Android Permission, required="false", fail

Question

My application provides the user with optional access to SMS and Phone calls. I have used:

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" android:required="false"></uses-permission>
 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SEND_SMS" android:required="false"></uses-permission>
 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CALL_PHONE" android:required="false"></uses-permission>

Google Play does not expose this application to devices that do not have cellular network access. It seems like the required = false parameter is failing to do its job.

Is this a bug? Is there something else that I can do?

Answer 1

You don´t need to use the property android:required in <uses-permission it only works for <uses-feature, see the definition of

uses-feature : To control filtering, always explicitly declare hardware features in elements, rather than relying on Google Play to "discover" the requirements in <uses-permission> elements. Then, if you want to disable filtering for a particular feature, you can add a android:required="false" attribute to the declaration.

this is the list of permissions that imply hardware features:

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-feature-element.html#permissions-features

Based on your elements:

you probably need to add only :

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.telephony" android:required="false" />