Seen Sparkle[1]? It's all the rage in the OSX world. Thousands of applications use it. It'd be a good place to start. Beyond that, there's also Google's Update Engine[2], also for OSX, which does updates file by file, and I believe can even work with just changesets (Sparkle replaces the whole .app bundle). At least, I think Update Engine was started by Google...
Or, if you want to go for "epic" in-place self-updating, something could be done which mimics how some Linux kernel upgrades can be swapped while the OS is running. That's a neat trick. I believe Nginx can do the same, it'd probably be an easier start. Unless the binary is locked when downloaded, I don't see why that at least shouldn't be possible.
Though, all that said, IANA Android developer, and don't know what limitations are in place. Could be it's just flat out impossible, I honestly don't know.
[1]: http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org/ [2]: http://code.google.com/p/update-engine/
Sparkle doesn't exist to upgrade your app from e.g. paid to free.
It was chosen for conceptual design of something which has radically changed the application-updating playing field by being so successful. Normal people update regularly with Sparkle; how many have you seen ignore a Java / Windows / Adobe update for the thousandth time?
Uh no it's pretty major.
> compared to it not being open source, so it's not an ideal one to begin with
Sparkle is not open source? Are you high? http://github.com/andymatuschak/Sparkle
POINT 1 -- There's no in-app upgrade option.
True, but you can quite easily link RIGHT TO the app you require your user to purchase. It's actually super easy to do, I don't know why some don't do this. However, maybe you are referring to the ability for an app to initiate a self-update, in which case, I'd love to know how to do this.
POINT 2 -- Apps without meaningful descriptions should be deleted or hidden by default. A changelog is not a description.
App developers are given 325 characters to tell the entire story of their apps AND describe why we require an update. It's awful. Have you ever written a Haiku? Every time I try to create an app description AND include a changelog, it's like geeky Haiku.
I feel like an idiot replacing the word "for" with a "4" because of this space limitation. It's embarrassing.
POINT 3 -- Apps that start off saying "doesn't work with..." should be deleted or hidden by default or only shown on the Android devices it does work with.
App developers can put a target SDK, minimum SDK and even max SDK in their Manifest. I'm not sure why more don't.
-- It would be fantastic if you could sort searches by downloads, ratings, etc. You'd think since Google is a search company they could figure this one out. Maybe in 2.2?
Agreed.
Though I'd like to one-up this and ask that there be a "Featured Apps" option where Google employees show off obscure but cool apps.
Then, how about a "Sports" category in Games? I for one would be really happy to see this.