Android market search by publisher broken? - android

Many apps just broke, perhaps google changed something? The documentation at http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/publishing.html says that
<URI_prefix>search?q=pub:<publisher_name>
should work, and was working until very recently. Is anyone else having problems with this? Using a market:// link? It is giving No Results Found, and I tried for other publishers also. Is something wrong with my Google Play app perhaps, or is this affecting everyone?
Perhaps they broke something moving over to Google Play?
Thank You

UPDATE: The documentation seems to have been fixed now. Thanks to #Meh for pointing that out in his comment.
To create the link, you need to know your publisher name, which is
available from the Developer Console.
From a web site:
http://play.google.com/store/search?q=pub:
From an
Android app:
market://search?q=pub:<publisher_name>
Here's an example:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=pub:Google Inc.
For details on how to send the link in an Android app, see Linking
from an Android App.
PREVIOUS ANSWER:
I found what was causing your trouble. When using a publishers name specifically, it now needs to be case sensitive. For instance, this works: http://play.google.com/store/search?q=pub:Zynga
but this doesn't: http://play.google.com/store/search?q=pub:zynga
However, if you're just searching for zynga generically, it still works even when your search term is all lower case. http://play.google.com/store/search?q=zynga
The behavior is so inconsistent now. I'd say this is a bug (or if not a bug, this quirky behavior should at least be clarified in the documentation).

Related

Does implementing the following functionality violate Google Play policies?

An app called Bass Booster has the functionality of displaying a list of installed applications that are possibly incompatible with it.
I plan to implement in my app a similar function, which shows the list of apps that may be incompatible and the following message: "The following apps may present conflicts with XBooster. Please check them and take the necessary actions to avoid conflicts between your sound apps. "
This function would be very useful to identify installed apps that can interfere with each other and hinder the operation of all installed equalizers (including preinstalled).
But in the following link of developer policies:
https://play.google.com/intl/en/about/privacy-security-deception/deceptive-behavior/#!?zippy_activeEl=deceptive-settings#deceptive-settings
It can be read that they do not allow the following:
"Apps that encourage or incentivize users into removing or disabling
third-party apps or modifying device settings or features unless it is
part of a verifiable security service."
Does implementing the function that would show a list of apps that could be incompatible, somehow incentivize users to take the action of removing or uninstalling them?
I would like to know the opinion of the other developers about it.
I don't know how to contact the Google Play support team to ask about my question and avoid implementing a function that could cause me problems.
If this is not the right place to post this question, help me know where I should post it.
I would like to know the opinion of the other developers about it.
SO is a question and answer site - not an opinion forum. Questions like "will this violate Google Play policies" are best directed to a lawyer.
I don't know how to contact the Google Play support team to ask about my question and avoid implementing a function that could cause me problems.
Try the Android Developer Console help. Click the "?" icon in the top right, then down to "Contact Us / Need more help".
However, it's highly unlikely you'll get any good / direct answer. Google Play "support" is notoriously vague about what constitutes violations of the policy (presumably so people don't game the system / sue them).
If this is not the right place to post this question, help me know where I should post it.
Maybe try Twitter, Reddit, or some such platform where you can query the masses for their hot takes on a question.
Hope that helps!

is regex is allowed in android

I need to use regex in one of my app ,even i had submitted my app to playstore which is using regex and I had seen one tutorial about regex from a well known tech youtuber and founder of Learn Code Online and he said that regex is not allowed in android app and if the android app devloper should know about these then they will reject your app or removed.
I had already pushed my app updated to play store.
HERE is the link of its video at 11:00. Please tell me whether it's allowed or not.
I think he warns against excessive web scraping in android apps. I don't know if this is illegal or may cause troubles in android store.
In general using regex in android apps should be legal and valid, as they're mentioned in the official docs: https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/regex/Pattern

Diagnosing app's dynamic code downloading

An app I published in Google Play got flagged by Google as being in breach of their malicious behavior policy. Specifically they stated that: “Your app contains the following dynamic code downloading: https://redirector.gvt1.com/edgedl/android/appdatasearch/libAppDataSearchExt_armeabi_v7a.v7.so”
I was completely unaware of this behavior and would like to remedy the situation. However, even after a few days researching this subject online, I still have no idea how to locate the root cause and fix it.
The google play support team can’t or won’t give any more information/guidance other than the statement above.
I suspect this behavior could stem from one of the external libraries used in the project (since I don’t perform this action directly in my code), but have yet to find the way to check this hypothesis
Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed?
Any diagnosis tools that monitor this sort of behavior by an app?
Thank You,

The Word "Siri" in the Playstore 'forbidden'?

Im asking myself for a long time. Is the word Siri in the Appname of an App in Playstore forbidden or not ? There are some Apps that are called like that example : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=andy.xml , https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magnifis.parking or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bluetornadosf.smartypants . How is this possible ? I thought its against the rules of the Developer Console of Google am I right ?`Would my app been banned if I use this word ? Thanks for your answers
It looks like the question shouldn't be here but I already typed an answer. You really could have found this answer in minutes, so next time search on Google first.
You cannot publish anything with copyright or trademark infringements if you do your app will be removed if it is reported or discovered. It also leaves you open to being sued by the trademark owner - Apple. Even implying a link to the original item can leave you open to impersonation lawsuits. If your app is removed and Google consider it a serious breach, your account will be terminated entirely.
So the answer is, it could be serious, but it depends how you use it. In any case just looking at your links above and the similar apps section shows there are already dozens of apps of varying quality offering 'siri-like services'. Ask yourself is it even worth risking your account by adding another copycat app to get lost in the results for that keyword unless yours is something truly special?

Share Android Market's "Crash errors" information with developers

Android Market's "Crash errors" page is very useful for developers.
But how to use it in a team?
The crash information page should be visible by all developers, but I can't give my password as it would allow anyone to fiddle with the published APKs.
QUESTION: How to share the crashes reports? Is there an API or tool to export them regularly?
Copying them manually is not an option.
As a workaround, by now we are using our own crash reporting system (could have used ACRA).
Write your own Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler and call Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler( instance ) to register it.
Thus you have all the control. It works fine if you don't have JNI parts.
It is not as easy as relying on Google Market, you have to collect information on your own and to send the report to your server, maybe send a email to your group is convenient.
In later of this year, we have seen several improvement of Market publishing interface, perhaps we should complain together in google's forum.
It is now possible to share your Google Play account with other users:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/support/bin/answer.py?answer=2528691
By doing so, the other users can see that "Crash errors" page.
I'm going to answer your question (but you may not like my response): I must admit that we copy them manually out of the market into e-mails to the development team. Given that this process is labor-intensive, we probably don't do it as often as we should. I have not been able to find an API or tool for getting at the crash reports found in the Android Market.
I just looked at ACRA -- it looks pretty interesting. Thanks for the link, I will give it a try.
I was recently at AnDevCon II in San Francisco and saw http://www.crittercism.com there. I saw a 2 minute dog-and-pony show and it looked pretty useful. I don't know anything more about them than that ... I don't know if it is expensive for their paid version, if they're helpful, etc. I just am aware that they exist, they have a free version, and I have them on my "look into this someday" list.
Create a custom class that extends Log. You can overwrite all calls like Log.d, Log.e, Log.w etc, to post the log on a webservice. With a simple database, you can store the logs their, and share it to whoever you want.
How about BugSense: http://www.bugsense.com/

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