Understanding of GALAXY Apps Policy - Mail from Samsung

Dear Developer Seller,

 

Hello,

This is a GALAXY Apps Operation Team.

 

We'd like to note that apps you registered in Seller Office aren't matched our store policy.

As of July 10, Samsung rebrands store as GALAXY Apps is Curation Store’, which is operated by curation app sales,

and the store policy was changed.

Nevertheless, you have continued to register a couple of your apps to a wrong category.

So we’d like to tell you some of the policy.

GALAXY Specials category in For Galaxy tab should be placed only SDK-used app. This is a must.

Accordingly, what we'd like to propose is to register various typed apps to the store except for 'Qualified apps' and 'SDK-used apps'.

If you do, the apps will be promoted. In case of 'Theme apps', it may not register in the Store due to unmatched curation store concept.

Moreover, there is likely to remove theme apps in the current store or will be registered as well.

In the future, we encourage you to keep the store policy. Otherwise, we can’t help taking away your permission

 if you do register those apps.

We, please, urge you to consider a category of your apps are registering or will register.

 

Thank You

GALAXY Apps Operation Team


I just got this mail from samsung. I don't understand what does it mean. We all have selected Galaxy Specials and Others as the category.. Right?? Anyone else got this too??

Comments

  • edited August 2014
    I got this message too, but I don't understand, what they want us to do.

    @darryl, @lorne, some help would be appreciated.

    I'll also email Samsung about it and let you know what will their response be.
  • edited August 2014
    @hendrixs : ok.. Thanx for the reply.. hope that its nothing serious..!!
  • I got it too but I suspect it was from some live wallpapers.Just in case, I replied asking them what category I should have chosen.
  • Hi Guys,

    To our knowledge, the two required steps in order to have your app accepted into Samsung are:

    - Specifying "Samsung Apps: Android Galaxy devices" as the "Target Market" on the "App Info" tab of your project.
    - When submitting your app on Samsung, specifying "GALAXY Specials" in the first dropdown, and "Other" in the dropdown that appears to it's right. We include/use the "Samsung Image Filter SDK" in order to pass their submission requirements.

    I'm not sure what they're referring to as far as "Theme apps", but perhaps that is something like wallpapers?

    For anyone that has received this message, was this the procedure you used when submitting your apps?

    I was under the assumption that old existing apps were OK unless you updated them, but perhaps they want those updated to, difficult to say. If you've followed the above steps, but have received this message, I would definitely email them for more information about why you're receiving that.
  • @darryl: Thanks for the prompt reply. I always choose Samsung as the target when building the app, and when uploading, you need to specify the category twice. Please see the image: http://postimg.org/image/eg096s0k3/

    I use Galaxy Specials: Other and Galaxy Specials: Data Sharing. You must choose the second category as well - if you don't, it won't let you through.

    I don't have any wallpaper apps on their store, but I think that with "Theme apps" they are labeling "legacy apps", without their SDK (I could be wrong, tho). However, I've checked all my apps on Galaxy Store and each one uses Samsung's SDK, so I don't understand what's wrong.

    I've sent them an email but they haven't responded yet. I'm guessing the guy who sent out the email is receiving thousands of replies, because no one understands, what's wrong. :)
  • edited August 2014
    @hendrix :I only use Galaxy Specials: Other   and don't even touch the other category. But my apps are being accepted. I don't think thats the issue. I have wallpaper, video and custom page apps accepted on their store. 

    And I guess the guy was drunk when he sent the mail , because it doesn't make sense at all. At least not to me. ;)

  • @priyank1991: Strange, I can't choose only one category. :-/ But yeah, the email is totally random.
  • Any news on this? I didn't get a reply from Samsung yet.
  • @hendrixs have you tried setting both to "Other" or not setting it at all? Setting it to "Data Sharing" seems unlikely to work because we aren't using that part of the SDK.

    IIRC someone said to leave the second category unset when we were testing it.
  • @lorne: Yes, I've tried both options that you mention. I can't proceed if I don't choose a category or if I choose the same category twice. I'll be uploading a new app soon and I'll send a screenshot then.
  • @lorne: I've just submitted my latest app and choosing only Galaxy Specials: Other worked fine this time. However, I swear, this wasn't the case for me in the past.
  • edited September 2014
    I've just received a reply from Samsung. The key is to categorize your app as Galaxy Specials: Other (just as @darryl and @lorne suggested). That's it. But, as I said before, I wasn't able to proceed, when submitting an app, if I chose only one category (I guess this was an early release glitch). So I need to update my category selections ASAP.

    Here is the reply:


    Regarding your inquiry, we would like to inform you that Samsung GALAXY Apps change the store concept to the curated app store. In other words, only selected application is displayed in the store now.

    The main idea of the email is to remind you of the change so that in the future, when you adding new applications, you will know which category is the correct one for your application.

    For your information, applications submitted to Samsung after July 1st are all categorized as Galaxy Special since they all developed using Samsung SDK.

    Hence, if your seller type is a developer, you are eligible to select a set of categories as below.

    (Main Category) > (Sub Category)

    - Galaxy Specials > Multi Window

    - Galaxy Specials > Data Sharing

    - Galaxy Specials > Multiplayer Games

    - Galaxy Specials > S Pen

    - Galaxy Specials > Home Appliances

    - Galaxy Specials > Other

    If you are not sure which category to use, we would like to recommend you to check which Samsung SDK was used to build the binary.

    For example, if you used GroupPlay SDK to build a game, then it would be appropriate to select 'Galaxy Specials > Multiplayer Games'.

    If the application does not fall into any of these categories, please select 'Galaxy Specials > other'.

    For more detailed information about Samsung SDK, please visit SAMSUNG DEVELOPERS (http://developer.samsung.com).

    For more information related to policy change, please refer to the following path: Seller Office > "Assistance" > "Notice" > Title: Application submission policy change.
  • I am also using Galaxy Special ---> Other and leave the second to "Main Category".
    And I can confirm what you have experienced @Hendrixs ... at the very beginning, approx for the first week or so, it did not work, when you left the second choice unchanged.

    I still do not see any benefit by their strange categories, but oh well :-) and I still wonder how you show up in their specific app categories on http://apps.samsung.com e.g. in Entertainment
    http://apps.samsung.com/earth/topApps/topAppsList.as?categoryID=G000033267
    when they do not even know, what category our Apps are falling under.


    On another note: how you guys are handling the "China-thing" (not allowed to submit apps with admob ads)?
    I tried to use startapp, but without luck (some kind of tech problem, that force close the app).

  • edited September 2014
    Thanks @sylviathewitch, good to know that I wasn't the only one, who was experiencing this. :)

    Yeah, Samsung Apps (or whatever it's called now) is very confusing, however, it's a "mandatory" app store to be on. Let's just hope they get their act together sooner than later.

    I didn't try to publish yet an app without AdMob included. Would it be worth it? China market is huge, but I'm not sure, if ENG only apps are interesting to them.
  • Thing is, what ad network could we choose that would actually work in China?
  • What do you do exactly
    Samsung Image Filter SDK
    with "
    Samsung Image Filter SDK
    Samsung Image Filter SDK
    Samsung Image Filter SDK"?
    Do you upload as another binary in addition to your main one?

    I've unzipped the "Samsung Image Filter SDK" zip file and there is no any .sdk file.
    Which file extension do you upload?

    Thanks
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