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PayPal Unveils New Android SDK, Available To US Developers May 15

Posted by samzenpus on from the coming-soon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "PayPal on Monday announced a new Android SDK that tries to make it easier for developers to accept in-app payments on Google's mobile platform. The company says the software development kit will be available for US developers on May 15. The Android debut comes just over two months after the mobile SDK for iOS, which supports iOS 5+ on all varieties of iPhone and iPad screen sizes and resolutions. At the time, PayPal said an Android flavor was coming, and now it has delivered: its SDK will support version 2.2, meaning Froyo (released in May 2010), and above."

4 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. There's only one thing I need to know. by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can it automatically split transactions among 50 accounts to account for state sales tax?

  2. PayPal by MoronGames · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I hope this doesn't take off. I feel much better about letting companies like Google or Apple handle my money for transactions within apps, than horrible companies like PayPal. Here's a good resource for information about how PayPal treats its customers:

    paypalwarning.com

    --
    hey!
  3. Re:Doesn't this break Developer TOS by Ost99 · · Score: 2

    Only applies to products distributed through the Market.
    This adds an easy payment option for the thousands of apps distributed outside Google Play.

    --
    ---- Sig. gone.
  4. Re:Doesn't this break Developer TOS by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

    Using a 3rd party payment processor is against the Google Developer Terms of Service.

    Section 3.3 : "All fees received by Developers for Products distributed via the Market must be processed by the Market's Payment Processor."

    https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_uk/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html

    Only if you can accept payments via Google Checkout/Wallet.

    You see, the Play market is available in more countries that you can accept payment from - paid apps are simply not shown to those countries. (For a long time after Android first came out, the only supported country was the US, while the phone was available in a number of other countries, including Canada. End result is if you wanted a paid app, you had to pirate it because Google didn't make it available to you).

    As a result, many apps went "freemium" because it's either not show up and be pirated, or go free and make up the money selling ads and in-app purchases (the latter being fairly new, which is why many apps use the ad model with fairly ... "liberating" permissions required).

    So if you're selling in a country that can accept Google payments, you must use it. If not, you're free to engage Paypal and others (which until Google allowed in-app payments most devs used Paypal, and even after IAPs until Google cracked down).

    Fact remains, Play is available in more countries than you can accept money from.