How to purchase for old HTC Droid Incredible phones running Android version 2, with no Internet access ever.

[Mikep]

I want to use Poweramp on several old HTC Droid Incredible phones running Android version 2.  These devices are being used as dedicated music players attached to several portable boom boxes I built, playing local .MP3 files contained on the device.  They are not connected to any phone service, as they will never be used as a phone, just used to serve local music to the boombox amp as a music player.  They will never be connected to the Internet.  In fact they won't even allow me to sign into a Google account temporarily if I connect to wi-fi and try.  I'm guessing this is because they do not support the current level of encryption/security required by Google, since these are 13-year-old cell phones.  I suspect this because most websites I try to visit with these phones do not work and get security errors.   I can't install any apps from the Google store because it won't let me sign into a Google account.  There will be no email accounts or Google accounts on these devices, as I plan to give these boom boxes and music players away to friends as gifts.

Reading your registration FAQs, I don't see HOW I can purchase and register Poweramp licenses for these devices.  It seems like even if I were able to register/license Poweramp on these devices initially, the license checking is so rigorous and numerous, that I would have future problems with the software telling me I am not a licensed user since they will never be connected to the Internet and not have a Google account or email account on these devices.  All of your license checking requirements are confusing to me.

I'd like to use Poweramp on these devices, but I'm confused as to how I would need to go about purchasing version 2 and licensing it on these devices so that it works forever without any licensing hassles.  The friends I will be giving these boom boxes to will not be able to deal with any technical issues with licensing of this software.  I want to pay once for each license and then give these complete music systems to my friends.

Please help me figure this out, if it's even possible.  Thanks!

[andrewilley]

Licence validation is only possible with an internet connection. I don't think Android 2.0 devices (i.e. Android Eclair, which is now close to 15 years old) are supported by the Play Store any more, so even if you can find an old version APK you probably can't use that method anyway.

You may be able to purchase a website licence and use that, but you would need to have the relevant (and also possibly obsolete) original email clients present on the device for the licence to be validated.

But whatever you do, it will still require an internet connection at the time of installation.

Andre

[Mikep]

Thanks for your quick reply.  I appreciate that. 

I checked, and Google Play Store no longer works with any version of Android prior to version 3.  When you try to sign in with an older version, it tells you that your password is wrong, even though it is the correct password.  Wish I had known this prior to purchasing 5 of these HTC Droid Incredibles, which are running the 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) version of Android and can't be updated beyond that.   Still these were cheaper and much better than buying a dedicated MP3 player like a SanDisk Sansa ClipZip for my purposes.  They do have a rudimentary music player app installed on them, but I would much prefer to use Poweramp.

I also now realize these phones don't even have a File Manager app on them, so I can't even run an APK on them because I have no way to access that APK file.  A File Manager app is not an included stock app with these.  The only thing I can think of now is to root them and install a newer version custom ROM, but my attempts to do this have all failed because most of the links I find online to do this process are no longer active. 

What is this "website license" you refer to?  Is it a license that can be validated through email?  So are you saying if I can get the email app working on these phones, that I can validate a Poweramp license through email?

Even so, I'm still stuck with not having a File Manager app on the phones, so don't know how I can even run the Poweramp APK.  Is there a way to do this by hooking up the cell phone to my desktop Windows computer and  kicking off the process from the Windows File Explorer after copying the APK to the phone from the computer?  I doubt it, but maybe some other tricky thing like that?  I tried to run an APK by trying to download one using the included Internet browser, hoping it would give the option to run after downloading.  However the download did not even work.  I get multiple security errors trying to access most web pages using this old phone and browser.

Thanks for your help.

[maxmp]

@Mikep if you have Developer mode enabled on the phone + Install via ADB option, you can install APKs by issuing "adb install apkname.apk" commands (adb should be available on the PC).

[Mikep]

Thank you maxmp.  That's a good idea I was not aware of.  There is no "Install via ADB option" in Android 2.3.4.  However I'll still enable Developer mode and install ADB and give it a try.  Thanks for the idea.

[andrewilley]

ADB (Android Debug Bridge) is a program that you run on a computer, not the phone. You connect the phone to the computer via USB cable, and then execute commands on the PC side, using the Command Line terminal. There are also web-based applications that can do the same job, but again they need to be run on a connected PC.

See the notes in this Guide for more information on how to use ADB. The actual commands you use will obviously be different, but it's a good start:

You could install a File Manager app onto the phone too, which would make further tasks somewhat easier. If current builds of the apps you need to install don't work, you might be able to find older ones on sites like apkmirror.

Without the Play Store you will still need to use website licences for PA though, which on v2 had some fairly specific requirements as far as the email client was concerned (see the Restore Purchase link I posted earlier).

Andre

[Vovka]

Добрый день!

Может есть способ перенести проверенную лицензию с более свежего устройства, на андроид 5 например, и внедрить в установленную на более старом где блокируются доступы к Google андроид4?

Честно мною купленная версия не может быть использована из-за политики Google. В машине автомагнитола полностью устраивает, она работает и хорошо воспроизводит музыку,  нужен только хороший плеер. Poweramp V2 на ней прекрасно работал, несколько раз перепроверялась лицензия, но всё решалось подключением интернета, для обновления. Теперь Poweramp не работает, просто из-за того что Google отключила поддержку старых устройств.

[andrewilley]

@Vovka Once a device has become so old that the Play Store no longer functions on it, it will no longer be possible to validate any Play Store purchases on it. Even a website-purchased licence might struggle, as the seven-year-old PAv2 licence validation system relied on specific (now presumably obsolete) email methods which may no longer be easily available. KitKat (Android 4.4) support for Google Services was set to end in October 2023 (it has been unsupported security-wise for six years now). 

Poweramp v2 supports following types of email account:
  - Google (requires Google Services on the device)
  - Google Email (IMAP/POP3, requires Google Services on the device)
  - HTC Email (doesn't require Google Services)
  - Motorola Blur (doesn't require Google Services)
  - Yahoo (doesn't require Google Services)

 

@maxmp If you still have access to the original archived code and libraries, and can still compile to that old an SDK level, would there be any quick and easy way to issue a special APK for these very old systems that would allow the final PAv2 to continue be run unlicenced specifically on pre-Android 5.0 systems only? I know it would only benefit a tiny number of people so not worth a lot of time and effort, but there are still specialist devices out there running KitKat for example that could benefit from this.

Andre

[Vovka]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

  - Yahoo (doesn't require Google Services)

Как можно повторно купить Poweramp v2 для активации без Google Services?