In the past I've created native Android apps with in-app purchases and I know how relatively easy it is to query the Play Store to determine if a user has purchased an in-store item.
I'm looking to build another app but I would like to use freemium model in which a yearly subscription is paid for extra features. I would also like to make it using jQuery Mobile/PhoneGap so I can publish with the same codebase to iOS.
So I have two questions:
Is it possible to query Google Play (and the Apple App Store) to determine if a user has an active subscription using jQuery/PhoneGap?
Any caveats to this approach that I should know about before embarking on creating a hybrid app vs. just biting the bullet and creating two native apps?
Thanks!
It is possible to query GP or App Store using PhoneGap.
You will need a native plugin to do that. One for App Store you have here: https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/iOS/InAppPurchaseManager
And here another for GP: https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/Android/InAppBilling
Answering to the second question: In my opinion based on experience if you are going to use more than one platform based feature it is easier to make two native apps than stuffing html app with plugins.
Related
I want to start developing a unity mobile game that will use Google Firestore as its database and ideally cloud functions for its "server architecture." I have experience with Firebase and Unity but what I am confused about is two things:
What exactly is Google's "Full Stack", like what should I be using on top of Firestore and maybe cloud functions (is this all I need to worry about, or is there more, working with AWS at work there seems to be a ton of things that need to be in place for a well working project)
What is the best way to integrate Firestore with a Unity Mobile game that spans across iOS and Android? Is there a tutorial to get started with a project like this?
Thanks a lot guys, and I would also appreciate any other tips on how I should approach making a unity mobile game that spans across iOS/Android. For instance what other technologies should I be looking to integrate?
I am guessing that "Full Stack" includes all of Firebase's other services: Authentication, Cloud Functions, ML Kit, Hosting, Cloud Storage, Realtime Database, and Firestore (https://firebase.google.com/products/).
Firestore is currently not available for Unity (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/firebase-talk/dc8CuW7LDM4). You could write a bridge for it but that would be a lot of work and hard to test.
The Realtime Database may meet most of your needs though. It is the current version of what the Firestore is.
Update to this question:
Firestore SDK for Unity is currently in alpha (since 5th of march).
Link to the Github discussion.
In case it is changed here is the announcement:
As some of you have noticed, yesterday we released Firebase Unity SDK
6.12.0 which includes an alpha release of Firestore. This release is experimental:
We expect there will be breaking changes to the API Some features are
missing (for example: IN queries) You may uncover issues for which we
can't supply an immediate resolution Please try it out and let us know
how it goes. Read more about how to get this release in Add Firebase
to your Unity project.
We're very excited to (finally) get this in your hands and hear how it
works for you!
I love Firebase (/Firestore) and we use it all the time for major projects for clients.
But Firebase is "totally useless" for certain things...
Just forget about it for "multiplayer games with Unity."
Suggest you
Familiarize yourself with Playfab, do some small demos.
Don't forget that Unity itself offers multiplayer inherently built-in to Unity. (Indeed, it is of course a major part of Unity, it is a mammoth achievement.) Unity multiplayer is not perfect but you should certainly familiarize yourself with it totally, including the sundry cloud features, before exploring other paths.
Firebase is useless for Unity mp games, set it aside.
how I should approach making a unity mobile game that spans across iOS/Android
There are 100,000 ? such games which are done, naturally, just with Unity's own MP systems.
How else? As I say, once you are very familiar with that, also explore Playfab.
I'm developing a game in Flash for mobile using Adobe AIR.I want to add in-app purchases for my game,specifically additional style packages that people can buy.I tried to find that information on Android Developers but it only describes the process of managing in-app purchases.
My question is,how do i implement this with Adobe AIR?I've heard of native extensions and stuff but i don't completely understand the product side:
Can players download the packages as spritesheets or can the packages be included in the game from the beginning but activated only when you buy them?
Thanks.
On Android you can do both: Include but deactivate or load it afterwards.
Regarding the requered ANE: Try this. This is a pretty good list for finding several ANEs
Is there a way to make in app purchases in an Android app? Specifically, my app has a flag, a application variable value, that differentiates it from free and paid. So I want to make my free the same as my paid app when they do an in app purchase. I also have a paid version on the market.
If the flag is set then paid functionality works in the free app. How would I enable this in an AIR app for Android?
You should use AIR Native Extension in order to be capable to use Android IAB in your AIR application. Here you can find a list of both commercial/free ANE providing several extensions, and some interesting link to tutorials and docs about that topic (eg: Using the In-App Billing Adobe AIR native extension for Android)
Another valuable resource is ExtensionsOfAir.com which provides a set of ANE developed and maintained by the community.
I'd like to develop a "native app" for Android/IPhone.
To save development time, I would like to use an online HTML/PHP application to deliver the functionality and UI of the app. In Android, an embeddable browser can be achieved using WebView.
My app will not use any native-API specific functionality or devices(e.g. camera, geolocation).
Is it permissible to market an app Google Play that simply embeds a mobile friendly website?
Sure, why wouldn't it? There is no specific filtering, apart from the obvious malicious.
First off, this would not be a "native" app. It would be a cross-platform app.
There is no "Android Marketplace" -- do you mean the Google Play store? If so, yes, they will accept just about any app, provided you comply with their guidelines. For example, you can't sell in-app content through any means other than Google's own in-app purchasing.
That said, there's no solid php implementation for Android that I know of. The vast majority of the cross-platform apps utilize HTML/javascript. So much so, that there are quite a number of readily available frameworks available, such as PhoneGap, Sencha Touch, etc.
There are so many tools out there for mobile development that it's information overload. I'm a programmer as well and would like some opinions on what would work best for my requirements. I don't own a mac and have no plans on purchasing one if i can help it. The app i'm trying to build seems relatively simple. I also want to have IPhone and Android versions of it, with possibility for Windows phone in the future.
needs to be a free version with youtube videos - so access to the youtube player
i'd like to be able to embed some articles - not sure about this one, either just text or pdf etc.
needs to have the option to upgrade to a paid version.
the paid version would be a subscription based service.
the paid version would be serving video content from S3(or other better sources)
the paid version needs to have a notification/push service where i can push content to the app on a monthly basis.
So, given all these, i've looked at appcelerator, phonegap, xamarin and lots of other services. They all seem good but given the requirements, i'm starting to lean a little bit towards phonegap as this is not going to be a game and it's a service primarily and it can handle both Iphone and Android as well.
Thanks for your input.
I think PhoneGap is your best bet, I've spoken to quite a few Mobile Application Development Company's around my area and they all speak highly of it. Phonegap has recently came into the possession of Adobe so you can expect it to become a more highly supported/documented platform that you can create multi-platform apps from. Plus it meets your requirements
I'm avoiding PhoneGap myself at the minute because I want to get to grips with Obj-C and C# to expand my knowledge of different programming languages but if I was trying to target as many platforms as possible, PhoneGap is top.