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Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

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

#231

Post by abenga »

amputect wrote: post #156
mav3rick wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are enough cheap to mid range devices that do the job in Android. I dont think you understand the value of even 100$ in a developing country. Most people don't care about updates in this scenario. They want a phone that works. And far more people in the lower strata have access to cheaper Android phones than Apple.

I have a genuine question: what are some of the "cheap to mid range devices" you're thinking of here? Honest question, not trying to be a jerk, I genuinely want to know.

The best phone I ever owned was a Moto G. Cost me about $200. I currently use a Nokia 6.1. Cost me about $250 a year ago, and regularly gets updates.

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

#232

Post by EpicEng »

monster99 wrote: post #77
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…

It's hard to feel sorry for anyone pushing apps and the removal of local app computing. It's like a theif accusing the other theives of being a theif. The modern SaS enviroment is scam central taking advantage of the publics computer illiteracy. So color me skeptical.

Who is talking about "SaS" (sic) and how is that in any way relevant? Apps are local... to your phone. Your opinion seems to be that all phone apps are a "scam"?

I can't even begin to understand what you're talking about.

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

#233

Post by mavelikara »

wutbrodo wrote: post #128
ufmace wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. For whatever Amazon's other faults may be, they will do stuff like assign actual human salespeople to your account, who have the time to listen to you and the authority to do things. You can create problem tickets for their services, which go to skilled engineers somewhere that have the time and authority to run down and address any weirdness you encounter with their services. Plus they keep even their old servi…

Is this not the case for GCP? I recently switched to a company running on GCP and I don't have tons of exposure to our infra, but from what I've seen, GCP reps are VERY hands-on. Even in my non-infra role, I've been exposed to several different instances of them being hands on: in setting us up, in discussing our resource needs (we're a very heavy GPU compute customer), in tracking down issues (even when the problem…

They now do. Especially under TK I expect this to improve. But the reputation cost Google much in the initial days of the GCP.

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

#234

Post by antoinevg »

antoinevg wrote: post #110
chx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. This is so often repeated but by this logic noone should write mobile apps.

No buts. EXACTLY this. Unless you are a unicorn or a huckster writing mobile apps is no longer an attractive business. We provide a hybrid app development platform for mobile and over the last nine years we've watched a steady exodus of developers from the app space. The only folk who are still relatively unaffected are the business developers.

I'm not entirely sure why anyone thinks downvoting observations from reality will change their outcomes but hey… this is slashdot^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H HN I guess.

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

#235

Post by pas »

Semaphor wrote: post #108
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Given how amazingly good Google is at filtering or identifying content when it benefits them to do so (e.g. Content ID, Content ID? The one where regularly stories break of it misidentifying things? > and I have never seen anything pornographic break through YouTube's filters) I have. But to be fair, that was 2 or 3 years ago.

Could you link to such a story?

I usually read that a few seconds were claimed here or there. ContentID probably identified the part correctly, but people want to argue fair use.

And then there are the stories where it turns out the sample used was not cleared, etc.

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

#236

Post by sjwright »

indy wrote: post #180
mprev wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You say that like nobody developing iOS apps has stakeholders. Apple gives developers solutions for that which are much neater and streamlined.

For development life cycles, sideloading is an unnecessary kludge.

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

#237

Post by wutbrodo »

ufmace wrote: post #224
wutbrodo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not the case for GCP? I recently switched to a company running on GCP and I don't have tons of exposure to our infra, but from what I've seen, GCP reps are VERY hands-on. Even in my non-infra role, I've been exposed to several different instances of them being hands on: in setting us up, in discussing our resource needs (we're a very heavy GPU compute customer), in tracking down issues (even when the problem…

I don't actually know - I haven't used it myself. I've read a few comments in various places suggesting that GCP support is as nonexistent as the support for other Google services. I think somebody said they were hosting their whole company's data and services on GCP, and their entire company's account was killed because supposedly some malicious activity was detected. No details of what the activity was or why it wa…

Yea I wouldn't take my experience as too dispositive: I gather that my relatively small company punches significantly above their weight in terms of compute needs, and I only have relatively tangential exposure to our interactions with GCP. It's just that those tangential data points have all happened to point in the direction of robust and responsive support.

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

#238

Post by bArray »

f00zz wrote: post #212
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…

You can get a Fairphone 2 and install Ubuntu Touch on it: https://ubports.com/devices/promoted-devices

Just checked that out, seems like they have sold out at the moment though. I guess they do a smaller production run so that they can guarantee their stock sells out.

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

#239

Post by julianee »

dwild wrote: post #223
julianee wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> The clones were so bad to the point that they literally decompiled my app, loaded in their own assets and published it. Why not send a DMCA to Google?

I couldn't quite remember the reason as it was quite a long time ago and there was a lot of pain, disappointment, unfairness, despair, helplessness which I'd like to move on from. But I remember it was along the lines of: - Difficult to prove (How do you prove stolen code?) - I am not supposed to be decompiling another app to find evidence - What channel do I use when Google makes it so difficult to make a case/complain for anything? (There are channels, but there is no trust in those, they behave like black holes where you put in effort and just maybe, just maybe if they feel like it, they will respond.) - With the image they portray, I felt that to Google, they would see my case as similar to a single piece of candy going missing in a Walmart store.

I found out when I saw that competitors were copying my Store Listing Text word for word (ASO), and when I downloaded them, I noticed a peculiar bug their app had which was identical to mine. It was a programatic bug due to the way the function was implemented, seeing an identical bug that only fails on the same edge case is a big red flag, so I decompiled their app and saw that my work was copied.

I did send email to the developer at fault but did not get a reply or action.

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

#240

Post by yc12340 »

mflare wrote: post #150
lern_too_spel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oreo allows you to add an app to a Doze whitelist even if it is distributed outside the Play Store. In fact, it is easier that way because the Play Store review policy restricts why an app can ask for that.

Yes, this Doze whitelist has existed since Marshmallow, when Doze was introduced. However, adding your app to this list does not affect the limitations of background services implemented with Oreo. If you want to implement your own push notifications, you need some kind of persistent connection to your server. Before Oreo, this was simply possible with a background service. But starting from Oreo, your background ser…

Background Services have always been killed on short notice. AFAIK, the OS regularly restarts them, even if it is completely idle with zero memory pressure. It used to be that way in KitKat and prior versions too. Using a Foreground Service have always been a hard requirement for persistent network connection — unless you were ok with reestablishing the connection every hour.

"App xyz is running in the background" or "App xyz is using battery" aren't normally shown when you foreground Notification is properly constructed. If you correctly set icon, text, notification channel and other properties, the notification bar should have only your notification and nothing else. At least it have always worked that way on devices I own.

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