A few days ago, I built an app that I sent off to Cameroon for mother tongue translators to put on their phones. Their phones failed to recognize the file: Hdi_Bible-1.0.apk A guy helping them, changed the file name, removing the period between the 1 and 0. This change enabled their phones to recognize the file as an APK.
I’ve never before experienced this issue. Have any of you?
Unfortunately, I don’t know the make of their phones, nor what version of Android they are running. I’ve made this post simply to see if it is a real issue. I’m concerned that there could potentially be a lot of people out there who want our apps on their devices but get stuck with their phones not recognizing the APK files, because of the period in the appended version number (default in SAB). I’m sure this would never be an issue for people downloading/installing the APK from the Google Play Store… only for those sharing the file from device to device (Bluetooth, Xender, etc.)
I can’t say I have heard of anything like this, but I’d avoid extra periods in the file name anyway. A bit like I avoid spaces in filenames for the web. I suspect their android version is looking for an extension of apk and finding 0.apk.
If it’s a problem in your workflow you can ‘set it and forget it’ by unchecking “Append version number to apk filename” in the APK tab. That way you don’t have to worry about it anymore - you can still see the version number by looking in the Properties in File Explorer.
Thanks Corey. I guess I was thinking that this is maybe an issue that should be changed in the SAB software itself, as to prevent app builders out there from producing apps that have less reach than they could.
Just came back to this and I’m sorry to say I was wrong about the version number being visible in file properties. I remember looking at this and dashing off that reply, but I must have been working too fast - the version number does not in fact appear in Properties, I was wrong. I looked at this just now on Mac and Windows and the version number doesn’t appear on either system. You can see it if you go into App Info in Android down at the bottom, at least on my phone, but not if you’re looking at it on pc. Sorry for the confusion!
