1. whostoblame's Avatar
    I bought Beautiful Widgets on both my wife's Droid and mine. Right before HTC made the dev from Beautiful Widgets change the way it looks I backed up it up with Astro. My wife didn't want to update to the new look as well but when we restored her phone she lost the old version. She was pretty bummed until I remembered that I had my backup. I didn't know if it would work even if we did buy it on her phone since this was the case with blackberry. Anyway, it worked as if it was her backup.

    After doing this it left me wondering how the Android OS checked to see if the phone ever bought the app. So what I did was backup another paid that wasn't on my wife's phone and did the same procedure and lo and behold the app worked as if she bought it.

    I see this as a major flaw in the Android OS since a lot of Dev's will be losing money from "pirates".

    Also, if this in anyway is helping to advertise this flaw to "pirates", please feel free to remove this thread mods.
    01-22-10 03:34 PM
  2. Adrynalyne's Avatar
    *Chuckle* Just about every OS out there, mobile or not, has pirated apps on the net. Nothing new to see here
    01-22-10 03:52 PM
  3. zeiroe's Avatar
    I see this as a major flaw in the Android OS since a lot of Dev's will be losing money from "pirates".
    The only way to access the /data/app folder to back up teh actual installer apk's is to have a rooted phone. Not so many people actually root their phones if they don't really see a need to. The event of software piracy is there but I don't think its that drastic ... Now go tell your wife to buy the beautiful widgets app then downgrade to the old HTC looking version she likes you software pirate
    01-22-10 04:39 PM
  4. whostoblame's Avatar
    My wife's phone isn't rooted.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-22-10 05:37 PM
  5. whostoblame's Avatar
    *Chuckle* Just about every OS out there, mobile or not, has pirated apps on the net. Nothing new to see here
    Yes that's correct but you don't have to do any hacking. Just use apps on the market.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    Last edited by WhosToBlame; 01-22-10 at 06:26 PM.
    01-22-10 05:38 PM
  6. Adrynalyne's Avatar
    I am going to assume you meant to say something other than what you typed. I am very familiar with hacking mobile OSes
    01-22-10 05:46 PM
  7. whostoblame's Avatar
    I am going to assume you meant to say something other than what you typed. I am very familiar with hacking mobile OSes
    Sorry meant that you don't "have" to do any hacking. Just use downloaded apps from the Market Place on a phone that is not rooted.

    Thanks for not taking it the wrong way. Tempers fly easy here.
    01-22-10 06:28 PM
  8. Adrynalyne's Avatar
    I think it depends on how the developer is coding the program. The reason I say this is because I have piad apps I can backup (weather widget, and beautiful widget) and ones I cannot because they are marked private (Raging Thunder, and Pure calendar widget).
    01-22-10 06:49 PM
  9. whostoblame's Avatar
    I did it with World Attack abduction, dactyl, and UNO. I sure hope it is the way they code it because I don't want developers to be afraid to make apps for Android OS.
    01-22-10 06:55 PM
  10. integratedtech's Avatar
    The simple truth is the app private directory is protected only if the phone is not rooted. That said apps also have permissions when installed and depending on what is set the app could actually give up your gps location or at minimum the phone state permission could send your IMEI back to the developer. There is a company that has some resistance that is trying to create a blacklist of phones running software illegally. Since you did pay for the app I see no reason why you couldn't find the older version and install it. Perhaps you should just send him an email?

    With the current broken state of the market It will only be time before devs start writing their own copy protection / key solutions. Honestly I'm shocked that so many just relied on google to provide protection for the app. If I was to write an android app I would consider setting it up as shareware where the app would be placed in the data directory along with the saved key. Now atleast someone would have to take the time to build a keygen based off the imei for my app verses just copying the damn thing.
    Last edited by integratedtech; 01-29-10 at 11:08 PM.
    01-29-10 11:06 PM
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