I'm getting requests for a trial version of my app. Assume for the moment that I'm not concerned with piracy (I have other mechanisms in place to defeat that).
One approach that occurs to me is upon first launch of the app I write the date into the shared preferences database. Let's call it the "incept date" like in the movie Blade Runner. Then each subsequent launch checks the stored date against the current date. If trial period has expired, it pops up a Market purchase screen for the non- trial version of the app. The problem with this, I believe, is that clearing the application data from the application management screen will also clear the saved date in the shared preferences. A slightly more heavy-weight (and intrusive) option is to write the user account name to web storage, along with the incept date on first launch. Then the app can check there to see if the trial has expired for that account name. The web storage could be set up to be write- only from the app so even a clever snooper wouldn't be able to undo it. This starts to sound a lot like the existing Android Market server- based licensing infrastructure and it occurs to me that Google could make this a lot easier for all of us by providing some simple hooks to offer trial versions. Anyway, I'm interested to hear how others are offering trial versions. -- 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
