Where To Purchase dooblou Applications, Licenses, and How They Work

Update: You can now also purchase at AndroidPIT!  It uses a similar licensing system to the Android Market, so the same advice applies.

Whenever you purchase one of my paid applications, you are also purchasing the license to use it. The application will at times try and retrieve the license to ensure you have permission to use it, and it does this by making a call to a license server using whichever data connection you have (WiFi, 3G, etc.). Most people purchase the application, have no problems at all and are very pleased with their purchase. However, some users can have trouble figuring out how to officially purchase my applications and to work out whether they have a license or not. This often happens if you think you have bought a license, but the application then tells you that you haven’t got one. Or maybe you have upgraded to a new version of Android, installed a custom ROM or got a new phone, and suddenly one of my applications says you no longer have a license. Hopefully I can help address a few of these issues here...

You can officially purchase any of my paid applications using the following methods:

• Android Market
• SlideMe
• Android Pit
• And coming soon, Amazon Appstore

If you have downloaded or purchased one of my paid applications from anywhere else, then beware as to what you are installing on your Android device as I cannot be responsible for supporting applications that pirates and bootleggers are publishing on the internet. The ones I am aware of are old and buggy versions of my applications, so I wouldn’t bother with them at all!

As the Amazon Appstore isn’t up yet and I don’t know how it works, I will focus on the Android Market and SlideMe...

Firstly, for those that don’t know, SlideMe is similar to the Android Market in that they provide an application on your Android device that allows you to download, purchase and manage applications. You must first go to their website to download their market-like application, and you will need to setup an account with them, but once you have done that you are ready to go! In many ways it is better than the Android Market in that it is available to users in any country and allows you to pay using a variety of methods, including PayPal. Also, my applications are usually cheaper on there ;)

Not many people have any problems using SlideMe or the licensing system, so there is not much more to say about them. However, a few people do struggle to use the Android Market. One of the main problems is that people find it hard to even purchase an application; they often find their payment will not authorize. I am not responsible for authorizing the payment or anything to do with managing that side of things; that is down to a combination of Google and your payment method of choice. However, one common reason for a payment failing to authorize is that your card provider will not allow payments to be made in a foreign currency. As I am based in the UK and most of my customers are from across the world, this is a common issue. You may need to contact your card provider and tell them to lift the block on making payments in foreign currencies ... either that or just use PayPal via SlideMe ;)

Another rare problem that can occur when purchasing via the Android Market is that your payment has authorised correctly, you have downloaded the application, but when you start the application it claims you have no license and that you need to contact me. Well, don’t contact me, read this instead ;)

There are 3 reasons (that I have found) as to why this happens.

1. Sometimes, Google’s licensing server cannot be reached when your Android Device is connected to a WiFi network. This may be because your WiFi network doesn’t have an internet connection that is readily accessible, or for some weird firewall/security reason. To get around this, firstly disable the WiFi connection on your Android Device. Then start the application so it can find Google’s license server using whatever data connection it is using, and then once it has found the license, exit the application to enable WiFi again (if you need to) or just continue using the application.

2. The mechanism that Google use for licensing is based on the primary Gmail account you have linked to your Android device. If you have more than one Gmail account linked to your Android device, and you then use one of the non-primary ones to purchase an application via the Android Market, you will not be recognised as having a license for the application. This is probably a bug or an oversight by Google, but either way there is not a lot I can do to fix this other than to recommend you switch you primary account to be the one you bought the application with.

3. Users occasionally have problems when they mess around with installing custom ROMs or upgrading the OS on their Android device. I am sorry, but you are on your own here; I don’t support custom ROMs for the obvious reasons and if you have problems after doing an official upgrade and are still using the same primary Gmail account on your Android device, then you’ll have to contact Google about that.

Hopefully that clears everything up with regards to how to purchase my applications and how to get around any potential issues with licensing.  So now you know, you have no excuse ... go out there and buy some of my applications :P