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“Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

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Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#211

Post by pjmlp »

crazygringo wrote: post #162
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Are you sure you don't rely on any third-party libraries that have been updated for security reasons? Are you sure there's no Android API being deprecated that you're still using? I sympathize with the general idea that software that hasn't been updated in a long time is more likely to contain bugs and incompatibilities with newest OS versions. Whenever I've opened ancient apps on my iPhone or my Mac, they generally…

No, as someone that did Android development in the past, and still follows Android development due to its Java linage, and being a managed OS for the most part, that isn't the case.

Google has become very aggressive, you need to keep updating the apps, to specific SDK versions, even if there are zero changes to your own application in terms of what APIs got changed.

Otherwise it gets removed from PlayStore.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#212

Post by pjmlp »

godelski wrote: post #100
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Imagine if we talked about other computers like we talked about phones. It's just so weird - you can only install programs from our approved package manager - if you make any transactions through your program, we'll take a 30% cut - you can't be access those files, you're not root - you got root?! We're going to fucking sue you (yeah, I know about the PS3...) - you can't change these settings - you can't access that…

We do, game consoles, video players, blue ray players, before phones, PDAs were already like that.

Also during the 8 and 16 bit days, all home computers were vertical integrated, outside external expansion ports the only way to upgrade either the software or hardware was to buy a new computer. Sounds familiar?

An improved experience required a whole new package.

The only exception was the PC clones market, that only happened, because IBM failed to prevent it, and they did try to regain control with the MCA design that naturally failed after the pandora box got opened.

Ironically with desktops now being a niche market, we are getting back to those days.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#214

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Marsymars wrote: post #172
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this thinking. If a long tail of mostly unremarkable apps make the good ones hard to find then that is a flaw of the ranking algorithm. If an app is not even in the app store, how can it possibly attract user interest? What if users happen to like some quirky feature that seems unremarkable to app store reviewers? App stores need better search and filtering.

> App stores need better search and filtering. I used to think this, but then I just abandoned their search and now use Kagi. (I use the !gp bang for the Play Store, no App Store bang seems to exist.) I can't imagine ever going back to native store searches now that they're full of ads.

Can Kagi filter apps by things like what permissions they require or by their monetisation model?

We need more than a search engine. We should be able to query the app store database using _all_ the properties that the app store knows.

On top of that we should be able to ask LLM style questions about the functionality of the app.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#215

Post by jbverschoor »

anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Release-make sure it works on latest toolkit. Shows you’re alive

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#217

Post by arghwhat »

erikerikson wrote: post #87
arghwhat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What is the threat vector here? User installs the game, has fun, uninstalls or leaves it there where only they can run it.

Sure if you never accept any external input of any sort and handles no user data or input, you can assume things are fine.

But if that random game should, say, fetch user avatars from the web, then untrusted input to a way out of date image decoding library would be a nice path to a remote code execution vulnerability.

Or if the app registers any intent handlers that other apps and websites can trigger, or establishes TLS connections to any third party site, or...

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#218

Post by arghwhat »

BMorearty wrote: post #103
arghwhat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sure, Google is making sure app vendors comply with regulations in specialized industries. /s

That was definitely a logical way to interpret that comment. /s

The message is that the app developer in question's argument that they have nothing to update is most likely false, not that special industries is a driver for the policy.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#219

Post by ffsm8 »

duskwuff wrote: post #161
redserk wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll give credit to Apple for formally writing a policy to this extent, but it’s disappointing. There’s always the risk of putting in a lot of time for an app that is genuinely unique but Apple may not think so. I’d much rather Apple let in junk apps but do more to promote curated lists of good apps. I like the “Editors Choice” section. I think it is generally a step in the right direction to surface decent apps. Plu…

For what it's worth, that bit of the policy was written early in the life of the App Store, when there really was a glut of low-effort novelty apps, particularly in the categories they mentioned, and when app discovery features in the store were more limited. It's probably not as necessary nowadays, but it does help guide developers away from writing apps which users are unlikely to find useful. (And if you've genuin…

Don't you mean ocean into which you can throw your message in a bottle and occasionally get a response to? ◝ ( ⁰ ▿ ⁰ ) ◜

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#220

Post by justoreply »

jimmaswell wrote: post #203
izacus wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only really necessary if your app is using old privacy or security problematic APIs. Which is usually the root cause of this complaining - "why do I have to refactor my app so it won't demand access to all private photos and documents anymore?!"

Who actually asked for this? It's been nothing but a pointless nuisance to me as a user. Samsung complains at me if I choose to give an app persistent GPS access, in the rare occasion it even lets me. I want my programs to do as much as possible, not be hamstrung.

As I user, I would have asked. I don't want to have a random closed-source app to access all my data (and you shouldn't too)
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