Convert the android app in Google Play for Samsung Store

Question

Recently (After July 1st), I have a new app in Google play. But I came to know that from July 1st onwards Samsung is not going to accept the App which are not using the Samsung SDK.

Question

Though I do not need any special features in the Samsung SDK they forcing me to use it. I have to utilize the user base in Samsung Store. What is the easy way to make my app to be compatible with Samsung Store. Share your experience.

Can we simply use the SDK and not implement any features will work ?

Thanks in Advance !

Answer 1

After spending hours trying to resolve the problem, I finally got the solution after contacting the Samsung Engineers. They checked out my APK's content and according to them:

"Regarding your inquiry, we would like to inform you that if the following use-feature exists in the manifest file, it is considered that the application uses S Pen SDK. (uses-feature name="com.sec.feature.spen_usp" android:required="true"/) Please note that you need to change ( and ) to < and > in your manifest file. However the uses-feature does not exist in the manifest of your application, so it is considered that the application does not use the S Pen SDK."

After adding the feature to the app's manifest, the portal detected the SDK (Please See image), and I was able to publish the app. Note that I didn't include the SPen sdk jars to the app, neither did I reference any Samsung library within the app.

<uses-feature android:name="com.sec.feature.spen_usp" android:required="true"/>

EDIT: The app has been accepted but after second try. The first was rejected because under the Category section, I chose "Galaxy Specials > S Pen". They told me to change it to "Galaxy Specials > Other" since it had no S Pen functionality. So make sure you set accordingly.

Answer 2

Samsung says this:

We would like to inform you that all application submitted to Samsung after July 1st are all categorized as Galaxy Special since they all developed using Samsung SDK. So, in your case, you can select the main category as “Galaxy Special” and the subcategory according to your application. And if all the subcategories do not suit your application, please kindly select “Other”.

Also, please note that you must develop the application with one or more Samsung SDK which supports Galaxy Specials

Basically there is no clear deifinition of how to use the Samsung sdk, maybe you can just add it to the dev environment, and build with it in path. More to come, will update when I find more. I'm looking into this too.

More info: http://forums.andromo.com/discussion/1202/unable-to-publish-on-samsung-store-starting-july1/p1#sthash.AB6dfsvB.dpuf

UPDATE

Well the samsung forum hasnt been helpful either, so I think the best thing to do is to go through the usage documentation and do the bare minimum for now.

http://developer.samsung.com/forum/board/thread/view.do?boardName=SDK&messageId=270685

Answer 3

@NanaGhartey has the perfect solution of this question. Hence, I want to add something more as I faced some difficulties.

First, you've to add this permission in your manifest.

<uses-feature android:name="com.sec.feature.spen_usp" android:required="true"/>

• You've to check if you've implemented anything related to google play games in your application.
• Amazon app store accepts debug build of apk. Amazon might have some automatic signing the application. But, in case of Samsung app store, you need to sign it yourself, with the keystore, alias, password and others things you needed to publish your application in google play store. Just sign in with the credentials you used to publish your app in google play store and then submit the application.

I submitted the debug build in the samsung app store like I did for Amazon and they generated an error that says, this is a debug build. Then I generated a release build with the google play store credentials and then submitted. It was accepted!

Answer 4

If you add the SDK but do not reference it, it will probably not be included in your build depending on your settings. Then it will fail the test when you upload it to Samsung.

You can force the compiler to include it through your settings, or (and more friendly to Samsung) implement a very minor SDK feature (such as checking for a Samsung camera or the Samsung App Manager). You don't even really need to do anything special or amazing, just "use" an SDK feature - and there are many.

There are many apps that are criticized for only including very minor SDK features in order to qualify and participate in the Samsung store (or so it is rumored...).