Why is my app not available to some devices via Market?

Question

As a specific example, the app is not available to the HTC Wildfire S. This device is listed in Android Market publisher console as one of the devices that it IS available to, but the web Market shows the app and the Wildfire as incompatible. Which is obviously confusing. the app is not available to a whole range of devices including the Galaxy S, the Galaxy S2, the Galaxy Ace, even though these are also showing in the Market console as compatible.

Here's the relevant manifest settings as shown in the Market:

Screen layouts: SMALL NORMAL LARGE XLARGE

Required device features

android.hardware.wifi

android.hardware.screen.landscape

android.hardware.touchscreen

The app is paid, and is available to all countries so I do not think this is a country issue.

What am I missing? Android Market says the app is available to these devices, so why is it not? I am struggling to understand why one side of the Android Market says it's compatible, but the public-facing side says it's not. What's going on?

Answer 1

AFAIK, If your app target version is not compatible with the device OS version, app won't show up for download.

Answer 2

If you've turned on encryption then this can cause an issue with some of Googles licenses with OEMs.

An example of this is the T-Mobile Pulse which will simply not display apps which have been encrypted.

Cheers, Matt

Answer 3

From what I know, all the Market filtering is carried away using the Manifest. So Proguard can't be the issue. I imagine that your app can be installed manually on your Wildfire. It may be a bug of the Market filtering for some uncommon features AND devices. For example, the android.hardware.screen.landscape is unnecessary for your device (since the doc states that your device is supposed to accept both [1]). Maybe you can try to release your next update with a device specific apk for API level <= 12 and without this requirement, and see if it appears.

You also have to take market caching in consideration, and it can take a few hours for the new version to appear on your device (even if you erase the Market App data).