Just a quick question, On Android there are various appstore's. For instance Google's own, Amazon's etc.
Is it possible for other 3rd parties to easily create there own app store?
If a device supports side-loading of apps, yes. In fact, you can download and prompt the user to install applications from any other application. Just trigger the phone to download the corresponding APK. The difficult part is getting developers to pay and submit their apps to you.
Related
I published many versions so far. And, the users should use the most recent app. However, apkpure shows all the app list that I released.
How come this website take all the apk or abb? I don't want the website takes my applications and block the users in the app. Is there any way to do that?
Actually it's possible to do, using one of the Android features like app bundles. This could help you to verify non Google Play installation. Or even create behavior to crash/exit in such cases.
The whole idea of the approach, it's separation application features to different bundles which could installed be installed within Google play package manager. So you can check it's documentation.
Lots of android users can not access play store when removing the google restrictions, because they want apk file for install. Third party websites publish for that kind users, As well as some desktop users want APk file specially GAME APPs. I think they not Change original APK file.
Is it possible for an android application to act as a custom market place?
The imagined behavior of the app:
Download XYZ app from the built in Google Play Store
Opening XYZ app yields a UI similar to that seen in the Play Store
The user can navigate through XYZ app and select a custom app supported by XYZ to install on their phone
This custom app would not be located on the Play Store and the .apk would be directly installed from the context of the XYZ app/marketplace to the users phone
I did some research and found alternative Android App Stores such as:
Amazon App Store for Android
GetJar
SLideMe
F-Droid
But is it possible to have an alternative marketplace like this that can be accessed from an app that was downloaded from the Google Play Store? Does google allow this type of practice?
So I suppose the heart of my questions is: Is it possible to create an android application that has permissions to install other 3rd party applications directly to a users phone? (without needing to leverage the Play Store or needing to jailbreak the phone)
Thanks in advance for the answers and insights! And please let me know if anything I'm saying doesn't make sense.
(Extra Credit: I would also be curious to learn about the feasibility of doing this with an iOS app as well)
To add to the other answers, you will have problems with some of Google Play's rules. AFAIK they don't allow your app to direct users to a different store. So you won't be able to keep your app on Google Play store in that case.
EDIT
It is not in the Terms and Conditions, as confirmed by #Cumulo Nimbus.
It is in clause 4.5 of the Developer Distribution Agreement:
4.5 Non-Compete. You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the
distribution of software applications and games for use on Android
devices outside of the Market.
My interpretation of the above was, and still is, that we can't point people to a different app store.
Kudos to #zmarties for pointing me at the Developer Program Policy which links out to the Developer Distribution Agreement. I knew I'd seen this somewhere...
In terms of iOS, Apple does not allow different app stores unless you jailbreak (iOS-speak for rooting) your phone. They are not as open minded as the Google.
Android apps don't need to be rooted in order to install third party apk's. The use just needs to allow this in their settings. The apps you have listed simply instruct their users to enable this setting.
The best example of a third-party "free as in freedom" app store would be F-Droid
Technically it's possible.
The current Developer Program Policy does not seem to prohibit it either - all they have to say on the matter relates to installing "dangerous products" from outside the play store:
Dangerous Products: We don't allow content that harms, interferes with the operation of, or accesses in an unauthorized manner, networks, servers, or other infrastructure.
Malicious scripts and password phishing scams are also prohibited on Google Play, as are apps that cause users to unknowingly download or install apps from sources outside of Google Play.
Having said that, I can't quickly see any alternative apps stores that are themselves in the Play Store.
How does an Android device identify an app as "market" or "non-market"?
The situation is that I've an app I want to make available to a set of customers, rather than the entire world, but don't want them to have to go through the extra steps of allowing their device to install non-market apps. I'd like to distribute it through a company website behind a login wall without losing the ease of installation for a play app.
The private channel, designed for companies to distribute internally, isn't quite what I had in mind. I'm distributing to clients of my company, each of which has many employees, via a per-client website.
I don't have a problem with somehow presenting the app to Google to get it signed, sealed, etc. "Why not just use the market" is a reasonable question, and I'm considering that option too.
I'd also rather not violate Google's terms of service in the process.
Clarification:
I appreciate the answers so far. I am asking about the mechanism the Android OS uses to determine if something is a market app.
This should give you the right information:
PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
String installationSource = pm.getInstallerPackageName(getPackageName());
A result com.google.android.feedback indicates, that the app was installed using Google Play.
Hope this helps ... Cheers!
p.s. this related link looks quite interesting
A "market" app is an app that you download from a trusted marketplace (usually Google Play but some devices like the Kindle Fire allow downloads from the Amazon market), so in your case you have to tell your users to allow installation of non-market apps.
What about showing the login screen on the app instead of the website? In this way you could publish it easily on Google Play. This is how
similar apps do (like this one : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.intermedia.securisyncinternal.ui)
My question is simple: is there a way to totally automate the process to publish (and/or upgrade) a massive number of apps to AppStore and Google Play?
How do they do companies like MobileAppLoader, appbreeder, AppMakr and the like to publish, upgrade and manage their massive number of apps in the different stores?
I cannot think they do it manually everytime, there must be a programmatically way to do that kind of things. But how?
Thats the reason some opt for MobileWeb apps. They donot require to update through an app store.
See the link for more info:
http://sixrevisions.com/web-applications/building-mobile-web-apps-the-right-way-tips-and-techniques/
The is no way for a developer to directly publish an app in the iOS App store. Only Apple can allow publication after reviewing the apps submitted to them.
Xcode on a Mac is used to submit apps to Apple for review. And Xcode can be scripted by Automater or AppleScript. These scripts could be potentially launched from unix scripts or chron jobs or the shell command-line, since Mac OS X is a Unix OS.
To the AppStore and Google Play there isn't, mainly because if there was, it would be abused by spammers.
Now, for everything, but getting the applications to the stores, you can automate it.
Here is one example that would also work with Android.
http://nachbaur.com/blog/how-to-automate-your-iphone-app-builds-with-hudson
If you can commit changes, and at the end your automated process has a beta test version ready, then you just code, the testing/building/publishing to beta site is automated, you can handle many applications, more easily.
Here's the scenario i am trying to achieve:
Publish/have an app in the Android app store
However - i do not want it to be searchable through the android market search, etc.
The only way people can access the app is if i give them an explicit link to download
Is above possible? If so - how? All FAQs/instrucitons i have seen publish & make it searchable for the whole world - but i want it only accessible through #3 above.
Thanks.
Try this site https://www.push-link.com/, you can upload apk on your private account and only can be accessible thorough automatic generated link and QR code. This service contains user notification on new versions and bug reports.
Two things that are problematic with the link to an APK approach:
Some of the devices out there (I m only aware of the Motorola Atrix) don't have the "Unkown Sources" option, meaning that this won't work on them.
You loose the ability to auto update the app if you want.
I would recommend adding a login process where only your users will have access to the actual application. This way, you still have the Market advantages and only those people can activate the application.
The main disadvantage is that the application will be open to search in the Market, but as far as I know, this won't be a problem since people will immediately uninstall it since they won't be able to activate it.
In your case, what I do is, I dont upload the application to the Market and distribute it from my server.
I mean this is simple, sweet and it also saves my $25 for the market account...
Don't do this. Just publish the APK to your own website, then give the users the URL to the APK, they can download and install it directly. The only thing they'll need to do is ensure that Menu-Settings-Applications-Unknown sources is ticked.