I dunno. I've read an awful lot of user comments both on the Marketplace and on the iPhone app store.
I see a lot of users complain that an app has NOT been updated in a while. I think it's really hard to summarize what users want. Some of them simply are incapable of reading. I released my app yesterday AM (SmartVolume FREE, if you want to check it out). My second comment ignored that I'd said to report any problems, and left a report I just can't make sense of. I'd love to either fix the problem or the improve the documentation (the tutorial is extensive), but of course, I can't contact her. And two successive comments from, both from Moto Droid users, one saying "nice try, but no. Acts like it will work, but doesn't", and the next gives 5 stars, says it works great and does everything it says. When you've downloaded as many apps as I have, you come to realize you really can't trust individual comments. I'd love to know what the guy's problem is. I have EXTENSIVE Flurry instrumentation in place. No user-visible exceptions (there's one thing I left in there being logged I'll take out next release, to avoid confusing the statistics -- 16 occurrences in >4000 sessions, for 332 users, and like I said, not user visible). It's clear that people are being successful in using it. (How many find it actually useful remains to be seen.) But 30.1% of my user sessions today have been on Moto Droids. Moto Droid is one of our test platforms. I have to think he's confused -- but I'd like to know how. The volume and related settings on Android are pretty confusing, and I've tried to make them less so. I have yet to receive EVEN ONE support email. I've even tested it to make sure it's still working. I agree with you to the extent that people DO expect solid high quality on download. The reason we did this app was to learn the platform, and the market, and refine our technique before embarking on more ambitious projects. That's also why we've held back the Pro (paid) version for a bit. Anyway, now my rating's down to 4 stars... :=( The good news is that we've earned $0.95 for our efforts so far! I have lots more to say on this topic, but I'll save it for my blog: http://bobkerns.typepad.com Greg Donald wrote: > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:48 PM, kanatacrude <[email protected]> wrote: > > So while my initial instinct was to just roll up my sleeves and make > > my widget "Suck" less, I would advice that once you get it fully > > functional, you'll get diminishing returns on your rating from > > continued efforts to make it not suck. > > I have found the Marketplace is the complete opposite of the usual > "release early, release often" development practices ESR taught us > many years ago: > > http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html > > Users are not developers and do not want upgrades, ever. They want > fully functional, bug free, 1.0 releases only. And if you do make a > bug release, you had better list some obvious new features or you will > get accused of spamming the Marketplace. In a nutshell, Marketplace > users are whiny bitches and there's not much you can do about it. > > Good luck. > > > -- > Greg Donald > destiney.com | gregdonald.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
