Developer Calls Amazon Appstore a 'Disaster'

HTTP vs HTTPS by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 21:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by spire3661 · 2011-07-04 21:55 · Score: 1

You are inferring there. I think you are being over sensitive over a small but relevant detail that stuck in his craw. If he whined on and on about it you might have a point.

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Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by themightythor · 2011-07-04 22:01 · Score: 2

I think the point was that it took them two weeks to arrive at that conclusion. I know I'd have been frustrated in his situation.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 22:11 · Score: 1

He wouldn't be the first developer to do this. You should make your Androids and iThingy devices go through a proxy server and see what comes up - it's really quite disheartening.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by DrXym · 2011-07-04 22:11 · Score: 1

Levels could be signed and / or encrypted. If the data is invalid then the level is rejected. There are lots of ways to encrypt in Java / Dalvik, e.g. Bouncy Castle + OpenPGP. Obviously by not using https a developer puts themselves at higher risk of not implementing a solution properly but it's perfectly doable. Moreso, it means they don't have to pay a tax on security which is essentially what SSL & CAs are. Why the hell should someone pay a 3rd party to bestow trust on communications if they were responsible for writing the consumer and producer of the data going over the wire?
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by gnasher719 · 2011-07-04 22:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by icebraining · 2011-07-04 22:24 · Score: 1

You could use a self-signed cert and distribute it with the app, you don't need to pay any "tax."

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Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by scdeimos · 2011-07-04 22:27 · Score: 1, Interesting

In this case it was because Amazon felt access to the community site around the game should have required HTTPS access. I think that's perhaps being a little anal.
In the general case, where games download their own levels and updates, if game levels and upgrades are code signed and validated then it's not an issue at all. If this was a multi-player game for example (I don't believe that it is), malicious players could supply their own hacked levels and upgrades using MITM methods potentially giving them an unfair advantage over other players that doing things properly. Those sorts of holes can really damage the community trust around a popular game.
Personally I don't think it's Amazon's place to be rejecting Android apps just because they are missing an S from a HTTPS URI. They could just inform the developers and recommend that they fix it in the next release of the apps. It's not like Amazon is in the same position as Apple, protecting their own little walled-garden iThingy community - Android apps can be downloaded from anywhere and it's not Amazon's job to be policing the security of the operating system.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by thegarbz · 2011-07-04 22:41 · Score: 2

Amazon rejected his application because it used an insecure communication channel over the internet. Cry me a river.
You're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the app. In my opinion it's incredibly hypocritical. I mean when I go to Amazon they don't immediately redirect me to an HTTPS site either. If you're handling credit cards, logins, passwords, personal details then sure, but if not does it mean that the flickr app also gets rejected because it is using an insecure connection?
In other related news I also don't wear a balaclava in public, and I don't go around whispering everything to everyone in case someone can overhear. The pure and simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the internet simply does not need to be encrypted, and yes when you're getting a lot of hits the encryption can put quite a burden on a server.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by maxume · 2011-07-04 23:04 · Score: 1

One of the ways that they can make their store attractive is by limiting the security issues with the software that they list.

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Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by Haeleth · 2011-07-04 23:25 · Score: 1

If this was a multi-player game for example (I don't believe that it is), malicious players could supply their own hacked levels and upgrades using MITM methods potentially giving them an unfair advantage over other players that doing things properly.
Yes, that sounds totally plausible and not at all contrived. I can well imagine many people being so eager to cheat at games that they will happily commit a complex and technically-demanding federal crime in order to gain a slight edge.
Amazon should also have insisted that the game disable the device's screen and communicate with the player only by blinking morse code with the device's notification LED, like in Cryptonomicon, because there's a serious risk that malicious players might try to get an unfair advantage via Van Eck phreaking.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 23:52 · Score: 5, Funny

This "slashdot" of which you talk, can't be very secure, can it ?
I actually heard they have "Anonymous Cowards" in this system, no doubt agents for this "Anonymous" hacker group.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by F.Ultra · 2011-07-05 00:26 · Score: 1

Well there is one need for security even for level data and that is to avoid data exploits such as the old jpg/wma exploits where the application can be told to execute arbitrary code by sending specially crafted data to it. Downloading the app using a secure channel and then having the app download data over an insecure channel is not good practice!
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by gabebear · 2011-07-05 00:31 · Score: 1

Once the initial HTTPS connection is done it's not too much more resource intensive, but that initial handshake and key passing does put a decent strain on a server when you are only doing one-off tiny downloads.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by JSBiff · 2011-07-05 00:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

"The developer used http to deliver game levels to the customer. No personal data, no need for security."
Actually, according to the fine article, Amazon's complaint was about the session cookie, not the levels, as near as I can tell. That might not strike you as important, but it might be that from Amazon's standpoint, that session cookie might be re-used for something else more important, or might be necessary to keep people from making unpaid copies, etc.
It might not, it's just hard to tell - there's not enough information from the article to tell how important that session cookie is (or is not), from a security standpoint.
I tend to agree with the Grandparent - the very first point was the weakest of all the developer's complaints (and if it weren't for the other issues, I suspect that developer himself would still be using Amazon Appstore).
His first item was actually really 3 or 4 items that he lumped together, and I think I disagree with him on just about everything.
Subclaims:
A) It takes a long time for them to review your code:
The whole premise of the Amazon Appstore, that they use as a differentiating feature from the Market, is that Amazon promises to review submissions. Of course that will take time. 2 weeks doesn't sound like an unreasonable time span for such a review, at least to me.
B) The complaint about SSL which we've already discussed above.
C) Amazon told him the App was live, but he couldn't find it - OK, that sounds like a legitimate complaint, but I suspect it might just take a day or two to show up in the system. Not sure how that works, but I agree that once the dev is notified the app has been accepted, it seems like it should quickly show up in the listings.
D) Updates also have to be reviewed - well DUH! I mean, wth good is it to review the original app submission, but not updates? That's just an invitation for someone who wants to peddle malware to submit a "clean" version 1.0, then after acceptance, submit a "dirty" version 1.1 update a few days later.
If you are going to do security reviews, you've got to review everything. I'm sorry, that's just common sense.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by cduffy · 2011-07-05 00:37 · Score: 1

Yes, that sounds totally plausible and not at all contrived. I can well imagine many people being so eager to cheat at games that they will happily commit a complex and technically-demanding federal crime in order to gain a slight edge.
Huh? Set up your phone to proxy or VPN through your personal workstation. Run one of the many available man-in-the-middle proxies to replace the levels your phone downloads with easier ones, or ones that award you points for nothing.
Now, what part of intercepting YOUR communications from YOUR phone when they go through YOUR computer is a federal crime?
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by cduffy · 2011-07-05 00:42 · Score: 1

Had that been a webserver, the second core could have handled another download. A quad core machine would max out at four downloads. That's not 2% overhead in my math book. That's more like 2% real work, with the rest being encryption overhead.
The Google 2% number was (1) for web serving, and (2) after making an insane bunch of optimizations -- that's not out-of-the-box performance. But they published those optimizations, so you can do them too.
That said -- my employer runs a large group of web sites doing actual commerce, and a single inexpensive VPS running stunnel is able to keep up with SSL for all of them at once -- we have failovers, of course, but haven't seen the need to make it active/active; the load is just too low. In short -- in the test above, you were doing something very, very wrong.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-07-05 00:52 · Score: 1

This doesn't mitigate the cost of doing encryption on the server though.
If you ship signed levels, and provide keys in your app for the client to verify them, the cost is at the client.
If you have to use SSL, the cost is at the server. Instead of just caching a single response, or even deferring the request to local content caches (a lot of ISPs use transparent caching proxies, for example), every request has to be individually encrypted, server side.
In a situation where the content is signed anyway, SSL is adding no value - it is indeed, just a sop to the app review team at Amazon who apparently have a big checklist instead of actual skill or experience.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by scdeimos · 2011-07-05 01:00 · Score: 1

I might point out that this is a Swedish game. Do you think anybody outside of America actually cares about American federal laws?
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by DrXym · 2011-07-05 02:03 · Score: 1

Signing the content also means you can verify the contents are correct and untampered with so even if someone broke into your server it wouldn't necessarily do them any good.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by Myopic · 2011-07-05 02:16 · Score: 1

My opinion is that encryption is (or, should be) so easy that to do it universally would substantially improve the usefulness of encrypting the parts that do need it. Yeah, I don't go around whispering all the time, but I would if whispering were as "cheap" as data encryption.
And yet, here I am, not encrypting (most of) my web sessions. Still, I would if it were made as easy as it could be.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by VortexCortex · 2011-07-05 04:35 · Score: 1

You're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the app. In my opinion it's incredibly hypocritical. I mean when I go to Amazon they don't immediately redirect me to an HTTPS site either.
Correct. This means that Amazon is succeptable to MITM attacks such as SSL-Strip.
Oh, is that an unsecured web page, why don't I rewrite the HTTPS login form (or the link to it) to point to my own site that happens to be very similar to amazon and even has the trusted green "SSL secure" bar -- but wait, I can inject JS onto that unsecured page that snags document keypress events and sends them to my remote server before you even hit submit!
Hint: EVERYTHING should be HTTPS. The "additional load" is hogwash, the only time that matters is for cached content.
The BIGGEST retardation on the WEB is the fact that we have strong encryption and cryptographic signature technology, and yet MIXED content is UNSAFE because (X)HTML standard doesn't declare facilities to specify fingerprints for the non-encrypted data that the encrypted page pulls in -- thus allowing for privacy of encrypted content, AND caching of plaintext content WITHOUT compromising integrity.
<img src="bkgnd.png" sig="SHA-1/hex;22172a80d89e99d250db62bf71031a23cbac4801" salt="HMAC/Base64;U2VjdXJpdHkgaXMgZWFzeS4K" /> Now apply this to the .js, .class, flash, .mp3, .avi, etc, and you get the point.
Never send a standards body to do a cryptographer's job -- For the record, I was only 15 when I came up with this idea, and was ignored -- "Shush, kid! The men are designing TLS & HTML in separate rooms, and that's final!"
Once the connection is set up, there's not a big security hit, to run a symmetric stream cipher -- and if clients can re-use past PKI authed tokens that haven't expired yet; Thus, repeated hits aren't expensive either.
Enjoy your broken web, and shitty security -- I'll be off writing and using the anonymous distributed web in the darknets.
-- Later fools.
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by curunir · 2011-07-05 06:15 · Score: 1

Except that, according to the article, those HTTP connections that included no personal data did include session cookies, which creates a session hijacking vulnerability. It's possible to architect the app such that HTTP connections are used for things that aren't sensitive, but you need to separate it into its own domain so that the client doesn't send the session cookie. The developer didn't do that.

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Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by shellbeach · 2011-07-06 16:49 · Score: 1

What got me was his implication that because the change involved adding one letter to the code (the "s" in https), it shouldn't have made the difference between acceptance and rejection of the app.
He was complaining about the time taken to review a single letter code change, rather than whether or not the app should have been accepted in the first place. Note that the guy's subtitle for this complaint is "Very slow review process" ...!
Re:HTTP vs HTTPS by shellbeach · 2011-07-06 16:54 · Score: 1

D) Updates also have to be reviewed - well DUH! I mean, wth good is it to review the original app submission, but not updates? That's just an invitation for someone who wants to peddle malware to submit a "clean" version 1.0, then after acceptance, submit a "dirty" version 1.1 update a few days later.
If you are going to do security reviews, you've got to review everything. I'm sorry, that's just common sense.
Well, that's fair enough, but it's too bad if your app causes major issues with a particular phone and you need to bugfix urgently, which I assumed was the point he was making in that final comment. It's all very well to take your time reviewing an app, but if the developer can't speedily update it when bugs are discovered then this could cause major problems!

One very good point and a lot of bitching by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 21:35 · Score: 1, Insightful

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!

Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by c0lo · 2011-07-04 23:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

But apart from that?
4. Impossible to send refund?
5. Amazon Appstore is a disaster...
When attempting to reply to a comment, the system replied with "You must purchase products before you can post comments." (i.e. where's you dialog with your customers?)
6. What's with the price?
A short time after the above review arrived, Amazon changed the price of Apparatus to $0.99. We never discussed this change.
I still find the above compelling enough.

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by makomk · 2011-07-04 23:15 · Score: 5, Informative

After one angry mail his app got a sprecial promotion and he got 180,000 donwloads in a single day,
180,000 free downloads - which damaged his reputation because thanks to the lack of compatibility checks it didn't actually run on many downloaders' phones.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by gnasher719 · 2011-07-04 23:35 · Score: 1

After one angry mail his app got a sprecial promotion and he got 180,000 donwloads in a single day,
180,000 downloads, many of them going to people who most definitely couldn't use the app which Amazon should have known. That's a lot of people annoyed with his app, giving him tons of undeserved bad reviews, destroying his chances of making decent money with the app.

As you said: "What shit treatment they give him, bastards!". Only I am not sarcastic here.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 23:55 · Score: 1

from what i can gather, amazon told him that it would do compatibility checks to ensure that people on incompatible phones simply never saw his software- he's complaining because their compatibility check doesn't work, which means that people on incompatible devices are allowed to purchase his software (and leave correspondingly bad reviews).
this seems like a relevant and reasonable complaint to me!
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by mcvos · 2011-07-05 00:14 · Score: 1

Really, only the 2 weeks and the https thing were lame complaints. The rest of TFA was extremely valuable information.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-05 00:21 · Score: 2

Re there being no way for publishers who can't buy to comment on the app page, I think that's an excellent idea. I am quite frustrated with all the canned mfr replies I see on sites like Newegg. On some other stores, I've seen the customer being insulted and abused in a way that would have the police coming if this was a brick-and-mortar store.
And given what this developer wrote in the TFA, this would almost certainly have been of the latter type. Calling the customer paranoid and a liar is [b]not[/b] going to increase sales, so I think the dev should be thankful that Amazon prevented him from answering.
Dear seller: [b]The customer is always right[/b]. If you can't see this from the customer's perspective, and try to work [i]with[/i] the customer to figure out why he or she drew the conclusions he did, you have no business being in business.
Yes, some reviews are going to be negative or unfair. Accept that, and make sure your app is good enough that those few negatives are overwhelmed by and drown in all the positive reviews.
But this seller can't handle this, and decides to pull the app, verbally abuse Amazon, and drop support for all the customers who got it through a promotion.
As for Amazon not vetting compatible devices, yes, it should, but [b]so should the app itself[/b]. That the app just silently crashes is bad design/coding, period.
If you need a set of minimum requirements to use it, then check those requirements at startup time, and if the device doesn't meet those, give the user a useful message.
It's also helpful, of course, if the minimum requirements are listed in the description.
Not having tried this app, I certainly don't feel any urge to do so now.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-05 00:30 · Score: 1

from what i can gather, amazon told him that it would do compatibility checks to ensure that people on incompatible phones simply never saw his software- he's complaining because their compatibility check doesn't work, which means that people on incompatible devices are allowed to purchase his software (and leave correspondingly bad reviews).
this seems like a relevant and reasonable complaint to me!
It also seems valid to expect that a device checks the minimum requirements when starting, and provide useful feedback to the user, and not just exit or crash on unsupported devices. You can't rely on the store filtering things out, because of (among other things) sideloading and users upgrading their devices but keeping their apps.
I.e. Amazon should provide this, but so should the developer. Who also should clearly list the minimum specs:
"We explicity filter out small screen devices because the game is terrible to play on a very small screen. We also filter out low-density devices because the game looks terrible on them. Also all GLES 1.0-only devices are filtered out."
The above information really needs to be in the description. Phrased in a way that's more useful to the customer, of course.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by SamSim · 2011-07-05 00:42 · Score: 1

When attempting to reply to a comment, the system replied with "You must purchase products before you can post comments." (i.e. where's you dialog with your customers?)
To be fair, if you haven't purchased anything, you're not a customer.

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by cduffy · 2011-07-05 00:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Then maybe his application should have checked for fucking compatibility before it installed itself.
Android applications have a manifest. The manifest indicates which phones it's compatible with. The Android Market checks the manifest and only displays applications to users with compatible phones. The Amazon Appstore doesn't.
In what way is this not Amazon's fault? If you're using a part of the Android API that promises to do filtering, anything that claims to be an Amazon application repository should fulfill its part of that contract and... filter! He was doing device compatibility checks in exactly the way that the Android documentation tells developers to do.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by moonbender · 2011-07-05 00:59 · Score: 1

If I see insulting replies by a store/developer in a comments section, that's pretty revealing in itself: I'm probably not going to do business with them. This dev actually sounds as if he wants to work with customers to work out any incompatibilities and problems, to the point of refunding people without being asked to do so. In fact, that's one of the things Amazon doesn't easily let him do.
I agree that the app should test for device compatibility and offer a way out (as a nerd, I'd prefer a way to force start the app despite the incompatibility). However, that doesn't make his argument less compelling.

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by brusk · 2011-07-05 01:00 · Score: 1

The above information really needs to be in the description. Phrased in a way that's more useful to the customer, of course.
But most people don't know the specs of their Android phones, especially the details of the innards. So using the manifest system is probably the best way to filter incompatible devices out, and it does work for ordinary purchases (though I've found some apps that I can get from Amazon but not from the Android Market).

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by bizso09 · 2011-07-05 01:24 · Score: 1

You do not have the privilege to post on IMDB forums either, which is owned by Amazon, unless you do "additional verification". You might think that a Captcha would suffice. In fact, you gotta either send a $1 sms to Amazon or buy something worth at least $1. If they can make you pay, they will. However, I wonder how reliable those reviews and forum posts are when people cannot freely speak their opinions unless they pay first.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by brainzach · 2011-07-05 01:39 · Score: 2

Adding checks in the code just waste time and will still piss off customers who will still leave bad reviews. Specifying all the requirements in the user description will confuse most people out there and just adds clutter. People side loading apps can't leave reviews and are probably doing something illegal anyways, so there is little incentive to support them.
The Android Market already has a mechanism to filter out devices on a market level specified in the manifest file and it works. It provides an easy way for developers to deal with the fragmentation of Android without pissing off users. The failure is on Amazon for not supporting the best practices of Android.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by smurfsurf · 2011-07-05 01:53 · Score: 1

That is not the complaint. There is no info if Amazon does compatibility checks at all.
The author himself specified compatibility in a spec file ("Manifest file") in the app package. The Android Market uses that information to automatically not show the app to incompatible devices. Amazon ignores that information and either does not do any testing at all, or does a bad work on it.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by AJH16 · 2011-07-05 01:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

From my read of the article, it sounds like the developer would have been perfectly reasonable. I can understand his frustration with the situation since the information was incorrect and he couldn't respond to it, but he never attacked the reviewer in his article, just said that the claims were untrue and paranoid (both accurate statements). Based on his other statements about customer service and the fact that he said repeatedly that he didn't blame the reviewer make me think your view of the developer is unwarranted.
You are ignoring the fact that Amazon was ignoring filters for devices that were not supported. He was going to get a ton of bad reviews and completely inaccurate reviews are a part of life as well. If you can not respond to reviews like this to reassure your customers that the concerns are being addressed or are an issue with the store, then your sales will tank, just like his did. I would expect that it would have failed gracefully since his manifest didn't match the device unless amazon somehow is stripping it. It sounds like he was relying on Android's in-built functionality which isn't necessarily a bad thing. He probably could do more to mitigate it, but from my experience Amazon has never been particularly good at letting vendors actually do good business.
Also, just a side point, "the customer is always right" is a bullshit statement. Good customer service should try to help the customer at all times if at all possible, but some customers will wish to abuse the vendor and so the customer isn't always right. It's an over-simplified statement designed to try to avoid losing sales because of some nit-wit CSR that doesn't understand the customer. A good CSR should be able to point out that the customer is wrong, if they can determine for sure the customer is wrong without being offensive and offer the best resolution that is fair.

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by jittles · 2011-07-05 02:03 · Score: 1

When attempting to reply to a comment, the system replied with "You must purchase products before you can post comments." (i.e. where's you dialog with your customers?)
AFAIK, none of the app stores (Apple, Google, etc) let you respond to comments. Most things I see on the Android market specifically request that you submit bug reports and ask for support via the "Email the developer" link in the market.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by samoanbiscuit · 2011-07-05 02:12 · Score: 1

Your comprehension is certainly not very good! The apps were crashing because Amazon wasn't filtering incompatible/poorly performing devices from downloading the app. You know, like the ones stated in their manifest file? The dev certainly give no indications either way whether they are bad or good to deal with, customer-to-seller, but I think being considerate of people whose android devices would not run this app seems to be a good sign of the dev's diligence. They wanted to reply so they could explain themselves, certainly not to do whatever you're talking about. Is a certain someone projecting their own baggage onto another situation?
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by larry+bagina · 2011-07-05 03:23 · Score: 2

It's pretty well known that Amazon has terrible pricing terms -- 20% of the list price (that you set but must be lower than the price on any other app store) or 70% of the retail price that they set however they want. You have no control over the price.

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Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by Certhas · 2011-07-05 03:39 · Score: 1

A) The customer is not always right. b) The guy complained that he had no way to communicate with the customer in order to work with the customer on explaining/addressing the issues the customer had. So his complain was that he wanted to do exactly what you are telling him he must learn to do (patronize much?) but couldn't due to the app stores suckiness.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-05 03:55 · Score: 1

You are ignoring the fact that Amazon was ignoring filters for devices that were not supported.
No, I'm not. You're ignoring that I say "As for Amazon not vetting compatible devices, yes, it should".
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-05 03:59 · Score: 1

The guy complained that he had no way to communicate with the customer in order to work with the customer on explaining/addressing the issues the customer had. So his complain was that he wanted to do exactly what you are telling him he must learn to do (patronize much?) but couldn't due to the app stores suckiness.
I see no indication that he even investigated the problem, but started tossing out words like "paranoid" and "lying". In that case, yes, it's a good thing that he can't communicate back to the customer, cause what he's after clearly isn't a dialogue.
And dialogues don't belong in public anyhow - Amazon should provide means for the seller to contact the reviewer through e-mail or other private communication. But not for the dev to call a customer a paranoid liar in public.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by flibuste · 2011-07-05 04:21 · Score: 2

Dear seller: [b]The customer is always right[/b].
I went through your first lines of misinterpretations of TFA, but then I stopped there. This doctrine is ridiculously outdated. If you constantly listen to the unwashed masses, you get non-sense most of the time.
And yes, that review was wrong and paranoid with far reaching consequences. Another example of an idiot who will be trusted by others. That is way too much power to leave it to a "customer" - who thinks "is always right".
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by flibuste · 2011-07-05 04:24 · Score: 1

I see no indication that he even investigated the problem
What can you investigate when the problem isn't described and assumptions are made about your application, which you know have absolutely no grounds.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by flibuste · 2011-07-05 04:26 · Score: 1

Yes, and the inability to answer to comments on the Android Market is a major pain. There is nothing more frustating to see comments such as "I couldn't do this or that - UNINSTALLED!!!!" where it is obvious that a few lines of explanations would make one clumsy user happy.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by Certhas · 2011-07-05 04:40 · Score: 1

Whatever the appropriate means are Amazon has not provided them.
Plus did you read that review? In the context of what the developer told us it looks like there was a bug from which the user drew understandable (hence I also disagree with the developers assessment of the user as paranoid) but completely wrong conclusions.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by Duradin · 2011-07-05 04:47 · Score: 1

"The customer is always right" is how I know time travel isn't possible within my lifetime (non-exclusive) or time travel within the same universe/timeline is not possible. If it was, I'd have gone back in time to take out with great vengeance, furious anger, and extreme prejudice, that nitwit who started that idea.
"The customer is always an idiot" is true much more often than the other one.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by murdocj · 2011-07-05 04:57 · Score: 1

How much description do you want? The guy gave two specific setups in which the app hung at startup, one of which (putting it into airplane mode) would be trivial to test. The developer does NOT say "I tried what the reviewer said and it worked fine, I'd need to talk to him to get details to reproduce the problem". He just says that of course his app doesn't connect to the Internet and the user must be paranoid. To me, it sounds like the user did as good a job as an end user can do of analyzing a problem, and now it's up to the developer to act on the information.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by bWareiWare.co.uk · 2011-07-05 05:37 · Score: 1

This is a two-edged sword. Amazon obviously needs to allow you to filter by device, and should by default warn you of mismatch. Filter by permissions would also be nice along with lots of other criteria nether market bothers with. However Google's approach of absolutely denying the App has ever existed when you access it from a device which the publisher may just have not have got around to testing is also very annoying. An App that I purchased often don't show up in my market, but once I trick it into appearing (Google 'Market Fix'), it invariably works perfectly. You would think that the device makers, who should have the clout, would be furious about this. Why would I upgrade my ancient device if I don't even know I am missing out on half the market's games?
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by jittles · 2011-07-05 05:50 · Score: 1

It would certainly make life easier on developers. I never trust the comments on there anyway. It's hard to tell what is a fake comment or a legitimate one, and half the people making legitimate comments don't sound very intelligent or savvy to begin with.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by suutar · 2011-07-05 07:02 · Score: 1

The customer is always right
I see this a lot. It's usually bull. The only thing the customer is always right about is determining whether the customer is happy. The customer is frequently entirely clueless about whether what they think they want is possible, much less feasible, or about the reasons for behavior they didn't expect.

try to work [i]with[/i] the customer
Based on some of his other statements, it seems like the developer would love to work with the customer. Durn shame he can't get in touch with the customer in any way (which you seem to think is a good thing... or is it only being unable to reply to comments that you like?).
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-05 09:24 · Score: 1

I see this a lot. It's usually bull. The only thing the customer is always right about is determining whether the customer is happy. The customer is frequently entirely clueless about whether what they think they want is possible, much less feasible, or about the reasons for behavior they didn't expect.
"The customer is always right" doesn't mean that the customer is always correct from a developer's point of view, or a salesman's point of view, or a support person's point of view, but he's always correct from the customer's point of view.
It's mostly a way of saying "put yourself into your customers' shoes and only then decide how to fix this". Sometimes it can be by educating the customers, e.g. by documentation that is better tailored for the customers and their perceptions. Sometimes it can be by making your product behave differently. But dismissing the customer's point of view out of hand, like this guy did, is counter-productive.

Based on some of his other statements, it seems like the developer would love to work with the customer. Durn shame he can't get in touch with the customer in any way (which you seem to think is a good thing... or is it only being unable to reply to comments that you like?).
It's being unable to reply in comments I am against. The seller blurting out words like "lying" and "paranoid" instead of trying to replicate the problem or asking for more information isn't going to benefit anyone, the least of all the seller.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-07-05 09:59 · Score: 1

Android also provides the ability to blacklist devices lacking capabilities in the manifest, also for a reason. Developers are free to aim for a broad market and adapt to the capabilities of the device at runtime, serving even low-end devices with reduced functionality. But they're also free to focus on higher-end (or even simply newer) devices. It is perfectly reasonable to e.g. refuse to serve phones running 1.x, and your app will crash if run on such phones simply because you reference non-existing classes and methods. That's why there is an app manifest to prevent it.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by flibuste · 2011-07-05 10:05 · Score: 1

"The customer is always an idiot" is true much more often than the other one.
I would actually sort of debate that too ;-)
Misinformed people are misinformed people, wherever they are a 'customer' or not. In all matters of life, they are the ones who need to be worked on the most. Sometimes it is just not worth the cost in time or anything you may invest in them.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by flibuste · 2011-07-05 10:08 · Score: 1

Hitting the "Report" button would have taken that reviewer WAY less time than writing that assumption-full and misleading review, and reports help developers WAY more than a "It forces close" review. Anything other question?
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by samoanbiscuit · 2011-07-05 18:36 · Score: 1

So basically what you're saying is that they should have somehow predicted the future, and realized Amazon would strip the device filtering from their app, and built a second method of preventing this? If they did they'd be awesome, but the fact that they didn't DOESN'T make it their fault the apps crash, it makes it Amazon's! You seem to be very determined to paint them in a bad light... Are you the paranoid reviewer they were talking about?
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by murdocj · 2011-07-05 22:59 · Score: 1

Welcome to the Internet. People have a bad experience with a product, they write a review. The reviewer didn't write a "this sucks" review, he wrote a clear description of the problem, which it sounds like the developer ignored. Did you ever stop to think why that particular review got rated up? Maybe, just maybe, other people had the same problem?
Any questions?
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by arth1 · 2011-07-06 04:55 · Score: 1

So basically what you're saying is that they should have somehow predicted the future, and realized Amazon would strip the device filtering from their app, and built a second method of preventing this?
They didn't "strip" anything. It's not implemented. You can't rely on the download service filtering on device anyhow, because it doesn't work with sideloading, phone upgrades or any other methods of installing an app that you haven't thought of.
Is it OK for an app to crash if the hardware doesn't meet the wanted specs? I'd say no - if the app can run, the dev has a responsibility to prevent it from crashing. Period.

but the fact that they didn't DOESN'T make it their fault the apps crash, it makes it Amazon's!
Amazon didn't write the code that crashes.

You seem to be very determined to paint them in a bad light... Are you the paranoid reviewer they were talking about?
This doesn't even deserve a response, but no. I have written apps for Android, but they don't crash. They may say "Sorry, this device is not supported", but they don't crash.
Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching by shellbeach · 2011-07-06 16:59 · Score: 1

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!
Uh, not really. The 180,000 downloads were free (and permanently free) giveaways, based on him voluntarily submitting his app to their free giveaway app promotion. Not only did this not generate any money for the app, but as he goes on to point out, it also generated a number of very negative reviews by users of unsupported phones (which Amazon did not screen out from downloading the app)!
I think his complaints were perfectly justified, and I suspect that as the developer of a very successful app on the Android App Market it's not just a sour-grapes article.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 21:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

it seems like amazon should fire couple of guys though and hire some people with experience in mobile apps. there's a lot to see here, like being unable to comment on your app yourself without creating fake accounts.. it does seem like the store is just hastily done contract job and they hired amaterus to do the dev and customer relations. that's actually like 55% of the mobile sw stores which have existed over the years(since 2002 or so, you think apple invented this shit?). also, the amazon ceo would be wise to not let his store employees run favorites game and thus choose which games get bought, it's ridiculous that "popular games" are hand chosen, that gives enermous power(££€€€$$$) to those who pick 'em and "friendly" corruption, their personal taste and such start to affect the store way too much.

Amazon Appstore's biggest sin by DrXym · 2011-07-04 21:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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.

Re:Amazon Appstore's biggest sin by Ash-Fox · 2011-07-04 23:53 · Score: 1

$100 wouldn't stop me uploading my game or utility app but it might put someone off creating yet another soundboard or fart app.
It would for me. Pay $100 to get listed, only get 25% of application sale proceeds? You can keep your store.

--
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Re:Amazon Appstore's biggest sin by DrXym · 2011-07-05 00:29 · Score: 1

$100 wouldn't stop me uploading my game or utility app but it might put someone off creating yet another soundboard or fart app.
It would for me. Pay $100 to get listed, only get 25% of application sale proceeds? You can keep your store.
The most annoying part is realising that the normal marketplace costs $25 ever and some other marketplaces like appslib & B&Ns are free. I think Amazon did this simply to filter out undesirable (i.e. free) apps by raising the bar.
I'd also have a severe mistrust of the legal agreement. Biggest red flag for me would be that developers get 70% of sale price or 20% of list price, whichever is greater. This implies to me that Amazon intends to discount apps any amount they like all the way down to 20% of their list price if they wanted. But another clause says you're not allowed to sell your app on another app store for less than the list price on Amazon. If your app was listed for $10 on marketplace and $10 on Amazon, Amazon could sell it for $2.50 massively undercutting your own price on Marketplace. So they basically get to fuck you over at their convenience.
Re:Amazon Appstore's biggest sin by firewrought · 2011-07-05 05:35 · Score: 1

Amazon wants developers to cough up $100 for the privilege of being listed on their site.... 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.

Possibly: that would certainly make the store more appealing to commercial developers. However, it's also possible that they also see it as (1) a funding decision [you gotta cover the per-developer overhead of account management, application review, etc.] and (2) a quality barrier [e.g., to weed out the sourceforge-style wasteland of incomplete projects].

--
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Re:Amazon Appstore's biggest sin by DrXym · 2011-07-05 09:47 · Score: 1

That's great and will you continue to use it when they stop doing that? Or more pointedly, will developers stop submitting their apps when they realise that Amazon is discounting their apps by up to 80% yet they are obliged to submit the same list price on Amazon as they do on Google Marketplace?

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by bgarcia · 2011-07-04 21:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

In other words, nothing to see here...

Wut?

Did you read the article? This guy is telling about his experiences dealing with Amazon, and explaining why he believes that small developers shouldn't bother with it, and why it's inferior to Google's offering. This is great, useful information.

--
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by kikito · 2011-07-04 21:50 · Score: 1

Then comment somewhere else.

Re:He did ok... 72k worth of ok! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 21:53 · Score: 5, Informative

No I didn't. Do you really think Amazon gives developers money every day? This campaign is run every day and ~100k download the daily free app. You really think Amazon sends out 72k to developers every day? Before the campaign was launched, I received an agreement to sign, an agreement that said revenue would be 0%.

Not Insightful by tulimulta · 2011-07-04 21:55 · Score: 1

Why is the parent modded insightful? Please mod it down. The commenter obviously didn't read the original article.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by MrHanky · 2011-07-04 21:59 · Score: 1

Thanks for using your first post to turn an article critical of Amazon's app store into yet another Android vs Apple fanboy bullshitting contest.

Re:He did ok... 72k worth of ok! by Joce640k · 2011-07-04 22:01 · Score: 3

You're saying Amazon gives away free money? I think you need to do a bit of research...

--
No sig today...

Appstore replies ? by DaveDerrick · 2011-07-04 22:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Re:Appstore replies ? by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2011-07-04 22:44 · Score: 1

Can you not just post up reviews saying that his response was full of crap? Might not be ethical but it sounds like justice to me.
Re:Appstore replies ? by FrootLoops · 2011-07-04 23:12 · Score: 1

Comments on the internet divide into "stupid", "troll", "funny", and "useful". Sometimes I wish I had the option of rating every comment/forum thread/forum post/review/article everywhere according to these categories, but the stupid people or trolls might win then. More sites are using some type of rating scheme, so maybe a really good one will get invented and take over in a few years.
Re:Appstore replies ? by Dreamstalker_wolf · 2011-07-05 02:08 · Score: 1

I'm going with the "customer is an idiot" theory (isn't that always the case?). I've seen some good products get cumulative 1- and 2-star reviews because someone had a problem with the Marketplace seller they bought it from. Rather than use the handy dispute service that Amazon provides they slammed the seller in the product reviews and made it sound like the item was at fault.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Eraesr · 2011-07-04 22:04 · Score: 2

You're being a bit harsh. Maybe the tone of TFA was a bit blaming towards Amazon, but I see the article as a review of the service from a developer's point of view. If Amazon's service is crap, then that's a reason for other developers to not bother. Maybe he saved quite a few developers large headaches with his article. I'd say that this article is more useful and interesting than a similar article about iTunes would be, because iOS developers have no alternatives, so such an article would be kind of pointless.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by GordonBX · 2011-07-04 22:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

Just because you personally are not interested in a story - because you are "not a developer" - doesn't make this story "not news". If you want a broad range of well-supported apps for your Droid, then you are pretty shortsighted not to care whether the people who write those apps can actually make a living or not.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by icebraining · 2011-07-04 22:13 · Score: 4, Funny

So Slashdot motto is now "News for pandrijeczko, stuff that matters"?

There are plenty of mobile developers here, they are interested.

--
Dilbert RSS feed

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Heed00 · 2011-07-04 22:15 · Score: 1, Insightful

You seriously can't be this obtuse -- really. The article is aimed at developers -- while it might not be of interest to you since, as you say, you are not a developer it will be of interest to many here who are developers or might be thinking about becoming developers. It's far from "nothing to see" for those who are developers as it describes one persons experience distributing his app through a particular venue.

--
Thought thinks itself.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by timothyb89 · 2011-07-04 22:16 · Score: 2

As an Android developer, this information is extremely useful to me - I now have a testimonial from another small developer which could certainly influence future decisions. Knowing this, I'll think twice before trying to publish my apps with Amazon. And the same could likely be said for other Slashdot readers - I've read plenty of posts by developers here who are also likely to benefit from this information.

On the other hand, there's also plenty of normal users reading Slashdot. They likely decide that this information isn't pertinent and move on to another article. Problem solved, no?

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by BasilBrush · 2011-07-04 22:19 · Score: 1, Funny

Why does that concern me? Apart from a bit of work/hobbyist related shell/Perl/Python scripter, I'm not a developer - as a Droid user, I'm just a potential purchaser of the app...

I'm a geek, I'm interested in how things work technically and like nice shiny things - but I couldn't give a toss about what's negotiated between a producer and a supplier for products, that's up to them.

If Slashdot is supplying the wrong kind of content, then you are perfectly free to go and find another site that does. So what are you complaining about? Nothing to see here.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by obarthelemy · 2011-07-04 22:33 · Score: 1

Actually, even though it is basically a whine, I found TFA very informative and insightful. The pitfalls he encounters are not evident at first glance (contrary to most "I deserve more $$$ !" rants), his tone is reasonable... if I were Amazon, I'd take notice and try to fix his issues.

--
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by GordonBX · 2011-07-04 22:34 · Score: 1

I find it reasonably amusing that you are accusing *me* of censorship when your original post said:

In other words, nothing to see here - it's up to the developer and Amazon to work out a deal.

Nowhere did I tell you to shut up, I just told you that you were acting a bit short-sightedly. I think a bit of self-awareness might be in order.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by JustOK · 2011-07-04 22:37 · Score: 1

As a consumer, you now know that the Amazon store is probably not the best place to shop because developers are avoiding selling their wares there.

--
rewriting history since 2109

Angry Birds 2 was a fail too. by thegarbz · 2011-07-04 22:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Rennt · 2011-07-04 23:02 · Score: 2

If the topic at hand had been things that are of importance to a consumer of applications you might have a point.

But it wasn't. You went out of your way to point out you are not qualified or even interested enough in the topic to have an opinion. People are naturally going to discount it.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Dunbal · 2011-07-04 23:08 · Score: 2, Funny

As long as no children/kittens are strangled in the product's production, what do I care how much the developer got paid for it?

How do you feel about puppies?

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.

+1 by KlaymenDK · 2011-07-04 23:12 · Score: 1

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!"

Re:+1 by gmack · 2011-07-05 00:22 · Score: 1

I vote for dumb. Right now I find myself in Spain and it's very difficult to determine beforehand what is available here and what isn't. I can click and get a list of stores with an item but even if it lists international shipping rates, it may not be available to ship to me. Most of the time the only thing I can do is try and buy it and see if it errors out on my shipping address.
They *really* need an "exclude if not available in my area" search option, or failing that a warning on the product page that the item is not available to one or more of my shipping addresses.
Re:+1 by Beyond_GoodandEvil · 2011-07-05 07:36 · Score: 1

One more time for you lead paint eating retards, United States of America ->shortened to America people from there are called americans. United Mexican States->Mexico people from there are called mexicans. USian makes no fucking sense, and using it makes you seem like a twat.

--
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Re:+1 by KlaymenDK · 2011-07-05 19:51 · Score: 1

lead paint eating retards [...] using it makes you seem like a twat.
As does this, you.
Have a fine day.

--
"Good news, everyone!"

US Only by brunes69 · 2011-07-04 23:13 · Score: 1

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.

Re:US Only by hitmark · 2011-07-04 23:38 · Score: 1

Its a standard US company thing. I think Apple got one office covering the whole or Europe and Middle-east...

--
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Re:US Only by Xugumad · 2011-07-04 23:56 · Score: 1

So? Yes, it's hard (very hard) to launch in multiple continents simultaneously... however they're trying to compete with a marketplace that's global, so they either have to roll out to the rest of the world, or get left behind.
Re:US Only by hitmark · 2011-07-05 00:08 · Score: 1

I am just saying it seems like just about every US company approach a global reach as if US == World. Consider that the one Apple office covers a whole lot of nations with differing languages, cultures and laws.

--
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Re:US Only by InEnacWeTrust · 2011-07-05 00:12 · Score: 1

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.
So "the rest of the world" would amount to 5 or 10% of the whole Android ecosystem ?? That would be a reason to laugh seeing the way they're sold in Europe and east-Asia. I wouldn't say the US market amounts to 10% of the global android market but certainly not 90%
Re:US Only by Xugumad · 2011-07-05 00:15 · Score: 1

I _think_ the office you're referring to is the one that would have oversight of the Apple companies in those countries. Apple have a huge setup in Ireland that covers much of their UK operations (distribution and support at the very least, last time I checked), and a wide variety of Apple stores throughout the UK: http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/storelist/
I would presume they have similar setups for many countries.
Re:US Only by brunes69 · 2011-07-05 00:39 · Score: 1

You mis-read what i said. I said the US is 5% - 10% of the Android ecosystem.
Re:US Only by InEnacWeTrust · 2011-07-05 03:37 · Score: 1

My bad

For me, there's a single good reason by Centurix · 2011-07-04 23:19 · Score: 5, Informative

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

Re:For me, there's a single good reason by brusk · 2011-07-05 01:05 · Score: 1

And dont forget you cant buy their MP3s, TV shows, streaming video, and most of the kindle catalog outside of the US either. Go fuck yourselves Amazon!
I'm sure they would be happy to make money off of you, but they'd have to but licensing rights for all that stuff from the copyright owners--separately for each national market.

--
.sig withheld by request

Re:Copyright a Disaster by paziek · 2011-07-04 23:39 · Score: 1

I don't understand your post. Do you imply he should sell only one copy of his game and then start giving it for free?

Customer POV by Ed+Peepers · 2011-07-04 23:41 · Score: 1

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...

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by geminidomino · 2011-07-04 23:45 · Score: 1

Why does that concern me? Apart from a bit of work/hobbyist related shell/Perl/Python scripter, I'm not a developer

Maybe if the story wasn't on developers.slashdot.org, your bitching and moaning might have a bit more credibility.

But I doubt it.

Re:Copyright a Disaster by tomknight · 2011-07-04 23:55 · Score: 1

Mod this up funny! Oh... hang on... he's serious?

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Oh arse

IGDA by eclipser13 · 2011-07-04 23:56 · Score: 2

He was warned. At least about #6: http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/0459204/Game-Developer-Group-Warns-Against-Amazon-Appstore

Re:IGDA by Ash-Fox · 2011-07-05 00:06 · Score: 1

He was warned. At least about #6: http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/0459204/Game-Developer-Group-Warns-Against-Amazon-Appstore

I don't see anything specifically targeted at this developer, I see no CC to his name or anything.
Also, as a developer, I had never heard of "IGDA" until you posted that link.

--
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Re:IGDA by JustSomeProgrammer · 2011-07-05 05:23 · Score: 1

Must not be a game developer

Re:Copyright a Disaster by Xugumad · 2011-07-04 23:58 · Score: 2

I'd be delighted to sell a product exactly once, if you can find a customer willing to pay the full development costs.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by mcvos · 2011-07-04 23:59 · Score: 1

Why does that concern me?

Here's some news for you: you're not the only person in the world that matters. This matters to a lot of people. It matters to Android developers, and by extension, it matters to Android customers, because Amazon Appstore will serve you apps that don't work on your phone, you won't be able to receive a refund for that, and informed developers will avoid Amazon Appstore like the plague.

Of course if you don't use Android at all, this isn't relevant for you. If you do use Android but never considered using Amazon Appstore, then you can ignore this too. But the same is true for every single article on Slashdot. Not every article is relevant to every single person. Pick the ones relevant to you, and ignore the ones that aren't. Commenting on every single story how it doesn't concern you is a waste of everybody's time, especially yours.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by mcvos · 2011-07-05 00:07 · Score: 1

And also because you can pay money for an app that Amazon knows doesn't work on your device yet offers anyway because they fail to filter on that, and then you won't be able to get a refund.

For a consumer, it's pretty fucking important to know that a shop will rip you off.

Re:no surprise by mcvos · 2011-07-05 00:12 · Score: 1

Actually, publishing ebooks directly on Amazon can be pretty profitable. It's the major publishers that are ruining that market, but for writers it can be a pretty sweet deal.

RTFA, whelps! by eyenot · 2011-07-05 00:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

Re:RTFA, whelps! by Theaetetus · 2011-07-05 00:54 · Score: 1

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"
Yeah, Amazon should've dropped everything and put his application at the front of the queue, no matter how many changes were necessary. And the app that would otherwise have been at the front of the queue? Well, that guy can just wait... three weeks, four weeks... Doesn't matter, this guy waited two, so he doesn't have to wait any more, ever.
No... the pipeline takes two weeks. If you need to make changes, then you get out of line, make your changes, and go to the back of the line, like a civilized person, rather than whining and demanding special treatment. You may think it's unfair, but it's better than actually being unfair to everyone who was in line behind you.
Re:RTFA, whelps! by rcharbon · 2011-07-05 05:51 · Score: 1

I need mod points. Eyenot, why didn't you just repost the article? You add nothing, at great length.
Re:RTFA, whelps! by eyenot · 2011-07-15 08:56 · Score: 1

*ach!* cut me some damn slack!
if people are talking out of their asses and obviously not RTFA, maybe just maybe they ARE reading comments!
and maybe those comments can do a better job of 'splainin' shit to the fuckheads than they've run across in the headline!
espcially if it can somehow engage them.
anyways. it's too late for a 'pile o' gi's.

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Re:RTFA, whelps! by eyenot · 2011-07-15 09:00 · Score: 1

oh, smart. so, tell me:
what about the REST of the Amazon experience (as described) makes you so relish the idea of up-see-daisy, heigh-ho, howdy-doody, just up and doing "the right thing" (or wtfe) and waiting (NO NOT TWO WEEKs, THE GUY ENDED UP WAITING FUCKING FOUR WEEKS OVER A SINGLE BYTE THAT COULD'VE BEEN RESOLVED MORE QUICKLY ELSEWAYS) for a Long, Long Time for The Right Thing to Come About As SHould Be.
tell me, what's so tan-ta-fucking-lyzing about the REST of the Amazon experience that has you fucking them so slowly.

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee

Re:Copyright a Disaster by Ash-Fox · 2011-07-05 00:20 · Score: 1

I'd be delighted to sell a product exactly once, if you can find a customer willing to pay the full development costs.

Don't forget to charge a customer you get every month for that month's hosting charges as well as any development done that month for an update.

--
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.

Re:Copyright a Disaster by Xugumad · 2011-07-05 00:20 · Score: 1

Wait... you realise they're paid per sale via the marketplace, rather than any sort of lump sum, right?

Re:Copyright a Disaster by Xugumad · 2011-07-05 00:41 · Score: 1

Personally, if a project needs hosting I would arrange for the customer to have an account directly with the hosting company, is that unusual? It seems like a hell of a lot easier all around - I don't have to deal with handling accounts, to start with.

Re:The review stuff has nothing to do with the sto by Ash-Fox · 2011-07-05 00:54 · Score: 1

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... by CountBrass · 2011-07-05 01:09 · Score: 1

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.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by DrgnDancer · 2011-07-05 01:09 · Score: 1

You may not have noticed, but this is mostly a technology site. I'm not primarily a developer either, but lots of people here are. This is a pretty useful and interesting article to them I'm sure. Maybe the next article will be of interest to you. Dismissing the entire article out of hand as irrelevant ignores a huge chunk of the site's user base as irrelevant. You are either remarkably self centered or a complete troll.

--
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.

Amazon also fiddles with search results by cjonslashdot · 2011-07-05 01:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by Rakishi · 2011-07-05 02:24 · Score: 1

Why?
If people search for Armagedon do you think they want the directly matching misspelled song title (or whatever) or Armageddon the best selling movie?
There's endless cases like this, direct matching leads to worse user experience than trying to infer intent. Apparently, amazon believes those other books are better matches than your own book for the search phrase. Nothing is rigged, you're just bitter at not being popular.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by MattskEE · 2011-07-05 03:20 · Score: 1

If people search for Armagedon do you think they want the directly matching misspelled song title (or whatever) or Armageddon the best selling movie?
There's endless cases like this, direct matching leads to worse user experience than trying to infer intent.
And yet the only case you listed was a ridiculous corner case. Chances are the GP's books' titles are not just single letter misspellings of highly well-known and popular books, and he probably should be the top result. I have definitely seen this with the Amazon results where I type in an exact title in the search box and the book I'm looking for is several results down, below both related and unrelated titles.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by cjonslashdot · 2011-07-05 03:50 · Score: 1

You make a good point, but the name of my book is not a general term. It is very specific. If someone enters exactly that phrase, the odds are extremely high (probably 99%) that they are looking for my book, not for a general search category.
If my book were named "Armageddon", or some other general topic, I would agree. But in this case it makes no sense.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by SuperKendall · 2011-07-05 05:07 · Score: 1

What is your book name? You suck at marketing.
Who cares if some loser on Slashdot makes fun of your book, that just means more references to the book which might actually help the ranking, or perhaps people here could give you thoughts on how to improve the ranking in Amazon.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by cjonslashdot · 2011-07-05 05:18 · Score: 1

I don't have time to market my book: I am involved in other things that are more important. But I want people who are looking for it by name to be able to find it. I have clients and colleagues and other contacts who sometimes look for my work, and I want it to come up if they enter the name of the work, or if they enter my name.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by sac13 · 2011-07-05 06:00 · Score: 1

I don't have time to market my book: I am involved in other things that are more important.
I understand the common understanding of what the term "marketing" means is promotion. However, marketing is more than just promotion. Product development, from determining the features of the product (including it's name) to what products is competes against and how to price the product, is also part of marketing. Logistics of product delivery is a marketing function in the technical sense.
So, you may not be promoting your book. But, if you've developed it and have it available for sale, you are marketing it.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by SuperKendall · 2011-07-05 09:00 · Score: 1

But I want people who are looking for it by name to be able to find it.
One of the things I am saying is that you don't seem to want people to be able to find it, here I am interested in what the book is, I'm sure other more silent readers are too, why not just mention the name of the book?
I mean, there's not actively promoting a book, and then there's outright preventing sales through discovery!
If you are this cagey about the book in other contexts I can understand why Amazon ranks it so low, because there is no mention of it anywhere.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by Rakishi · 2011-07-05 13:37 · Score: 1

Odd thing about current software algorithms, they lack sentience and human level intelligence. So congratulations, you're probably an edge case of the algorithm which sucks for you I guess.
Thing is, the number of people misspelling some popular movie is likely much greater than the number looking for books like yours. There's probably quite a few very intelligent and decently well paid people at amazon whose only job is to analyze data on such things and improve these algorithms. There is no conspiracy, no malice but the simple fact that algorithms have trade offs.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by Rakishi · 2011-07-05 13:39 · Score: 1

I'll be sure to tell Juan to send you more exact search results next time you visit amazon. Oh wait, people aren't the ones giving you back search results but only rather dumb algorithms.
So yeah, the number of people who search for "armagedon" is probably more than the number who look for obscure books. Also, I suspect the later are more stubborn so it matters less if they get worse results. Lacking intelligence and a copy of your brain, amazon's algorithms will never give perfect results for everyone. The best result for the most people is likely what they give now. Welcome to life, it's not perfect.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by cjonslashdot · 2011-07-06 03:54 · Score: 1

Popular does not mean "good". In the Idiocracy, monster truck racing is popular.
Re:Amazon also fiddles with search results by cjonslashdot · 2011-07-06 03:57 · Score: 1

Yes. But this issue should be important to Amazon. They have an entire program for niche retailers. They call it "Amazon Advantage". This problem surely occurs for all those niche retailers, especially authors. Have you ever gone to a music performance by someone you know, and noticed that half the people in the room also know the performer? Well niche publishing is the same way: most people who buy the book know the author in some context, professionally or personally. And for those people, they don't want to wade through search results: they want the author's work to come up first so they can buy it.

Re:Copyright a Disaster by Ash-Fox · 2011-07-05 01:13 · Score: 1

Personally, if a project needs hosting I would arrange for the customer to have an account directly with the hosting company, is that unusual? It seems like a hell of a lot easier all around - I don't have to deal with handling accounts, to start with.

I'm thinking more on the side of things like a website for support information (FAQs, how tos), software update information, handling top scores information in your game etc.

--
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.

Firesheep and Botnets by Kamiza+Ikioi · 2011-07-05 01:26 · Score: 1

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

For Live Burial There Is Sourceforge by westlake · 2011-07-05 01:58 · Score: 1

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,

Re:For Live Burial There Is Sourceforge by DrXym · 2011-07-05 02:08 · Score: 1

People can find your product on Android marketplace. It costs $25 to register for lifetime access to Android Marketplace as opposed to $99 per annum. That's a far easier sum to swallow especially for people releasing apps for free or ad supported. 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.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by master_kaos · 2011-07-05 02:01 · Score: 1

wtf? this article is very interesting and has actually helped me immensely. Just last week my boss told me to research other app stores besides android market to release our products in. While I definitely won't base all my "research" off this one article, it still helps.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by mabhatter654 · 2011-07-05 02:05 · Score: 1

So you're a "geek" but you don't actually make your livelyhood at it? so your opinion matters HOW MOCH exactly?

This is news because, unlike you, a fair portion of the /. Readership makes their living at some stage in the technology cycle. Either we are paid to support devices "users" like you buy. Or we manage departments and make decisions which products to buy. Or we write programs that our boss has to get money from even if we "just work there". So at some point our jobs are affected by this type of situation.

Frankly, the article shows a lot of problems with the Amazon App Store. Apple had similar growing pains.... 3 years ago... If Amazon is going to play in the game they have to do better. First, they need a way for all their developers to manage their accounts. They're more than happy to take customers money from this dev's product, but not let the Dev properly service them. The Apple App Store has had similar complaints about their "free" apps not being so great for devs too.. The slow review process seems to be the same everywhere. The Amazon store not following the devs supported system guidelines is a pretty serious support problem. The package works correctly in the Google store, why is Amazon taking money from customers the Dev has indicated are not supported. The Dev may be out of the USA, but Amazon choose to SELL his product... Yet they do not have a means for him to SUPPORT his product. These are pretty big problems.

Not being able to select your price is a pretty severe problem.. That's something I have NOT heard from the Apple camp about Apple choosing to lower prices without asking the Dev... That's a pretty serious accusation.

On short, even from a customer view why would you buy there if the Dev cannot properly help you? Consider this a warning that you need to look closely at the details because not all issues are "the developer's" fault... You've been warned. In this case the Dev is removing his app, refunding out of his own pocket... Because Amazon is not properly servicing his customers.

And it has been a success for customers by Chineseyes · 2011-07-05 02:51 · Score: 1

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

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by hedwards · 2011-07-05 03:35 · Score: 1

The thing is that right now the Amazon app store is essentially 2nd out of 2 appstores for the Android platform, there are other places to get apps from, but Amazon got to be number two more or less by opening up shop.

Amazon App store is in beta by hey · 2011-07-05 03:49 · Score: 1

Perhaps not officially... but its new.
There are going to be bugs.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by JSBiff · 2011-07-05 03:50 · Score: 1

More importantly, as a consumer, I now know there's no refunds if you buy an app through the appstore - even if the developer is willing to give you one!

That's pretty useful to me to know, as a consumer (since the Help Pages at the Amazon Appstore website don't even talk about whether you can get a refund or not).

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by Applekid · 2011-07-05 04:02 · Score: 1

It's even more interesting considering how "nothing to see here" became popularized.

Police doing crowd control (and, to an extent, spin control) at a crime scene would say "Nothing to see here", despite the fact that it 1) is a crime scene, and 2) by merit of a crime scene, something interesting most certainly happened there.

--
More Twoson than Cupertino

I'm hesitant to actually purchase much by Fencepost · 2011-07-05 04:02 · Score: 1

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

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by tm2b · 2011-07-05 04:10 · Score: 1

Nobody is telling you to shut up, but it sure sounds like you are telling the people who are just offering their freely-held opinions of your self-absorbed, whiny posts to shut up.

What an incredibly hypocritical jackass you are. Go on posting, but don't think that you are immune from other people's opinion, Mr. Special Flower.

--
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by BasilBrush · 2011-07-05 04:33 · Score: 1

I was not aware that Slashdot operated a system whereby a subscriber was not allowed to offer an opinion on particular topics.

And I was not aware that Slashdot operated a system whereby a subscriber was not allowed to offer an *article* on particular topics.

I was giving a viewpoint based on being a consumer of applications and a geek - you don't like it, you know what you can do with it.

Piker Syndrome by SuperKendall · 2011-07-05 04:38 · Score: 1

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

Re:Piker Syndrome by DrXym · 2011-07-05 08:22 · Score: 1

The HUGE user base of Amazon's app store is comparatively small. Spending $100 for a half a million users tops is dead money, especially when the standard marketplace app costs $25 (ever) and reaches hundreds of millions of users in multiple countries. Even if Kindle Android appeared at some point it's still going to be the smaller market by a large margin. As for advertising, some apps don't have any at all and those that do may not exceed $100 if they only have 5000 users. Furthermore, even if they did top $100, that doesn't mean they want it disappearing it into Amazon's pockets. Even pay apps should be concerned about the T&Cs on the Amazon site given than Amazon could slash the list price by up to 80% if they wanted cannibalizing sales on the standard marketplace.
It's simply a bad deal for every developer except the biggest to even bother with the site. Maybe Angry Birds and it's ilk can recoup their costs, small developers will not.

What's with the price by blackair · 2011-07-05 05:10 · Score: 1

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.

Whoa there, not a problem at all by SuperKendall · 2011-07-05 05:13 · Score: 1

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

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by s73v3r · 2011-07-05 05:17 · Score: 1

The developer also has the right to warn other developers in the community that one retailer is probably not worth using.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by s73v3r · 2011-07-05 05:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why does that concern me?

Are you an Android developer? If so, then yes, it concerns you.

If you are not an Android developer, then shut the hell up. This story is not for you.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by s73v3r · 2011-07-05 05:21 · Score: 1

If you're asking me to keep my mouth shut deliberately, then isn't that tantamount to censorship?

No, disallowing you from posting would be censorship. Telling you not to post is just a courtesy to help you avoid looking like a dumbass.

Honestly, your post here is worthless. You're saying you don't care about the story, and yet, by your own admission, you are not of the story's target market. That would be like me going into a My Little Pony forum and saying the show sucks, even though I haven't watched it. If a story is not of your interest, just close it and move on.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by s73v3r · 2011-07-05 05:23 · Score: 1

Dude, just shut the hell up. You don't like the story, or aren't interested in it, that's fine. Move on to the next story. Don't claim there's "nothing to see here" when there very much is something to see for those that are in the story's target demo (Android developers).

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by s73v3r · 2011-07-05 05:24 · Score: 1

Tell you that you're a dumbass?

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by nedlohs · 2011-07-05 06:06 · Score: 2

Are you really that dumb?

It couldn't be that other people who read slashdot are in fact developers, and hence interested in such articles?

Can't reply to user comments by zzyzyx · 2011-07-05 06:53 · Score: 1

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.

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by sessamoid · 2011-07-05 06:58 · Score: 1

One of these days you're going to realize that the world does NOT revolve around your mom's basement.

--
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-07-05 09:53 · Score: 1

You aren't being censored, but with an attitude like that, you should expect to be moderated accordingly (which you already are).

Re:Droid is not a monoculture... by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-07-05 09:54 · Score: 1

How do you feel about puppies?

They're okay if done medium rare.

AppsLib by tepples · 2011-07-05 15:55 · Score: 1

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?

Price of Android Market is a phone bill by tepples · 2011-07-05 16:01 · Score: 1

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.

Australian Classification Board by tepples · 2011-07-05 16:22 · Score: 1

Please see my comment about the Australian Classification Board.

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