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Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

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Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#71

Post by tssva »

jakemal wrote: post #44
drusepth wrote: post #11

>At first glance a spokesman agreed with us that the situation looks odd. Seems like someone messed up somewhere and is probably being resolved. In all honesty though, no app with IAP (especially easy-to-access IAP or IAP that can't be locked by a parent) should get an E rating. Fleksy should get a higher age rating for this reason, not because of an emoji.

> IAP (especially easy-to-access IAP or IAP that can't be locked by a parent) should get an E rating I disagree. I think it's Google's job to provide parents with the tools to lock down IAPs for children. Once the phone is locked down, IAPs shouldn't matter. And the ratings would be useless to a parent if every app with IAPs was rated > E. They wouldn't know if the content is what is giving it the higher rating or ju…

Google does provide the means to lock down IAPs for children.

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#72

Post by mackrevinack »

gregschlom wrote: post #51
skybrian wrote: post #29

This is a tangent, but is there a good keyboard app for Android that doesn't have emoji? I'm tired of hitting the emoji button accidentally and having emoji show up in autocomplete.

I was just thinking I should look into making one if there isn't one, seems like there would be market for a good, simple keyboard app.

what about anysoft keyboard? it might be a better idea to improve that since it's open source and it needs a bit of work.

I would switch over to it today if the swipe typing was better but its currently "in beta" and that's a bit of an understatement tbh. in my experience the predictions are wrong 80% of the time

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#73

Post by vanderZwan »

aitchnyu wrote: post #66
netsharc wrote: post #3

I use Gboard, and today it had a strange prompt on the bar above the keyboard: "Do you like typing German?".. I was curious and I pressed it, it lead to a prompt where there was text I could copy paste and I guess post on my social media, about how much I enjoy using Gboard... So you fucking want me to advertise for you, Google? And for what reason? Does someone want their promotion/bonus and for that they have to re…

Windows apparently has the system dialog "how likely are you to recommend Windows 10 to a friend or colleague?" with a score from 1 to 5.

Since I don't really use Windows that often I cannot really judge how bad this is. Does it also link you to Facebook or Twitter to recommend it if you give it a 5 star rating? Internal surveys are something different from trying to trick people into recommending a product on Twitter.

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#74

Post by mintplant »

QueridoGuy wrote: post #14

I used to be a big fan of Fleksy app before the creators went to pinterest and sold their app to some company. They new devs probably didn’t know how to fix their previous bugs or work on the code itself. So they started adding new “features” , which was a toolbar for a keyboard app. Kept contacting them on fixing their error, but they just said we know it’s there. Until i switched back to Gboard. I would say, it’s p…

> I would say, it’s probably because they added something to that toolbar.

Nope, the article states otherwise.

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#75

Post by [deleted] »

daturkel wrote: post #61
levosmetalo wrote: post #5

Didn't install the app, but one look at the screenshot of the Fleksy in Playstore shows "earn coins as you type" feature. It also offers in app purchases, but didn't bother to install to check which. I know many apps use coin system, but in many cases it's just a children manipulation.

I've used Fleksy for over a year and wasn't aware of that feature. The in-app purchases are themes which I don't need. If you don't open the settings, you would never know these upsells existed. It's a great keyboard and you shouldn't be put off by the IAPs—they're completely optional.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#76

Post by mattnewton »

deftnerd wrote: post #35
osrec wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would your ideal open-source smartphone ecosystem be structured? Genuinely interested as I'm looking to explore this as a potential project myself with my team.

Flat subscription of $10 a month for the app store. Once a month, your phone tells the store what percentage of time you spend in apps from that store. Firefox has 40% of your time? They get $4.

Smartphones aren't Netflix though- I use my phone primarily to get things done and not just entertain myself. I don't want app developers to get paid more of my share if their app takes longer to perform a task, or my browser to get more money for pushing feed like "engagement features" encouraging a Reddit habit over performance changes that could cost them money but make my experience better.

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#78

Post by sincerely »

aitchnyu wrote: post #66
netsharc wrote: post #3

I use Gboard, and today it had a strange prompt on the bar above the keyboard: "Do you like typing German?".. I was curious and I pressed it, it lead to a prompt where there was text I could copy paste and I guess post on my social media, about how much I enjoy using Gboard... So you fucking want me to advertise for you, Google? And for what reason? Does someone want their promotion/bonus and for that they have to re…

Windows apparently has the system dialog "how likely are you to recommend Windows 10 to a friend or colleague?" with a score from 1 to 5.

That probably goes into some sort of NPS metric, right?

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#79

Post by vzaliva »

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I think is most likely inconsistent reviewing. I've seen this with Apple, as well as with Google. The apps stores need to have very clear guidelines and well-defined appeal process, possibly with 3rd party arbitration.

Re: Google’s Play Store gives a worse age rating to Fleksy, a Gboard rival

#80

Post by JohnFen »

judge2020 wrote: post #10
netsharc wrote: post #3

I use Gboard, and today it had a strange prompt on the bar above the keyboard: "Do you like typing German?".. I was curious and I pressed it, it lead to a prompt where there was text I could copy paste and I guess post on my social media, about how much I enjoy using Gboard... So you fucking want me to advertise for you, Google? And for what reason? Does someone want their promotion/bonus and for that they have to re…

Pretty standard method to obtain new users, but I don't think Google is unable to advertise their keyboard on their own.

It's also a pretty great way to lose existing users. I know that this sort of thing always gets me to immediately uninstall the app.
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