I would like auto-updates to be enabled for my application. After lots of searching, I can not find any information about how to implements this. My interpretation is that it is a feature of 2.2 and android marketplace, and will happen automatically. However, I have a few questions about this that I cannot find answers to on Google:
How does this work? Do I just publish a new version to the Google marketplace and then users are prompted to update their application? If so, is there a way to control if I want to allow the user to be able to update? (like, if I publish 1.1, I would like to allow an update. but not for 2.0).
Do I need to specify anything in my manifest file or anywhere else in my app?
If this is a 2.2 feature, will it work if my app is 2.1 compliant? (I assume it would not work for users running 2.1, but want to make sure being 2.1 compliant would not break it).
Thank you.
I could be wrong here but I believe auto update is a function that the user would control. The user has the option to allow your app to auto update from the android market place provided the permissions have not changed. I do not think you can force the user to auto update.
just publish a new version and users will be prompted to install. i think for preventing updates to v2 you will need to create a new app (or change the properties so google thinks its a new app
you will need to increment your android:versionCode="??" in the manifest
you will have to specify the minSdkversion and if you use a newer feature than is available in an older version your app 'supports', you will have to check the version they are running and disable the feature or code it someother way.
You can control auto updates by opening the "market" When the 'Market" home screen is open, click the "menu" button( lower far left on your device.) a settings menu will pop up and you can set the auto-update features there...
Related
Several users have downloaded my app from Google Play. I now want to provide new features to them. How do I auto-update the app for them without requiring them to re-download the app?
If they have the setting for downloading updates automatically set, just upload a new version of the app with a higher version number in the manifest. The Play Store and Android will do the rest. Of course if they turned off that setting they'll need to do it manually, but that was their decision when they changed the setting.
I now want to provide new features to them.
If you have added new features to your actual app in code, then the single option that you have, so that all users can see the updates is to re-download the app.
If you however want to force the users to get the latest version of your app, please check my answer from the following post:
Force users to have last app version in Android
I have uploaded my app on google play store. I need when I do an update in my app the old versions of the app doesn't work on user devices until they updated the app. For example when I make an update when the users that have old versions of the app opens it a dialog opens to them asking them to update the app to be able to use it , How can I do that?
You can't go and change old versions retrospectively - the code is already out there on devices.
If you want this feature in new versions of your app however, I would recommend using something like Firebase Remote Config. That will let you control the minimum version of your app on a server, so you could give the users a week to update, then change the config on the server, and the app will know to ask the user to update.
I am trying to create a kiosk type app so when you press the recent apps button I dont want the user to be able to go to a different app. I have been googling around but cannot find anything on this matter. There is this solution in this
thread Recent apps button in android
However this does not seem to work for me on Android 6.0
Can someone please point me to the right direction on how to do this?
Thanks
In the link you provided yourself can find the answer:
Is that possible to override recent apps button in android? Not from
an ordinary SDK app.
You are welcome to build your own custom ROM that modifies the
overview screen, then convince people to install your custom ROM on
their devices.
So your answer is no in the app written by Google provided SDKs.
It is not possible. You can not control recent app AND home button in Android. You can't allow user to not leave the app. It is user's choice.
Edit: The only way you will be able to control those buttons is if you have system level permissions. To have system level permission for the device, you have to have system certificates and you won't have that unless you created the Android ROM on the device.
there's a app called "All in one Gestures" that can make the physical recent apps button without blocking some alternate way to trigger recent apps (like assistant menu in accessibility settings), i'm not the developer of that app but using APK editor, i see that the app are using accessibility service
I have an already-released android app. If I add a new required feature to a new update, what happens to current users whose devices don't have that feature?
The documentation makes it clear that these users won't see updates since their devices aren't supported. But if they delete the app from their phone, and then try to re-download it, will they see the old versions in the Play Store?
As I understand it, I can't leave the old version of the APK active in the play store since it's filtering on features, not API level or the other requirements. Is that the case?
The users, as you say, will not see an update to the app who don't have that feature. New users (and people who uninstalled it) who don't have that feature will not be able to install the app. They may see it in the store, but they cannot download it.
The only way I know that you can get around this is to release two different apps: one your updated app with the new required features, and the other an old version not having those features. You should make certain to tell users wheather they will be recieving updates with the other app, and you could even put a link to the old app saying If you don't have x or y, go here to download the app:.
Another option is to not require this feature, and to just do it like this:
<uses-feature android:name="x" android:required="false" />
And then you can detect wheather this feature is there in the device, and if so enable some features, if not, disable them.
I've programmed my app with Eclipse and android 2.2. However I think that my app would work for previous version and so it would allow more users to use my app. The problem is that I'm not sure... for instance I'm using Gestures which I think is a more recent feature... but otherwise I'm just using some Button, ListView, and WebView.
So is there a way to detect automatically the Minimum Sdk Version needed ( by checking which function my app is using) ?
I can't download the SDK of each previous version of android and test it until it doesn't work ...
Thanks
I can't download the SDK of each previous version of android and test it until it doesn't work ..
Why cant you? This is what the rest of us do. Create various different Emulators and test it out. I've released many apps by testing this way.
Take a look at the Compatibility page on Android's developer website.
It has some great information on how to make sure your application will work on different versions of Android and how to stop users from downloading the application if they do not have the right features on their device. In your case that would be the gestures feature.
To manage this, Android defines
feature IDs. Every capability has a
corresponding feature ID defined by
the Android platform. For instance,
the feature ID for compass is
“android.hardware.sensor.compass”,
while the feature ID for Live
Wallpapers is
“android.software.live_wallpapers”.
Each of these IDs also has a
corresponding Java-language constant
on the PackageManager class that you
can use to query whether feature is
supported at runtime.
To be totally sure you have to test your app against every platform version you target. Otherwise users of your app will do it for you (and that might be not good for app rating).
On the https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html page you can see the latest up-to-date platforms share info. So just decide how many potential users you're going to leave without your app :)