In Vuforia 4.0, apps must be connected to validate their license at least once

I think voforia need to change the system to be something like ARPA http://www.arpa-solutions.net/en/ARPA_Plugin_Unity

What they do is you apply for the license and they will send a license to put in your app.

So the user wont need to have internet connection to use the apps.

Because in most south east asia country most of the user will only use wifi to connect to internet.

Or in other case the mobile internet provider really2 sucks ( i need 2-3 minute just to send whatsapp message).

But if our apps need to connect atleast once to internet ... i think in most case the user will uninstall it immediately.

Unless they really need to use the apps.

hi, sorry if i missed something but please clarify 'at least once'.

so, after a user downloads an app that was created using vuforia 4.x sdk from the apple or android app store, obviously they are connected to the internet to download the app, but are you saying each time a user loads the app they must be connected to the internet or simply that first time they load it? 

thank you.

The first time they run the App (unless they explicitly uninstall the App and redownload it again from the app / play store).

What about App or SDK updates, do you need to connect to the internet again?

I'd like to second midliong's post - Its hard for western devs to imagine its the general use-case, but a lot of people in China and SE Asia do download apps pretty much exclusively on wifi to open later.

When they do it can be on phones without data services, or with very poor 3G (or often 2G) coverage, combined with spotty international links (for example in a suburb in China I found ~70% of connections to the East Asia AWS datacenter timed out or were interrupted before completing download of a smallish binary).

As someone with an app targeting Chinese users, this could cause a real problem. When the language on a sign-up page can move retention figures (and hence revenue) by 20% easily, I shudder to think what such an extreme barrier does for an app's numbers.

@DeepWeb:

What about App or SDK updates, do you need to connect to the internet again?

This depends on whether the "App Update" process clears the application data;

This seems to be the case, according to this article from Apple's forum:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/28540/what-happens-to-application-data-when-i-update-vs-uninstall-an-ios-app

For Android devices: No internet needed after update, only once after initial install.

Thanks for the Android "tip"

Hi, 

I am part of a team that is developing an AR app for use in a remote wilderness park which is triggered by the various park signage. 

There is no reliable coverage within the park, and as a result we are concerned about the app failing to load the SDK because the service cannot be validated. Obviously this affects our consideration of using Vuforia as the marker detection tool.

I would ask Qualcomm / Vuforia to consider another authentication method, otherwise there will be a sharp drop-off in users - our studio for one.

As a suggestion, it seems Vuforia need to divide their users into the free and paid tiers to support their business model, with free tier being more casual use / testing where having limited numbers of recognitions and a watermark isnt a big issue.

For bigger, more "serious" organisations/businesses, things like the watermark are an issue/pain-point enough to get them to pay. The trouble with this is that a binary online/offline working/not-working state on the first launch is also a significant pain-point for a company building an app on Vuforia.

I would suggest a softer, gradiated approach to verifying licenses - e.g. you can get 100 recognitions offline without contacting the license server, or if there is no intial internet connection the watermark appears - almost anything is better than just presenting a bad experience to the user on first launch. There would likely be ways to "game" this system, but honestly its better to focus on the positive features that become available online (cloud recog etc) than allow scenarios that harm licensee's products. People who are building products around gaming/not paying for Vuforia are likely not the kind of ongoing customers they are looking to base their revenue on.

60days wrote:

As a suggestion, it seems Vuforia need to divide their users into the free and paid tiers to support their business model, with free tier being more casual use / testing where having limited numbers of recognitions and a watermark isnt a big issue.

For bigger, more "serious" organisations/businesses, things like the watermark are an issue/pain-point enough to get them to pay. The trouble with this is that a binary online/offline working/not-working state on the first launch is also a significant pain-point for a company building an app on Vuforia.

I would suggest a softer, gradiated approach to verifying licenses - e.g. you can get 100 recognitions offline without contacting the license server, or if there is no intial internet connection the watermark appears - almost anything is better than just presenting a bad experience to the user on first launch. There would likely be ways to "game" this system, but honestly its better to focus on the positive features that become available online (cloud recog etc) than allow scenarios that harm licensee's products. People who are building products around gaming/not paying for Vuforia are likely not the kind of ongoing customers they are looking to base their revenue on.

Agreed, I was just about to post could Vuforia at least provide a test method so the developer can provide a more informative/friendly message to end user that they need a web connection on first run.

Very bad user experience at preent.

This is a bad news. :/ My school have wifis but they're all private and have passwords we can't compile or check our project. -_- I didn't know that Vuforia had a major updates I keep getting lost here in their site too. 

I am part of a team that is developing an AR app for use in a remote wilderness park which is triggered by the various park signage. 

There is no reliable coverage within the park, and as a result we are concerned about the app failing to load the SDK because the service cannot be validated. Obviously this affects our consideration of using Vuforia as the marker detection tool.

 

I would ask Qualcomm / Vuforia to consider another authentication method, otherwise there will be a sharp drop-off in users - our studio for one.

Ditto here. We are using Vuforia to detect image targets placed at locations around national parks for kids to engage in exploratory activities, taking pictures of flora, fauna, and various park locations. There is absolutely no reliable coverage in these park areas, which makes Vuforia a sorely inadequate tool for our app. 

What's worse, we just found out about this online authentication requirement in Vuforia 4, which severely affects the project's upcoming launch.

Having used Vuforia to great effect in several of our projects, we would prefer to keep using it as a reliable AR/detection tool. However, the current online authentication method is hurting our app's usability and is forcing us to look elsewhere to satisfy our client's needs.

Same problem here, we need to have a possible fallback.

100 offlines recos could be a good idea: it let us time to warn the user that he must connect to continue to use the app.

Vuforia team, please integrate something like this, I understand the need to have paying clients, but degradation of service for both free AND paying users seems like firing a bullet in your own foot.

Hi, adding my voice to this. This is a potentially showstopping barrier to use for my application and I would like to see a fallback developed.

I don't know how many votes there are so far, but add one more.

Even the option to fail gracefully would be preferable. Right now, it puts up a hideous-looking, unalterable, un-get-rid-able whole-screen dialog box whose only button is to quit the app. If i have a multi-function app and just one of these functions is Vuforia, this dialog box completely prevents me from using any other functions of the app.

Despite the improved tracking and the fixing of several long-standing bugs, I'm actually regretting upgrading to 4.0 because of the license issues. You simply can't design a framework around an expectation of reliable internet connection on a mobile device. It's unprofessional. As someone developing a professional app, I am now really, really averse to relying on Vuforia in the future due to these issues.

I understand that you have to make money on Vuforia, but this is absolutely the worst way to go about it. You are alienating the exact people - professionals - that would be likely to pay for a license.

Please consider this feedback carefully.

I agree. Online requirement for offline functionality is not acceptable.

You may be interested in this *Vuforia 4.2.3 just released):

https://developer.vuforia.com/forum/news-and-announcements/announcing-classic-plan

https://developer.vuforia.com/pricing

https://developer.vuforia.com/library/articles/FAQ/Watermark

Thanks!

Great news re the no need for online check for device based reco apps and a once per day watermrk.  Thanks for listening QC ;-)

Hi Alessandro,

Is it possible to combine a classic plan and a cloud plan within the same app, in order to have the same behavior than in V3: unlimited devices reco and counted cloud recos ?