Hmmm. Thanks very much for this feedback, Greg. I'll talk to my colleagues and see if there's anything we can do here.
One issue is that since many of the judges are not developers, it may be tricky to get them to successfully set up and use your SD card image. We'll see if we can figure something out, although I can't promise anything right now. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. - Dan On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Greg_G <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Dan, > > Thanks for your reply. I have some really important follow-up > comments, however. > > > When a user first downloads/installs your application in the > > "real world", they would not have any content on the SD card. > > Similarly, judges will not be setting up specific SD card images. > > You can, however, assume that an SD card will be present, meaning > > that you can download or copy data onto it. But you'll need to > > initialize it from within your application, just as you would > > need to when first installing your application on a user's device. > > In the real world, the purpose of my application is a very specialized > kind of media player specifically designed for local files that the > user would provide on their SD card. Without elaborating, streaming > would make no sense for my application. I was, for the judges > convenience, setting up an image with public domain and creative > commons (for obvious legal reasons), purpose-specific media. This is > entirely representative of what the real-world situation would be, > where the user would load the files that they want onto the SD card > for use with my application. > > The app would not, in the real world, have any reason to handle the > downloading of files from a remote site. I could add that > functionality, but it wouldn't be at all representative of the > functionality of the software; it would just be something tacked on > for the purpose of the Challenge. That doesn't really make much sense > to me. > > If the judges are going to load a blank SD card image for testing > anyways, and they want to test it as a true end-user, then loading my > sample image seems like a much more sensible scenario. > > > However, that's a *lot* of data to > > ship with your software, and may result in a long wait while > > it downloads, etc. Since judges will be reviewing the user > > experience, you'll definitely want to keep that in mind. I > > would suggest making it as small as possible, or only > > downloading pieces on-demand, etc. > > Again, the real world app would never do the downloading as it doesn't > make sense. The data would already be on the SD card because the > files they would be using would most likely be media they pulled from > their own CDs, etc. And by the very nature of it, the user would want > it all available: on demand doesn't again make must sense here. > > Even if you feel a syncing mechanism is necessary, that would most > likely be provided by the android platform syncing files to the unit > (like the shared documents folder used for Windows Mobile devices). > I'm just speculating on that point, but if I found out later a > proprietary syncing mechanism were necessary, I could provide one. > But it wouldn't be necessary for testing the core functionality of the > app for the Android Challenge. What makes this app special will be > evident when it's used. But it needs files available that are > representative of what the end-user would have to demonstrate. > > I'd very much appreciate it if you and your team would consider that > some specialized apps may have good, even critical, real-user- > simulating reasons for needing to provide a SD card image (or a .zip > of data to copy onto a real SD card if a device and not the emulator > is going to be used) and permit it for the Challenge. > > Thank you, > Greg > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Challenge" group. To post to this group, send email to android-challenge@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-challenge?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
