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Strongly need your advice

Hello everybody,
I am new to Android and web development in general. Recently Igot into a situation that is hard to figure out. I hope your professional advice can help me to solve the problem. A couple of months ago I realized that software dvelopment is a great way to earn money online. Making applications seemed to me the best way to have passive income streams bringing me cash from ads right into the pocket. I tried to code but it turned out to be so completely foreign to my mind and my nature, that I simply could not proceed.
Then, I decided to look for a company that actually develops software and knows how to do it. I found one company that looked legit and so we started working together. They created an app, implemented the ads and I uploaded it on the Android Market. It got really popular and I was so glad!
However, in a couple of months I noticed there was a new app that was EXACTLY like mine and it literally was stealling potential users that would choose MY app. I tried to contact the person but he said he had created the application before me. WTF! I saw he uploaded it AFTER I did.
What should I do? I see his app is increasing in downloads while mine is decreasing.

Report!! Perhaps???
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If I Have Helped You Can You Press
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THANKS BUTTON
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To support Me.

Welcome to the world of application development. Unless he literally stole your code, there really isn't much you can do about it. All you can do is to update your app to make it more appealing than his application. Have you also stopped to think that you two might be working with the same company? Double-dipping much?

prantoroy said:
Report!! Perhaps???
Sent from my WT19i using xda premium
If I Have Helped You Can You Press
.
.
THANKS BUTTON
.
.
To support Me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I pressed the Thank you button. I was thinking about it too but the thing is, how are they going to figure things out?

syung said:
Welcome to the world of application development. Unless he literally stole your code, there really isn't much you can do about it. All you can do is to update your app to make it more appealing than his application. Have you also stopped to think that you two might be working with the same company? Double-dipping much?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. Not many replied in my thread so I paticulary appreciate al the feedback I get
Is there a way to write an identical app ising a different code? I don't know about it.
Or, another qustion. Suppose he downloaded my app. How can he actually edit it? Does he use some sort of software? I was told, the apk file is like an archive that one can unzip and zip back again. But how would he do it, I wonder?
May be you are right and we are working with the same company although it's hard to imagine. There are thousands of companies in the world adn how in the world would we "meet" at one company? Here is thier website, by the way, may be it will help you to answer my questions --> a1qa website
May be you know better, I am a noob at software development, and I realize it.

Klaipedos said:
Thank you for your reply. Not many replied in my thread so I paticulary appreciate al the feedback I get
Is there a way to write an identical app ising a different code? I don't know about it.
Or, another qustion. Suppose he downloaded my app. How can he actually edit it? Does he use some sort of software? I was told, the apk file is like an archive that one can unzip and zip back again. But how would he do it, I wonder?
May be you are right and we are working with the same company although it's hard to imagine. There are thousands of companies in the world adn how in the world would we "meet" at one company? Here is thier website, by the way, may be it will help you to answer my questions --> a1qa website
May be you know better, I am a noob at software development, and I realize it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can easily unzip an apk file by using any Archive manager like WInZip, WinRAR , or 7-zip ... But can't actually make great changes like that ... But there is something called as Decompiling an apk, .. which will actually compiled the compiled java classes.dex file into .smali files... Now .. you can easily do some basic or sometimes even advanced changes to the app ... like for example .. you can change the app name by simply editing the string.xml in the res folder... then again recompile it into an apk and redistribute under a different name .. it's quite possible ... If you want to reduce the risk of such problems ... i'd recommend you have a look at ProGuard.
The ProGuard tool shrinks, optimizes, and obfuscates your code by removing unused code and renaming classes, fields, and methods with semantically obscure names. The result is a smaller sized .apk file that is more difficult to reverse engineer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

It is possible that someone can decompile your apk and read your source code if they had enough time and resources. If you are worried about such things you might have to begin using other techniques such as code obfuscation or encrypted compilers to protect your source code. And yes, it is possible to have two program do the same thing but have different source code to do it. Although there might be some parts that are the same, how you write you code will be different than how they write it.

You should be aware that making a lawsuit will cost you more money than you earned and if somebody makes something that does the same thing as you ddid, that still does not mean that they have stolen something from you. Jeez, how can somebody who hosts apps not know this, are you teenager or something?
Yes, in programming, it is possible to write programs in 50 different ways and do the same thing.
You cannot copyright ideas, only source code and functions...unless you are apple of course. They can copyright rectangular shapes.
What you should do? Get his app, and compare it to yours. I dont know if you can access source code in android apps because I dont develop aps yet, but if you can, you should compare his fuctions with yours. If the code is 80% simmilar, it is stolen.

Sidekick 2 Squash File Developer Key Reverse Engineering

Hi everyone at XDA and Sidekick users.
Hopefully one of that reads this post, has had or is familiar with the *.sq Squash files, that were flashed to early Danger Sidekick models, particularly in my case at least, for flashing the developer Key. I have come into contact with a key on 5.x Lib version, but that key is in the form of a .JAR file. Even extracting the JAR file yields no precise match to these older squash files.
As my quest continues to restore internet capabilities in my interest to my phone, a dev-key would be the neatest way, as I could use the SDK to write apps that neglected dead Danger servers, and once again functioned properly. I do this with my love for the Sidekick 2.
So, anyone out there who still has access to a Squash dev-key file, please PM me. Or, if you have any knowledge that pertains, please contact me.
Thanks in advance,

You may want to search on these forums for a link to the old SDK if that might help. I also wonder if someone has a developer key someone for another phone. With that and the IMEI of the device it was intended for, you *MIGHT* be able to figure something out, but someone with more knowledge than myself would be able to tell you better. Maybe Orange808?

ged92781 said:
You may want to search on these forums for a link to the old SDK if that might help. I also wonder if someone has a developer key someone for another phone. With that and the IMEI of the device it was intended for, you *MIGHT* be able to figure something out, but someone with more knowledge than myself would be able to tell you better. Maybe Orange808?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can look over the contract again, but I am certain the dev contract forbids me. After they started really locking down the platform, I remember signing an agreement that is only rivaled by Apple's dev contract.
With that said, they handed out developer codes like candy in the early days (with no strings attached). I bet you can find another source.

[Q] Android Games, Decompiling APKs, Where to Learn

Hi Guys,
I've completed a few college programming courses, so my knowledge isn't in-depth, but I'm willing to learn.
RIght now I'm motivated by learning how to modify android games. For example, I have seen mods floating around for online games, where enemies deal 1 damage to you, while you kill enemies in one hit. I find that fascinating, and am interested in the process behind achieving the creation of such mods.
I'm wondering, where do I begin learning to do something like that? Are the APK files being decompiled, modified, and recompiled? What are the steps to doing so? What programming languages do I need to learn to do the modifying part of something like this?
I would greatly appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction.
Thanks!

MeitanteiJesus said:
I've completed a few college programming courses, so my knowledge isn't in-depth, but I'm willing to learn.
RIght now I'm motivated by learning how to modify android games. For example, I have seen mods floating around for online games, where enemies deal 1 damage to you, while you kill enemies in one hit. I find that fascinating, and am interested in the process behind achieving the creation of such mods.
I'm wondering, where do I begin learning to do something like that? Are the APK files being decompiled, modified, and recompiled? What are the steps to doing so? What programming languages do I need to learn to do the modifying part of something like this?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could someone in this forum: Android Game Hacks Forum

GokulNC said:
You could someone in this forum:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still haven't heard back from anyone on that forum =(
Could someone here point me in the right direction?

MeitanteiJesus said:
Still haven't heard back from anyone on that forum =(
Could someone here point me in the right direction?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To learn how to modify apps you need to learn how they work. Look for how to make android apps. To modify apps they need to be decompiled first so the files inside can be read or view an app apk and extract files inside to make changes to then put them back into the apk. After you done that the app needs to be compiled again or zipaligned. You can do this using an android device with the Ninjamorph. To learn android programming AIDE is a good app you can make apps using your device. It has some tutorials on making apps or games in it. You can watch videos for it. To start i think you should learn java first.

Is there an app for this?

Hi guys
So there is this specific thing I need to accomplish. I searched and searched and couldn't find an app for it. Maybe I'm not phrasing it well in my searches? If someone can help guide me in the right direction that would be appreciated...
I need an app to help generate paragraphs from a form. For example I want to app to start with a form with the following drop down lists:
"Male" and "Female"
"Tall" and "Short"
Age ranging from "1" to "100"
Then after filling out the drop down boxes the app can generate a paragraph from a pre-set text eventually saying "A male who is 35 years old who is short" based on my selection.
Thanks in advance and have a great day!

Alternatives that I can think of:
Do this with Excel/Google Sheets
Create HTML page and open it in browser
Create flow with Automate

Noob to Android Dev..... Need a little advice.

Any Dev here that can offer a tiny bit of help, I will be very appreciated.
My first foray into this is to reverse engineer an APK.
I am NOT trying to "crack" or cheat anyone out of their just compensation for their work., FWIW.
Anyhow, I started by searching for a string displayed within the running app (a toast); used jadx-gui.
Found it in strings.txt. grabbed the "equivalent" symbol for the string I wanted.
Searched for that symbol in all the files, but not one occurrence in any .java source.
Did find it in a .so file which I believe follows the ELF file format; but have no idea where to go from here.
Anyone???

Sorry for the duplicate post. Not sure how it happened.

So no one can help??? C'mon, folks!!