I am developing an app for Glass.
The app uses some options that the user should be able to access in the MyGlass app on the phone. Therefore I would like to get my app listed in the MyGlass app under glassware with an options tab.
However I can't figure out if it's possible to get my app to show there, and if possible how this should be accomplished.
The screenshots illustrate what I would like to do.
img1 and img2
I strongly suggest that as soon as you feel your Glassware is on track to go into MyGlass that you start the review and distribution process.
You can learn more about it at the distribute page of the Glass Developers site, but there are a few key things to know, particularly when it comes to your request for a settings page:
Submit as soon as you think you might be ready (or even nearing readiness), but remember that the review process will take some time, and you should think of this as a closed beta period. So after you've reviewed the checklist you should submit your Glassware using this form.
During the review process they will send you feedback about how to make it more "Glass-like". If you've followed the design principles and best practices, this should go fairly smoothly.
The Settings page you want is one of the things you'll specify in the form. This will be a URL, and the reviewers will test how well this works as well and how it supports other design criteria.
Even if you think your Glassware is perfect, make sure you're open minded to suggestions from the reviewers. Part of their job is to help you make your Glassware great.
The way to get your candidate glassware to the MyGlass store is covered in this section of the official guides:
https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/index
You can also find the form to submit your app there. Make sure you read through and rigorously followed the best practices before submitting the app, the review process seems to be quite thorough.
Related
Currently, I'm looking to see if there is a way to sync the information we've obtained through an online site with the information we use on a phone application.
All I need to know is that the user that visited our site is the same user that is using our phone application, No stats and preferably no one needs to enter a thing.
You won't get that from Apple, because of their history with privacy concerns, but you could do something like generate an identifying number in your app, that your web site asks for, that would tie the two together. Of course, you'd have to make allowances if your app is deleted from the device, then re-installed, to either make sure you're generating the same number, or other such solution as befits your requirements.
The first thing that would come to my mind is Google Analytics, available for different platforms and services (i.e. Youtube, etc). You would have to go through Google Analytics API to figure out a way on how to track a particular customer visit across several location/platforms.
See Hello Analytics example of Google Analytics API
See Data Feed API
Ok, so far I've answered my own question for androids. Apparently you can pass a referrer param through google play which actually allows your app to receive the parameter and they even have an app that test this functionality.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.stevemiller.android.referrertest
now I have yet to test this, nor is it a possible solution for iOS.
what is the way to get app rating and user reviews of an app on Google Play, if I have it´s Id?
You don't really have any means for this in Android.
There are some libraries however, that give you some options to check info from Google play. Not sure if they're actually updated since the time it was actually Market place and if any breaking changes were made since then.
You could try these;
https://code.google.com/p/android-market-api/
https://code.google.com/p/android-query/wiki/Service
Since there is no official API, here is the quick and dirty way:
Use HttpClient to get the requested page, i.e. "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.poncho.yapm".
View the page source and learn how to parse the page and get what you want from the response.
For example, for rating:
Search for the first "About This App".
Start from previous result, search for the first 'ratingValue'
Start from previous result, search for the first 'content="'
Start from previous result, search for '"'.
The rating is located between the last two locations.
The major drawback: if Google change the page layout you will need to change your implementation.
However, this often happen also when you use formal API.
If this is a real application, running a daily test that verifies your code would save you time and customers.
Hope this helps, Yaron
There is an Open Source application titled Andlytics available on the Google Play store. It is updated frequently enough, but mostly yo accommodate any changes that might be made to the Google Play store's back-end.
I am not sure if it can be coded to bring in details specific to a particular application. At the moment, how it works is, a user must log in with a valid Developer Account. Then authorize it to access your Google account. And once done, it then gets all applications on the developers account. Not a specific account.
This, however, I think (I think because I have never had the opportunity of actually using the source) can be modified to accommodate your specific requirements.
You can get the entire Source Code here.
You can also try the link mentioned in Stefan's post. Though a cursory look suggests that it has not been updated after the first quarter of 2012. But if you can bring the code up to speed, that could work too.
Since I am linking to an app on Google Play as also it's source code, for the sake of clarity, I have nothing to do with Andlytics, the project or the app.
I'm considering asking users to submit a review to the Android Marketplace (Google Play I guess now, but...) ocassionally, but I would like to know before I ask them to if they have submitted a review. Is this even possible?
There is no API for the Play Market, which is what you really need.
As others have mentioned, you can always keep track if a user has pressed a button to launch the Play Market, but you can't tell what they did once there.
There is a 3rd party Market API, but it is not reliable (certainly not there fault - it is a workaround, since an official API doesn't exist).
It is possible to create a "Campaign" using AdWords. This allows you to track referral URLs (which would allow you to track entry points to the app from external resources). I found a good post about that here: http://gyurigrell.com/2012/2/21/tracking-install-sources-android-apps
Bottom line, I am pretty sure you can't do what you are asking.
Googling gave me this link - http://code.google.com/p/android-market-api/. I haven't tried it but it claims that it can get the comments according to your app ID. There are other ports listed there.
What you can try is that get all the comments for your app. Then get the user account details using the AccountManager. Check if any details here match those with the author name in the comments. You will need to add a permission in your manifest to get data from the AccountManager and it's a pretty creepy permission.
It seems like a lot of work though and I think you would be better off just using a dialog box once and then making sure it does not pop up again after someone has clicked on it through a stored preference.
if you have a button for them to press to leave you the review, you could always put a preference when they click it, and then check later to remove the button.
It would be nice if Google/Android, one day, would allow for a custom rate-my-app dialog where that user information could be known server side and not popup the developer/app dialog if it doesn't need to (the user has already rated the app). Wishful thinking Feature Request
Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment. See How to know if a specific user has rated a Android App?
Also, although a suggestion might be to use something like android-market-api please note that it does violate absent licenses and you could lose your developer account although I doubt it, but the app may mysteriously get banned one day!
I think the biggest issue is that of privacy.
As far as workarounds, it may be better to wait for something official. All unofficial APIs often are unreliable as to changes Google makes and the unofficial APIs have to catch up and fix problems while the service no longer works, with no way of continuing to run until it is fixed. Therefore, simply setting a SharedPreference may be the most you can comfortably achieve at this point. Either on first run, at delayed and specified intervals, or if a user has already checked a 'don't ask again/already rated' box.
Right now in my apps i have a link that directs the user to the app page in the market so they can rate and review the app. Im curious if there is an api where they can review directly in the app and ad it to the market.
I wish there were, but whenever I think about this, I come to the conclusion that there probably isn't. This would more than likely be due to the fact that your application could "Automatically" send a rating/review without the user ever knowing so.
I would love to be proved wrong though.
How do you instruct users to report a bug in Android? Any advice or tips?
I'd like to get send detailed instructions to my users to get the most of their bug report. I know there are various apps that send bug reports from the device and I was wondering how other Android developers deal with this.
A bug reporting SDK such as Instabug can let you achieve that.
As you can see, it displays, by default, a welcome message to your users 10 seconds after opening the app. It displays instructions on how to invoke Instabug depending on the invocation method you're using (A button or a shake gesture).
After signing up and including the library in your code, you can switch between different display messages. Use either of the following lines depending on whether you're in beta or production.
Instabug.setWelcomeMessageState(WelcomeMessage.State.BETA);
Instabug.setWelcomeMessageState(WelcomeMessage.State.LIVE);
Each bug report contains various information about device details, network logs, console logs, view hierarchy inspection, and visual reproduction steps.
For full disclosure, I work at Instabug. Let me know if I can help.
There are solutions for instrumenting the application in a way that will collect contextual information and allow the user to provide in-app feedback. Either by shaking the phone or some other trigger like a menu option.
Here is a "currently free" offering from IBM called Mobile Quality Assurance, that will instrument the application so that as a user uses the application contextual information is collected as they use the app. When they want to provide feedback or submit a bug, they can shake the phone and it will capture the screen at the time, give them a form to enter additional information and then submit the screenshot, contextual information and comments to the testing portal.
Here's a link for more info on MQA
Taking Gilbert's advice into account, I decided to create my own app. I hereby present you: Bug Reporter.
It allows users to send you a report with device information and optional logcat. It also supports intent extras to customize its behavior if case you want to launch it from your app.
You can do what google does with their new maps application on iPhone. When you're using the app and shake the phone (which users do when they're frustrated or something isn't working) you can pop up a screen that asks if something is wrong and is a form for bug submission that they can choose to fill out.
This isn't Android specific, but you could have a bug reporting screen in your application that sends the information your customers type, along with any system information you wish to capture, to your web server. Alternatively, the application could email you with the information.
There are some libraries you can integrate to do this job, you don't need to develop a solution yourself. For example, I'm using blit feedback. With this library you can take snapshots, draw on them and add some comments. I've configured it to send reports by email, but if you have an issue tracker you can connect it too.
Discovered this question a lot late. There are answers given but the products mentioned or the techniques are quite old now. Adding the tool that we have been working on - Bugclipper
This tool let's your users report issues from with-in the app Android or iOS and you can add/annotate screenshots, create screen recordings with voice and also get the crash logs.
p.s. - I am one of the co-founders.