Related
Now let me just say right here and now that I'm not a coder so hang with me. It seems to me that google has an issue with pirates (due to the blocking of paid apps for dev phones) until they create a better solution I was hoping somebody might create some kind of module that any dev could use to prevent and curb piracy. I know it's not a huge deal as there's really not that much out there for downloading paid .apk but there are some.
What I would do breaks down into two parts, preventing redistribution of the .apk and then nagging users who have an outdated version (as with download-copy-refund-reinstall). If you made the program run at the moment it was installed and pull and then archive a piece of unique info such as the phone number and then force the whole app to double check the internal archive to the actual phone number it would not only prevent the giving away of apps but archiving the initial release person's info to the dev.
Step two is to force a version check from the app to a sever that has the current version. If you made some kind of update (even if very so minor about once a month) and gave let's say a month so that you're not forcing folks to update that day you could then make the program "nag" a user into updating (that you cannot do if you didn't pay for it) and after some length of time have the program stop working at all.
Now yes it is work for something that may only cost .99 but if the anti-piracy measures were open source then you could not only retrofit an existing program but build new pirate proof apps.
Thoughts?
Both methods are still fairly easily crackable. Just like it's impossible to "DRM" game cd's, music, and video - preventing piracy of software is a very difficult and always flawed things.
You can make copy protection pretty decent but eventually it's all still very crackable. There is no 'good' copy protection. If Google is waiting until they do have a 'good' system for it - it will never happen.
And yes, I actually am a coder with commercial interests that are copy "protected". In the end the question is always if people find it valuable enough to purchase or their time invaluable enough to spend it on cracking these things.
How about release all your code under an open source license and get paid through donations?
I LOL'd! Seriously, if you ever went that route you'd know usually people hardly ever donate, at all. You'll be working for $0.01 an hour. That's ok if it's a hobby project, but bigger projects are just not feasable that way.
It also depends a lot on the community though. For example, I've made freeware tools for gameserver admins and got a lot of donations. I've made mods for games that practically every player used - and these were RCE games, so they cost $$$ - and the total of donations was less than $100 for 100's of hours of work. It depends on the situation, the crowd, how useful the software is, etc, but in the end it comes down to people being cheapskates, but in a weird way.
By 'in a weird way' I mean that it is rather strange that if you ask for donations, hardly anybody will donate $5, but if you were to charge $5, lots of people would purchase and not care about the $5.
Of course this is not true for everybody. Personally I try to donate to free projects that I use - and I know there are several people who also do this. But it's not the 'general public'.
this isnt an issue about open source vs charging for a product. Nobody is doing anything about piracy for this particular handset. it so easy to steal these apps, and if nothing is done to stay ahead of the curve then everyone suffers. do we have to wait till the average user figures it out, or till somebody makes a blog and/or a youtube post on how to release paid apps and that even non root users can pirate these in seconds?
one of two people need to step up, either the devs and try and be a step ahead of the crackers or what i imagine as widespread piracy and the degrading of all app quality.
some have said that people wont bother stealing a .99 app, but i disagree.
robotmaxtron said:
this isnt an issue about open source vs charging for a product. Nobody is doing anything about piracy for this particular handset. it so easy to steal these apps, and if nothing is done to stay ahead of the curve then everyone suffers. do we have to wait till the average user figures it out, or till somebody makes a blog and/or a youtube post on how to release paid apps and that even non root users can pirate these in seconds?
one of two people need to step up, either the devs and try and be a step ahead of the crackers or what i imagine as widespread piracy and the degrading of all app quality.
some have said that people wont bother stealing a .99 app, but i disagree.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i believe chainfire answered the question already, there is nothing they can do. Are you a dev? The only ones suffering are the developers. Piracy is here and no one can really do anything about it. There are more important issues to deal with in the world then piracy. Look at smartphone files - cabs - wm, you dont have to pay for one of those anymore they are out there for the taking. How long have they been around? One look at their situation and its pretty clear nothing can be done.
ummm
piracy is nothing new.... piracy has been around since back on the commodore 64, i cant even explain how many shoebox's of 5 1/4" floppys of games. Pirating windows..... the first version ever. Theres no way to stop it, what is made can always be undone. The use of online connectivity is the only way to stop people from pirating software. Those "servers" are at the expense of the company that released the software. All installs have to have a "phone-home". Why do you think WifiRouter for WM (i think thats what its called) can never be cracked for more than a week. Because the serial numbers are registered in a database, and hardware id's and whatnots are sent regarding that individual phone. If more than a few of set "phones" with the serial number given is used. That serial is blacklisted and deactivated. The software checks for serial status everytime it loads. Very good way of using such software. But others are a little different, like programs that can be cracked using a serial number, but the program is in a site that normally wouldnt ever have acccess to internet (construction sites, etc.) Its just something that cant be stopped.....
p.s. http://tinyurl.com/dczb66 and you will realize what chainfire meant by ruin and destroying software due to copy protection
piracy done right
they need to stop trying to figure out how to solve the problem and just say there is no problem. there is no single "market" for software for my pc.... there will never be one for android. developers will never be comfortable trusting security they have no say so in. apps will come from all edges of the cloud and google is sadly mistaken if they think they can control it.
here is what they should do.. Nothing
Let the developers on their own find ways to secure their apps. wether it be a simple pin number or a log in. as developers make security hackers will break it, then the devs make more, its that cycle that made Linux work in the first place.
regardless of what google does people will start protecting their apk's
If you want to sell programs, do the following and you won't have a problem.
Don't worry about piracy (DRM, Copy Protection, etc)
Make a good product
Don't over-charge for the product
Be upfront with the support offerings
Offer a reasonable satisfaction guarantee if demo is not available
Trying to limit and stop piracy is a failing battle and will ultimately end up costing the developer in the long run.
I come from both sides of the track, i'm a pirate (aka lacking moral compass) and developer. When I come across good software at a reasonable price, I don't think twice about purchasing it.
You could do likesome programmers who sell their product online and on the market at the same time.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=487790
Thanks to the masterBaron I have this program on my dev phone and I live in france.
soundwire said:
How about release all your code under an open source license and get paid through donations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Windows Mobile version of Klaxon has had around 200,000 downloads, and I have received less than $200 in donations. I spent several months on that project. Donationware/open source is does not work.
robotmaxtron said:
What I would do breaks down into two parts, preventing redistribution of the .apk and then nagging users who have an outdated version (as with download-copy-refund-reinstall). If you made the program run at the moment it was installed and pull and then archive a piece of unique info such as the phone number and then force the whole app to double check the internal archive to the actual phone number it would not only prevent the giving away of apps but archiving the initial release person's info to the dev.
Step two is to force a version check from the app to a sever that has the current version. If you made some kind of update (even if very so minor about once a month)....
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd rather my number not be freely given out.
This would also be a problem if my number changed, but I don't buy apps that force version checks / expire / phone home. If it's good enough I look for a copy cleansed of such behavior, while i'd buy a good app without that behavior and if its not locked to hardware/providers. Copy protection can backfire and drive off customers.
How about release all your code under an open source license and get paid through donations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Although I have some open source projects this will never work... A lot of people just like to get everything for free and are actually upset when needed to pay 1€ for an application.
I have people send me like 20€ but this is a very rare case! I would be lucky to have at most one costless weekend of drinking in a month, but no way to actually make a living that way.
And if you look into the work put in to most open-source projects ( in terms of hours ) its better to just do 1% of that work for a boss and get payed a lot more. Ofcourse I love doing this and thats mainly the reason why I join open-source projects... Making some money is a nice aspect which "could" happen.
As for copy protection... Like cf stated... There isnt an uncrackable copy protection and if creating one takes up half of the time of your projects development how much good would it be in terms of earning money. Its not a copy-protection problem but its a mind-set problem... People just dont like paying for things they use everyday...
inpherno3 said:
piracy is nothing new.... piracy has been around since back on the commodore 64, i cant even explain how many shoebox's of 5 1/4" floppys of games. Pirating windows..... the first version ever. Theres no way to stop it, what is made can always be undone. The use of online connectivity is the only way to stop people from pirating software. Those "servers" are at the expense of the company that released the software. All installs have to have a "phone-home". Why do you think WifiRouter for WM (i think thats what its called) can never be cracked for more than a week. Because the serial numbers are registered in a database, and hardware id's and whatnots are sent regarding that individual phone. If more than a few of set "phones" with the serial number given is used. That serial is blacklisted and deactivated. The software checks for serial status everytime it loads. Very good way of using such software. But others are a little different, like programs that can be cracked using a serial number, but the program is in a site that normally wouldnt ever have acccess to internet (construction sites, etc.) Its just something that cant be stopped.....
p.s. http://tinyurl.com/dczb66 and you will realize what chainfire meant by ruin and destroying software due to copy protection
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bull****. WifiRouter or whatever it is could easily be cracked by using fake DNS servers, manually editing the servers to a custom, or bypassing the online checks completely.
Their system is crap, and any skilled cracker could defeat online checks in just a bit of work.
The only truly invincible copy protection I've seen are either hardware, or extremely internet based (something that relies on external servers so much that it's useless without them, such as MMOs). Hardware can be modded, and you can recreate the servers for internet based.
Gary13579 said:
Bull****. WifiRouter or whatever it is could easily be cracked by using fake DNS servers, manually editing the servers to a custom, or bypassing the online checks completely.
Their system is crap, and any skilled cracker could defeat online checks in just a bit of work.
The only truly invincible copy protection I've seen are either hardware, or extremely internet based (something that relies on external servers so much that it's useless without them, such as MMOs). Hardware can be modded, and you can recreate the servers for internet based.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or you could just remove the TPM (or Variant) requirements from the software like the Hackintosh version of OSX.
piracy won't ever be stoped.. might take a vbbit longer for some one to bypass it's protecting but it will always be cracked sooner or later
best thing u can do is.. as said before just make a good product be craeative, dont over-charge, people will buy it support you..
heck better is better to make 20 bucks thank nothing at all
Just one of my thoughts on developers...
Developers of apps and such have brought us some really useful creations that allow us to personalize our Android devices in almost anyway we desire. They spend countless hours, months, or even years developing these things which they give to us for our use.
While we use these creations, we find a bug or think of a new implementation for it. Now a developer will get new feature requests and choose to not make those changes because they have no time, not enough demand, or there's just no plan for it. On the other hand, we find a bug in it. We bring it to their attention and there's a chance that it will be fixed, maybe soon or in a later update. Maybe it doesn't get fixed but it still runs fairly well.
But what the unresponsive developers who basically make their apps for a quick buck and then the project is dead? Or the ones who don't listen to the supporters of their app at all? I know there's no obligation to listen to thoughts of the consumer but shouldn't the developer at least pay attention and be somewhat responsive?
Any thoughts/comments/disagreements/criticisms/hate on this are welcome.
Jamin13 said:
Just one of my thoughts on developers...
Developers of apps and such have brought us some really useful creations that allow us to personalize our Android devices in almost anyway we desire. They spend countless hours, months, or even years developing these things which they give to us for our use.
While we use these creations, we find a bug or think of a new implementation for it. Now a developer will get new feature requests and choose to not make those changes because they have no time, not enough demand, or there's just no plan for it. On the other hand, we find a bug in it. We bring it to their attention and there's a chance that it will be fixed, maybe soon or in a later update. Maybe it doesn't get fixed but it still runs fairly well.
But what the unresponsive developers who basically make their apps for a quick buck and then the project is dead? Or the ones who don't listen to the supporters of their app at all? I know there's no obligation to listen to thoughts of the consumer but shouldn't the developer at least pay attention and be somewhat responsive?
Any thoughts/comments/disagreements/criticisms/hate on this are welcome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess we are lucky in that the majority of Developers in the community are not demanding of donations or the 'quick buck'. Most do it to tinker in their spare time, to prove that it can be done, and to feed their passion. They are then gracious enough to share their works with us, everyday Joes, for nil thought of monetary gain (again, mostly).
It disheartens me greatly that the overwhelming majority of users now make the most ridiculous demands of Developers, expect a full-blown 'retail (bug-less)' experience, then have the gall to call Developers out if they decide to move away from the project, hit a brick wall or even just go to sleep!
Unfortunately I have even seen the odd Developer involved in this sort of behaviour, and it's certainly not limited to Junior members either, not by a long shot
These guys don't get paid, they're (generally) doing the best they can with what they've got, and they share with us out of their own goodwill. We use and try these things at our own risk. It's printed in big red letters at the top of most ROM threads these days, for good reason
With the onset of the 'smartphone revolution', it's amazing to read through a 50-page thread and watch how many people ask for each and every feature in a 'CWM flashable zip' because they can't, or won't, read through a few pages, or even do a search. I'd wager a fair few wouldn't even know what a Command Prompt or Fastboot was. These kids are flashing whatever looks 'cool' to their devices without so much as a clue to what it does (other than OMG an extra 0.1GHz! - example only), then expecting everyone else to pull them out of the **** when it goes pear-shaped ('I need flashable zip for...'), and having a bit of a go if something doesn't work, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to get past version 0.1.
I have great sympathy for Developers today, as they don't have a hope in Hell of keeping on top of this, nor keeping up with the ridiculous demands.
Even if we make a donation, it does not entitle us to any more support than the regular user who just hits the 'Thanks' button, or even just silently downloads and uses. It's called a donation for a reason. This is a community based on goodwill and sharing, although some days it certainly doesn't look that way.
I've bored you long enough Thankyou for asking the question and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. Remember, the Developers are the lifeblood of this community, and (thankfully) bad eggs among them are quite rare.
Take care.
juzz86 said:
I guess we are lucky in that the majority of Developers in the community are not demanding of donations or the 'quick buck'. Most do it to tinker in their spare time, to prove that it can be done, and to feed their passion. They are then gracious enough to share their works with us, everyday Joes, for nil thought of monetary gain (again, mostly).
It disheartens me greatly that the overwhelming majority of users now make the most ridiculous demands of Developers, expect a full-blown 'retail (bug-less)' experience, then have the gall to call Developers out if they decide to move away from the project, hit a brick wall or even just go to sleep!
Unfortunately I have even seen the odd Developer involved in this sort of behaviour, and it's certainly not limited to Junior members either, not by a long shot
These guys don't get paid, they're (generally) doing the best they can with what they've got, and they share with us out of their own goodwill. We use and try these things at our own risk. It's printed in big red letters at the top of most ROM threads these days, for good reason
With the onset of the 'smartphone revolution', it's amazing to read through a 50-page thread and watch how many people ask for each and every feature in a 'CWM flashable zip' because they can't, or won't, read through a few pages, or even do a search. I'd wager a fair few wouldn't even know what a Command Prompt or Fastboot was. These kids are flashing whatever looks 'cool' to their devices without so much as a clue to what it does (other than OMG an extra 0.1GHz! - example only), then expecting everyone else to pull them out of the **** when it goes pear-shaped ('I need flashable zip for...'), and having a bit of a go if something doesn't work, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to get past version 0.1.
I have great sympathy for Developers today, as they don't have a hope in Hell of keeping on top of this, nor keeping up with the ridiculous demands.
Even if we make a donation, it does not entitle us to any more support than the regular user who just hits the 'Thanks' button, or even just silently downloads and uses. It's called a donation for a reason. This is a community based on goodwill and sharing, although some days it certainly doesn't look that way.
I've bored you long enough Thankyou for asking the question and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. Remember, the Developers are the lifeblood of this community, and (thankfully) bad eggs among them are quite rare.
Take care.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, always nice to know others thoughts on an idea.
There are the dedicated devs who do spend vast amounts of time on their work and everyone (most everyone anyway) are quite appreciative of it. I'm more concerned with devs, whether new or old, just maybe responding. Not just toward reasonable (or ludicrous) requests but just a general question. I wouldn't look for them to respond to everyone who does ask something though, they would be there for days.
I'm just trying to port a recovery for my phone and cannot get a response from any of those respected and revered devs that have done all the work on those recoveries. I've done my fair share of Googling and asking around here and still have not been able to make any progress on it. There was one member who has been lending a hand but other than him, I haven't gotten any other responses.
It sounded like the first post was more about app devs and the second was about rom devs...
I was just talking about devs in general, not any specific kind. Could be ROMs, could be Apps, people will still ask for more and more and pester until they get what they want or until the developer gets fed up and: makes the changes, stops responding, or gets run off.
I just need to vent. I'm a fairly active developer for the android platform. I've created a number of kernel patches and applications that I have released at no charge to the community for about 10 or so devices.
All this I do in my "spare time", which I have very little of because I am a full time professional student who takes on 32 credit hour semesters.
Recently, since my 1994 geo prizm is literally falling apart and I was hoping to scrounge together a little bit of money to get a new car so I don't end up stranded on my way to class, I decided to release a paid application. Fastcharge / Force AC toggle which allows you to toggle on and off the force AC feature. A feature which I have personally implemented and released source patches for on a number of devices.
Not only in every thread where I released the patch on a device did I write up how to toggle the feature through the command line, but I also stated that I also implemented a toggle into my completely free application that you can also download from the market, IncrediControl.
In good faith and knowing how annoying licensing is, I elected to not include licensing in my application. This is a huge regret.
Within a couple days of releasing the application to the market I googled it to see if anyone was talking about it. One of the first links was to a piracy site where a user was requesting the widget, to which another user obliged and posted the apk to a filesharing site. Doing something I never though I would have to do, I filed a DMCA takedown request, which was answered quickly and the app was taken down. Monitoring the thread, every single time a link gets taken down, another user requests the app and the original user reuploads it, most recently to 11 different sites.
So now, after filing dozens of takedown requests. This user has decided to unzip my apk, change out the artwork, and now is going around releasing it as his own work.
Really, all this to avoid paying $1.50 (only ~$1 of it actually going to me) to an individual whose yearly income is low enough that he doesn't have to file taxes?
This disgusts me.
This is even worse than the 50% "order cancellation rate" that the widget has. I'm not stupid, I know exactly what users are doing, but yet initially I was willing to ignore it. But this has gone too far.
What is even the point of pissing off a developer so much that he is considering saying screw the platform all together? It doesn't even make sense. We, the developers improve your devices, generally at little or no cost, and this is how we're repaid. With ~50% of current users of the application having pirated it. To avoid paying just over $1.
Now before someone even counters with the "my area doesn't support paid applications" argument I've actually gladly GIVEN the widget away to a number of users who casually mentioned in the release threads that they couldn't download it for this reason. Not to mention, everyone knows there are apps that unlock the market in these areas to be able to purchase apps.
How much more generous can a developer be than to provide source code patches for a feature, provide information on how to toggle the feature, provide a COMPLETELY FREE way to toggle the feature, and then charge a measly $1.50 for a secondary, slightly more convenient way to toggle.
Yet he's repaid like this .
Of course, this must suck for a developer like you. Unfortunately, it seems to happen more and more often, and all I can really say is:
I would gladly pay a few bucks for an application like IC or BootManager. That BootManager seemed really interesting, but we can't buy apps from the Play Store without CC (and as a 16-year old, I don't have one). I asked the developer if he accepted Paypal, but he didn't.
Don't get me wrong, and this is not an attack to you personally: developers, if you made something really nice, and people will like it, 70% of the people will gladly pay for it, just make sure you allow them to.
Chaosz-X said:
70% of the people will gladly pay for it, just make sure you allow them to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I honestly thought this was the case. It's really not. The problem is much worse than that. If 70% of users in the root community paid for apps it would be astonishing. Its made pretty clear by the number of users who download the app, back it up and then cancel the order.
If a 16 year old kid had made me that offer, the e-mail reply I sent would have the apk attached.
Well, that is a real flaw of Android: tweakability is really impressing, but these things make it really difficult to earn some money as a developer.
We have been thinking about anti-piracy measures as well, with stuff such as authentication with a server, and locking down the code and verifying integrity of APKs and stuff to make sure it's really hard to mess with the code, but it's just sad that there's a need for these measures..
The trouble is everything has piracy right from movies to game consoles through to mobiles and music.
I mean the iPhones appstore would be a hell of a lot bigger if there was no jailbreaking and installous.
Every platform has been cracked so you'll get it regardless of what you develop for.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA
I think you know you just needed to vent but can I change your picture.
There are some people in this world who just don't buy the idea of an idea as property. That's not compatible with this business model. That's the first problem.
The next problem is that
there's a million and one apps out there and which one are we going to choose? Where does it start, where does it end? We all have our limits. What's yours?
For me, the app has to be something very unique and possible generate me cash. For example something I use every day at work. If it's something that the phone should do anyway I tend to skip it and save the $1 for the next phone that does it out of the box. Your app is a great thing, but there's many utility apps out there. It just doesn't fall into the kind of thing I'd cave my strict budgeting for. There are people here with a 1000 apps installed and you expect them to pay $1000 in this sense.
Another way would be having utility in the cloud and then the app is free. Another one of course, advertising.
The difference with both of these is we don't need to risk a credit card with the market. That's the main reason I personally haven't bought many apps and I'd imagine it's a problem for minors too.
The very community that allowed us to create the app fails to pay for it's products is like life itself.
I'd say make something for the iphone instead because there's more profit there but that would never have been possible, see what I'm saying? That's the 3rd problem.
So you've got 3 problems there all converging into one big push towards piracy. But remember, can your app assure security that the pirated version cannot for example? This is how one has to think.
In short,
you can't do something and hope to make a bit from it on the side. You got to go out from the start and get the money aspect central from the start. I mean, that's business and of course that's exactly what the android community works hard to free us from.
Still, summarising those 3 points for suggestion:
- offer something free things can't (i.e. security, brand etc) For example, I never run pirated stuff for fear of insecurity on my data whereas I'll try out software that way on an old PC
- can always put a service in the cloud aka the javascript trap
- iphone is there if you want...
- needs to "the one app" a certain person would pay for, not something everyone likes
Also just to make that point again, if one does not believe in property then inconveniently there is no moral crime here. I suggest learn to live with this and go with the flow
I hope google sells PlayStore cards (like itunes cards) that allows user to buy apps, music, movies, books without a credit card. I really want to buy some amazing apps but i dont have a credit card so i just use free apps. I think that if u cant buy an app that cant be a reason to piracy or sidedownload that app.
jago25_98 said:
For me, the app has to be something very unique and possible generate me cash. For example something I use every day at work. If it's something that the phone should do anyway I tend to skip it and save the $1 for the next phone that does it out of the box. Your app is a great thing, but there's many utility apps out there. It just doesn't fall into the kind of thing I'd cave my strict budgeting for. There are people here with a 1000 apps installed and you expect them to pay $1000 in this sense.
Another way would be having utility in the cloud and then the app is free. Another one of course, advertising.
The difference with both of these is we don't need to risk a credit card with the market. That's the main reason I personally haven't bought many apps and I'd imagine it's a problem for minors too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The feature is 100% unique and so is the widget. Not to mention, if you didn't want to pay the $1, I provided a free way to toggle the feature in the utility app. The point is, that there is nothing forcing people to pay for the widget to use the feature. But instead of using the free option provided, they not only pirate the paid app, but edit the artwork and release it for free as their own. It defies logic.
Also, ad based apps don't work with the rooted community. I learned that early on. Myfree utility app is ad supported. With over 40,000 installs you would think it would make even a dollar a day. Nope, makes nearly nothing. That's when I realized that the same niche I was marketing to are the same people who block ads. Even if someone didn't want to block ads, they can't install a single ROM that doesn't include an ad blocking hosts file out of the box.
chad0989 said:
[...] How much more generous can a developer be than to provide source code patches for a feature, provide information on how to toggle the feature, provide a COMPLETELY FREE way to toggle the feature, and then charge a measly $1.50 for a secondary, slightly more convenient way to toggle.
Yet he's repaid like this .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Be sure you're looking at all sides. Yes, you're in a losing war with guys intent on pirating your app. You can't stop them, and well, you goofed on the licensing, so someone will no doubt release the clone.
First of all, don't do the Big Media thing and assume that everybody that pirates your app would have paid for it if it hadn't been available. A lot of folks collect, or just try something once. You'll only work yourself into a funk thinking about all that money you "would" have if only they hadn't been able to pirate it. They wouldn't have. At least not all of them.
More importantly, be aware that placing something out there with value does reach folks that otherwise would have no idea of you or your plight. More than once, I've purchased an app that I don't really need, but found clever and cheap enough I can buy it without thinking about the investment. I've spent more on Android software at $1-15 over the last year than I did over the last 25+ at $30-100 a pop. I've only refunded an app once, by accident.
Finally, be up front about your situation. A guy trying to make do does influence my impulse buying. So does his reputation. If you're doing a lot, be sure that's clear on your app page, and let us know clearly you're the guy that also brought us whatever.
I am curious, though: How much did you actually bring in?
Chad- thanks for telling your story, I agree that you have every right to be disappointed. Especially the buying and refunding, that to me send almost worse because you can't stop dedicated pirating, but I would have hoped the rest would have bought the app.
It's easy to forget the human side of development, so thanks for sharing your side.
Jesus christ Chad. This is f$%&*#@ ridiculous. Probably the best and most generous kernel dev I have ever come into contact with, and people are cheating you out of 1.50. Please don't abandon Android. I need kernels when I get my rezound! but in all seriousness, warez needs to stop.
Sent from my ADR6400L
Yep. Sucks. After getting serious about android , which wasn't too far in, joining with a nexus one and seeing all the free HARD work we get, I definitely try buying stuff I use. If I can't pay sometimes I will see if dev does something else I can donate to. Its an issue I've thought about and part of it really boils down to how sorry people are in general. They want free and cheap. $1 is laughable even when it can be easily had for free. You really should market yourself a bit even though you don't want to. And people should really put a complimentary $5 or so budget a month or more and try to support devs. Maybe if you have something he gave free but has an app you won't use for a buck, buy the dollar app and uninstall after the 15 minute period. Or throw him a 5 through PayPal or something. Its simple really. If these devs don't have to resort to ramen and water they keep dev'ing especially for the community supporting him or her. And if they're eating vegetables and have plenty of red bull money it gives them wings. Otoh, the devs that make us pay to reinstall an app after we bought it on another or lost our phone suck. Balls. Won't buys theirs anymore.
teach a man to fish, you feed him for life. teach a man to fastboot, and you create competency. and less threads on xda.
Maybe you should implement a system like some developers do where you download the app for free with a time limited trail, then they would go to another website to pay for the app to unlock it, and the unlock codes would be unique for every user which would minimize piracy.
Sent from my GT-N7000 Samsung Galaxy Note "Go big or go home" using XDA app
rafa6571 said:
I hope google sells PlayStore cards (like itunes cards) that allows user to buy apps, music, movies, books without a credit card. I really want to buy some amazing apps but i dont have a credit card so i just use free apps. I think that if u cant buy an app that cant be a reason to piracy or sidedownload that app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the Netherlands we have prepaid Visa card.
Works well.
Maybe you google something similar in your own country.
(3V prepaid Visa cards)
That does suck but if someone wants to pirate an app even licencing doesn't stop them as there is an app that apparently patches licence checks.
It is so easy for even a non root and new user to find cracked apps, I have seen links on here and even on peoples facebook sites, it's got to the point where people can just browse a webpage and click a link to get the cracked version of an app.
Unfortunately if someone wants to crack it they can. Unless you could implement your own security check somehow, something obfuscated in the code, licencing is the only alternative as it would stop people using backed up cancelled versions at least.
Unfortunately it seems a lot of people just don't want to pay for apps.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk
also have to look at both sides. some people just refuse to pay for **** whatever it is, or get it as cheaply as they can. being android apps, the free route is how they're going to go. but the other side, you hsould be grateful for all the people that do pay. they're the ones helping keeping google, open source, android and everything in between chugging along. open source is the future and you can tell every corporation i said that. and thanks for you your work even though i've never used it.
jago25_98 said:
...
Also just to make that point again, if one does not believe in property then inconveniently there is no moral crime here. I suggest learn to live with this and go with the flow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is plenty to disagree with in your post as it all seems like an attempt at rationalizing ways to get around the system. This last statement is a ridiculous attempt at summarizing why stealing is OK. Your morals don't define the crime, the law does. Stealing property, physical or intellectual, is not legal and not right regardless of your morals or lack of.
Chad,
I am sorry to hear of your products' abuse. I used your kernels all the time on my Incredible devices and bought IncrediControl to support development. I have purchased many applications just to support development and believe that is the way to get high quality applications.
Piracy is just so damn easy on Android. I know ppl that are doing it who I wouldn't even expect to be doing such a thing. This guy I know love android only because he can get everything free by just googling the apk.
awww thats sad i feel really bad for you!
I've used pre paid visa debit cards to buy apps. You can find them in Any money shop like Cheque cashing places for example. You can even just stick a dicky diver (£5) on them. Perfect for situations like this
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
A friend of mine is a car salesman and is looking for an app that he can use to quickly access information about cars on his lot while talking to customers. He asked me if I could "throw something together".
I recently started doing android development, and I've gotten about as far as doing the Hello World and a couple of other tutorials, and this sounds a little beyond me. But it seems to me that there must be something like that already - only when I google terms like "cars sales app" and so forth, I get a lot of free apps that were built for specific dealerships, for selling to their customers. Not so helpful.
What I have in mind is just a simple catalog of the current inventory - a big picture of the car, a screen full of details the customer would be interested in, a screen full of technical information for mechanics and salesmen.
If something open source exists, that's similar to this, which I could modify as needed, that would be ideal. If the exact thing I'm describing exists, that would also be awesome. If nothing remotely similar exists, then I hope one of you can make a million dollars building it, because it'll probably be a few months before I'm at that level myself.
Any ideas?
Why not just create a spreadsheet with all the details in and use one of the many document viewers to access it?
Or build a very basic internal website he can browse from his phone?
Anything else seems to be overkill to me.
Maybe he could just use an already-existing database app ? Sounds close to what he wants and they already exist. You know, if he wants to spend as little money as possible.
A web-site could also do the trick, do they not already have one ? Do they already have inventory on-line or not ? Where is the database for their inventory even housed and how is it updated ?
It seems like overkill to me to have and have to maintain two databases. Is that what they actually want to do ? Are they okay with that extra work ? Who is going to be updating it ?
Do they really want an app that can use data from an existing website or database et cetera ?
Honestly, it sounds like he's asking you to "throw together" something that would cost him (possibly tens of) thousands of dollars to have personally developed otherwise. Why doesn't he just go for a service that already exists ? Like this (no idea if it's any good, just Googled). In that situation they've already developed the app and interface and just need to plug you in - so most likely less expensive than developing something totally custom.
I think this is probably out of your reach unless this guy really wants to maintain two databases just so he can have one on his phone - that's him or another employee constantly updating this thing with all that information you're thinking of putting in for each car. Do they have the time, desire, or manpower to do that ? How did you, when you wrote the OP, envision this "app" being updated to keep inventory current ? Would YOU be the one doing that ?
I know you're new and don't value your skills highly (and at this point for legitimate reasons - you don't have the skill to do anything you want right now and that's okay) - but I'm just going to put in my two cents and say that I think you're getting used. Cool if he just wants you to set up a frame work and is cool with maintaining it himself - that's awesome - but I'd think an existent database app would work just fine if that's the case.
Hey, I'm new to this forum so if I'm posting this question in the wrong section, go easy on me. So I have 3 extremely good ideas for mobile apps and I don't know what to do with them. I'm not an app developer or programmer, I don't have capital to pay other developers and programmers to put these apps into motion and I'm not sure what steps I could take to get these ideas off the ground. I have a feeling some people will say, that's nice, but without any of the things I listed in the previous sentence, it'll be just a pipe dream and until I have capital, I'd be better off to forget about my ideas. So I'm here to see if maybe there is a place to go or how to find the right people to talk to about giving out ideas and getting a small percentage from the apps success.
All three ideas are related to business operations and one, in my opinion would be easier to develop than the other two, and as far as I know, there isn't any apps right now that do what my idea for the 3 apps would be doing. I could teach myself how to develop the apps but that would take years and by then, they may already be developed by someone else. I will vaguely describe the 3 ideas as one would grab information from GPS locations to gather information from the user and would be extremely beneficial to any private or public sector's finances. The second one would use a persons location and SIRI. The third would mainly use location and video/audio.
Is there a website people with ideas can go to and send the idea to whoever there with clear terms mentioned before submission of how the ideas are dealt with so that the idea holder gets some recognition or stake in the idea development and then passes on the idea to a company that will make good use out of it. If there isn't anything like that, a website similar to that would also be a good idea. Businesses need to constantly evolve and come up with new ways to attract and retain customers, and my ideas would benefit business operations by saving time, minimizing costs, and staying ahead of the game by taking advantage of new technology.
Even if my app ideas don't come to fruition, I'm still happy that I came up with them and can come up with more, because without new ideas this world would be a sad and boring place to live.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time and help in advance!