886865 - Add API endpoint for uninstalling an app

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 968458

(Marketplace Graveyard :: API, defect, P3)

Description

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

Currently when a user removes an app on device side the Marketplace has no knowledge of this and our db table of installed apps per user never gets updated. It'd be nice if we could track these.

To that end let's make an API to call when an app is deleted.

Comment 1

[Andy McKay]

I can add in the API for this in the marketplace, working on the install API at the moment. The bigger issue is getting this on the device. For that we'd need a platform bug.

Comment 2

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

This affects recommendations

Comment 3

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Hi Fabrice.  This came up recently - our statistics and recommendations are based on what people install, but we're never notified of people uninstalling apps.  Has there been any thought about this?  I assume b2g could notify us, but uninstalling on desktop and such probably wouldn't - we'd end up with inaccurate stats.  Any ideas?

Comment 4

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

Apps that have the webapps-manage permission can listen for apps install and uninstall by setting mozApps.mgmt.oninstall and mozApps.mgmt.onuninstall. This is used by the homescreen for instance. They probably doesn't help much the marketplace since it's not up and running all the time though.

Can't you just do a getInstalled() and compare the device list to what you have server-side?

Comment 5

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

How about this?

Upon app install, we can append the app to a list of the user's installed apps (on the device) in `localStorage`. Upon refocus to the Marketplace (à la our offline handler), we can check if the list of installed apps has changed. If so, we can trigger events to the server to mark the missing apps as (presumably) uninstalled.

Comment 6

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I like that idea.  We'll have to be aware of multiple devices per user but as a rough strategy that seems pretty solid.  Thanks!

Comment 7

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

I forgot about this bug and filed bug 968458. Since the new bug covers Fabrice's proposal I'm going to forward dupe this bug to that one.