Frequently Asked Questions - For Developers
User login
Clarifications for developers, uploading applications, price setting, etc
Ready to cash out your earnings from SlideME user purchases of your applications? We make it easy. As a SlideME Android developer you have access to a number of convenient payout options for funds that have accumulated in your account. You can choose to cash these out whenever you wish, but remember that applicable transaction fees will be deducted with each payout.
SlideME offers you the convenience of payouts by:
- PayPal: Have funds sent to your PayPal account. See also withdrawal options from Paypal.
- Wire transfer to a bank account: Have funds wired directly to your bank account. Wire transfer fees apply.
- Amazon Payments: Have funds sent to your Amazon account.
Feel free to suggest more payout options and how you wish to get paid. Contact SlideME.
Earnings from sales will be automatically remitted to your preferred Payment account. Assure your set your 'Payout Info' details. You can 'Request a Payment' using a link at anytime providing you have accumulated $50 minimum in your earnings balance.
Developers get further details from SlideME Developer's Rate Schedule
The process for a developer to publish a paid application and receive payout:
1. Create an account on SlideME as a developer.
2. Stock your applications to SlideME's inventory
3. Choose if you wish to protect your applications with SlideLock
4. Publish your applications for distribution
5. Complete the Payout Info form available from Edit > Payout Info, including Cheque Remittance details, Bank Account, and optional Paypal account details.
6. If a non-US resident, fill out and e-sign the W-8BEN form under My Profile > Contracts. This form simply confirms to SlideME you are not a US tax resident.
7. Request a Payment below the earnings block available from 'Transactions' > 'Payments' details Menu. Once request for payment has been initiated expect payment to have been processed within 7 days (Net-7 days).
The Payout dues, are based upon the payment method used by the consumer. This model has been implemented to maintain highest payouts to developer and to permit SlideME to adopt multiple type of Payment methods the consumer can utilize from any parts of the world or entity. Every payment method has its own processing fees. E.g, introducing carrier billing by X carrier, the carrier could set a fee of 20%. A prepaid card from country Y could have processing fees consisting of a % and a fixed rate per transaction.
Example:
An applications is published by the developer at a fee of $1.00
The consumer uses Amazon Payments as a payment method (fees: 5% + $0.05). The developer will receive $0.90
If the same application purchased via Amazon Payments and is sold to the UK since the UK has a Sales Tax rate of 20% VAT, the developer will receive $1.00 / 1.20 - ($1.00x0.05+0.05) = $0.73
**SlideME handles the Sales Tax complexities. With SlideME the developer is not required as set out in the Android Market Terms & Conditions to apply sales tax, collect the sales tax and remit to the country authorities the collected sales taxes.**
More details:
If you reside outside the USA, all SlideME will need is for you to sign a W8BEN form. This form needs to be sent to us before we can remit payment to you. This is quite a simple form to confirm to SlideME that you are a tax citizen/resident of your country and that we do not need to withhold any fees from your payout when paying your invoice.
http://slideme.org/faq/payout-non-us-developers/what-w-8ben-form
You can withdraw funds from Earnings Balance once you reach the minimum of $50 USD (reduced from $100 on March 8, 2013). Do contact is if you need a payout sooner.
For any applications that have VAT applied to them or a sales tax, we purchase your item minus this sales tax. The rate you wish to sell your application will be the final price to consumer. SlideME takes care of collecting applied sales taxes to customers invoices and remits accordingly to the acquiring authorities.
Details available from the DDA Developer Distribution Agreement.
* The payout limit set to $50 is only for keeping administration resources to a minimum and making it worthwhile for developer to receive the highest payout with minimal remittance fees. If you would like to receive payouts sooner, do contact us at SlideME and our friendly staff we will be glad to accommodate your requirements.
Non-US tax residents are required to complete a W-8BEN form and submit it to SlideME. This completed form is only kept internally for SlideME's records. This form simply confirms to SlideME you are not a US tax resident.
To find out more about the W-8BEN, click on the link below to go to Wikipedia’s article on the W-8BEN form.
Depending on your jurisdiction, this may very well be requested prior to any remittance to you. Non-US providers should research further what a W-8BENis.
To submit the W-8BEN form to SlideME, you must first set your remittance information for your developer account.
Visit My Profile -> Edit -> Payout Info.
After setting your Payout info, you will be able to visit Contracts to e-sign the W-8BEN form. When requesting to e-sign the W-8BEN form, and email will be sent to your email address on file. You then need to click on the link within your email you received from echosign.com to e-sign online. (Assure you check your spam folder in case email does not appear in your inbox.)
Application submissions are reviewed by SlideME staff to ensure they meet our minimum standards and quality guidelines. Applications that do not meet these requirements are not approved or are denied. Due to the volume of applications submitted to the marketplace, it can take a variable amount of time for your application to be properly reviewed. Please review the guidelines below to ensure your submission was not in error or to make the proper changes required for approval, then wait 7 business days after submitting your application before opening a support ticket regarding approval or you may be flagged for spamming. If you created multiple new application submissions within 48 hours, please wait 14 business days before opening a ticket regarding your application approvals or you may be flagged for spamming. (Note that U.S. holidays and weekends, Saturday & Sunday, do not count as business days.)
We do not provide any specific times or estimates beyond what is written in the approval guidelines as above. Note that applications not marked as "Published" in their edit node are not reviewed by our editors; and Denied applications not queued "To Be Reviewed" are not re-reviewed by our editors.
Google Play (Android Market) did not have any form of application submission approval process until a few months prior to March 17, 2015, and should not be used for comparison when opening a support ticket. Applications submitted to Google Play are often immediately published even if they are junk, IP infringing, etc, and may only be reviewed afterward if they need removal by Google staff. Your application approval status on other markets has no bearing on whether your submission will be approved on SlideME. Using such an argument when contacting us may cause your ticket to be closed. Additionally, the approval status of other applications on SlideME has no bearing on your own application status; application reviews are performed in isolation and may not be compared to other application reviews.
Application Status
At the top of your application’s profile page, you will find the status of your application submission. The following labels will explain the status of your application in our catalog. Once your application status changes, an email will be sent informing you of this change and any issues or reasons for the change if applicable. Be sure to check your junk/spam folder of your registered email address, and that the email you have registered with SlideME is correct and without typos.
- To Be Approved: Your application has not been reviewed or is currently being reviewed. Note that if you do not set your application to be “Published” (on the Edit node), it will not be reviewed. It may take up to 4 business days for your application status to change.
- Approved: Your application has met our guidelines and is now live in our catalogue if you have set the application to be published. Once an application has been approved, it can take a variable amount of time before it appears on the SlideME website and SAM catalogs. Please wait at least 24 hours before submitting a support ticket regarding approved applications that are not appearing in the catalog.
- To Be Reviewed: Your application is currently queued for an additional review to ensure the changes or updates you have made meet our guidelines or the editor’s requests. Changing the application title or changing/adding permissions will place your application back into the review queue. Note that you cannot make any changes to your application once it has been set "To Be Reviewed". If you wish to make any additional corrections while it is in the review queue, you can request your application be placed in Denied status by opening a support ticket and including the URL of your application. It may take up to 2 business days for your application status to change.
- Denied: Your application review was completed, but your submission did not meet our guidelines. ALL changes requested by our editors are necessary for approval and are sent via email and included at the top of the application’s Edit node. If your application is Denied, make the appropriate changes on the Denied application's node. Do not create an entirely new application submission. Once you have made ALL changes requested, check the box at the top of the application's Edit page to “queue for re-review”, then finally click Save. Do not check the box to queue by itself--do so while you are making your changes before you click Save--or your application will remain Denied as an empty/false update. If you are unable to re-queue your application, please open a support ticket and include the URL of your application. Note that applications will not be re-reviewed an indefinite number of times. All changes indicated by the editors are mandatory, so ensure you read and apply ALL changes indicated. Do not simply skim over the text, and re-queue multiple times, as your application may be permanently rejected for not committing all changes. Though applications are not reviewed via the helpdesk, please feel free to contact us if you are unclear how to proceed with the changes we require. It is preferred that you open a support ticket than re-queue an improper or empty update. We will not reverse any editor's decisions as all reasons for Denied status are non-negotiable, but we will help you to comply with our guidelines. Additionally, per the Developer Distribution Agreement that you agreed to when you submitted your applications, developers are required to update and maintain their applications as well as respond to emails sent from SlideME staff. If you have three or more Denied applications that you have failed to address before submitting new applications, then submitting any new applications in this case is considered spam and a violation of the developer agreement to update/maintain submitted applications. Please address your denied applications before submitting any new applications. Simply unpublishing Denied applications to bypass this and continue spamming our store may result in account closure.
- Forbidden: Your application was rejected and is not permitted on SlideME. The reason for rejection is sent via email and may be due to our content guidelines or developer behavior. Forbidden applications are not open for appeal and should not be re-submitted again (even with a different packageName or under a different account) or your account may be flagged for spamming and/or result in loss of developer privileges. Once an application is Forbidden, we will no longer accept it no matter how many times it is re-submitted.
When updating an application, if you alter the application title or permissions, your application status will be under re-review to ensure such changes are compliant with our current guidelines. Applications under re-review fall under a similar, but separate, time frame as applications initially submitted for approval of up to 4 business days; though approvals for applications under re-review generally occur within 24 hours if submitted during normal business hours. Applications under re-review are not available to the public for download.
The following applications are not permitted on SlideME and will be rejected indisputably:
- Adult content or themes in any media form (text, photo, audio, or video)
- Gambling applications involving real money that are Paid or Premium (unauthorized PayPal gambling)
- Illegal activities or themes (such as piracy, illegal substances, etc)
- Pirated or unauthorized distribution of and/or monetization from intellectual property or copyrighted material
- Applications with falsely, excessively increased download counts (or scraping)
- Duplicate, Themed, or Similar applications (Updates should always be made on the existing application node)
- Applications that link, catalog, or promote other application markets exclusively. This includes applications that curate, promote, rank, or aggregate applications from other markets.
- Applications excessively updated with no changes or minor changes in order to abuse the “Latest” and "Updated" category listings (may result in loss of developer privileges)
- Applications with excessively intrusive advertisements that replace the dialtone, require post-call processing or other telephony features, require account permissions, initiate market intents or downloads without user consent, or open the web browser without user consent
- Applications with advertisements networks that are not properly referenced and compiled into the project such that their libraries are not included or not fully exposed to application scans
- Applications with advertisements that inflate impressions and/or clicks artificially (such as by forcing users to click ads to unlock features, to continue or exit, or uncover buttons or other features, etc)
- Applications containing shill reviews posted by the developer or their associates
- Applications that require Adobe Flash Player installed
- Applications that require Google Services to function or are not Google Play independent (such as Google Maps)
- Applications that manage, install/uninstall, backup, or share application APK's
Review the following minimum standards for application submissions:
- Application title: Your application must have a professional title, as set in the Application Manifest (.xml). All capital letters, use of symbols (underscores, etc), profanity, adult themes (i.e. XXX, porn), version numbers, websites, repetition, generic terms, trademarked names (e.g. Twitter, Facebook), excessive length, or misleading titles are not permitted. This includes free applications with misleading paid/premium names such as Pro, Plus, +, Premium, Full etc. included in the title.
- versionName: As set in the Application Manifest (.xml), this needs to be short enough so that the application’s title and version fit into SAM (and all small screen devices) and the catalog properly. You can verify the formatting on your application’s page and compare it with other SAM catalog entries.
- Package name: Per the Android Open Source Project and the SlideME developer agreement, your application should have an appropriate and unique package name (not to be confused with the uploaded .apk file name), as set in the Application Manifest (.xml). Package names that are too short, not unique, unchanged from tutorial examples, generic, use unauthorized trademarks, or are suspicious will result in the application being denied. Package names must follow standard Android and Java practices for packageName nomenclature or those deemed acceptable by SlideME, i.e. companydomain.apptitle or companyname.apptitle or developer/authorname.apptitle. Package names should never use domains or trademarks owned by other legal entities (such as com.google) and should also never use the com.example namespace when published. This helps to avoid conflicts as multiple apps cannot share the same packageName, it indicates ownership of the application to your account, and it indicates that this application was not built using tutorials/example source code or web app builders. The package name is a unique ID for your application and should never be changed once submitted. Such changes are seen as suspicious activity, and previous users will not be able to update or receive update notifications since it will be considered a different application. If you do attempt to change the package name once approved, your application update will be rejected. If your application was banned by an advertising network and you are changing the package name to monetize with them again, we consider this a good reason to ban your application as well; so we will not accept this as a reason for a package name change on our marketplace. Applications cannot and will not be deleted. Also, package names that are too short and in effect not unique will result in the application being denied.
- Application icon: An application icon must be uploaded. An icon included within the .apk or uploaded as a high resolution icon is not sufficient. The first icon entry in the application node is used in the catalog, and must be included before approval.
- Application category: Your application's primary and secondary categories must be appropriate to the functionality of your application. Do NOT choose "Other" as your primary category as it will be rejected; choose "Other" for secondary/tertiary sub-categories only when there are absolutely no other valid options. Your application will be rejected if you place a game outside of the "Fun & Games" primary category, or you place a wallpaper/theme/ringtone outside of the "Themes" primary category, or you place a dictionary/language learning application outside of the "Languages" primary category. Ensure your application's subcategories are appropriate to the functionality of your application as well; if you have chosen "Physics-based" for your game it must contain complex physics algorithms.
- Application description: Your short and long descriptions must adequately describe the functionality of your application. One-word descriptions or similar, or descriptions involving paragraphed definitions, excessively lengthy feature lists, use copy/pasted definitions such as from Wikipedia, repeat keywords/tags/names, translated languages that are already listed in the app's SlideME profile, duplicate translations to other languages instead of using the translation fields, list version history, add excessive unnecessary flavor text, user reviews, review quotes, all caps, excessively lengthy comma-separated lists, capitalizing each word as spammers do, symbols or ASCII art, repetitive trademarks, SEO-abusing tactics, or ASCII character art will not be approved. Please avoid 'baiting' in the long description, which includes promising updates or future content since most developers do not follow through on such promises. Our staff may remove 'baiting' comments or reject the application in question. If your application includes excessive permissions, you must append a disclaimer to your long description to ensure your submission will not be denied for this reason (users ought to know your or your apps intentions). Applications that include non-traditional advertising (including but not limited to video ads, push ads, homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, etc.) must append their long description with a disclaimer listing these ad features even if they are currently disabled. Note that disclaimers included within the application do not meet our current approval policy guidelines, which requires advertising transparency prior to application download. A short and acceptable ad disclaimer is as follows: This application may contain advertisements in the form of push notifications, homescreen shortcuts, and browser bookmarks. The use of keywords or tags in your descriptions may prevent approval; avoid doing so and include them in the Keywords section instead. Similar rules apply when your application(s) includes additional supported languages and you submit Translated App Descriptions from the Translations Tab.
- Advertising Networks: If your application includes ads, homescreen shortcuts, or push notifications (or you have included an ad SDK in your build), you must disclose this information to customers by indicating “Yes” in the application node entry for “With advertisements”. As well, include the name or website of the ad network(s) you are using in the subsequent data fields, which are shown only to SlideME staff to justify the permissions used by the app itself. If a scan by SlideME staff reveals an Ad SDK is included within your application when you have marked “No”, your application may be denied. This includes push notifications, bookmarks, and shortcut links. Ensure your app is not denied by marking both fields and explaining permissions and advertising methods used in the application description. Applications that include non-traditional advertising (including but not limited to video ads, push ads, homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, etc.) must append their long description with a disclaimer listing these ad features even if they are currently disabled. Note that disclaimers included within the application do not meet our current approval policy guidelines, nor do stock disclaimers with vague terminology such as "search" or "access" points. SlideME requires advertising transparency prior to application download. A short and acceptable ad disclaimer is as follows: This application may contain advertisements in the form of push notifications, homescreen shortcuts, and browser bookmarks.
If your application contains video advertisements that are required in order to unlock free rewards, your application long description must contain the following disclaimer verbatim: *Internet access may be required. This application contains optional video advertisements that can be viewed to provide you additional rewards. Additional data charges may apply if roaming or not connected to Wi-fi.
Paid applications that contain advertisement SDKs are in violation of the Developer Distribution Agreement and will be Denied. Paid applications must be completely clean of all ad network related jar files and references regardless if they are currently disabled. If your application is Denied for this reason, there will be no exceptions made by our support desk; you must remove all traces of ad network files or limit your submission to free apps containing ads. Disabling the ad network, removing from the application manifest, or removing internet permissions is not satisfactory.
Additionally, promoting other games or websites without user provocation (such as before loading the main activity of the application or between “levels” or loading screens), is considered advertising under SlideME guidelines. - Application screenshots: You should include a minimum of 3 screenshots that clearly indicate the functionality of your app, to speed up the approval process. These screenshots should not be stretched, squished, or blurry, and should be rotated properly with the website's alignment so that users can view them without rotating their heads. Applications without any screenshots may not be approved. Promotional images are optional, but are required for placement in various featured channels and promotions. Application profiles with a single screenshot duplicated multiple times will be considered spam. Submissions without a single real screenshot will be considered spam and rejected outright. Applications that can't display more than one meaningful screenshot are too simplistic to exist as applications on our store and are merely tech demos.
- Promotional banner: Although optional, a promo banner is required if you wish your application to be featured in various channels and promotions such as the SlideME homepage, SAM homepage, Editors choice, and other featured app collections. Note that SlideME selects applications to be featured based on quality and polish, and there is no cost to the developer. You may request your application to be reviewed for featured selection, but please make only one request to our support desk. Multiple requests to our helpdesk to be featured or posting a user review on your own application will guarantee it will not be featured on any SlideME promotional channels.
- Application permissions: Permissions required should be appropriate to the application’s functionality (e.g. a game does not normally need to read/send SMS, unless needed for in-app payments for which should be selected from checkbox “Includes In-App Billing”). If your application requires extensive permissions do explain why on the application description, especially for permissions requiring access to personal data or cost money to ensure your submission is not denied. Permissions that suggest malware may cause your application to be denied.
- Application tags/keywords: A maximum of 6 keywords or tags are allowed per application. Note that a single space is generally allowed for each tag. Keywords and tags should not be included in your application description, and may cause your application to be rejected. Tags which contain more than 2 words merged into one tag, contain trademarked names, contain names of other popular applications, repeated keywords, or use keywords not appropriate to the functionality of the app are not permitted on SlideME.
- Developer: If you are a new developer on SlideME, make sure that the information within the application matches the info of your developer profile, as we need to make sure that the person uploading the application is the actual developer or company who has such distribution rights. Assure Developer Profile details are complete too, such as complete name of account and organization name if applicable. Not providing full details and contact information can make you appear suspicious and untrusted as a developer.
- Full Name: To distribute applications via SlideME, you are required to identity yourself to SlideME staff with your actual full name as found on a government-issued photo ID. This is the person's name that is responsible for the application(s) being submitted. This is not a company name or your username. Set the company name in the Organization field. A full name is required (e.g. First & Last Name) for developer accounts. We will not accept a single word as a name, a first name only, or using any initials. Failure to provide such information indicates you confirm your application is junk or malware and you do not wish to be held accountable, and that we should in turn close your account unless you provide a photo ID with the exact name you typed into the "Full Name" field. Developers who submit applications that facilitate illegal activities, piracy, or copyright infringement that do not provide a real full name will be banned outright.
Review the following quality guidelines for application submissions:
- Applications must provide useful functionality or entertainment value. Per the Developer Distribution Agreement, SlideME may deny any applications it deems as lacking in value, quality, or functionality, or with no functional purpose other than the developer monetizing with advertisements. Applications that simply link to or display a website (such as Facebook), a single image, stream, video, or sound are no longer being accepted on SlideME. Applications with screenshots/Wallpapers of celebrities/'girls'/people, hearts, vehicles, or animals will be considered lacking in value and quality and such are at risk of being removed. Other simple applications we are no longer accepting include (but are not limited to) timer/alarm clocks/countdown, Trolls/Memes, farts/airhorns, soundboards, website display, names lists, tips (including gambling), simple or external links to news, simple calculators (real or abstract, relationship or zodiac), counters (including prayer counters), jokes/quotes/SMS, anonymous SMS, SMB bombing, simple or low-quality prank apps, tap count/tapping/whack-a-mole games, application lockers, fifteen/slider puzzles, hangman, bubble/popping games, sound frequency, Flashlight, mirror, compass (prayer or navigation), memory/concentration, snake, tic-tac-toe, sudoku, 2048, 1010, flappy bird clones, zigzag, piano tile, math games, color or stroop games, swing copter clones, circle dot/jump, fidget spinner, video downloaders, lie detectors, RAM boosters, earn cash/paytm, social media followers/likes, notepads/to-do lists, resume/CV makers, unit/currency converters, moto/bike games, tech demos, or other learning/tutorial-derived applications. Due to the overwhelming volume of clones or similar submissions to viral or trending applications being submitted to our store through our free developer registration, we are not currently publishing or approving any more such application submissions like those at this time. SlideME is a curated store, which means our New Release feed is hand-selected for a variety of applications; and we do not flood it with similar or repetitive content in any automated fashion.
- Applications with advertisements must provide genuine and meaningful content other than for the sole purpose of displaying advertisements, and must have the price set to Free ($0.00). Applications with excessive advertising or multiple in-app advertising disclaimers may be denied. Simplistic applications, low quality applications, themes, ringtones, and wallpapers with excessive aggressive advertising or that require multiple in-app advertising disclaimers with very little actual content or real functionality may be denied. Other excessive advertisements include multiple advertisements per screen transition, multiple banners per screen which are against ad SDK terms of service and SlideME, multiple aggressive ad types per application, interstitial ads at all or most screen transitions backward or forward, delayed or timer-based interstitial ads so that users will accidentally click on the ad instead of displaying them between screens, video advertisements in simple games/applications, advertising appearing at random intervals during application touchscreen usage/gameplay, or the hardware back button displaying one or more ads without closing the application. Failure to comply will result in the application being Forbidden for violating the Developer Distribution Agreement: You submit applications purely for monetization through advertising.
Applications with misbehaving advertisements that inflate impressions and/or clicks artificially (such as with misleading buttons or by forcing users to click ads to unlock features, to continue or exit, or uncover buttons or other features, etc) are against the terms of service of both SlideME and most Ad networks and thus may be denied. Additionally, applications with excessively intrusive ads that interfere with the functionality of the app, open a market app on the user's device, initiate downloads, or otherwise leave the application completely will be rejected. - Applications with multiple versions of similar apps will be considered spam and possibly result in the loss of developer privileges. Consider combining them into a single application if they individually provide very little content.
- Applications that are duplicates of pre-existing applications must provide new and useful functionality. Themed versions or re-skins are not allowed, and translated versions of applications should take advantage of Android's localization feature and the Translations tab on SlideME rather than submitting a new application. Note that high quality-high download applications always combine themes/re-skins and localization into a single application.
- Applications that are simply collections of text (quotes, tips, jokes, SMS, etc), images, sounds, (Youtube) videos, links, or other aggregated content not created by the developer may be rejected. Additionally, those that simply link to or display a website, a single image, video, or sound may be rejected. If you did not create the content that is provided by your application or do not have a signed contract authorizing you to distribute this content, do not submit it to our store as it will be rejected.
- Applications that simply link to or display a Facebook page, Twitter Page, Youtube channel, Google Plus page, blog, or a non-corporate website will be rejected. Users can simply visit that website or URL without the need for unnecessary applications on their devices, or without seeing more potential advertising on top of any potential advertising on the website or URL. Applications that simply replicate or display the mobile version of any existing website, even if you legally own it, will be rejected outright. If you do not own the website in question, your account will be banned for illegal activity.
- Applications that appear to be test builds, practice applications, or have minimally invested developer hours may be denied.
- Applications with incomplete profiles, such as a generic name, lack of in-app screenshots, lack of application icon, or lack of described functionality may be denied.
- Applications that demonstrate mock functionality, tricks, or pranks may be rejected. Simple prank applications will not be accepted.
- SlideME is a public application market and does not provide download service for private parties or password-blocked applications catered to specific individuals or applications with limited access or service area. We also do not approve applications created by or for classroom projects, university thesis/classes, or online classes/tutorials.
- Applications targeted at very young children are no longer permitted to contain banner advertising during the play area or interrupt play with an advertisement, as we will consider this as an attempt to artificially inflate ad clicks through the child mistakenly pressing on the ad banner. Banners on menus or the title screen, as well as interstitial ads between menus (but not between gameplay areas), are still permitted. If you simply increase the age rating listed on our store, we will consider your application to be too simplistic and your submission will be rejected for simply ad monetizing.
- Applications judged to be harvesting private information will be rejected. This includes the use of the "Get Accounts" permission to automatically collect the user's email address or as their hidden user ID. This also includes forcing the users to provide an email address to use an application that does not have a user login. Additionally, applications using a phone number or social network login requirement may be rejected as well. Note for the safety and security of our users, we will not approve applications that require phone numbers by an individual developer rather than a formal organization or company. You will either have to remove the required login, or provide a traditional email/password login with a proper privacy policy.
- Applications derived from open source content must provide a direct link to the current or modified source code within the long description, the current open source license being used, and must be from a repository that you or your team maintain. Applications that are a derivative of another open-source project are no longer being accepted. Simply placing advertising or a price on a pre-existing open source application that you did not create will be rejected outright. Simply building and distributing open-source or pre-built assets as-is, or simply re-skinning assets results in excessive duplicate applications on SlideME that we will not accept. Instant messaging applications derived from open-source applications will not be approved. We do not accept applications derived from free or premium flipped/re-skinned app templates, whether you purchased them or not.
- Applications that require Adobe Flash Player installed, download Flash Players, or attempt to provide Flash Player functionality are no longer permitted on SlideME since most SlideME users do not have access to a stable Flash player, and Adobe has discontinued support for Flash on mobile devices.
- Applications that promote or require external markets for third-party applications to function are prohibited on SlideME, or redirect users to other markets to download applications. Applications that direct or download third-party applications directly from the developer, without the use of or redirection to another marketplace, are permitted.
- Applications that redirect users from a free application version available on SlideME to purchase a paid version (to include unlocking, removal of ads, pro features, donations, premium content, etc) on another store, or otherwise "teasing" users regarding a full/pro version or other paid features may be rejected. As such, if you choose to do so you must also submit to SlideME the paid version of your application or provide a fully featured version (with ads allowed) containing no purchase links nor any disabled references/links that tease other features they could have if they used another store. Only optional purchases that are virtual currency not used to unlock features or gamble are permitted through other application markets. Full/pro/paid features/ad-removal purchases are permitted through non-market options such as PayPal or other mobile/SMS-based billing (such as Fortumo). Note that if you have a full version with more features on another market, you must also provide all of the same features on SlideME (though with ads is permitted). Simply providing only less-featured lite versions to SlideME users will cause your applications to be rejected. We provide our own in-app billing SDK and we support the OpenIAB SDK: http://slideme.org/developers/iap
- Due to legal reasons and Youtube's current Terms of Service, we can no longer approve any new submissions that monetize through copying or downloading of Youtube content without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. YouTube and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content. If your application is a new submission without providing authorization in writing, your application will be Forbidden without appeal.
- Applications that have been Approved by our editors are not permitted to change their package name, nor may they convert from a free to paid ("premium") status. Application title and permission changes are permitted, but will place the application under re-review.
- E-book applications must be created by an actual developer with native code as we will not approve e-book web built applications. Such applications must provide a link to the current copyright license being used, or if public domain then the direct readable or downloadable link to the source of the acquired media (such as Project Gutenburg). If the license proves to be inadequate, you must send us a scanned copy of your contract that authorizes you to distribute this content.
- Applications created using third-party web application builders (such as Andromo, AppBuilder, AppsGeyser, AppInventor, AppMaker, AppsBar, AppYet, Appy Pie, Buildbox, Conduit, Feed.nu, GameSalad, iBuild, LookSomething, SeattleClouds, Tiggzi, etc.) rather than developed with native code by the account users are no longer being accepted on SlideME. We do not accept applications that promote such services either.
- Applications that require Google Services to function or are not Google Play independent (such as using Google Maps) are no longer being accepted on SlideME. If using Google Maps, consider using an alternative mapping SDK such as Nutiteq, OpenStreetMap, or Mapquest, as you will have limited viability in non-Google markets otherwise.
- We permit the use of Google Play for achievements and leaderboards, but we do not permit requesting users to sign in to Google Play services automatically (regardless if they do have a Google-licensed device), especially since many SlideME users lack Google Play services on their device and will not be able to login every time you prompt the user to use Google Play. The manner in which you use Google Play services for achievements and scoring must be user accessed-only and optional, not prompted to them, in order to be approved on SlideME. Note that toggling that a Google Play account is required in your application's profile on SlideME is not permitted to avoid this change. New developers or existing applications without this flag are not permitted to subsequently require Google Play without SlideME's independent prior approval (it is not granted on request; do not open a support ticket asking for this). We will absolutely not approve any new applications that require Google Play Services to fully function. A Google+ account for login is permitted, but services that require a device that comes pre-loaded with Google Services will be rejected outright.
- Developers are required to update and maintain their applications as well as respond to emails sent from SlideME staff. If you have three or more denied applications that you have failed to address before submitting new applications, new submissions may be Denied or Forbidden. Submitting new applications in this case is considered spam and a violation of the developer agreement to update/maintain submitted applications. Please address your denied applications before submitting any new applications.
- Current applications that were approved prior to changes in our approval standards and guidelines will be reviewed again and may be removed at our discretion.
If you wish to promote your own Android apps published on SlideME, you can visit your application profile on SlideME, and click on the right widget, "Promote your App now!"
You will be able to see a list of widgets that you can use to promote your own Android applications. To get a taste of what they look like, check out the Win With Widgets blog post.
SlideME provides the option for developers to add descriptions to Applications in other languages your Application supports (compiled with other locales). Currently the Short Description, Long Description and Application Name title, can be translated into such other languages (locales) supported by the compiled Application.
Note: the main title of the Application as it exists from the Android Manifest cannot be edited. This comes from the Android Manifest.
To add Translations, developer can visit the Application profile from the Translations Tab.
The translated textual information will appear within the SlideME Market App (SAM) and appear within the "Local Apps" listings dependent on the language SAM is used in and users country. The purpose of this feature is to present localized Applications to users from such countries and in their native language.
The username that you registered with is also used as your developer profile name and is displayed under each application. You can retain your username for login purposes and set an "Organization" name that will display to users instead of your username. Some special characters and spaces are permitted in the "Organization" field. This field can be edited by clicking "My Profile" > "Edit" > "Profile".
If you still wish to change your username, please contact us through http://slideme.org/contact
Please note that special characters or spaces are no longer allowed in the username. Only latin characters and numbers can be used.
The title of the application is not editable in SlideME. The label name is extracted from the Android Manifest of each application. If you wish to change the name, edit the Android Manifest and re-upload the application. Do not create a new node, update the existing one by replacing the old apk. The name that appears on our store is the same one users will see when the application is installed to their device, which avoids confusion for less savvy users that many developers seem unaware of.
For applications that have additional language locales, you have the option to add 'Translations' based on the supported languages your application has been compiled with. From this option you are able to add foreign text to your title of your application in addition to the short and long description fields. Your application can appear in users native language with this "Local Apps" feature from SlideME.
Login to your SlideME developer account and go to the application you wish to update. Click on "Edit" at the top of the page. Scroll down to your uploaded apk and click "Change". Replace the apk with the updated one. Then click "Save" at the bottom of the page.
Please note that if the updated apk has a new package name, application name, label or permissions, your application will go back to the approval queue.
If this apk is a new version of your application, make sure you have set a higher value on the versionCode, and check the box that reads "This is a new version of the application" before you click Save.
Yes, indeed. SlideME's SlideLock can help you with this.
The payment flow is as such. Buyer selects application, submits payment details and upon authorization we deliver the application.
If for some reason the application fails to install, we are not prepared to absorb the processing cost. Therefore such nominal processing fees will be debited from your account, viewable in the transactions section of your account.
For details on such fees please refer to the the http://slideme.org/rate-schedule
A chargeback is when a real card owner claims they never made such a payment or dissatisfied with product. We will present all the relevant information on the details link of the transaction appearing in your account. The chargeback if any will be deducted from your account.
Most of the payment methods we're deploying will not have a chargeback risk. For credit cards transactions, unfortunately such risks exist.
SlideME has partnered with Retail Decisions, a world leader in credit card fraud prevention, in order to combat fraud and further reduce chargebacks. More information about ReD is available at http://www.redplc.com
For rates and chargeback fees, refer to: http://slideme.org/rate-schedule
We gave this matter serious thought. With so many countries having their own sales, value added, state and consumer taxes, and being in a competitive landscape, we suggest it is best to set a final selling price for your applications globally and have sales taxes deducted where applicable.
Example:
$10 including sales taxes set as final price, selling in x EU country (e.g 17.5% VAT) equates to your actual selling price excluding VAT as $8.51 (formula: $10/1.175)
This sales tax is not related to any income tax or possible withholds from the US tax office.
Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_European_Union
An important part of our offering, is that we handle the sales tax issues on behalf of you (the developer) and there will be no further sales tax declarations required from your side in the US & EU, since we handle the submissions including WA state sales tax & VAT in all EU member states.
Sales Tax Rates
20.00% Austria
21.00% Belgium
20.00% Bulgaria
25.00% Croatia
21.00% Czech Republic
19.00% Cyprus
25.00% Denmark
20.00% Estonia
24.00% Finland
20.00% France
19.00% Germany
24.00% Greece
27.00% Hungary
23.00% Ireland
22.00% Italy
21.00% Latvia
21.00% Lithuania
17.00% Luxembourg
18.00% Malta
21.00% Netherlands
25.00% Norway
23.00% Poland
23.00% Portugal
20.00% Romania
20.00% Slovakia
22.00% Slovenia
21.00% Spain
25.00% Sweden
8.00% Switzerland
20.00% United Kingdom
9.50% WA, USA
Yes, you may upload more than one application! Ensure each application has its own unique package name, as set in the AndroidManifest.xml.
Note that if you do insist on uploading multiple applications at once, avoid submitting more than half a dozen over a short period of time. Though your applications will eventually be reviewed, multiple submissions in excess will receive a lower priority review status and may not be reviewed within the normal timeframe or for extended periods of time.
Remember that you can always tag your applications with keywords to make them easier to search for. A search function is available on the SlideME site and also on SAM, our mobile client application.
Uploads are limited at 100MB, including application promotion assets, apk and other files and data. However, the current limit for the apk filesize is 99MB.
You can upload an extension file (also known as opaque binary blob, or obb file) to be used in your application.
If you have created an account on SlideME as a normal user, but wish to upload applications as a developer, do not attempt to register a new account. Instead, you can convert your user account to a developer account.
Click "My Profile" on the right-hand "My Actions" menu of the website. Then, at the top of the page click "Edit". Scroll down until you see a section such as the one below that will allow you to convert your account:
"Android developer:
Are you an Android applications developer? Click here to setup your developer account!"