Hi all,
We are looking at releasing a new Android device, and have a few ideas for modifying the Android platform for this release, but we are having a hard time fulfilling these ideas. The product will be using OS4.2. I have copied details below for any guidance or advise:
1) Removing the App overview button. We want to remove the button on the home page that is selected to open the App overview page. How can we achieve this?
2) Automatic WiFi selection. It would be beneficial to the product to have the WiFi only on when in certain Apps (all Apps will be preinstalled to the device). If it is any easier, we could also have the WiFi go off automatically in certain devices. Preferably the former, but if one is easier than the other, we don't mind.
There are other modifications we will be undertaking, however these have been achieved. If someone could provide assistance with this, that would be great.
DJC
Is there anyone that can assist with this?
Related
Hi,
I am about to assist in deploying a large amount of android device. The requirement is, that the devices (700+) need to be charged, configured and provisioned with the relevant applications for the end-users before delivery.
Device info:
Android 2.3.3
Samsung Galaxy SII
This is not windows mobile, so I am unsure if I can code/design a solution to avoid this enormous manual task.
Is it possible to code something for an sd-card that will be automatically triggered on insertion (as on WM)? This would then provision the device etc.
Is it possible to bypass the initial prompts - To my knowledge you will be prompted for entering the info for your google accounts?
If above is not possible, do I then need to create 700+ google accounts?
Hope someone can help
Brgds
It can also be via an active sync (ish) connection using a computer du provision the device?
A suggestion I received from another forum, was that I could: Make an update.zip for apps .Copy on SD card .Boot in recovery . Apply update.zip.
Would this be a feasible way to go?
odaugaard said:
A suggestion I received from another forum, was that I could: Make an update.zip for apps .Copy on SD card .Boot in recovery . Apply update.zip.
Would this be a feasible way to go?
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We just deployed 100 EVO 4G's prior to the deployment we sent a mass email requesting the users create their own Google account and email us the info so we could setup their new phone with email and corporate email access. It took awhile to setup 100 android devices but it went smooth.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
You can use SureMDM from 42Gears for mass provisioning, application deployment and password policy enforcement on Android devices, including smartphones and tablets.
It does not require Google accounts. Install the agent directly on the devices and then use the web-based console to perform all of the above actions from one place. For e.g. you can push an apk on hundreds of devices with a single click.
On non-rooted phones installation of .apks will prompt the user to continue the action.
Free trial is available on the website 42Gears dot com
Similar situation here and am fielding any suggestions or ideas if things have changed in the last several months regarding deployment.
Scenerio:
Deploying approx 200 Asus Transformers in an educational setting
Wish List:
Setup all units using the same Google account, populate static name on the lockscreen, install 3 specific apps on each and the ability to identify each one individually on the market for individual app install by an "administrator".
Currently we are doing each unit manually and then having to wait a few minutes for the Market to populate the new unit and then changing the nickname to the bldg/room number. If we don't wait for the Market to refresh for the new device they will all show as Asus Transformer TF101 and obviously we will not know which device to send specific apps to when they are requested.
There just has to be a better way! I checked out SureMDM and it has a lot of features that we really don't need and it doesn't appear to accomplish what we do need.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated!
I know this is an old thread, but what about rooting and building a custom ROM for each unique device to let it do what you want? I'm thinking of doing something similar at the moment.
stephendt0 said:
I know this is an old thread, but what about rooting and building a custom ROM for each unique device to let it do what you want? I'm thinking of doing something similar at the moment.
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Probably would work although Google now has a way to streamline deployment:
unfortunately I cannot post the direct link but goto developer dot android dot com/edu
maybe either through API level, or by querying market info
Reason: i want to check on GB before I upgrade to ICS, which apps will not work.
don't know if relevant but it is for SGS II
Thx in advance
repost from here as nobody could really answer my question
can't believe I'm the only one with that issue
maybe an idea for a dev? would be willing to pay for that ;-)
I don't see why this can't be done:
-http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2695746/how-to-get-a-list-of-installed-android-applications-and-pick-one-to-run
-http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/pm/PackageManager.html
-http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#getApplicationInfo()
I haven't thought through the problem just yet, but its seems to be doable. If you don't find an app soon, I will start working on a script that does it and, if successful, a proper, free software app. I am hoping the available methods won't require something as stupid as launching each app fully. But again, I haven't thought it through. Thanks for the idea btw.
EDIT:
Made a little more effort
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/android-developers/dXLACRIizKc
I will work on something this weekend and get back with y'all.
EDIT 2:
So it looks like I would need maxSdkVersion which I don't find in the API. Furthermore, it is strongly suggested that one not use maxSdkVersion when building an app so that doesn't sound all that useful. I have received another, much more complicated suggestion that may do what I want, but I will have to look hard at it. Looks like I'm going nowhere in my effort. Always open to suggestions. More to come later this weekend.
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I thought this was mostly a straightforward task using the API's exposure to AndroidManifest.xml. As per my previously posted link to an Android Developers discussion on the topic, my approach is dead in the water as far as I can see. I did try to find an answer though to the best of my limited ability. If anyone has or ever solves this problem (I consider it a problem) I would hope they find the this thread.
Thanks for the learning experience. I give up.
Most older apps will work fine on ICS, its pretty backwards compatible. If the app uses legacy menus the button will appear in the old lower left hand corner location instead of the upper right hand corner like apps written for ICS.
i'm no dev so bear with me if i write stupid stuff
one likely but not very promising sounding way might be to use android:targetSdkVersion as "As Android evolves with each new version, some behaviors and even appearances might change. However, if the API level of the platform is higher than the version declared by your app's targetSdkVersion, the system may enable compatibility behaviors to ensure that your app continues to work the way you expect. You can disable such compatibility behaviors by specifying targetSdkVersion to match the API level of the platform on which it's running. For example, setting this value to "11" or higher allows the system to apply a new default theme (Holo) to your app when running on Android 3.0 or higher and also disables screen compatibility mode when running on larger screens (because support for API level 11 implicitly supports larger screens)."
question though is how many apps actually use this?
However after having read this re android:maxSdkVersion "Warning: Declaring this attribute is not recommended. First, there is no need to set the attribute as means of blocking deployment of your application onto new versions of the Android platform as they are released. By design, new versions of the platform are fully backward-compatible. Your application should work properly on new versions, provided it uses only standard APIs and follows development best practices. Second, note that in some cases, declaring the attribute can result in your application being removed from users' devices after a system update to a higher API Level. Most devices on which your application is likely to be installed will receive periodic system updates over the air, so you should consider their effect on your application before setting this attribute." (taking from here) i now don't know how important my op is, but then why do all app devs release new versions "fixing things" for ICS?
One pretty significant example which actually currently will prevent my phone from getting ICS for now is that the subsonic app in the current version produces stuttering when playing audio while downloading (problem description here).
Isn't there any way to instead of searching the phone searching google play/android market instead?
Randi said:
maybe either through API level, or by querying market info
Reason: i want to check on GB before I upgrade to ICS, which apps will not work.
don't know if relevant but it is for SGS II
Thx in advance
repost from here as nobody could really answer my question
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Here's a list of some working games/apps for ICS
Theoretically an Android app (or a combo of say App Engine and Android) could find your installed apps, seacrh Play for said apps and then scrape the page for relevant information. Doesn't sound to hard, but I didn't think about too hard either. Perhaps I will check out what useful info is on Play and how feasible scraping its markup will be. I will get back at y'all if I do.
Hi all
I am developing an app in which I would like to allow user-generated content. Specifically, this will be a remote control application, and I would like people to be able to add custom layouts, capable of sending "events" through the app, but I am not sure how to do so.
There are a couple of ways I have been looking at. The first is using a WebView so that this content can be developed in HTML. This would be nice and easy from their point of view, but it does have it's downsides, especially where security is concerned. If I was to do this, I would want to bind a "send" Javascript interface to my app, but disallow any other Javascript (I do not, for example, want it to be able to relay the button presses to some other place). I'm not sure exactly how I could do this.
The second way I can see would be to use an XML file and build up the layout from that. Here, the only way I could see it to parse the XML file and programatically build the layout. This seems a lot of work, and I would rather avoid that.
A third way would be to import a layout purely as an image plus an XML file describing hot-spots for triggering events. This seems to have too many limitations.
The final option is to expose an interface to other apps, and allow users to build separate applications which hook in to provide these layouts. This seems a terrible approach for such a simple objective.
So, does anyone know of a simple way to do what I am after, or any comments on the options listed above? Has anyone done anything similar, or know of an open-source project which acheives something similar?
Thanks in advance
Hi guys, not sure if this is the right place to do this but i've got a question i hope i can get clarified here with you experts
I am a PM that is in charge of a managing the delivery and development of a business's mobile application. Recently the company is looking to get rid of the incumbent developer due to unprofessional-ism and exorbitant fees. The other technology partner i am directly engaging with is a newly appointed development house and is tasked to clone the app and add additional features the incumbent refuses to add on.
Come launch date, the business requires the new app to replace the old app. To the existing customer base, the goal is to ensure that the transition is as seamless as possible. They are hoping that when existing users open the app, they will be prompted to install an update where the old one is then replaced with the old one. As such, is it possible for the new technology partners to this? What are the necessary steps required? I am trying to ensure that all necessary precautions and dependencies are covered to ensure any potential backlash / fallout. Is it as simple as obtaining the app certificate and ensuring the apk is named exactly the same? Any advice would be helpful.
The worst case scenario here would be to get the users to reinstall the app entirely or treat it as a completely separate app. :crying:
You need the signature keys of your first developer to sign the new APK which needs to have the same package name. And access to the dev console. Then you can upload the new app which will be treated as every other update by Google Play. Without changing the first app you won't be able to force the users to update AFAIK.
Fellhuhn said:
You need the signature keys of your first developer to sign the new APK which needs to have the same package name. And access to the dev console. Then you can upload the new app which will be treated as every other update by Google Play. Without changing the first app you won't be able to force the users to update AFAIK.
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Hi thanks for the reply. Much appreciated! Would this be similar for iOS as well?
Relating to the last statement. What do you mean by "without changing the first app.."
androFRUST said:
Hi thanks for the reply. Much appreciated! Would this be similar for iOS as well?
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I don't have enough experience with iOS to comment on that.
Relating to the last statement. What do you mean by "without changing the first app.."
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While you can upload a new version of the same app the users would still have to manually (or automatically if their device is configured that way) download it. Google released a "forced update" API a while ago. If that is included in your old app that might help. Otherwise you would have to add it manually which would require access to the source code. But then the users would have to manually update too so it would be quite useless.
So one way to force them to update is to disable all APIs the app might use but that might alienate the users as they have no clue why it stopped working. So as long as you have no notification system that is working right now you have to depend on your users updating.
I'm a long time developer but brand new to Android, with my having past experience developing in Unix systems as well as a lot using Cygwin in Windows. I have a newly-installed App that seems popular called 'C Locker'. So far, I've just got the Free version because I'm trying it out to see if it does what I need. Unfortunately, it's now crashing with the Settings that I've enabled, and as a general developer, I'm interested in seeing if I can glean information from the Bugreport (or whatever else I can use...perhaps even gdb on the device itself?) to help me know what specific Settings might be the problem being that there are so many of them and I would prefer to gain some type of help from my phone in figuring out what the bad settings might be that I've enabled that are causing the problem rather than to spend all day flipping them around. I've already scanned through the Bugreport after uploading it to my computer, examining all of the references it makes in there to "com.ccs.lockscreen" with this apparently being the process name for the C-Locker program. I've seen indications in there where it indeed shows that it has crashed, but I couldn't yet discern if it is able to give me pointers as to what the cause of the crashes might have been. Is that possible to gain such information out of these Bugreport files? Or is there a way to run it directly in gdb on my device to perhaps see the stack at the time that it crashes, for which the names provided might help to discern what specifically it was trying but failing to do at the time? If it helps, as an intended future Android developer, I've already gotten Android SDK set up on my computer, although I haven't yet really used it much to speak of for anything. I also have adb working from my computer to the smartphone and even have rooted it using a rare method being that I have an older phone purchased years ago via Amazon that I didn't activate until about a month ago. (It's an LG G4 VS986 version 13B so I couldn't use the popular rooting method for version 11A but instead had to use the "Injection" method which took me FOREVER although I finally got it to work!) And just in case it helps perhaps even to bypass a direct answer to this question (although it will still of course be appreciated), my Settings within C Locker involve having set it to be a Device Admin and to bring it up as the first App upon Reboot as well as I've selected within the Root category to make it a System App as well as my then having Disabled ALL things that typically show on the screen (such as 9-1-1, camera, Etc). I had left it set to the default "Gesture" Unlock method, but whenever I bring up the App again and go into "Unlock Methods", it now immediately crashes each time (as well as upon Restarting the phone!). So this covers the majority of the most significant of the Settings that I've made on it so far to the best of my recollection. And I feel that if I could get some indications from the system as to what the specific errors may be when its crashing (or from a stack trace or whatever else), then it might help me to discern what specific Settings are creating the problem being that perhaps I just have an odd (rare) combination of Settings on it that I can tweak to get it working. My goal is to ultimately get a lockscreen App that I can use a Pattern type Unlock with that allows an UNLIMITED number of Failed Attempts (so that it won't ever Factory Reset my phone after the 10th or ANY number of failures!!!). I also--as mentioned above--don't want ANY shortcuts whatsoever being accessible BEFORE the phone is unlocked...not even 9-1-1. Anyway, so if there's a way to glean information from the Bugreport (or from whatever other methods available) to find the specific cause (involved errors) of this or any other App that's crashing that I do NOT have the source code for (being that I of course am not its developer) then it will be greatly appreciated to know how to best find this information. (And I promise that I've already searched extensively on Google but couldn't filter out its replies all being based on the idea that I'm the developer of the App that's crashing, with my even trying adding phrases such as "not my app" and "not the developer of" Etc to no avail...lol). Thanks.
By the way, if I shouldn't have combined the 'C Locker' Settings details into this post, then please just let me know because I'm new to posting here. Also, unfortunately, if I don't receive any help with this right away, then I'll be forced to start testing different Setting combinations anyway, which would then of course solve this problem but without knowing truly what exactly was causing the issue. Even if so, it will still be helpful in the long run with other potential App crashes to get the answer to this general question.
Unless not disabled by user, all runtime activities in Android are logged, so app crashes and their reason also. You can view this log by means of Android's logcat command-line tool or by means of a LogCat Viewer app. My POV: logcat is essential for determining what an app and the Android OS are doing while the app is running on a device.
BTW: Android's log can be filtered per package, too.
Thanks!
jwoegerbauer said:
Unless not disabled by user, all runtime activities in Android are logged, so app crashes and their reason also. You can view this log by means of Android's logcat command-line tool or by means of a LogCat Viewer app. My POV: logcat is essential for determining what an app and the Android OS are doing while the app is running on a device.
BTW: Android's log can be filtered per package, too.
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Thank you, and since posting this, I've been learning more about Android Studio and have used it to actually see the stack trace within the "Android Monitor" pane there in order to find the instant reason why the/ANY (meaning 3rd party as well) App is crashing at the time! Thanks again for the help!