What is the situation with Android support for OMA DRM?

Question

I have searched for references on this issue but all of my attempts have been unsucessful so far. I would like to know to what extent does Android supports the OMA DRM specification? Does anyone knows of a reference that states what can be expected from different versions of Android?

It seems that this specification is actually less supported with newer versions of Android (Eclair, Froyo) than it is with older version (Cupcake). For example, in my tests with download descriptors, the devices using Cupcake could download correctly while the devices using Froyo and Eclair showed the DD as xml.

In similar fashion, can we expect the support of the OMA DRM spec. to be the same for all devices running a given version of Android or does it vary with each device? (In different words: is the version of Android tailored for each device by the manufacturer)

Answer 1

You seem to be asking two questions here:

Does Android support OMA DRM?

This was previously asked around the time of Android 1.1 - at the time it was suggested that OMA DRM 2.0 was not supported except by third party libraries. [More recent posts in the google-platform discussion group] suggest that this is still the case.

Could manufacturers customize Android to add OMA DRM?

Yes. If you are planning on manufacturing an Android device that needs this functionality, I would suggest contacting one of the companies mentioned in the aforementioned question. If you are an application developer looking to add this functionality to your application, you would still have to find a manufacturer who has done this, hope that their device is development-friendly, and realize that only users of that specific device will be able to use your application.