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Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

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Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#11

Post by mirsadm »

cryptoz wrote: post #6
freehunter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be. I don't have apps on the Google Play market, so I don't know if you can restrict your app to only be visible or purchased by phones known to run it, but there are some apps that slower phones just can't run. Take Grand Theft Auto III for example (or any other high-end game). You can't exp…

> Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be. I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do that (there are maybe 1,000 devic…

Unfortunately most of us aren't able to buy the million devices out there to test with. More annoyingly we usually only find out about a device not working when someone writes a 1 star review such as "dont work HTC cm7".

I've had people email me and get nasty because my app didn't work on their Touchpad with ICS. Or even better when people write low reviews from Tegra 2 devices such as "Textures missing" but they are using a kernel which reduces allocated video RAM from 128mb to 64mb.

I love Android from a user point of view but I hate it as a developer.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#12

Post by brador »

It's an aside, but I no longer do business with anyone that doesn't offer appropriate contact methods for the products/services they provide. It's now the second thing I check after price and the primary reason I refuse to use Google products but "go large" on Amazon products.

Thinking is: "If I have a problem, can I get help?". If I can find a solution to that question in a few clicks, kaching, you get my CC details and we're good to go, else, x.

Customer service is not a cost center, if done well, it's the best marketing/PR channel you can get and it pays off massively in the longer term.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#13

Post by tjoff »

freehunter wrote: post #5
cryptoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play definitely needs this. However, > Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU). I think it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure their apps work on the devices they are selling to. If a user is able to install the app from Play, it should work .…

> Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be. I don't have apps on the Google Play market, so I don't know if you can restrict your app to only be visible or purchased by phones known to run it, but there are some apps that slower phones just can't run. Take Grand Theft Auto III for example (or any other high-end game). You can't exp…

Take Grand Theft Auto III for example (or any other high-end game). You can't expect it to run on an HTC Aria with a 600Mhz processor.

Don't know if it has changed but when GTA III was new (on android) my phone, Nexus S, wasn't supported - and thus I couldn't even find it in market.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#14

Post by lrobb »

cryptoz wrote: post #3
freehunter wrote: post #2

> I receive emails from customers that they get Google Licensing Errors and I get one star reviews for my app due to this. They don't understand that this is Google's fault, not mine. This is a danger in the market, and I see it in reviews all the time. Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the customer pick…

Google Play definitely needs this. However, > Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU). I think it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure their apps work on the devices they are selling to. If a user is able to install the app from Play, it should work .…

Offtopic.. But I'm not so sure about this.

I used to work on downloadable desktop apps, and we always played to the lowest common denominator. It ended up being a big weight around our neck when we wanted to do something 'cooler' but a little more resource intensive. I think we supported Windows 95 even after Microsoft stopped... simply because so many end users were still running it.

Another example: We have a "lesser" brand of mobile phone now, and I notice angry birds is frustrating to play on it... Even though it's perfectly acceptable on an old 8Gb iPod touch I had. Sure, they could spend a lot of resources on it to make it better, but that's likely to be a poor usage of resources.

You definitely need to hit the sweet spot of the performance bell curve, though.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#15

Post by doctorosdeck »

brador wrote: post #12

It's an aside, but I no longer do business with anyone that doesn't offer appropriate contact methods for the products/services they provide. It's now the second thing I check after price and the primary reason I refuse to use Google products but "go large" on Amazon products. Thinking is: "If I have a problem, can I get help?". If I can find a solution to that question in a few clicks, kaching, you get my CC details…

The one place lacking with customer support for Amazon is Amazon FPS. I actually had to completly abandon my integration because the support wasn't there. The only way to get support was via an outsourced forumn and responses would take days if one was ever recieved at all. Response times like that make it way to risky to use for payments.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#16

Post by alvarosm »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #10
dangravell wrote: post #9

Outside of the Android market, Google Checkout generally seems dead. I created an account months ago to integrate with E-Junkie. Despite numerous requests for support the account has never been blessed with an "integration" tab, as indicated in their documentation, so the relevant information cannot be passed into E-J. I'm guessing they're letting it die and are working on something else.

Google Checkout is indeed dead, they want you to use Google Wallet now.

AFAIK, they're not different products, they just rebranded checkout. I guess it's still checkout for the Android market because they haven't migrated that yet.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#17

Post by alvarosm »

veeti wrote: post #7

A few months ago Finland's banks switched to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and IBAN bank numbers permanently. This meant that old bank account numbers would no longer work. This is obviously a change that has been in the works for years and it's something that every company should have been prepared for. Well, apparently Google failed to realize this and update their systems. October's payout failed and I received…

Many people have tried contacting them through multiple support forms about this march payment issue and they're not managing to get any humans to answer them.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#18

Post by alvarosm »

freehunter wrote: post #2

> I receive emails from customers that they get Google Licensing Errors and I get one star reviews for my app due to this. They don't understand that this is Google's fault, not mine. This is a danger in the market, and I see it in reviews all the time. Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the customer pick…

What you're quoting is not about fragmentation. It's that the Android Market and Google chckout payment fail. A LOT. You get a lot of transactions declined because Google apparently doesn't trust the credit card, AND a lot don't go through because of an Android Market "internal error" (some have said as high as 10% for this latter issue).

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#19

Post by redthrowaway »

alvarosm wrote: post #17
veeti wrote: post #7

A few months ago Finland's banks switched to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and IBAN bank numbers permanently. This meant that old bank account numbers would no longer work. This is obviously a change that has been in the works for years and it's something that every company should have been prepared for. Well, apparently Google failed to realize this and update their systems. October's payout failed and I received…

Many people have tried contacting them through multiple support forms about this march payment issue and they're not managing to get any humans to answer them.

Not that it excuses Google's notoriously bad/nonexistent customer service, but I suspect you could quite easily get the attention of the relevant people on G+.

Re: Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent

#20

Post by icebraining »

freehunter wrote: post #8
cryptoz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be. I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do that (there are maybe 1,000 devic…

Ah, I didn't know if apps could be restricted (as I mentioned). Maybe there should be a flag in the market that tells the developer "it looks like your app might not run without a 1Ghz processor". I would imagine smaller devs wouldn't have a wide range of test devices. There has to be a better way.

It'd be nice if the market could offer a free copy to the first user of each phone model and then asked him for simple feedback ("Does it run smoothly? [Yes/No]").
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