In the blog post https://developer.garmin.com/index.p...for-trial-apps there is a referral to this forum for trial app documentation. I have failed to find any and also emailed developer support without any answers. Can anyone point me to relevant documentation?
So no one have any information what so ever? To me it sounds extremely strange to write a blog post with links to this forum and then not even bother to answer...
When this was first announced at the 2017 Summit, my impression was that it was more for Garmin App Partners than us 3rd party types. The payment system needed to be in place, and things like paypal wouldn't work - there was an infrastructure required that only a company would have. Maybe I'm wrong and Garmin will correct me if so, but I don't think it's for just any app you want to start charging for.
When this was first announced at the 2017 Summit, my impression was that it was more for Garmin App Partners than us 3rd party types. The payment system needed to be in place, and things like paypal wouldn't work - there was an infrastructure required that only a company would have. Maybe I'm wrong and Garmin will correct me if so, but I don't think it's for just any app you want to start charging for.
Thanks for your reply. At least I got the impression it was open for anyone from the blog post (and the news letter). I guess I was hoping for to much...
If you have not got a response from the developer link, then I would try to send a PM to one of the Garmin CIQ support team which are active in this forum. You can tell who they are because their usernames end in .ConnectIQ. I know that they want to trial the unlock sequence and review your intended use case before enabling the trial app.
There has been some things about this in the SDK since 2.3.0 (April 2017). If you go to the manifest editor for an app with eclipse, down at the bottom of the overview section is "App Trial Information". (including an unlock url) And under AppBase in the API doc, there's things like allowAppTrial(), getTrialDaysRemaining(), and isTrial().
If I recall,(it's been 18 months!) the unlock url is used by the store to see if should send a locked or unlocked version of the app to the device.
Garmin has long said they don't want to be involved with charging for apps, and that's why there's no "download for $0.99" like there is with the Apple Store or Garmin Play. The unlock URL adds complexity to that, so that if a user pays a dev and that app fails, Garmin has a known (big) entity to point to and isn't left with a disgruntled user and no recourse. That's one of the reasons I think this is only for Garmin Partners and their apps.
The doc may be hard to get, as that likely talks about how things work with the unlock URL and other things, and maybe not something they want as common knowledge.
I'm happy with the "if you like my app, buy me a beer" approach! :)
Since this was posted in their open blog and sent out in their news letter, at least I, understood it as it was open for all developers. The first bullet states "
Contact the Connect IQ Developer Program or reach out on the Connect IQ forums to get the integration documentation
I'm trying use the part efter the "or" here :D since the first part has not resulted in any answers.
I also don't like paid apps but after several years and lots of downloads I only have one donation of eur10 (thanks!). However if I only could have charged 0,1eur after a 30-60-100 day trial, my possibilities to support and develop for the never (crazy expensive) watches would be much better. Since Garmin is completely absent from this discussion my negative interpretation is that they really don't care that much...
