Tech N Life » Android Market http://tech-n-life.com Your Tech Update Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:26:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 ANY Android Market Paid App For Free!! A Glitch? http://tech-n-life.com/index.php/2010/02/any-android-market-paid-app-for-free-a-glitch/ http://tech-n-life.com/index.php/2010/02/any-android-market-paid-app-for-free-a-glitch/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:30:23 +0000 Konrad Walsh-(admin) http://tech-n-life.com/?p=1885 I was doing some routine backup and restore of my apps in between flashing my HTC Hero rom using the awesome Titanium Backup app and came to realize something substantial. If you follow my Twitter feed, you would have noticed the other night I posted that I found a way to get market apps for free. A lot of people asked me how. This is how the other night went. I thought to myself with my overly analytic brain, that surely if I follow these steps:
  1. Buy an app from the Android Market
  2. Install it
  3. Use Titanium Backup to back it up
  4. Uninstall & Refund it through the market
  5. Restore the app with Titanium Backups restore function
I surely would have a paid app for free. ANY paid app I want. This got me thinking more and realized that it would only work if I used the restore “App Only” function and not replace the market entry. A little further thought made me realize that this means you won’t get any of the apps updates and you can only do it once per app. I am too afraid to try this as I don’t want to annoy Google or any developers as I firmly believe they deserve the usually small asking price for their hard work. So, I shot an email over to Joel, the Titanium Backup developer and asked him his opinion. Here is what he said:
“while it indeed works perfectly, I do not encourage this practice – for obvious reasons. With great power comes great responsibility.”
My biggest concern here is that if you abuse this power then you are really hurting yourself long term. Developers will run and not come back. And I believe Google have the power and right to stop you buying from the market again. Still, I think its fascinating and a serious oversight on Google’s part.
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]]> http://tech-n-life.com/index.php/2010/02/any-android-market-paid-app-for-free-a-glitch/feed/ 22 The Most Essential App For Android – Titanium Backup http://tech-n-life.com/index.php/2010/02/the-most-essential-app-for-android-titanium-backup/ http://tech-n-life.com/index.php/2010/02/the-most-essential-app-for-android-titanium-backup/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:19:47 +0000 Konrad Walsh-(admin) http://tech-n-life.com/?p=1671   By now you have realized that having an Android phone is great. And you’ve installed all your wonderful apps and played with it to death. But you’ve probably already realized that if you lost your phone, or sent it away for repair, you will likely lose all your nice new shiny apps. In my experience, the whole log back in to the Android market and your apps are there hasn’t really been the case. In one case, leaving me to re-buy my favourite app, Feedr. Well a great guy called Joel Bourquard created Titanium Backup. It works really well and simple. Not only does it backup your apps, it backs up the data associated with the app AND the market entry details. What does all this mean?

Backup of Apps

Simple, it scans through all your install apps and you can either click on each app to have it backed up or use menu > batch to back up all the apps in one go.  

Backup of Data

When you need to restore the app, any settings or data associated with the app will be there if you use this option.

Backup of Market Entry

Now when you do restore everything, it will also re-write to market entry into your phone so when you visit the market and go to my downloads, all of your paid and installed apps show up again. This is so important. Otherwise you don’t get update alerts from Android Market.

Free and Paid Versions

There is a free version in the market that gives you most of the functions. However I strongly recommend the paid version. When you head to the market to find Titanium Backup you will only see the free version. You need to donate as per the app instructions to get a permanent key file. The paid for version gives you a much faster experience and better restore options. And he deserves the small asking price of $5.99 for a great piece of software, especially when you consider what all you paid apps are worth.

Other Features

FILTER – You can quickly and easily filter your apps by name or status. And it integrates with Apps Organiser so you can also filter by labels. This makes managing the apps simple and quick Zero-click install/uninstall Just to make life more simple and that’s always a good thing when it comes to managing your apps.

Important Information

This is only for ROOTED Androids. If you haven’t rooted yours yet, here is a guide that will get you on the way. Support Sunday: How To Root Your New HTC Hero Safely And Why You Want To Also, Joel is very responsive and helpful, so shoot him an email if you have any troubles. His address is in the app. Are you using anything similar? Let us know in the comments. UPDATE You may find this post interesting: ANY Android Market Paid App For Free!! A Glitch?
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