I want to make an app where the the user can choose what parts of the app he wants to use. On the start the app, it should only contain the part of the code (to be very small) where the user can choose additional parts and install it. Then additional code should be downloaded from a sever.
You can try Google's App Bundler. Google provides this on android apps. You can create many of those bundlers, and delivery only those your users need.
https://developer.android.com/guide/app-bundle/
Related
I have distributed my app through posting the link from google drive where the users can download the .apk file.Now that I haven't published my app in google play how to know how many installs or how many people have installed my application.Is there a way I can increase the count variable in the server or something like that?
Unless you went through the App Store or integrated some third party analytics tool like Fabric you would need to have implemented this in the application with a request to a server with a unique identifier to keep track.
Is there a way I can increase the count variable in the server or something like that?
Well that seems a bit shady. You don't want to lie to people, do you?
When you release an app on the Play Store, Google will keep track of how many users download your app, and update it accordingly. So if people use your app, then your downloads (listed on the Play Store) will reflect that.
To see your current downloads, you should be able to find that information on the "Google Play Developer Console." (I would imagine; I currently don't have access to the dashboard myself.)
Is it possible to get the user behavior on the phone (for example Alpesh has an Android phone and he uses multiple apps, browser YouTube etc). Whatever he is doing on the phone I want to get all those things from behind (which apps he has installed, which app he opens and what he search on the phone, All these data I want to get programmatically so what all can be get in android).
For now I am aware that installed apps list can be get easily but I want to get usage history and what he do all on mobile.
This is not a code solution, but an answer to your question, so you can get start some where.
In my opinion your question title are asking about two things.
(part 1) Getting User Behavior on the Android Phone (part 2)(App History, Browse
History etc)
1- First part Getting User Behavior on the Android Phone:
There is a concept called context awareness. Short described; it is about gathering different information from the phone, like light sensor, motion sensor, sound, location or even user behavior etc. and depending on your app requirement and the gathered information:
You could send these information over cloud data store for statically usage
You could make your phone doing (behavior) different things depending on location, motion or what ever.
etc.
For context awareness it is an open area for pervasive computing research. And it is not just few lines of code to write, it is typically a complete solution depending on requirement. Example I have built a context awareness application to gather noise collected by phones from different locations for research purpose inspired from this framework, but I am pretty sure you can find other frameworks or even build your own, as I did in my case.
The mentioned framework has some examples.
2- The second part is about App History, Browse History etc.:
This is possible, but you still need to build a peace of software (App) to collect all these information (logs) from the phone. Hereafter you can make phone act on different conditions and/or again send it over a RESTful API over cloud service data store, there is no limit for it.
The problem is, there is no thing out of the box for your requirement. Even if you find frameworks you still need to research it and further work on it.
You can find different examples for your requirement, like to collect browser history, you can find SO question here:
Get browser history and search result in android
Or get list of installed application:
How to get a list of installed android applications and pick one to run
My point here is you need to solve small goals at a time and put your knowledge together at the end.
Both 1 and 2 can also be related to each other, depending on your achievement.
Conclusion
Make a goal to your project.
Define the main requirements and tasks of your project.
Research your options (Technology, Cost, Target Audience, What data I can or I should not collect, what is possible to collect, what is the limits, Privacy issues etc.).
Split your project in small assets and try to solve small problems/goals.
Finally you would be able to put the puzzles together and build your final application
but i want to get usage history and what he do all on mobile
This is not possible and shouldn't ever be possible. Each app is sandboxed by Android so apps cannot inspect what other apps are doing. Think about it, you wouldn't want apps to be able to intercept private information such as banking details.
Every app is isolated from the other ones. Unless you develop a system signed app, you will not be able to gather all that data.
What you could do is to develop your own Android Rom where you then develop your data collection the exact way you want. Then you need to distribute your rom, which is another story...
Is there a way to control an android device from an admin web interface using a php code? I have tried looking into other MDM platforms however they have a lot of requirements to be installed.
This is possible up to certain limit, like Run a certain app, delete files, create files , taking pictures, play video/audio .. anything that doesn't need users extended permission.
You need to create an app that has ability to perform what ever the task you need.
You can send an action through (SMS/notification) etc to the device.
Your app will take a action and do the necessary changes of the device.
Google Play Developer Program Policies says:
An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update
its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play's
update mechanism.
I want to publish my application to Google Play. And I been planing to load my core SWF file dynamically, so game updates could be done without the need of going to Google Play market. An alternative Java implementation can achieve the same thing by downloading remote jar file.
In both cases I will have the next limitations:
I cannot modify my Manifest file.
I cannot extend the application permissions that I asked
My external code is bounded to application sand box(Just as the rest of my application)
Notice that my external code is not part of the APK files. It will be stored in application folder or in external storage(SD-Card). Its same place where external assets is stored.
Does this violatating Google policy? I am not sure what they meant by "APK binary code".
I am not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV...
Your best course of action is to look at the reason they included that phrase in the first place. That text now exists in the Google Play policy because Facebook did the very same thing that you are describing in their application (providing an auto-update mechanism outside the Play Store) earlier this year, and Google threatened banning the application until this "feature" was removed (which it was, shortly thereafter).
The spirit of the law in this case is that Google does not want applications updating themselves without the user's consent outside of the Play Store...period. If your application does this, you can bet Google won't care how you are doing it and will likely remove the application when and if the feature is discovered. They won't care how closely executable code in an external SWF file resembles the internal classes of the APK.
Legal language like this is is intentionally vague so companies can apply it in any situation they see fit. Don't think you're being safe by splitting hairs with the terminology.
I am not a lawyer. I see this restriction as limiting only the apk binaries. There are many apps that have dynamic behavior changes, for example Google search where the search results algorithm is determined by dynamic code on the server, or facebook which loads new images texts, layouts and more.
I think that as long as you do not do anything bad for users using the swf changes, you should be ok.
The purpose of this clause, as I understand it, is to prevent apps from loading and using code that was not tested by Google using the normal process that tests apps when published. Google want to ensure that all code is scanned/tested by their bots.
Want to create a simple app that runs locally whatever on PC or mobile devices, which shows various products information which would be loaded from local file system (documents, videos, htmls and so on). Furthermore it's able to configured later on.(change source directories, change button label.)
Please suggest what framework is well suited for developing this kind of application. Thanks.