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Recently I read a article about a game in the market (I won't give the name because I think it that practices are negative for Android and don't want to publicize it) that don't allow to update if you have not rated 5 stars in the market.

Thats what the article says and I'd like to know if that is detectable and if yes how to do it (I only need to know if the user rated the app, don't need the score)

Thanks

Caroline
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2 Answers2

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Recently I read a article about a game in the market (I won't give the name because I think it that practices are negative for Android and don't want to publicize it) that don't allow to update if you have not rated 5 stars in the market.

This is not possible as described. An application cannot prevent itself from being updated. Now, it is possible that it can detect the update when it is next run and then take some action.

I'd like to know if that is detectable and if yes how to do it

There is no documented and supported means of doing this. I'll be stunned if it is possible outside of rooted phone -- it's a security flaw otherwise.

CommonsWare
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As an app developer i'd advice you not to try this. Google does not support you with anything that looks like a tool or an api-snippet for this. And google may have snippets for almost anything. So, if not even google wants you to monitor your users, you should think about why:

If app-developers were able to scan if someone rated their App, they may code something like this: if(user has rated the app || user has paid) { grant access to cool features }

This would be pretty bad for googles app-rating system as the user would rate the app to get a personal advantage and not to show other users "hey this app is nice, get it".

So just stay with your existing code and dont try to fetch this information. By the way, even if you find a way to outsmart google, i'm pretty sure - i wouldd bet a buck - you're breaking their policies. Which will likely result in something like "sorry, we wont publish this version of your app".

Your users will vote if you code a useful bug-free app.

//advice over ;)

Aiyion.Prime
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