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GPS Manifest: GPS in App is optional, want to make it available to GPS less devices too

Asked 2012-06-17T19:37:11.423
28

On uploading my App onto the market today, I saw that it is only available to devices with GPS, so this excludes some tablets.

GPS in my App is optional. Is it possible to release one App for devices with and without GPS or do I need to make an extra version (would be no problem, though)?

If it is possible, I guess there is some sort of method to check if(deviceHasGPS()){...}. Is there one ?

This is the part of my manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.PREVENT_POWER_KEY" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS" />
<uses-permission android:name="com.android.vending.CHECK_LICENSE" />

Edit: thanks for the Answer Raghav Sood!

Add to Manifest:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.location.gps" 
              android:required="false" />

Implement the following:

locationManager = (LocationManager) this.getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE);
boolean deviceHasGPS = false;
    if (locationManager.getAllProviders().contains(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER)) {
        deviceHasGPS = true;
    }

to test it on a device with gps, just surround the gps things with if(deviceHasGPS){...} then remove in the manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="
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39

Add the following to your manifest

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.location.gps" android:required="false" />

This will tell Google Play that while your app has the GPS, it's absolute requirement isn't true. However, you should handle the lack of GPS in your app gracefully, instead of letting it crash.

To check is the device has GPS you can call LocationManager.getAllProviders() and check whether LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER is included in the list.

answered 2012-06-17T19:40:38.417

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