“In my conversations with Android developers, I often hear that you’d like better protection against unauthorized use of your applications. So today, I’m pleased to announce the release of a licensing service for applications in Android Market.”
We have all seen that comment on an application boasting “FREE PAID APPS come join our monthly site.” Well this is of course illegal. All the profits are going to the sites hosting them, not to any of the developers that created or built the application. It has been quite a problem with developers who work very hard to bring us some of the application we all love.
What does this mean for a developer? Your application will have better protection from unauthorized users. You have 2 policies to choose from.
- ServerManagedPolicy: A flexible Policy that uses settings provided by the licensing server to manage response caching and access to the application while the device is offline (such as when the user is on on an airplane). For most applications, the use of ServerManagedPolicy is highly recommended.
- StrictPolicy: A restrictive Policy that does not cache any response data and allows the application access only when the server returns a licensed response.
What does it mean for the average Android consumer? Not much really. The market won’t change. Applications will still be available. You will still be able to install BETA’s and any other application that is FREELY distributed amongst the community. These new security measures will only effect PAID applications and help to prevent people from pirating them and selling them (or sharing them for free). For instance, You can’t buy a game, back it up then send it to your buddy so he can play it. If your friend can’t afford it,  buy it for him. :0). This will ultimately help the Devs get paid for their work more consistently and possibly gain new Devs that will be able to bring us more amazing applications.
Now I know what you are thinking. AAAAHHHHHHHHHH, it’s like Gameloft all over again! Not really. Google already pings the apps when they are opened. All the software and servers are already tracking your applications. How do you think your phone knows when an application update has been released? All this is going to do is a quick validation of your Gmail, (which it already does, hence a factory reset showing your purchased apps still in the downloads), to make sure you bought the application and didn’t permanently borrow it from someone else.
Good move Google. Anyone interested in reading the dirty details can visit HERE.
Source: android-developers-blogspot and androidpolice
