CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Karussell
Karussell

Reputation: 17375

How to make an Android APK update optional?

If you develop an application which needs big custom files (e.g. game). But the new version of the app needs a different file format and needs to download everything again (hundreds of MB). This might be bad for some users so I would like to know how to make it optional.

How can I make the update of the new APK version optional? Or is this not possible and I have to make my app reading two file versions?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 542

Answers (3)

Tom Tsagkatos
Tom Tsagkatos

Reputation: 1494

you could check in your app if user has the files from the previous file format, if they do, don't download anything, if they have no files, download new file format and maybe keep in a variable which one they have ?

I can't think of another way but this will make everything complicated

Upvotes: 0

Marcin Orlowski
Marcin Orlowski

Reputation: 75645

You cannot make APK update optional - there's no such concept in google play - user can skip the update (as it is no way to make it mandatory either), but Once you push it to Google Play it will appear as update to every user who already got your app installed.

Upvotes: 1

Nanne
Nanne

Reputation: 64419

Updating of an APK is optional as it is. You cannot however make the availability of an update optional, but a user is not forced to update.

If you add a warning to your new APK, saying that it does need to re-download your custom files, the user can decide not to upload, or at least wait until he/she is on WiFi.

If you are worried about people having the app on 'auto-update' you could work around this by adding a (random?) but harmless permission. With permission changes you need to explicitly update, giving the user a change to not-update.

Upvotes: 1

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