Developer Calls Amazon Appstore a 'Disaster'

An anonymous reader writes "The developer of the current #2 Top App on Android Market has written a very interesting article giving six reasons why they decided to pull their game from Amazon Appstore. From the article: 'If you are a small indie development team, or possibly even alone, don't bother with Amazon Appstore. Create a great app, publish it on Android Market, and provide great customer support. You will never succeed on Amazon Appstore without a big wallet, or at least an established reputation so that Amazon puts value behind their promises.'"

Comments

HTTP vs HTTPS

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[JSBiff]

"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:He did ok... 72k worth of ok!

[Anonymous Coward]

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%.

Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching

[c0lo]

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.

Re:One very good point and a lot of bitching

[makomk]

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.

For me, there's a single good reason

[Centurix]

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.

RTFA, whelps!

[eyenot]

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