CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidgoogle-play
Sandy
Sandy

Reputation: 2692

Is the package name / domain of my Android app important?

I created an Android app using a package name of (for example) com.myawesomeapp.android.

I had purchased myawesomeapp.com, but I'm no longer interested in keeping the domain itself, but want to keep the app.

Is there any danger in letting the domain expire? If someone else later registers the domain, is there any way they could request control of the app from Google?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 4

Views: 940

Answers (1)

G. Blake Meike
G. Blake Meike

Reputation: 6715

Owning a domain name has nothing to do with it. You can choose any package name you want, for your app. The combination of the app package name and your cert, are your app. Any bag of bits with that name and that cert are your app.

Same cert, different package name? Another app you created.

Same package, different cert? First install wins. If some user installs my app, with my cert and a given package name, and then tries tries to install your app, same package name, different cert, Android will refuse the second installation.

It turns out that your app's package name becomes the name, essentially, of the user directory, on the device, which is the root for all of your application's persistent storage

Btw, this has nothing at all to do with the java package you use for your application. Aapt, the resource compiler will uses the application package name as the java package for the java code it generates. If you happen to use the same package for your java code, then all the normal java rules apply: you don't have to explicitly import stuff that is in the same package.

Also, when specifying the names of java objects, in the Manifest, you can elide the name of the app package. Thus, e.g., if your app package is foo.bar, and you have a class named foo.bar.baz.Zqx3, you need only enter ".baz.Zqx3" (actually, you can even leave off the initial '.').

It is convenient to put your java in the same package as your app but it is absolutely not necessary.

Upvotes: 2

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