Strange behavior after user clicks adMob ad - android

I have successfully added admob ads to my android app and can view test ads on the emulator and my development phone (Nexus One). When I click on one of the test ads, it opens the web browser or market to that particular page(gmail or whatever). I click the home button to exit, but when I try to start my app again, it takes me back to the market page or browser that came up when clicking the test ad.
I have a feeling it is something in the onLeaveApplication or onPresentScreen methods implemented with AdListener, but I'm lost and the adMob documentation doesn't provide much info on this.

Generally this is the expected behavior for an application. If you click home and then back on your application icon, most applications will jump back to the last activity on the stack. It's certainly possible to kill your application altogether and treat re-entry as a brand new instance of your application, but you probably don't want that either as all user state will be lost unless you explicitly save it, which is even more work.
The AdMob client SDK listener callbacks are all optional for you to implement; there's no expectation that you do anything in particular. They're there as a convenience for you to pause, save, or resume whatever activity you were doing before.
Users are generally used to hitting the back button to go back to your app, not home and then back into the app.

Related

Blocking "Back" button to Close Interstitial Ad

I am adding interstitial ads to my android app using AdMob. I am wondering if there is a way to prevent users from closing them via pressing the "back" button (so they'd have to press the "x" button on the ad).
I know that AdMob is loading the ad in another activity, so I can't use my activity's onKeyDown() to do that.
Also, I am not sure if it's considered a good practice and if it's worth doing at all.
Thank you!
Update:
It appears that there is no easy way to override the back button in the ad's activity (since I don't have access to that activity). Thus, I'll give up on it.
However, I still haven't found any evidence that it is against admob or android policy. In most of android games the back button is overridden to turn the pause mode on and off (as opposed to go further back and eventually exit) and everyone seems to be okay with it. Therefore, I am still open to hear about this aspect from the people that actually know the answer.
P.S.: to the people that say that it's such a horrible thing to block the back button:
I agree that this would make it more annoying for users, but the very idea of interstitial ads is pretty annoying to begin with. Despite of that, it is the most commonly used type of ads these days (guess why - it's just more profitable).
Now, most of the time if you use the back button you can close the ad even before it is loaded on the screen (I'm talking about loading of the layout, not loading of the data from the ad provider). But the whole idea of having ads is to show them to people. So, I think it is reasonable to allow users to close the ad only after it is fully loaded to the screen and not before that. And people that are saying otherwise (but at the same time not having anything against the very concept of interstitial ads) are hypocritical.
Check Google/Android policy for overriding the Back button while publishing your app. Obviously they don't like it either as you disable a main feature from user stand-point.
But if you really need to avoid pressing the back button just override onBackPressed(), you can leave this function blanked.
If you subclass the AdMob activity, then you can override its onBackPressed method to do nothing.
This has recently been fixed by Google. If you update to SDK 19.3.0+ the back button will stop working when an interstitial ad is shown. You must now use the close or x button.
implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.6.0'
Source:
Can't dismiss Admob Interstitial Ads by pressing Back key button of Android device
Admob Interstitial ad is not closing when user presses back button on android 7,8,9 but works fine on android 10 and 6

Back button on an ad does not bring control back to the android app

When some users click an ad on my app and they are done viewing the ad, and want to come back to the app, if they hit the back button the control goes to the home screen but the app does not crash because they see it running in the background.
I am not overwriting the default behavior of the controls.
What could be causing this or is it the expected behavior ?
This is not expected behaviour.
If they are definitely pressing the back button (and not the home button), then it sounds like the intent that displayed the Play Store has been configured to start the Activity in a new Task. Unfortunately, there isn't anything you can do do about this except raise it with the ad network in question.

Android Best Practices : Best way to check for Google account existence?

I've recently started developing for the Android platform and am currently praticing with an application that sync with Google Tasks. Right now, I'm not facing too much problem, technically speaking. But I meet a conceptual problem that I can't find a proper way to solve.
Let's say the user uses my application with a given Google account. He launch some activities, do some work...and then click the Home button. He then goes to the OS Settings and delete its Google accounts. Then he returns to my app, which then display the activity he was using when he did quit the app.
Since there is no more Google Accounts, my application should present the "Add Account" activity to allow him to choose or create a Google Account. And of course, if he tap on the back button at this point, he should be sent to the launcher and not to the previous activity from the back stack.
How would you deal with that kind of need?
I first thought that it was possible to be notified when my app was back to the foreground but it seems that Android always deals with activities, which would mean that I have to implement an "account checker" on all my activities ! Moreover, even if I implement this, how would I prevent the user from returning to the back stack and be instead redirected to the launcher when he taps the back button?
If some of you can give me some advices, some Best Practices, to deal with this, you would make my day.
PS : I just checked the Android 4 included GMail app and when I delete all my Google Accounts and then launch the app, I'm presented with the system "Add Google Account" activity and taping the back button send me to the launcher. That's exactly the behavior I'd like to implement. I suppose this app is not open-source, right?
onResume will be called when the activity comes to the foreground and onPause will be called when the activity is pushed to the back stack of activities.
You could always check the account status onResume. I would then recommend that you extend the activity class and make a BaseClass that has your google checker in it so every activity you want to have the check has it.
As far as the back button you can register a listener for the button press you can even ignore the back button if you are so inclined(not recommended but allowed by the sdk).

Android App Lifecycle and Intents

I'm having a bit of an issue with interaction beween my app and other apps on my phone, but I'm starting to think that maybe it's working as designed? Anyway, here's the problem.
My App, call it App A is a photo-manipulation app. So a user goes in, plays around to make changes and then uses the Share button to pass it on (SEND Intent). The photo is sent to another app, chosen from the Share menu, call it App B. This stand-alone app has its own menus, completely different look and feel, etc. The user does his thing in this app for a bit, then hits the home button and goes his way to do something else.
Sometime later, he decides he wants to run my app again. He goes into the launcher, hits the icon for App A (my app), and up pops App B. Very confusing. If he happens to remember that last time he ran App A, he used the share button to get into App B, maybe he'll think to use the back button, to get back into App A. If he doesn't remember, all he knows is that he is trying to use App A, but Android is giving him App B.
(I have one app on my phone that takes over the back button for its own use so you more-or-less get stuck in App B with no way out. Ugh. You hit the icon for App A and always end up in App B)
Is there any solution to this, or is it working as designed? None of my onCreate, OnResume, onStart, etc. methods get called when this is second-open is occurring, so I can't trap it. And realistically, I can see the desire for this behavior when timelines are short - i.e. hit the home button, quickly use some other tool, and then go back to what you were doing. But with a timeline any longer than a minute or two, it gets very confusing.
Anybody else dealing with this problem? Is there a basic Android architectural issue here? Is the SEND intent being mis-used by being accepted by stand-alone apps instead of small utilities?
I think you may use Intent flag 'FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY'. It means starting intent never goes into activity stack.

Force application to front

The question I'm about to ask may seem dangerous for the user, so here's the story before the question:
I'm working in a compagny that tries to sell Galaxy Tabs to schools (children under 10). So, I've been asked to develop an application that starts on boot showing a login screen. The child HAS to log in before he's allowed to use the tablet (just like logging in a computer).
My application starts on boot, shows the login screen, all buttons are blocked (the kid must not be able to use the tablet before the application lets him) except the home button.
fortunately, it seems impossible to block the home button.
I've been trying to rebring the application to front when onpause/onstop is called, this kind of hacks.
So my question is : Can I prevent an user to quit my application until I let him do so?
I know this sounds like a virus, I'm not really happy to be looking for this kind of solution either.
You have to build a custom Home screen, and then set it as the default Home application.
EDIT: see more on this previously asked question (at How can I create a custom home-screen replacement application for Android?). You can just make your authorization the default Home application, then when they log in it forwards to the regular Home screen. If they hit the home button your app gets called, can check if they have logged in and if they have will just send them to the regular home screen.

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