Get More Downloads for your Android Apps

More Apps button

 
One of the most frustrating things about the Android Market is making sure that your app is visible. That is making sure that people can find it and download it.

If you have multiple apps in the Android market, you can use your apps to advertise for your other apps. Doing so is extremely simple.

You can use the following code snippet to open up the Android market to a page that displays all of your available apps.

Intent viewIntent = new Intent("android.intent.action.VIEW", Uri.parse("market://search?q=pub:\"PUBLISHING NAME\""));  
startActivity(viewIntent);

Make sure to replace "PUBLISHING NAME" with the name that you publish your apps under, otherwise the search will come up blank.

Although this feature is already built in to the Android Market with the "More Apps by this Publisher" button, adding the link in your App can be helpful. After a user downloads your application, they may never return the App Page in the Android market.

After using your app or game, the user may decide that they like it enough that they want to check out your other products. Adding a button to link them to the Android Market makes this easier for them.

Android Millionaires

Cha-ching!

How can you make a million dollars building and selling Android Apps? Just follow the examples of some people and companies that have already done so.

The article, Meet the Android App Millionaires at electricpig.co.uk breaks down eight successful groups and provides extra insight as to how you can learn from them.

The link to the Advanced Task Manager earnings wasn't working anymore, but androidandme sums up the basic information from it in their blog post Advanced Task Manager developer is making up to $10,000 a month. That story is particularly interesting because it seems like it is mostly the work of one individual.

Will you be on the list anytime soon?

Win $5000 making an Android App

This is pretty cool. Androidhomecoming.com is getting together with face.com to run a $5000 Android App challenge.

The challenge is going to be divided up into three rounds. The first round being just a short pitch of your app--250 words or less. From this, judges will narrow the field down to 30 entries.

So, start brainstorming some ideas for cool apps that somehow involve facial recognition. Doesn't matter if you can't quite program it yet--just come up with some great ideas.

I think that I will plan on entering the competition, but I will probably post some tutorials here regardless if I make it pass round one or not. Good look to everyone who enters!

Check out some example apps from face.com and head on over to androidhomecoming.com for all the details about how to enter.

For some inspiration, here is a video showing you how Nintendo has been using facial recognition in some games.

Displaying a Static Web Page Inside of an Android Activity

In this tutorial, learn how to use the Android WebView to display a web page that is embedded into your app, without connecting to the internet. Learn how to properly include graphics as well.

Displaying a Static Web Page Inside of an Android Activity

Why Display Static Pages?

In a previous tutorial, we showed you how to display a web page from within an Android Activity.

This is very useful, but there may be some cases in which you want to take advantage of the html rendering capabilities without having to download a file from the internet.

Why would you want to do this?

1. Your application won't have to require an internet permission
2. Your requested web page will load faster
3. You can use it to display important content (instructions, help files, high scores...) without relying upon an internet connection that could be spotty or non-existent

Android Market Adds Statistics

The Android Market now offers statistics to developers.

Android Install Statistics

The Android Market has slowly but surely been improving, and is finally starting to feel like a real product. Don't get me wrong, the Android OS itself I have always been impressed with, but the market has always been lagging a little bit behind.

I always felt like google deserved to give it a little more love, since Apps are a huge selling point for the devices themselves. Having developed Android apps for a while now, there were many features I always wished the market would include, and I have finally begun to see a lot of them.

What other features do you think the Android Market needs to add or improve upon?

Displaying a Web Page from Within an Android Activity

Android WebViews let you display fully formatted HTML inside of an Android Activity.This tutorial will walk you through adding and using a webview.

Android WebViews

If you have followed through a couple of the tutorials already, or have already made a couple of applications on your own, then you have no doubt used several of the built in View types available from Android. One view you may not have known about is the Android WebView.

AndroidDom loaded in a webview

What's on my Android: Swype

Before I got my current phone I was looking for a slidekeyboard phone, unfortunately my provider didn't have any Android phones with that feature at the time. So I got my next option: a Samsung Captivate (from the Galaxy S series). My phone came with Swype and it has truly changed how I write my messages.

For those of you who don't know about it, Swype is an input method for touchscreens developed by Swype Inc. The application allows you to enter a word by sliding your finger from letter to letter and lifting to add a blank space and start a new word and includes an algorithm that autocompletes the word. It also includes dynamic learning, which means it learns which words you type the most and puts them at the top of the list. One of the best things is that because of its AI you don't have to be that accurate while sliding between letters.

Here is a LINK  to a video I found on YouTube. Thanks to mobileburn for uploading the video.

Swype doesn't come with all the phones, but there is a beta version that you can register for and download in your Android phone. Simply go to http://beta.swype.com/.

But of course, there are other options for Swype [Disclaimer: I have not tested any of this it personally].

• SlideIt Keyboard by Dasur Ltd. $6.18 dlls in the Android Market. 

• UltraKeyboard by Binary Bulge. $2.79 dlls in the Android Market. [This one has many options and sliding is one of them]

I have also hear great things about SwiftKey [On sale for $1.99 at the Android Market] which is an AI program that predicts the next word based on what you have already written, just like Swype it has a dynamic learning mechanism which makes it better every time you use it.

There are many other apps that try to do word autocompletion and prediction, and there are also other apps that attempt to make typing easier for example bigger keys. Two of the most interesting ones out there are:

• KeyPurr by KeyPurr technologies. $4.07 dlls in the Android Market. This keyboard reduces the keys to 17 bigger keys and also does text prediction and autocorrection (that is how it gets away with reducing the number of keys).

• 8pen by Michael@3QUBITS. Free in the Android Market. This app deserves a mention in this article because it is really different to all the other apps. It lays down the keyboard in a circle divided in 4 sections and by rolling your finger around it you can choose letters, I have not tried and I also read that it has quite a steep learning curve but supposedly it is worth it.

If you have any questions, or any comments about this article feel free to chime in the comment section. We'll be back soon with more tutorials.