why are there so many themes in the market application? should make a seperate to Theme market. too many themes in there. its annoying
I agree its getting old. It seems like every time I go into the market I have to sift through 15 themes to find anything good.
I agree. There has got to be a better way to handle distribution of these themes.
what's worse is that a lot of them are made by the same people. RSD keeps making themes for the phone and then selling them for a dollar. i'm sorry but i don't think you should charge for a theme, no matter how much work you did. i make themes too but i'm not gonna tell people that they have to give me money in order to try it. most themers do the stuff cause it's fun not cause they wanna get rich
It's easy money. Make a theme, upload it, charge 99c and make some money... now everyone is on it. Tis a shame they isnt more categories on Market, so many of them are misplaced. I wonder if Google plan on doing anything about it? You can literally spend 10-15mins scrolling down until you reach the bottom.
+1 I have to sift through so many themes they are annoying!
Then there are the comic books, the other day there had to be like 20 of them submitted at once.
In some ways the 'openness'* is part of the problem. I've not investigated how you put a program etc on market place and what the uploader has to do, to charge but it seems like people can charge what they want. I saw one earlier which seemed to be pictures of cars (and another for bikes) and he wanted $4.99.
I wish it was a little more regulated... I never thought I'd say that!! or atleast no facility to charge for apps.
Or even if Google could add new categories...
* I know all the tethering apps have been removed so clearly it's not 100% open
DynaMight said:
* I know all the tethering apps have been removed so clearly it's not 100% open
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is actually nothing open about the market. For example, if the market had an api, I could write an alternative market client with a capability to filter out all these annoying themes/videos/comics. The point is that the market, like GMail and all the other closed applications on the G1's Android build, is a closed value-added product.
Unfortunately since Market client is closed-source, we can only hope Google gets the message and builds in some sort of filtering in a future version. They did pretty promptly address the comment spam issue, which shows some promise.
I too am sick of the themes and everything else associated with the alternate home screens. Hopefully as the market matures they will address the issue.
http://www.artfulbits.com/Android/antipiracy.aspx
If your a Dev please support them, if you need assistance msg me i can send u code that will allow your app to automatically send a message to this company with a users information that has stolen your app or tried to steal it.
pentace said:
http://www.artfulbits.com/Android/antipiracy.aspx
If your a Dev please support them, if you need assistance msg me i can send u code that will allow your app to automatically send a message to this company with a users information that has stolen your app or tried to steal it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm all for cracking down hard on piracy, but there are three big flaws with this solution:
1) How would Artfulbits verify that an app reporting a device is a "dark" device is making that report in good faith? If a bunch of pirates wanted to render this service pointless, they could just create apps that flood the service with false positives.
2) It is possible (although difficult) to link IMEI to a user/owner. This makes a publicly accessible database of "dark" IMEIs somewhat shady in terms of being a breach of privacy.
3) Finally, if this service is to be useful, apps have to have some way of acting on the information in the database. That is just going to lead to folks "cracking" apks to remove the IMEI-checking routines, or simply using leakproof firewalls to prevent the app from accessin the IMEI database.
Thoughts?
There is not going to be a way to completely stop piracy. Google just needs to step up the way the market works to prevent some of the piracy.
I understand devs deserve money for their hard work (and the log of my google checkout shows I support them) but I personally dont want any app reporting any information about myself or my phone. If there is a list of which apps do I will find an alternative for better or worse and not use the app. Not to knock on those who support this method, I just personally dont like it.
rondey- said:
There is not going to be a way to completely stop piracy. Google just needs to step up the way the market works to prevent some of the piracy.
I understand devs deserve money for their hard work (and the log of my google checkout shows I support them) but I personally dont want any app reporting any information about myself or my phone. If there is a list of which apps do I will find an alternative for better or worse and not use the app. Not to knock on those who support this method, I just personally dont like it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well considering my app has been pirated 3x as much as it has been downloaded legally i would be willing to let go of the few that are not comfortable with their imei being registered on a website which only happens if u are stealing an app, most apps out there gather more information from you than that without you even knowing.
I don't get why people would install this program. If it detects pirated software on your phone then who the hell are you letting you use your phone? Lets say you know you have pirated software well then of course you wont install this program. If you know your running a clean rom and have no reason to suspect pirated software your giving up a lot of information for a false sense of security. So unless this is forcibly installed on everyone's phone I don't see what's the point.
psychoace said:
I don't get why people would install this program. If it detects pirated software on your phone then who the hell are you letting you use your phone? Lets say you know you have pirated software well then of course you wont install this program. If you know your running a clean rom and have no reason to suspect pirated software your giving up a lot of information for a false sense of security. So unless this is forcibly installed on everyone's phone I don't see what's the point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a program you install. It is a database. App developers write routines into their programs which access the database. If an application suspects that it was illegally pirated, then it will send the user's IMEI to the database.
This is stupid idea. Go to the source of piracy if you want to fight it.
Give people access to paid apps on market and they won't download illegal copies form rapidshare...
su27 said:
Give people access to paid apps on market and they won't download illegal copies form rapidshare...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Riiiight... because if you give pirates the option to pay they'll definitely all pay right?
This database thing bothers me.
Not because I might be stealing programs..
but because I might find one and not know its "dark"
Suddenly I'm on some blacklist because I thought an app was cool?
I just did a search on one of the torrent sites, and found a file to DL.
It has 231 apk files and 2 .bak files. (I'm assuming the bak files are for a cracked version of the paid apk) but many of these files are a)old versions or b) free already.
Normally I would say SCORE! I don't have to DL to the g1, then back up, uninstall, transfer to the pc, and store.
Last time I tried a file like that, more than half were for cupcake, and would not work on my donut. Recycle bin.
With this Database I would get tagged as a cheater the first time I tried to install any of those files that were marked. But I have no idea they are "dark" before hand.
While I thank the Dev's for the work they do.
{Seriously, Thank you Developers!}
I'm a student, and I'm poor, which means I'm cheap.
I have several free apks stored away. Hell, I still used youtube downloader 1.2...until it quit working last week. Why, because I don't want to spend money just to have a cool phone.
If you really want to make it hard on the thieves... someone make a program that cripples another program, until the user requests the full version. Then it reads the Imei number from the phone and sends an upgrade request to a server. The server requests payment. Server verifies payment. The server issues a hashed password based on the Imei, which is then sent back to the phone as a password. Customer never sees the password.
This is what Doc to go appears to do. I could be wrong.
Now make it so that program can be imbedded in any other program.
Now thieves need a whole crap load of hacking to find enough hashed passwords to find the hash.
If the hash is added to at random intervals, or a different hash is used based on the Imei number, they might never find the hash.
Besides that, how the heck does a program know if it has been stolen?
How can it tell between a stolen program and a wiped phone that is getting reinstalled with backed up apk's?
jashsu said:
I'm all for cracking down hard on piracy, but there are three big flaws with this solution:
1) How would Artfulbits verify that an app reporting a device is a "dark" device is making that report in good faith? If a bunch of pirates wanted to render this service pointless, they could just create apps that flood the service with false positives.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exists several strategies, for example the most popular is "honey pot" strategy. When vendor especially making leak of software or prepare specially application to track piracy.
jashsu said:
2) It is possible (although difficult) to link IMEI to a user/owner. This makes a publicly accessible database of "dark" IMEIs somewhat shady in terms of being a breach of privacy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For example in our country sufficient IMEI of the phone to find it owner and it location, of course if you have police under your shelders. That is why I am thinking that IMEI is a good identifier.
jashsu said:
3) Finally, if this service is to be useful, apps have to have some way of acting on the information in the database. That is just going to lead to folks "cracking" apks to remove the IMEI-checking routines, or simply using leakproof firewalls to prevent the app from accessin the IMEI database.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solution is not perfect, but can be easily enhanced. HTTPS protocol with certificate checks will make firewalls and redirections useless.
What functionality exactly you have in mind?
[email protected] said:
While I thank the Dev's for the work they do.
{Seriously, Thank you Developers!}
I'm a student, and I'm poor, which means I'm cheap.
I have several free apks stored away. Hell, I still used youtube downloader 1.2...until it quit working last week. Why, because I don't want to spend money just to have a cool phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Leave according to your money. what can I say... spend less, work more.
[email protected] said:
Besides that, how the heck does a program know if it has been stolen?
How can it tell between a stolen program and a wiped phone that is getting reinstalled with backed up apk's?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Several simple steps:
- install software only from well known web sites, Android Market, Handagoo, SlideMe, etc.
- try to use trials and if it does not exists but you want to try, contact with developers. In most cases developer will provide you version for testing.
- if your phone is placed into black list, then you can contact "blacklist" vendor for explanation and fixing.
jashsu said:
Riiiight... because if you give pirates the option to pay they'll definitely all pay right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You see - that's your problem - you want to fight the enemy instead of prevent war.
In my country there are many people who would pay for android programs because they are quite cheap. But we have no access to paid market. That is why we download apps illegaly.
Now, what do you think will faster stop us from stealing apps:
A. Calling us pirates and thieves
B. Giving us access to paid apps
su27 said:
Now, what do you think will faster stop us from stealing apps:
A. Calling us pirates and thieves
B. Giving us access to paid apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are making the incredibly flawed assumption that piracy only happens because people have no access to the paid market. Are some people put in this situation? Yes, probably. But the majority of pirates likely DO have access to the paid market and simply don't want to pay.
I am a bit confused, what does this ban people from? The market in it's entirety?
If that is the case, I would think you'd see an outburst of pirating once people couldn't access the market anymore. And that would also prevent people who may not feel like dishing out $100 for a navigation solution from purchasing numerous $1-10 programs that they would actually use on a daily basis. I think this methodology is flawed.
Piracy will never be completely stopped. However, making it harder for people to pirate your software is the best prevention. Instead of saying "Oh, you might have installed a pirated copy of XXX on your device, so now you can't purchase any more programs legitimately, so keep on stealing!". Due diligence falls on the hands of the software creators. If piracy is something you want to prevent (or at least inhibit) for your software, create an IMEI checking device key required to be granted after receipt (and clearance) of payment. Similar to CoPilot, granted it still gets cracked - it is much harder and much less widespread, and a simple update renders it useless to those who used the cracked version (check all over these forums for people complaining about it).
Also, implement trials that don't require the user to pay for them, giving them only 24 hours to try something out before they decide they need their money back. Even Microsoft lets users go 30 days without activation (last I checked) to try out Windows. They do not (to the best of my knowledge) make great attempts to prevent their software from being copied, but instead make it harder on those who do pirate it. Blocking system updates (of course everything has a workaround or crack, but making it harder on someone is oftentimes a great deterrent), preventing new feature installation, etc.
I am not condoning piracy, nor am I condemning software publishers. Just trying to make a point, which is this:
If you take someone who has stolen a program (for whatever reason/justification they may think of) and punish them by revoking their access to purchase said program (or any other program), you have thus reinforced their reason/justification to not purchase any programs.
Now, i may be wrong here, but looking at their source code to integrate into applications, there seem to be 2 things: 1) the device has to have a data connection, otherwise the code doesnt know whether the device is blacklisted or not, at which point it defaults to assuming it isnt, which overall is a good thing for users who have paid but for whatever reason dont have network at that time, however it is easy enough to stop an application from accessing the network, or even a specific site (ie the site for your imei number on their page).
secondly, is this meant to run on the first run of an app, or every run? if it is every run then i can see people getting annoyed by the unnecessary data usage, whereas if it is only on the first run then someone still has access to all their pirated apps from before they were on the database.
please note the only coding i have done is some fairly simple C, so i could be wrong, but anyone can check this if they want: http://www.artfulbits.com/Articles/Samples/Piracy/Integration.aspx
I think that by now most people know that I don't honeycoat things, so I'll just say it... this idea is RETARDED.
1) The application needs to use the API to get the IMEI. If you start using the IMEI to blacklist phones, a minor modification to the API causes the application to always read a string of 0's. Defeated.
2) The application needs PERMISSION to read the IMEI (android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE). If you start requiring programs to have this permission, people will simply DENY it this permission (yes, it IS possible to block a permission)... this is ESPECIALLY the case when the application has *no good reason* to read the phone state.
3) As has been mentioned before in this thread, HOW DO YOU KNOW that an application you are downloading is pirated? Many applications are FREE to download, and virtually NONE of the pirated apps are labeled as "THIS IS PIRATED".
4) Connection to the internet can be EASILY blocked. Lots of ways... firewall, hosts, permissions, etc. Again, defeated.
Oh, and to those saying crap like access to paid market won't stop piracy, NOBODY SAID IT WOULD!!! It *WILL* reduce it though, since there ARE people out there who WOULD buy apps *IF THEY COULD*.
daveid said:
I am a bit confused, what does this ban people from? The market in it's entirety?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read the description again more carefully. This does not impact a user's ability to access the Market, as it is not a Google product. In case your comprehension is lacking, i'll explain it very simply:
1. A developer decides to use the Artfulbits Anti Piracy Database (shortened AAPD) with its app.
2. A user downloads this AAPD-enabled app from the market.
3. When said app is run, it sends the IMEI of the device to the Artfulbits server. The server returns a color code corresponding to the number of times that IMEI has been reported by other AAPD-enabled apps for piracy. The app can then do whatever it wants with that information. This can be anything from deleting itself to crippling its own functionality.
4. App can also detect if has been pirated (by checking to see if the app has an entry in the user's personal Market account or some other method). If the app detects it is pirated, it will send a report to AAPD.
Another point Artfulbits failed to consider is that not all Android devices will have IMEIs to report.
Is piracy really that much of a problem? I mean most apps cost <3€ and I don't think I am the only one who values his time higher than saving 3€. I rather pay once and get updates via Market than check warez-sites for updates, and I think that most think that way?
There are just two apps that I ever considered to pirate. One was a dictionary for 20$ but I ended up buying it. The other is CoPilot which I would never buy since I don't own a car, but since it is not cracked anyway, I was not forced to really think about it.
I don't see anything good coming from that database. I.e. if my phone would be entered by mistake, you can imagine what problems that would cause for devs whose apps I bought, which I assume would suddenly stop working then.
You really need to think about whether the negative side-effects of such measures like this database are worth the (presumably very small) benefit.
I have been using Appbrain to find and install new apps. However since putting in Froyo (which I LOVE otherwise) I am finding a lot of apps that are listed in appbrain but that aren't found in the market.
Is this just a version issue (ie the developer said it only works on specific versions) or is something else going on?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=687371
Just wondering how much searching you did before posting.
Quite a lot, actually, but since I'm not sure what it means for an app to be protected or whether the ones I'm not finding are protected, that thread didn't stand out to me. Frankly I still don't know if that will fix my problem, but I am certainly willing to try it.
Please keep in mind that there are those of us who are just learning, and sometimes we don't know all the ins and outs.
Oh, one other thing - if "protected" means "paid", those are not the ones I'm having trouble with. I am unable to see apps in the market that are free. Examples include:
NYTimes
Epicurious
Call Track
PAC-MAN
What kind of device do you have? And in which country are you?
A number of apps are not available for small-screen devices, or outside the USA. AppBrain shows all apps that are available for big screens in the US, so browsing it from a different device may sometimes let you find apps that the market won't allow you to download.
I have a project that I'm trying to do which is a database, and really I need it to be available as an app on phones, but with the ability to upload/download records from a shared database online.
I.e. local shell where data records can be entered, and either just stored/retrieved locally, or uploaded to the online database for others with the same app to access and vice versa.
I've looked at Memento and HandBase and in terms of the local database side of things they look good because they can be customised easily (for a database no-nothing like me), but I have no idea about whether they can do the online bit or how I would do that.
Are there any services which would offer online storage/sharing (ideally free to at least test!) of the data from apps like these? And if these particular app examples won't do the online bit is there one that anyone knows of that would do what I want?
I'm no good at databases but find apps at this level easy enough to use. So it'd need to be reasonably idiotproof. Probably am asking too much here, but thought it's worth asking in case there is something that suits my needs without needing to be a database boffin.
As the icing on the cake, it would be great if it could also be used on desktops as well. Does such a thing exist that does all this and can be set up by a simpleton?
Thanks for any useful suggestions in advance.
Actually, the more I read about Memento, the more it looks like it can pretty much do all of this, fairly easily via google docs and/or their own servers.
From the look of it also, if I wanted a database that required payment for access I'd just take a paypal payment for instance, and then grant the user access via adding their email address to the list of permitted users? Think that's how it works but if anyone uses Memento and can confirm this sort of thing that'd be cool.
So, there have been a ton of complaints about the facebook app on windows phone 8. Am I missing something? Why would anyone put an app on thier WP8 phone, when the People Hub ties all that together? I don't even have a facebook app installed, because everything I need to do is done from the hub.I can post an update, check in, see my notifications, whats new specific to my stuff or my friends that I have grouped exclusive.
So what am I missing?
Nothing. Some people are not used to having working things out of the box, so they just download apps to replace what the system already does.
My point exactly. I would even go much more further, I would ban all FB, Twitter... apps from the market since they r not needed at all. Instead, I would want some RDP apps for free, also some good database apps etc...
Good! I thought it was just me! Thanks guys.
Sent from my wicked sexy HTC 8X windows phone using Board Express
There is quite some functionality in the Apps though that is not available in the Hub. It's conversation views in Twitter or Groups in Facebook. If you use those Features you can't rely on the People Hub alone.
StevieBallz said:
There is quite some functionality in the Apps though that is not available in the Hub. It's conversation views in Twitter or Groups in Facebook. If you use those Features you can't rely on the People Hub alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Groups in facebook? Isn't that the same as Groups in the stock app? I don't do twitter, so cant answer to that. But still have found more functionality as well as easier interface when using the stock app on the phone.
I think OP has to look at things way wider. Maybe you just treat your phone more personal...
1)Facebook app can allow me lend my friend/families the phone and he can have a quick look at his facebook. (more social)
2)Facebook allow me to take control of another account I own( not saying about pages though, not sure WP8 facebook app can allow users to manage the page we owned)
3)respond to friend request.
4)As for myself, I have subscribe to many funny pages and news ones, the endless timeline give me look at what I have missed unlike the facebook/twitter integration,it does limits certain number of news/tweets and we can't scroll down after that.
I think these are the things you missing, might be more when compare to facebook apps on other platform since facebook app on wp has lesser feature.
sylau90 said:
I think OP has to look at things way wider. Maybe you just treat your phone more personal...
1)Facebook app can allow me lend my friend/families the phone and he can have a quick look at his facebook. (more social)
2)Facebook allow me to take control of another account I own( not saying about pages though, not sure WP8 facebook app can allow users to manage the page we owned)
3)respond to friend request.
4)As for myself, I have subscribe to many funny pages and news ones, the endless timeline give me look at what I have missed unlike the facebook/twitter integration,it does limits certain number of news/tweets and we can't scroll down after that.
I think these are the things you missing, might be more when compare to facebook apps on other platform since facebook app on wp has lesser feature.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, my friends are goofballs. If I let them have access to my phone, I get crazy posts on FB, and my profile picture suddenly changes to a crotch picture. So, no one gets to screw with my phone except the better half (and now Jr thanks to Kids Corner). But then again, I do the same to them!
And I don't have more than 1 facebook account, but I see where you can add accounts, so maybe someone who has two accounts can try to add an account under thier different one? Might allow it, although, I think it would merge the two, which could become confusing.
And I have not noticed friend requests, so will have to see if I get one recently and see how that works.
I see where your coming from, guess since I am not a power user I don't utilize all the capabilities that FB has, nor the native / 3rd party app.
Thanks for clarifying, FINALLY some one did! Thanks!
Groups are not the same as WP Groups (well, something similar exists with the lists Feature but that's an entirely different Topic).
Facebook Groups can have members and have there own pin wall, calendar, etc. You can use them e.g. to bundle all the Information on a certain Topic like e.g. when you are part of a certain Club. To my knowledge I can't Access those from the People Hub.
I'm only using two of them but those pretty frequentlly. There are other Features not used by everyone but rather important to others that are not available in the People Hub.
Thanks for the info!
Sent from my wicked sexy HTC 8X windows phone using Board Express
It's missing a lot of the interaction you'd get from the website or a third-party app, for instance:
The messaging app does not pick up Facebook message threads, for one (Just chats).
You can't edit your own status updates.
You can't friend/unfriend people.
The Facebook People Hub is meant more for getting the basic info on people that you have on your contacts list and to keep them in the loop on you. That's it. I think these limitations are by design.