Android Source Code Now Available - Android Developers

Message from discussion Android Source Code Now Available

hackbod

More options Oct 22 2008, 3:46 am

From: hackbod <hack...@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:46:06 -0700 (PDT)

Local: Wed, Oct 22 2008 3:46 am

Subject: Re: Android Source Code Now Available

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On Oct 22, 12:18 am, Al Sutton <al.sut...@alsutton.com> wrote:

> Although the Android doesn't force users to use Marketplace can you why,
> from a usability and functionality perspective, Marketplace already has
> an unfair advantage that can only be levelled by using non-public APIs,
> and hence why all the time bundled apps such as Marketplace uses
> non-public APIs other apps will do so?

In the realm of app installation, security is really important and
tricky. At this point, we think it is too dangerous to give a third
party application blanket access to install applications without the
user being involved. That may change in the future, but for now that
is the way it is. Yes, it means the Android Market app as a bundled
part of the system can do a little different UI flow than ones that
aren't bundled that way. Sorry, that's just how it is for now.

For uninstalling apps without the user's intervention, this is
something that would be a little less scary to allow, but we didn't
have time to look into this for 1.0.

Oh and fwiw, what you are talking about here has nothing to do with
private APIs. Yes, these APIs are not in the SDK, but even if they
were, you couldn't use them because they are protected by a permission
that you can only have granted to you if you are signed with the same
certificate as the core platform code.

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