Database Users

XDA App Store

Just wondering if anyone has thought of or better still started to build an XDA App Store.
I am thinking of an app we can all download to our phones, it will auto see what phone you have and only show those apps from XDA users, auto download updates of installed apps, auto download dependancies etc.
I have used an iphone hacked with cydia and such and it is much easier for downloading programs in this manner.
Just my 2 cents guys, I do hope we see something someday.

I know that you said that it should be XDA-specific, but another option is called App2Date.
Take a look here:
http://www.modaco.com/content/windo.../lend-your-support-to-a-generic-updater-tool/
I was thinking of making one myself, but I definitely do not have time to even start such a project. I'm fairly busy with other ones.

Its not quite what I imagined.
That program does the updates, but like cydia for a hacked iphone you should be able to download new programs as well.
I honestly don't think it would be too hard or dificult to make.
All we really need is an app to list the programs based on the device and wm version your currently running.
The only problem will be to find somewhere to store the apps. A solution could be a simple databased maintaned and hosted by XDA, that will list the program name, details, OS and device information (so you can get the correct version for your phone) and a direct download link to the cab file. This way the apps can be hosted anywhere and we can avoid having to run and pay for a huge data transfer of programs.
I can possibly help with the database if anyones interested in helping to write the actuall app. Then the listings can be maintaned by xda registered users.

Hi,
i am one of the developers of mobile2day.com an we have the possibility to provide a big database with applications mapped to several devices. So we can show only applications for a specific device.
We have allready a mobile solution running on http://mobile2day.mobi/en/usd/index.html where you can buy and download applications. Maybe we can think about to add beta software, too.
Please, if you are interested feel free to contact me.

I was owner of an iPhone before I bought my Touch Pro and besides the fact that the iPhone is not that good it has one big advantage: The AppStore
I would love that kind of store for WM Apps

Necessary Changes in The Android Market..

If this isn't in the right place, please move it mods.
Basically I think that the market is a bit incomplete.
There are changes I'd like to be made and i've voiced my concerns with google.
Now I need the community backing to actually see these things implemented.
To read about the suggestions and comment, visit this link
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=3c9422da6b79a597&hl=en
I try and address problems with the market and even underlying Android issues that have yet to be resolved.
Add your input and they'll have to listen.

Good idea... You might also add to the list a way to delete apps from download that won't be used anymore. I have three in my download that I will never install again and can't get them off the list. Imagine a few of those in there and it starts to take up alot of space with apps you aren't interested in anymore.

I posted a reply there as it seems to have gotten some attention there. Some of the issues are already in feature request on android issues, I linked to them. Starring the issues increases chances someone will take care of it.

Suggestion added Jeffro.
Thanks for posting Areinu!

If I could make suggestions for Android Market:
(1) Fix all this missing protected apps for new device / firmware quickly
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=665742
This is silly issue and will only hurt Android platform. This will greatly discourage Android developers for making good apps.
I want to support Android, I want to make it success! I can do this by spending money on Android apps, but I simply cant because of this issue.
And I am afraid this will repeat once new firmware released.
Take a look how long this issue is ... ridiculous
(2) Remove restrictions on countries for purchasing apps
Right now, certain countries like Sweden for example cannot even see the apps!
(3) Add ability to FILTER apps TITLE
I want to "hide" all those WALLPAPERS, SEXY whatnot.
Android is nice, really nice platform. But this Android Market issues are blocking its success.

here in Denmark we can't even see non-free apps in the ma market. because of this, users of ex. iPhone won't even try the platform. its sad really.
Sent from my HTC Legend using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Filtering is very much needed. I tend to view the 'just in' apps, but lately its just a list of MMCANDROIDs latest releases of boarderline under age Asian girls. Its really annoying that you cant block out the stuff you have no interest in.

I'm adding them as they come.
Post a comment on the page to make sure Google eventually sees it.

[Virus warning]Don't install Android Market Security app.

Just a quick word of advice for those of you who are feeling a bit icky due to recent viruses and malware in the Android market – don’t download the Android Market Security Tool. The version in the Android market is clean and straight from Google, but you do not need to install this on your own. Google will use this tool automatically whenever they do a security sweep.
There’s another version on alternate app stores with the same name and icon, but these are injected with viruses. Do not download these either, for obvious reasons. Your best bet is to let Google do what they do and if you’re still feeling a bit vulnerable, check out official offerings from Lookout, AVG and more. (Or just do extensive research and check permissions on the applications you do download.) [PC World]
(source Phandroid)
I wonder if this will be highjacked and re-posted by someone again.....

In-App Bliling for Donations?

Hello guys, we are close to release a a new free Android App. How ever, we dont want to put ads, we would hate that.
We have one question:
If we put in-app billing for receiving donations on a free App, is it against Google Policies? or ilegal?
will our app be in danger of being removed?
Anybody knows?
Thanks a lot!

In-app isn't illegal.
Better integrate an donate version instead of use in-app or a pro key.
Why in danger or removed? If your app isn't against any copyright just go for it and release it, just remember if you use external libs or code, don't forget to give proper credits where it should belongs to and of course it should be noted somewhere in the app and in google play. The benefit to not integrate inapp is that it does not need internet permissions, you can host it in F-droid if you maybe gonna release the source and of course people like me are thankful to use as less as possible google things in your app.

SM-G975F on Canadian Networks and Best ROM

Hi everyone. I am getting an SM-G975F with the Exynos chipset. I was planning on flashing LineageOS on it but now I have stumbled upon MicroG for LineageOS and been doing a little reading up on it. Now I am not clear what the best choice would be from a privacy perspective.
My intention with LineageOS was to *not* install GApps and see how much I can make do with the default apps (i.e. the stock mail app, etc.). If that is my intention, then am I better off with LineageOS? or MicroG?
I don't really care about Google Apps. The only thing I can see myself struggling without is without some kind of semi-decent mapping application like Google Maps. Is there a decent alternative? Do I need MicroG for that? If I do cave and find I need Google Maps, then would I be better off with MicroG or LineageOS?
Also, is there a way to get Office apps (Word, Excel, etc.) on LineageOS? Or is that undesirable from a privacy perspective?
Lastly, is there a way to enable LTE bands 29, 30, and 46 on the SM-G975F model? These are enabled on the SM-G975W (Canadian) model, and I will be using the phone in Canada on Bell Mobility.
If these questions have been asked/answered elsewhere, can you please just drop a link?
Thanks,
The Fish

Your post does not qualify for Development. Please read the stickies before posting!
Moved to Questions and Answers.

Hi XDA’ers
I thought I would provide an update on my experience thus far with LineageOS 19.1 on my Exynos SM-G975F and answer some of my own questions which I asked above. Maybe some of this is obvious stuff or maybe not. Maybe it will be helpful for others in the future.
The operating system​I installed LineageOS from the official lineageos.org website. I did not install GApps so I am operating without the Google Play Services.
While Android itself is open source, the “Google Play Services” are not. They are a proprietary library from Google that are included with most (all?) Android devices and provide a number of services, APIs, etc. to apps running on Android. It's not part of the operating system per se, but lots of apps require it. So, I am operating with LineageOS only without the Google Play Services.
As a side note, there is an open-source re-implementation of Google Play Services called microG. MicroG cannot be installed as an app but needs to be installed as part of the OS. There are basically two flavors of LineageOS that include microG. They are “LineageOS for microG” and /e/OS. Both of these include microG. Pure LineageOS on its own however includes neither Google Play Services (unless you install GApps bundle) nor microG.
I was surprised how small the download file was for LineageOS. It weighs in at just 777 MB. I am used to Samsung firmware that weighs in at about 6 GB. So, this seemed really small to me.
Upon first boot up I was impressed with how clean the operating system was. Not only is there no bloatware but there is basically almost nothing at all. There is a dialer app, an SMS app, a camera app, a calculator, and a mini browser. There is also a local-only address book (no link to cloud services) and a local calendar app. The browser is fairly limited but gets the job done. Notably there isn’t a mail app (although I understand that there used to be one on previous versions of LineageOS). So, I set about seeing what I could do.
Apps​I installed the F-Droid app store but there are not any mainstream apps in there. Some of the apps in there might be good (I still need to explore it more) but I needed a solid email app. My company is on Office 365 so Outlook would be my first choice.
I stumbled upon APKPure and APKMirror. Both are very ad-filled spammy looking website that seems to be a web-based front end to the Google Play Store. Using these sites website, you can download official APKs for mainstream apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, etc. Be very careful where you click. Lots of the ads on the site include "Download Now" type buttons that you can click on thinking you are downloading an APK but instead are clicking on a spammy ad. So, navigate carefully on these sites.
I was able to install Word, Excel, OneDrive and Outlook. This was huge because I needed a decent mail app. Being able to install OneDrive meant I could now sync my camera with OneDrive. All the Microsoft apps worked flawlessly on LineageOS even without Google Play Services. The one thing I noticed however is that Outlook does not give me notifications when I get a new email. I have to go into Outlook and swipe down to refresh. I believe this is due to the lack of Google Play Services. Maybe using microG would eliminate this problem (not sure). I can live with this for now but would obviously like a way to resolve it.
Installing Outlook synced the local Calendar and Contacts apps with my Outlook contacts and calendar so that worked great.
Bible Apps​Both the Olive Tree Bible Reader app and the ESV Bible app installed no problem from APKPure. Both of these are offline Bible apps (they download the whole Bible and can be used offline). I like Olive Tree because I have several translations (including the SBLGNT) and Olive Tree lets me switch between them. The ESV app is great because they have recordings and so you can hear Kristyn Getty or David Cochran Heath read the Bible to you in natural non-synthetic voices.
Signal​I installed Signal directly from their website (they offer the APK directly on their website). Signal detects that it is being installed on a device without Google Play Services and so registers itself as a service and consequently I do get notifications for new Signal messages (unlike Outlook). I wonder if there is some way to make Outlook run the same way. I tried installing Microsoft Teams which we use at work but don't get any notifications when people send me messages. So that makes Teams pretty useless.
Browser​The build-in default browser renders HTML/CSS just fine but is very limited in terms of features. When you install a progressive web app as an app on the home screen it works but launches in the full browser with the address bar visible which breaks the app-like experiance which is really the whole point of a PWA. So I set about trying to fix this. To my surprise I was able to install Microsoft Edge without ANY issues whatsoever. It works great and web apps pin to the home screen the way they should (and open as apps). So I made Edge my default browser.
Keyboards​The default keyboard in LineageOS does not have stickers or GIFs. That is as it should be I think for a default built-in keyboard. But it does not support swipe typing either. This surprised me. It seemed like a huge step backwards to have to tap out every letter with my thumbs. Do people still type like that on their phones?!?! Oh, the humanity!
There is a microphone icon at the top of the keyboard for speech-to-text transcription. I used this all the time before on my Samsung S8+. But tapping it did nothing. Apparently I am missing a speech-to-text engine. This surprised be because Outlook has dictation built-in using Microsoft's engines and works well. But it only works in Outlook and not universally throughout the phone as it would if it was built-in on the keyboard.
I installed the Microsoft SwiftKey keyboard and that gave me stickers, GIFs and... swipe typing! Woo Hoo! But I was really hoping it would give me speech-to-text since I dictate almost all of my text messages. I figured it would use Microsoft's engine like Outlook does since it was a Microsoft app. But tapping the microphone on the SwiftKey keyboard promptly tells me that I need to download "Google Voice Search".
Microsoft Authenticator​I installed the Microsoft Authenticator app for 2FA and it installed just fine. But it was impossible to add any accounts by scanning the QR codes. I think this is due to notifications not working properly, probably also due to the lack of Google Play Services or microG.
Outstanding Issues​So, the outstanding issues I have right now are:
Microsoft Authenticator is non-usable. This is a huge issue for me
No speech-to-text transcription from keyboard
No notifications in Microsoft Teams
No notifications in Microsoft Outlook (this I can live with).
What I Like​What I like about LineageOS is the clean, minimalistic design of the operating system. I am not pushed into any particular "ecosystem" be it Google, Samsung, Microsoft or Apple. I can decide which ecosystem I want to participate in and to which extent. For example, I could download Outlook without downloading Edge and I don't need to backup my photos to OneDrive unless I want to. You can do this, to some extent, with OEM versions of Android, but it requires ignoring and disabling things. Come to think of it, that is really what an operating system should be - a platform for running apps, not an on-ramp into an ecosystem.
What irritates me is that not all apps work as they should. It seems like Google Play Services is an important part of the mix and many apps fail to function properly without it. Signal seems like one exception. It detects that you are not using Google Play Services and adapts the functioning the app accordingly.

Just a minor update. I tried several diffrent TTS engines (Pico TTS, Flite TTS, RHVoice) and none of these gave me text typing.
I ended up installing Speech Services by Google and it worked. I was surprised that it worked considering I do not have GApps (and thus no Google Play Services) and no microG on my phone.
So, I guess I can live with a little Google on my phone, but I would have preferred to find an open-source alternative or, barring that, a Microsoft alternative.