After getting reports as well of my own paid (and hence copy- protected) app being unavailable to Hero and Eris users, I've done some more investigation on this issue. I'm 95% sure now that the issue is that these handsets are stuck at Android v1.5, which uses the old (pre-donut) Market client. The strong circumstantial evidence seems to be that this client cannot now see copy-protected apps on the Market.
If any of you have access to a 1.5 handset (Hero, Eris, Cliq, any Samsung), try it for yourself. Open the Market and look for paid apps, any paid apps. The only ones I could find were Advanced Task Manager (which, although $0.99, isn't copy-protected) and DoggCatcher (mentioned in this thread as having copy-protection removed). That's it. My own paid app isn't visible - though my free ones are - and overall, I did a lot of browsing around in a sea of free apps. No paid ones to be seen. As a further test, I did a search for one of my free apps and found it fine. I then turned on copy protection from my Developer Console and it could no longer be found on the 1.5 client. I turned it off, and the app came back (though it did take a few minutes). That's pretty damn conclusive in my book. It's also pretty serious for any developer trying to earn a living from Android. 1.5 devices are still 24% of the market, thanks to HTC and others dragging their feet issuing updates (source: http://androidandme.com/2009/11/news/what-does-android-fragmentation-look-like/). In addition to developers generally losing a quarter of their sales, my own most worrying cases are these: 1. One of my free apps is a 7-day trial, with the license available as a separate paid "app" on the market. I have customers who are ready and willing to pay for my app - only they can't because the license isn't visible from their phone. 2. Users who need to wipe or replace their phones, then being unable to reinstall apps *which they have already paid for*. Now, this is clearly a bug which has been introduced on the Market server fairly recently; case 2 above is someone who was able to install the app once (from his 1.5 Hero), but now can't. And clearly, this bug didn't exist when we were all on 1.5. Therefore, it could also be fixed server-side. The trouble is getting the attention of the necessary people at Google to do so. Apart from removing copy-protection altogether, is there any possible way to address this from our side? String On Nov 23, 1:45 am, eric <[email protected]> wrote: > I released a new version of my app (DoggCatcher) to themarketand > removed copy protection > > I did this after successful testing of an upgrade from the copy > protected version to the new non copy protected version on a 1.5 > handset. > > I also confirmed with one of my users that my app became visible in > the SprintHeromarket. Today I stopped by a verizon store and > confirmed that my app is now in available on the Erismarket. > > This seems to be pretty good evidence that the copy protection was > hiding apps from some phone's markets. > > It has been about 24 hours since the removal of copy protection and I > haven't heard of any upgrade issues thus far. > > On Nov 20, 11:58 pm, eric <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Yep, back when the bug originally surfaced, that was the only > > resolution I was aware of. > > > On Nov 20, 11:18 pm, Greg Donald <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 8:46 PM, eric <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Greg, you're aware of the copy-protection flipping bug right? > > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/threa... > > > > > It is reported to have been fixed in 1.5 but I haven't heard of anyone > > > > confirm it via testing. If it is still a problem, you wouldn't notice > > > > a problem until your users get their next update of your app. > > > > > That's what I was referring to when I mentioned testing. Matt Hall > > > > said he was going to be testing it (at the end of the thread), so I > > > > was waiting to hear from him. I'm also trying to find one of my users > > > > that could help me test as I flipped it. > > > > So users bitten by this bug should solve it by uninstall/reinstall ? > > > > -- > > > Greg Donaldhttp://destiney.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" 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-developers?hl=en
