One of the biggest problems we at AndAppStore have at the moment with Google is that they seem to be treating app distribution and licensing as an add-on as opposed to making it an open part of the OS. They currently don't share any details of how to enable or use the existing current copy protection scheme (so developers and app directories can't use it), and Market uses APIs which are only available to apps signed by a specific key which, again, 3rd parties don't have access to.
We'd like to see an accepted licensing standard which will work all Android devices that can be used by third parties without the need to go through Market. To try and push this along several months ago we offered to hand over all the details of our licensing system to Google but met with a "thanks, but no thanks, we're working on our own system" kind of response, which led us to believe there will be an improvement at some point, but it's not going to work on all Android devices (because not all devices have Market). Hopefully, someday, we'll see an improvement to the situation and there will be one licensing system which can be used by any app directory or developer as they wish. Al. -- * Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * ====== Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's subsidiaries. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of david Sent: 30 August 2009 15:52 To: Android Discuss Subject: [android-discuss] Re: Paid App Protection, a problem of the whole Android ecosphere Thanks Mark for the quick response. So you suggest to move away from the Android Market and use third party app stores like AndAppStore and SlideME? This leads me to my next question: Will the Android Market support a copy protection like the "SlideLock" of SlideME in the near future? Because as a developer of Android apps I don't want to invest too much time into copy protecting my apps by myself, if a general solution could solve this. I know that there are many high quality apps on other operation systems circulating, but they invest a lot of time in re-inventing the wheel over and over by enhancing their copy protection algos. On the mobile device we're somehow limited in usability compared to the desktop apps as well. It's just a big hurdle to let the user enter endless license keys or something similar. Do you think this will enhance the user experience of Android powered devices? I fear not. IMHO, if Google encourages developers to leverage the Android OS with competitions like the ADC, they should also invest a little bit into helping developers to monetize their apps later and not spending too much time thinking about copy protection. On Aug 30, 10:08 am, Al Sutton <[email protected]> wrote: > The AndAppStore scheme isn't limited to AndAppStore and can be used by apps > made available via Googles Market, SlideME, etc. if you want. > > You can find more info > athttp://andappstore.com/AndroidApplications/licensing.jsp > > Al. > > -- > > * Written an Android App? - List it athttp://andappstore.com/* > > ====== > Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the > company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, > 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. > > The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not > necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's > subsidiaries. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Murphy > Sent: 29 August 2009 21:31 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [android-discuss] Re: Paid App Protection, a problem of the whole > Android ecosphere > > david wrote: > > Otherwise this is a big problem for the whole Android ecosphere as we > > won't see many high quality apps popping up. > > Application developers are welcome to use third-party DRM solutions. > AndAppStore and SlideME each have one, IIRC, and there are probably > others. Nobody is pointing a gun at your head to force you to use the > one in the Android Market...which is good, since the Android Market DRM > will not work in other markets. > > Moreover, your assumption that ineffective copy protection means "we > won't see many high quality apps" seems to fly in the face of the > high-quality apps available for a range of operating systems (desktop > and mobile) that do not have any form of copy protection by intent. > > -- > Mark Murphy (a Commons > Guy)http://commonsware.com|http://twitter.com/commonsguy > > Android Development Wiki:http://wiki.andmob.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
