Slashdot Mirror
Developer Calls Amazon Appstore a 'Disaster'
An anonymous reader writes "The developer of the current #2 Top App on Android Market has written a very interesting article giving six reasons why they decided to pull their game from Amazon Appstore. From the article: 'If you are a small indie development team, or possibly even alone, don't bother with Amazon Appstore. Create a great app, publish it on Android Market, and provide great customer support. You will never succeed on Amazon Appstore without a big wallet, or at least an established reputation so that Amazon puts value behind their promises.'"
The developer has a choice to pull the app because he doesn't like the deal from the retailer.
The consumer can purchase the app from another vendor, or even contact the developer directly to arrange a direct sale.
And before the inevitable iTunes comparisons, Apple themselves choose which retailers can and cannot stock their products, no different to Levi's Jeans or countless other brand name companies.
If I posted a story on here moaning about the fact that I didn't get the pay increase I thought I deserved from my employer last year, there would be countless "then go work for someone else" responses.
In other words, nothing to see here - it's up to the developer and Amazon to work out a deal.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I almost wanted to stop reading after the first point the developer made. Amazon rejected his application because it used an insecure communication channel over the internet. Cry me a river. I actually applaud Amazon for doing that. But instead he goes on to whine that his server can't handle the additional load caused by using HTTPS. While I can understand his frustration based on the other points he makes, the very first one really doesn't help his case.
The same applies for "their" books. If you are a small independent publisher, don't bother with Amazon. All they want is max profit (i.e. max discount on your books). Of course they will blow sugar up your arse if you agree to dumping prices.
So his one valid, but I have to admit extremely important, complain is that Amazon doesn't yet filter compatible devices.
Okay, I have to admit, that's a pretty big one, until they fix that I too wouldn't use their store as a developer.
But apart from that?
The review process took 2 weeks? Oh my god! Crazy!
After one angry mail his app got a sprecial promotion and he got 180,000 donwloads in a single day,
what shit treatment they give him, bastards!
Anyway I think the appstore will succeed when Amazon unleash whatever tablet devices they're cooking up. Doubtless these devices will be locked down so that Amazon's services will be the only thing users can use. The store makes zero sense in any other context than that since I doubt even 0.01% of non Amazon devices would be bothered to manually install another marketplace app when the one they have installed by default does the job.
While I agree with most of the points he points out, He forgot to say that his price was $1.99 during the amazon free app of the day and for each of the 180,000 free copies 'sold', he gets 20% cut of the asking price. So he walked away with $72k dollars from amazon for being the free app of the day!
He hasn't done too bad at all!
Why is the parent modded insightful? Please mod it down. The commenter obviously didn't read the original article.
So he got a bad review on Amazon App store he couldn't reply to & affected sales ? I have exactly the same problem on Android Marketplace, some user didn't realise what the app did (its a Utility not a game) & posted a "Dont waste your money" review on a £0.99 app. I refunded him, but I can't respond to his comments, reply to him or have the comments withdrawn, my sales slumped after that. Android Market place is no better than Amazon on this point.
There are a ton of mini tablets and other low end devices out there that don't have Marketplace access - that costs money while Android itself is free. I love the Amazon AppStore for that very reason, my phones with Marketplace access and my tablet without both can share the same account.
And there is never a reason not to use SSL, especially when you're transferring data a game will basically execute. Unless he's 100% sure that there's no way a corrupted level will allow for remote code execution or data leaks he's an idiot for not switching to HTTPS. And if he is 100% sure he's an idiot because he doesn't understand software testing.
So far... the only use I've found for the Amazon App store? Is the free daily app. A lot of time's? It's junk. Sometimes, it's worth downloading. I've yet to actually get any app from them that cost money.
The originally Amazon "exclusive" Angry Birds 2, just made fans of the game world wide Angry. Do you know when you get an error message saying that only US customers are allowed to purchase from the Amazon app store (for some ludicrously stupid reason, given how I purchase other things from Amazon all the time). It's not when I log in. It's not when I enter my one-click details. It's not when after I click buy it directs me to download the Amazon App Store App, it's not when I install the App, It's not even when I login and search for an app again. It's only after I SPENT HALF A FUCKING HOUR getting to the stage where I could click to download Angry Birds that I got the error message.
Well a big fuck you to Amazon, and while I was heated I sent a nasty email to the developers too. Fortunately a week later things reverted and the game appeared (to the surprise of everyone) on the Market.
Using Amazon from a user perspective is also an incredible mission. I don't have any desire to ever go back there again, even if they would serve me.
owi mets-la moi!!!
This.
As a fellow non-USian, one would think they'd post that information somewhere up-front, that it's not very useful outside their borders. One is left to wonder if they are designing such "user experiences" on purpose, or if they really are that dumb. Not that I am a huge Amazon customer, but still, it's plainly bad business.
"Good news, everyone!"
Of couse it is a disaster. The store is US only for starters. Android developers have a hard enough time making money without purposefully isolating yourself to some 5% or 10% of the global Android market. I don't know why anyone would publish anything exclusively on the Amazon appstore. They better bet getting huge payoffs from Amazon to do s.
The wretched thing is US-only. He mentioned that, but it should really have been the first point. And the second, and probably the third.
// Non-US resident
/// Hates them we does
//// I want my Plants vs Zombies
There is a single reason not to use the Amazon app store to publish your app:
1) Customers willing to pay money living outside of the US cannot purchase from the store. I can publish my app from Australia, but I cannot purchase my own app without some circumnavigation of their block.
Task Mangler
Here we have another fine example of someone wanting to gain multiple times from something that they have done once. You can understand why I have no sympathy for this one, when things aren't going how envisioned.
The word "crook" describes these people, don't be put off when they try and influence you by calling you a pirate.
Good honest professionals on the other hand are willing to only get paid once for each piece of work they do. Of cause this does not stop multiple people chipping in a small amount each, to cover the total development cost of one piece of work. Also any additional charge for goods (e.g. delivery) and services (e.g. help/support and further development.) can also incur additional cost to be paid for once each time.
I've used the Amazon store and the only reason I have ever done so is to download the Free App of the Day (they drop a paid app to $0 for 24 hours) -- I have no intention of ever purchasing an app from it (too much hassle vs Android Market) so I can't quite fathom how developers are coming out ahead...
That crap was just a trainwreck waiting to happen. I've seen more article about dissatisfaction with Android in the past month than I've seen with iPhone and even Windows Phone 7 in the past 2 years.
He was warned. At least about #6: http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/0459204/Game-Developer-Group-Warns-Against-Amazon-Appstore
Everything about this story suggests that the author is an honest, underselling, competitive and straight dealer. I can't BELIEVE the fuckups here who are badmouthing him, who obviously didn't even RTFA.
I had a post prepared where I point out the problems but why reproduce TFA? Anyways I hit a stray key and it got lost. I'll try to do a decent job of a synapsis, again, anyway.
1. The review process took two weeks. He was told he would have to use HTTPS. He grumbles about server load but that isn't the point: he put the extra god damn byte in and put the app back in for review. AND WAITED ANOTHER TWO GOD DAMN WEEKS. Over an "S". Meanwhile, where in the fuck was the policy statement: "make sure your app is secure or you'll have to spend two weeks wishing we'd told you about it beforehand". Because obviously the author had no problem with the security policy; he made the change. So people applauding Amazon for their security policy ought to think about how they go about enforcing it, and whether it's worth the extra review time when they could have said to each other "oh, I have the app open right here mister author, and we'll need to type S right here in order for it to be okay to publish. Agreed?"
2. Here's the author's main point of contention as far as "costing too much": he can't write the app for every device on the market because he can't go out and buy every fucking device on the market for testing. Why, you ask, would he even want to? Why, you wonder, would he bother caring about every device on the market? Because Amazon doesn't filter. He included a manifest that says what devices to reject or accept when users come to download the app, and Amazon ignored it, letting hundreds and hundreds of people download the app -- free or otherwise (oh, yeah, they made him spend a day giving it away free in exchange for it being visible in the app store) -- and plenty were pissed when it wouldn't work or their screen was too small to see it. The author had already thought about all this, he uses a manifest through another service that properly filters the customer base. Not Amazon. So to be successful through Amazon he'd need to go out and buy all these devices, write and test the app on the devices, and then launch. He'd no doubt need to hire a household of people to aid in the effort so it wouldn't take him four years of full time work to complete. Now do you get the fucking point?
3. He's used to getting feedback email. He gets plenty of these every day. He uses it to tailor the app to the customer base's wishes. He uses it to launch bugfixes. After his "free day" that Amazon made him go through, wherein the app was downloaded 180,000 times, he got 2 emails. Despite dozens of no doubt unhappy customers. He feels that Amazon isn't doing enough to help customers contact authors.
4. Part of his business practice is to refund unhappy customers. So people saying he's some kind of greedy person need to talk a walk. Well, Amazon doesn't let you refund your product which is a major "helloooo" point for me. WTF, Amazon!
5. One customer left a really shitty review that made unjust claims about the game and was rife with paranoia. It was written by an actual paranoiac who claimed the app was "tracking" him. This review became "the most helpful" review and is now at the top of the page when you go to the app. The author was unable to comment-back to the comment. Guess why? Amazon doesn't let authors have free access to their review page. You might feel "secure" about that, but consider the liberties that users can take such as the paranoiac above. The author would have to purchase his own app in order to comment on the reviews. He can't: he's in Sweden, Amazon services only to U.S. customers. He's fucked! Amazon won't do squat about it.
6. Oh, no, that's right. Amazon did do something: they cut his price in half AGAIN. Without asking him. Now he's the author of a one-dollar app that the top "most helpful" review claims is tied to an ad service and is a tracking device (both lies) with othe
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I mention on irc that I have created something and everyone will just tell me it's crap and useless. This is the human nature. Everyone publishing stuff will find out about it assuming they can access the feedback. And it would be impossible for amazon to filter out comments because of the volume of them. It's either no comments at all or you need to accept that everyone does not like your game. If it goes _automatically_ to be the top review, that's ok. You just need to accept it. I can't see a way out of it. Keeping all feedback out is one common solution, but guess they want some customer reviews for every item...
Congratulations on missing the point of what the article writer was making. Which was nothing to do with removing feedback. If you read it properly, you would realize the issues were created by Amazon's convoluted system which don't exist on Android Market.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
So why are you reading this thread and posting to it?
If you're not interested fine, but don't be a dick about it.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I am a book author. I have three books published by traditional publishers, but my fourth book I published through my own company and sell it through Amazon. Yet, if one searches for the book by its exact name, the search results list fifteen other books of other names before listing mine. Clearly these results are being rigged. I don't care about "popularity" of these other titles: if someone enters the exact name of my book, my book should come up first.
I almost wanted to stop reading after the first point the developer made. Amazon rejected his application because it used an insecure communication channel over the internet. Cry me a river. I actually applaud Amazon for doing that.
You realize that slashdot uses an insecure communication channel over the internet? The developer used http to deliver game levels to the customer. No personal data, no need for security.
You do realize that Facebook uses an insecure communication channel over Wifi, which has allowed users of FireSheep to hijack any public wifi users session and steal their account? And you do realize that the store is for a device that relies entirely on wireless (3G/LTE/WiFi) technology? Demanding that all apps use only secure communication channels to protect devices most likely on unpassworded wifi is a good thing. A man-in-the-middle attack could easily hit a popular game like Angry Birds, corrupting levels with a payload. That payload could start a wifi tether and spread from device to device via MITM attack.
But, you say, would hackers hang out at Starbucks to start this? Nope, they'd start with an app. As I've said before smartphones are the new untapped and largely unprotected botnets.
Just because it hasn't happened on a large scale yet doesn't mean you don't take reasonable precautions to prevent against it.
I8-D
It set itself up to run every time my tablet booted. I'm sure there is some way to fix that and keep the app, but it was easiest just to remove it.
Amazon wants developers to cough up $100 for the privilege of being listed on their site. Of course they're graciously waive the fee the first year but to me this seems like a deliberate barrier to stop all those scumbags with their free apps and open source ports from bothering listing on the service at all.
If you want your product placed where people can find it, expect to cough up some dough,
Amazon is building an app store that the quality of apps is checked somehow? There may be hope for Android yet.
Amazon appstore was a much needed way of downloading apps and the developers who are upset because they don't have the freedom to push out terrible applications for free need to grow up. I lost track of the number of times I downloaded an app from the android market and it totally killed my battery in a matter of minutes. Browsing the android market is still a total clusterfuck with more useless crap apps than anything else and actually searching for quality apps is a horrendous experience which is pretty funny considering google is a search company. The amazon market is much needed for those of us who want apps that are properly vetted for security and quality.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Perhaps not officially... but its new.
There are going to be bugs.
I've bought a couple of things through the Amazon Appstore, but most of what I've gotten as "Free Apps" are items that I would never have purchased otherwise, mostly games.
Of the other apps I've gotten (or considered),
* I'm likely to purchase one (Pocket Casts) on the Android Market instead of keeping the Amazon version I have if an update due Thursday addresses the issues I've seen (it's not expensive),
* I'm likely to purchase another (Enhanced Email) on the Android market for full price instead of 50% off because having prompt updates is important to me (plus I've had several times when I had to re-install apps from Amazon, not good for email/contact sync apps)
* I probably won't purchase Flex T9 on the Market - I use it sometimes, and think it has great potential, but it also has some warts that annoy me related to numbers and special characters.
* Plants vs Zombies I'm reasonably happy with aside from the fact that my Vibrant is apparently at the low end for its hardware needs.
* ezPDF Reader pretty much rocks and if I didn't have it via Amazon I would absolutely be buying it through the Market (after using it, ThinkFree Office and another PDF reader) - I hadn't thought about it before, but I should probably get it through the Market anyway.
* PicSay Pro is pretty sweet, and I may pick it up in the regular Market, but I don't actually end up using it much (perhaps 5-6 times total so far) even though it has some nice photo editing options,
Everything else I've gotten through Amazon I could either get as a free ad-supported version elsewhere, get on the Market for a few bucks, or would absolutely not miss, including games I picked up to try, then haven't bothered playing since.
fencepost
just a little off
I think it's supremely arrogant of Amazon to charge 4x annually for a smaller market and the obvious conclusion is they don't want free apps there at all.
That's odd, I thought it was pretty arrogant of a developer to think that they should have access to the HUGE user base of Amazon users that have CC numbers and everything already entered, for free or something less than the tiny $100 per year fee. How many TENS of millions of Android devices are there now? You are saying you can't easily make back that $100/year in advertising?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I choose not to use amazon for one reason, who are they to decided what I should price an app for. I have never been a fan of this "race to the bottom" mentality people use to price their apps. I rather have fewer sales than devalue my work. Amazon going to do what is best for them not developers or consumers. MobiHand should create and android marketspace, their blackberry app store is nice and pretty fair for all.
Market blocks you buying your own app, if they discover that you have created another account to do this, you get banned. Its one of the biggest problems with Market, most devs in their forums complain about it.
Did any of you stop to think that since EVERY market does this (Apple too) there might be a reason for it?
The reason is that you want user reviews to be just that, not glowing reviews from someone who wrote the app.
So how can you respond? Well it turns out the app developer in all cases has full control over the most prominent text of all - the app description! Use that to address general complaints or clarify what the app does. It should be doing that anyway!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He complains that developers can't reply to user comments, but it's not possible to do that in Google's market either, so it's not a valid argument to ditch one in favor of the other. The other complaints are valid, but the Android market has issues of it's own, so it's not clear cut. The support is especially bad (actually it is inexistent). For example if your app violates one of the guidelines, or if Google thinks it does, it gets pulled and your account can even get terminated, and there is nothing you can do about it. There is no such thing as an appeal process. And since all the interaction you get from Google is automated forms, you might as well create a new account and buy a new developer license. This issue is very real in the developer community and one of the main reasons developers are attracted the the alternative markets.
See above post.
Actually I have an "unofficial" tablet by French vendor Archos that are not licensed to Google so I cannot use the Google store. So the only way to buy or sell apps is through Amazon!
My Archos 43 came with AppsLib. Does AppsLib not work in your area?
It costs $25 to register for lifetime access to Android Marketplace
Provided that the device on which you routinely test your application supports Android Market, and provided that the devices owned by your target market support Android Market. Some people bought an Archos 43 Internet Tablet instead of a phone because they don't want another $70 per month phone bill, and Archos products run AOSP Android (which doesn't include Market) rather than OHA Android (which does). If you're making an application designed for people who bought what amounts to an Android-powered PDA, you need to make your app available on the markets that support Android-powered PDAs, and this means AppsLib, SlideME, and Amazon Appstore.
Please see my comment about the Australian Classification Board.