Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team • Hacker News Board

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#171

Post by julianee » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:22 AM UTC

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

I'm the developer of a relatively popular app (50M+ on the Play Store) and have had very disappointing experiences with the Play Store, but in a rather opposite way from the OP: Once an app reaches a certain level of popularity, you begin to see "knock-off" apps, which are apps with a curiously similar name and icon (and screenshots and description), but which in fact don't do anything except blast the user with full…

I actually had the reverse experience to this. My app was 1.5 years old and had 4mil+ downloads with ~200k monthly active.

After updating my app, they banned my app instead of the other clones and crapware. Citing "Repetitive and Duplicative Content". The clones were so bad to the point that they literally decompiled my app, loaded in their own assets and published it.

Appealing did nothing and I got the exact same response as the article. That was 2 years ago.

Going by this, I would assume that my app had better Ad revenue to Google, but comparing in relative-ness, they dont care about the 4-5 figure you make. Another person will take your place in no time.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#172

Post by bArray » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:24 AM UTC

vfclists wrote: post #153

bArray wrote: post #127

Can we just get a proper Linux phone already? I could whip up a (rough) GUI for a WiFi phone in no time and all the software I want to use is already there - or could be developed relatively easily. Hell, Ubuntu's Gnome is almost a tablet OS anyway at this point, has relatively good drivers, stability, etc. The WiPhone is so unbelievably close to what I want [1] (+). I really wish it had a web browser though (which w…

Purism phone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20555463 You may have to wait for it to come down in price Pine Phone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19592588

Thanks for the links! The Purism phone is a lot more than I would want to pay, but I imagine the trade-off there is for the polished experience. Part of the fun for me would be the hack-ability.

The Pine phone on the other hand looks great (at ~$150), hopefully they do a better job than what they did with their netbooks (I believe they had issues with the keyboards and the displays had dead pixels). There's even talk about porting Ubuntu phone, which is awesome! My guess is that it's still a long way off though, if the project doesn't die in the meantime (as a lot of these open source projects do).

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#173

Post by torben-friis » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:26 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #74

torben-friis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the reason, the fact that you can have your livelihood taken away without an explanation or human contact is pretty worrying.

Having a system that tells malware authors precisely what behavior triggered an alarm is also not great. There is no solution.

That doesn't seem to be a problem in any other field of security in the world. If you steal a shirt from a shop you'll get told whether they hace security footage of you stealing, an alarm went off or a security guard saw you.

It might be more convenient for google to not say, but it's pretty disrespectful towards clients that choose their platform to make a living and might get caught as a false positive.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#174

Post by mdpopescu » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

I'm the developer of a relatively popular app (50M+ on the Play Store) and have had very disappointing experiences with the Play Store, but in a rather opposite way from the OP: Once an app reaches a certain level of popularity, you begin to see "knock-off" apps, which are apps with a curiously similar name and icon (and screenshots and description), but which in fact don't do anything except blast the user with full…

Given how amazingly good Google is at filtering or identifying content when it benefits them to do so (e.g. Content ID, and I have never seen anything pornographic break through YouTube's filters), I must believe that it would be extremely easy for them to implement the fix you desire. Edit: Hmmm, assuming the app that you are talking about is freakin' Wikipedia, I'm assuming that if the Wikimedia can't get anyone fr…

> I have never seen anything pornographic break through YouTube's filters

You mean unintentionally, right? Because you only have to search for "full adult movie" to find a bunch.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#175

Post by nobrains » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #105

I keep hearing stories like this and I remain utterly bemused that the median narrative about Android vs iOS has barely changed in response. There's a lot to love about Android, but I think more people in the tech sector need to realise that their mental model of the phone marketplace has more to do with historical perception of Android being "hacker friendly" than the current realities. Android is open source! Oh wa…

Android gives customers hardware choices

You dilute your argument by mentioning this point.

Google does give better hardware choices. I am using a $150 android-one phone (Xiaomi A3) which has a high end comparable back and front camera. And comes with 2 years guaranteed OS updates.

Compare with the cheapest latest iPhone (iPhone XR) which is 5 times more expensive at $750.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#176

Post by nobrains » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:34 AM UTC

nominated1 wrote: post #124

mav3rick wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes everyone should be rich enough to buy a 1000 dollar Apple phone. Also, you get to decide if I want more than one camera app or not ? Stop imposing your world view on others. Android made smartphones accessible to many people across the globe. You won't mention that would you ? Won't fit your narrative.

> Yes everyone should be rich enough to buy a 1000 dollar Apple phone. I bought an iPhone 7 from Net10 about 5 months ago for $220 shipped. It requires a minimum $20 a month plan for 12 months before I can unlock it. About 2 years ago I got my mom an iPhone SE for $140 with similar plan/unlock. Both brand new. They’re not everyday prices and not the newest model but it is possible to go iOS without breaking the bank.

I got my mom an iPhone SE for $140

How is the 16gb storage holding up for her?

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#177

Post by xvector » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:34 AM UTC

lol768 wrote: post #169

xvector wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at the very least you can distribute your app independently without jailbreaking the phone. The discussion in the article is about developers. If you’re kicked off of Play by a robot, there’s nothing you can do. > with ads-blocking extensions and everything, as the default browser. Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the be…

>Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions. Do you have any links so I can read further on this? I'd like to compare it to both Firefox's built-in tracking protection (and fingerprinting resistance) and the functionality provided by e.g. uBlock Origin.

Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/. See how many bits of entropy you have.

Do the same in Safari.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#178

Post by nobrains » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:36 AM UTC

amputect wrote: post #146

nominated1 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes everyone should be rich enough to buy a 1000 dollar Apple phone. I bought an iPhone 7 from Net10 about 5 months ago for $220 shipped. It requires a minimum $20 a month plan for 12 months before I can unlock it. About 2 years ago I got my mom an iPhone SE for $140 with similar plan/unlock. Both brand new. They’re not everyday prices and not the newest model but it is possible to go iOS without breaking the bank.

The "1000 dollar apple phone" thing is such a weird myth. My wife has been using the iphone 5s for years now, because the later models are too big for her to hold comfortably. It originally came out in 2013. It is still supported by Apple, and hers currently runs iOS 12.4, which came out last month. She is on her second 5s, because she dropped her first one in the lake trying to take a picture of our dog. I use it fr…

Try the Xiaomi Mi A2 or A3 (if good cam is your requirement) or any android-one device in the $150 to $250 price range.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#179

Post by julianee » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:36 AM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #61

aikah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. Now Android is a bit more open than Apple's App store since on can install third party apps outside Google Play, but I personally always got an answer from Apple, even if it took 3/4 weeks, every-time there was an issue with a deployed application. Google? Unless you know somebody there or you are a big shot it's impossible to contact them,…

Yep, but it's also the danger of building a business on algorithms. If developers start not to trust Google anymore then Google is going to lose quite a bit of its edge. Algorithms shouldn't have the last word about people. They can advise but not judge and people accepting wrong advices from algorithms should not get their bonuses.

You are right, unfortunately in the current case, their algorithms have determined many developer's careers and will continue to do so.

As long as they have the monopoly, "developers start not to trust Google" will never be a problem as there is no other choice and Google sees no reason to change.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#180

Post by indy » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 8:45 AM UTC

mprev wrote: post #159

Illniyar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things don't really matter, the only thing that matters is that you cannot sideload apps in iOS. As long as you can sideload apps in android, it will always have a better reputation than somewhere you cannot. But even those things you mention, they are all part of a scale, even if android becomes more closed-source it's still miles more open-source than iOS, even if it delays new app submissions it's still…

Sideloading of apps is, at best, a niche interest.

When the number of devices number in the billions then of course sideloading could be considered a niche interest. But for people involved in software development it's extremely useful being able to sideload the latest build of an app to show to stakeholders.