Thought I started this to see what everybody's impressions of the iPhone App Store launch was, from an app development perspective. Here's my findings:
** Leveraging user's personal data. One user complained that a geo- aware social networking app directly reached into the phone's contacts database. Recipe for spamming was the comment and it made we think... yeah... a description how user's personal data is being leveraged by a particular app would be helpful; to build user trust. ** Battery life. From what we hear even an idle iPhone is a "guzzler". It is safe to assume that "gPhone"'s will be challenged in similar ways. So beyond diligently trying to lower battery consumption through optimized processor utilization, peripheral and network connects, I think something like a battery-to-usage profile released for each app would be helpful. Sometimes there might be a trade-off between app performance and battery use (and BTW how an app dips into the data plan); consider making performance parameters user-configurable. ** Don't dabble. There are a number of pretty sober assessments about lack of functionality. There was one case I found where an app basically only opened Safari with a redirect to the companies web site. ** Map view manipulation. Native mapping apps allow user manipulation of the map view in various ways: zooming, moving the map center (panning), switch to satellite etc. we all know the features and users expect to find these in their apps as well. ** The hidden agenda. Hard to believe anybody is going to recoup their investments at price points of ~$2.99*0.7-IRS a pop. Many apps are even "free". Meaning author doesn't care, or is trying to leverage an app in other ways, now that eyeballs are looking at it. There are ads of course, which are all that more annoying on a handset (and probably don't have much mileage as well). Perhaps one can make an extra buck off of selling a "no-ads" edition. Then there might be other motives. Not sure if everybody can buy into this, but being upfront with the app's "real" motives and how the app is supposed to be leveraged for *you* would be a good exercise in application "hygiene". --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" 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-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
