Develop Reference

update application from USB flash drive

I need to update multiple applications installed on many Android devices.
Is there anyway to put theirs updated apks on USB flash drive, write some script that updates them and run this script manually after I plug it to the device?

I guess the most basic question would be why? Is this something you are purposely keeping off the app store? If it is not TOS breaking just pay the 25$ for a dev account and you can even just keep it in a beta/alpha status so only people you allow to can download it.
Beyond that Android phones can install APK's from third party sources, host the APK somewhere or get it to the user in some fashion and they can download from the phone and install.
Really the app store is your best bet.

It really depends on your use case and control of the devices that you are updating. Using an OTA update tool is always the fastest option for getting upgrades out. You can use BETA distribution, or TestFairy, or even hockey app, however, if you are not choosing to use these items then you will need to do a little extra leg work. Don't worry I won't patronize you with "why are you doing this", you asked a question so I'll do my best to answer it.
1) Register a service or app who's whole goal is to update others. Maybe you call it updateService.
2) Register a Broadcast Receiver for the updateService that listens for USB connected
3) Read the contents of the USB stick to know what needs to be updated. Possibly a folder system where you check "if folder exists, then update" or you can keep a local sql db of update service ownership that keeps track of last updates or current versions.
4) Once you see what needs installed have your service run ADB Install commands. However, if you have new permissions added then user interaction would be required unless you have root access or system level privelages on your update service.
Here is a package installer thread that will give you some ideas of how to silently update. Install apps silently, with granted INSTALL_PACKAGES permission
So the short answer is, yes you can do it, but the longer answer is revolving around the type of control you have, and if you have root or system level access and how much leg work is it worth to you. If you are ok with User Interactions on install then you won't have to worry as much, but I'm guessing you want silent installations.
Hope that helps.

Force stop packages in android

hi everybody
i need some help please does anyone know how can i put this in my manifest tag in androidmanifest.xml file:
android:sharedUserId="android.uid.system"
==>because when i do the deployment failed .
and how can i use this permission :
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FORCE_STOP_PACKAGES" />
==>because xamarin studio tell me it's a unknown permission
to use this:
ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager)GetSystemService (Context.ActivityService);
am.forceStopPackage(PACKAGE_NAME);
_Any help will be appreciated _

Setting the sharedUserId to android.id.system actually means declaring your app to belong to the system. You cannot do that unless your app is actually signed with the system certificate. In order to get that certificate, you would have to negotiate with the manufacturer of the device. The only possibility you would actually be able to get the system key is running a firmware on your device that you built and signed yourself.
ActivityManager.forceStopPackage() is reserved for system applications and there is no chance to use it in a user-space application.
You can find various explanations on the Internet and on SO, e.g. here: Android Permission Denial: forceStopPackage()

If your goal is to quite your app, I would direct you to this question:
Is quitting an application frowned upon?
Which sums up how and why you might close your own application.
Actually terminating the application is near impossible, but sending it to the back ground or finishing all activities gets the similar effect of being gone from the screen. This is by design and is explained in the article
To close other applications is either a ROOT only or system specific. So your application could request root permission on android if available. Otherwise, I believe it is possible to negotiate a app with some root access through google play but I assume it is very complicated.

Android Call Blocker Code for Android 3.0 and above

I googled for an example source code for blocking calls and came across this EXAMPLE, But later I came to know that Google has updated their policy and
android.permission.MODIFY_PHONE_STATE
is an system level permission from android version 2.3, I have very important module placed on blocking a specific call.
How do I get a system level permission?
Please let me know if there is any way I can do this in my application. Its very important for the product and cannot be released without this functionality.
Please Help!
Thanks in advance

At least as of Android 5.0, MODIFY_PHONE_STATE has the following definition:
<permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_PHONE_STATE"
android:permissionGroup="android.permission-group.PHONE_CALLS"
android:protectionLevel="signature|system"
android:label="#string/permlab_modifyPhoneState"
android:description="#string/permdesc_modifyPhoneState" />
Your app can only hold this permission and use it to modify the phone state if it is signed by the firmware's signing key (the "your own custom ROM" scenario from Marcin's comment) or if your app is installed on the system partition. The latter can be accomplished by having your app pre-installed on the device (or having a rooted device user move your app to the system partition, as I understand it).

How to determine the needed permission for my app

I'd like to know if there is any way to determine the permissions my app needs.
There is a similar question here:How do I determine why my Android app requires certain permissions?
But the answer states, that you basically have to find out yourself and I can't believe this.
Is there really no way to tell Eclipse to take a look at my code and determine the needed permissions or something like this? There should be no problem to automate this.
Or is there a way to test permissions on a device. When I install my app on my local device I'm not asked for any permissions.
Any help is really welcome.

This should work:
boolean crashes = true
while (crashes) {
ReadLogCat()
AddPermissionFoundMissingAccordingToLogCat()
crashes = TryAgain()
}
PS: This is pseudocode ;)
PPS: You didn't copy this to Eclipse, did you? Just kiddin' ;)

Believe it.
The app crashes and tells you the reason why: it expected some permission(s) declared in its manifest file.
It normally tells you in 2 ways: in a Dialog (FC Dialog) and in the LogCat.

You have to define permissions according to what your apps doing, if it's accessing the internet, it needs permission to do it. If it wants to locate you via GPS, it needs a permission for it and no you can't automate it, not officially anyway.
Think your app as a virtual child, you need to grant it permission to do stuff or else it won't do anything. So you have to pretty much decide yourself.
But you need not worry, if you're missing a permission, the log will let you know which one it is.

well i won't consider this as official solution for this problem
usually when i miss any permission in my application say i am using internet connectivity or get tasks but i didn't declared them in manifest
when i run my app i get it in log cat saying internet permission and get tasks permissions are required for this app to run
hope that answer your question

Is there really no way to tell Eclipse to take a look at my code and determine the needed permissions or something like this?
If you have a test suite that adequately tests your app, running the test suite will tell you the needed permissions, because your tests will crash if you do not have them.
Or is there a way to test permissions on a device. When I install my app on my local device I'm not asked for any permissions.
The permissions that you see on install are based on your <uses-permission> elements in your manifest, not some analysis of the app beyond that. Hence, this will not help you. That being said, installing your app by any means other than adb, such as downloading the app from a Web server, will pop up the permissions dialog, so you can see what prospective users will see at install time.

How do I determine why my Android app requires certain permissions?

Let's say I have taken over development of an Android app, and my boss asks me why our app requires certain permissions to be displayed to users who buy the app on the Android Market.
Are there any tools or tricks I can use to determine what code triggers each permission, so I can figure out why our app functionally needs those permissions? In particular, I am interested in these permissions:
Phone Calls - Read phone status and identity
System Tools - Retrieve running applications - Allows app to retrieve information about currently and recently running tasks, May allow malicious apps to discover private information about other apps.
The app is a GPS tracking app, and it's not obvious why this permission might be needed.
It would also be helpful to get any tips on why this permission might be needed, even if you can't tell me how to directly analyze the code to find out.

Here is how I would track these down.
Step 1 - Find the manifest permissions declared in your AndroidManifest.xml
Basically everything inside the <uses-permission /> tags e.g.:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"/>
Step 2 - Search developer.android.com for classes that use these permissions
Let's take the case of READ_PHONE_STATE, the goal is to find which packages require this permission. A simple search on the dev portal for "READ_PHONE_STATE" starts our search, we are looking for classes here, in the top 5 search results I see the following classes:
TelephonyManager
PhoneStateListener
Click on the classes and get their package names:
android.telephony.TelephonyManager
android.telephony.PhoneStateListener
Step 3 Find classes in your project that import these packages
A simple grep will do, or a Ctrl-H in eclipse, File Search -> Containing text
Step 4 Comment out the import and see what breaks
These are likely candidates for why the permission is required. Confirm the methods in question by looking at the dev portal to validate that the permission is indeed required by that method.
Finally you should be able to tell your boss, READ_PHONE_STATE is required because we call function XYZ which gives us UVW.

Remove a permission and see where the app fails. The answer will be in the logcat output.
That's not an ideal solution though, since you might not know what you need to do in the app to trigger that permission.
I suspect "Read phone status and identity" means that the app is using the device IMEI or similar identifying information to uniquely identify the device to ensure that the app is only being run on a registered device. Or it might just be used as a sort of cookie to track the owner. Look for that code. And remove it, because that's the wrong way to do it. If you need to identify a specific android device, use ANDROID_ID from the Settings.Secure class. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.Secure.html
As for "Retrieve running applications", I find that one somewhat suspicious. A very common way to implement GPS tracking is to launch a separate service in its own process. This way, if the app should crash, the service will keep going and can be re-attached. In this case, it's possible that the app is using the "Retrieve running applications" to identify and kill the service process. But if so, it's a clumsy way to do it.

With the latest build tools, you can run lint check which will highlight for you all the android SDK method calls which are requiring permissions.
See announcement here http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/07/get-your-hands-on-android-studio-13.html and documentation here https://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/annotations.html#permissions .
This is based on android annotations and after some adoption time 3rd party libraries can integrate permission annotations also

The answer for your boss is "because certain API features/calls/methods we use in our app require calee to hold certain permissions. It is for security reasons, and that's the way Android works". As for mentioned permissions - you have to check the code to see if these permissions are really required. Read phone status and identity may indicate your app try to get IMEI or something like this to uniquely identify device. Retrieve running applications - see no reason for GPS tracking app to hold this. But maybe you use 3rd party lib/code that uses this.