Getting an Android App to Show Up in the market for “Sony Internet TV”(Google TV)

Question

I'm having a bit of trouble getting my app to show up in the market under GoogleTV. I've searched google's official documentation and I don't believe the manifest lists any elements which would invalidate the program; the only hardware requirement specified is landscape mode, wakelock and external storage(neither which should cause it to be filtered for GTV according to the documentation) and I set the uses touchscreen elements "required" attribute to false.

below is the AndroidManifest.xml for my project:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.whateversoft"
    android:versionCode="2"
    android:versionName="0.1" >

    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />
    <application
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="Color Shafted"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.NoBackground"
        android:debuggable="false">
        <activity
            android:label="Color Shafted"
            android:name=".colorshafted.ColorShafted" 
            android:configChanges = "keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation"
            android:screenOrientation = "landscape">
            <!--  Set as the default run activity -->
            <intent-filter >
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
        <activity
            android:label="Color Shafted Settings"
            android:name=".colorshafted.Settings" 
            android:theme="@android:style/Theme"
            android:configChanges = "keyboard|keyboardHidden">
            <!--                                  -->
        </activity>
    </application>
    <!-- DEFINE PERMISSIONS FOR CAPABILITIES -->
    <uses-permission android:name = "android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>
    <uses-permission android:name = "android.permission.WAKE_LOCK"/>
    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.touchscreen" android:required="false"    />
    <!-- END OF PERMISSIONS FOR CAPABILITIES -->
</manifest>

I'm about to start promoting the app after the next major release so its been kind of a bummer since I can't seem to get this to work. Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance : )

Answer 1

It looks okay to me. one things you might do is watch logcat carefully when you deploy. The ADT plugin doesn't enforce 100% correctness in the manifest. I've found where I've had subtle errors and the only way I noticed was by watching logcat when the app gets deployed.

Here is the official Google IO presentation on the topic,

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/events/io/2011/static/presofiles/developing_android_applications_for_google_tv.pdf

This page describes how the manifest features effect visibility to google TVs,

https://developers.google.com/tv/android/docs/gtv_androidmanifest

Answer 2

If you enable forward locking for you app, it will not show up in Google Play on devices that allow root access.

Answer 3

The manifest looks good, as others said, there's a slight chance of subtle mistakes in the manifest tags.

you can inspect and verify the compiled APK by using the command:

aapt dump badging yourFileName.apk

Check the resulting output for any unexpected things like features pulled in implicitly by permissions.

(aapt is part of the regular Android SDK)

Answer 4

A couple things I have found that help ensure it shows up:

Your manifest should include not only a minSdkVersion but also a targetSdkVersion:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />
<uses-sdk android:targetSdkVersion="14" />

and be sure you are building to a target of 14+

Also adding supports-screens helps:

<supports-screens android:resizeable="true"
        android:smallScreens="true"
        android:normalScreens="true"
        android:largeScreens="true"
        android:xlargeScreens="false" 
        android:anyDensity="true"/>

and finally:

  <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.touchscreen" android:required="false"/>
  <uses-feature android:name="com.google.android.tv" android:required="false"/>

if your app is not only for GTV but also other devices that is important.