff that takes time. Be really specific in the forms with password requirements like 10 chars including upper, lower number and punctuation, then force them to "Log in" using this password (which they won't remember and will have to start over...), but always make it look like each step is the "Last little bit" they will have to do before they can use the app...
Also use a lot of "Contacting server..." and "Calculating" and "Installing" that take time. If you really need to stretch it out, add a few "Retrying" after the connecting message has been there for a while.

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