The Android Market

http://www.tomkleinpeter.com/2010/10/12/the-android-market/

by slackerIII • 16 years ago

86 26 16 years ago

Nemisis76542• 16 years ago

Yeah, I completely agree with this post. I recently published my first application to the Android Market (last month) and was pretty shocked with how little the Developer Console tells me. I had expected a lot more analytical data.

Hopefully, as they continue to improve the OS, they will improve the Marketplace as well.

(Side: I am still waiting to even hear another thing about the Desktop version that was demoed at the Google IO this year.)

psychotik• 16 years ago

You could fill pages with things that can be improved on Android Market (most of which are available on the App Store). Most shortcoming are well documented - things that I would like to see personally:

- ability to publish what changed in an update

- track number of users who upgraded vs new users

- ability to search for apps and see reviews on http://www.android.com/market/ (that website is practically useless)

veeti• 16 years ago

The market client also needs some improvement: for example, the search feature isn't very good. Searching for "ADW Launcher" brings up countless pages of themes for the ADW Launcher before showing the actual launcher app itself.

Nemisis76542• 16 years ago

I completely agree with you. You would figure that a search giant would have a good search implementation in their Marketplace.

ESchmidtSeesYou4• 16 years ago

You already can publish changes by including them in the app description or in the update-install approval dialog box.

They showed their cloud syncing online store at Google IO. Watch, starting around 31:10 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3U2GXhz44

The whole video is very much worth watching for any developers.

drivebyacct23• 16 years ago

Ugh, so tired of reading these posts. Has everyone so quickly forgotten Google IO? They know there are problems with the Market, they plan on having them fixed for the release of Gingerbread, which according to rumors (which indicate the SDK will be out next week) could be very soon.

martythemaniak2• 16 years ago

If anything, I think there should be far more of these posts, and have been thinking of compiling my own list on my blog. There has been no indication from Google that they think anything is wrong with the market or that they're planning to fix it.

dminor• 16 years ago

The Android mailing lists are littered with these same complaints about the market. Google rarely gives any indications of what they are working on, but they are no doubt aware of them.

tapp• 16 years ago

Agreed. In general, Google is still incredibly poor about this kind of communication.

Historically, when search was really their sole product, it was annoying but tolerable. Unhappy with them? Use a different search engine.

The bar moves, IMO, when you start asking people to invest (time or money) in your product. Dynamic is exactly the same with Google Apps "Enterprise" edition. When people are paying you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, many have a reasonable expectation that the company will let them know when certain critical bugs/performance issues are going to be fixed.

Although they've improved a little, for the most part they continue to suck at this. It doesn't seem to be in their DNA.

drivebyacct23• 16 years ago

... What are you talking about? They have plans for a web interface that does the equivalent of app-to-phone like chrome-to-phone. They have acknowledged problems with app discovery and with the lack of a proper ranking system/algorithm.

This was all discussed at Google IO when they announced JIT/Froyo. How can you say Google hasn't indicated there is a problem? I guess they're just planning a complete revamp/redo of the market for giggles?

tocomment• 16 years ago

What's Google IO? What's Gingerbread?

ESchmidtSeesYou4• 16 years ago

IO = Google's annual developer conference.

Gingerbread = Android 3.0, coming by the end of the year.

Honeycomb = Android 3.5, coming next year, with further optimizations for tablets.

blub• 16 years ago

These posts are very valuable for people thinking about starting Android programming right now.

jamesaguilar• 16 years ago

Thinking about this a little, I can kind of understand why Amazon would consider entering this business. Even if Apple would allow it, probably no other company would invest significant resources into trying to unseat the Apple AppStore. You have to have some kind of leverage to beat a competitor like that.

The situation is different with Android. Building a better app marketplace than the Android market is not exactly a very high bar to leap.

greyman• 16 years ago

Microsoft will also invest.

ESchmidtSeesYou4• 16 years ago

To anyone who thinks: that a very small team creating an entire, enormously complex operating system, with unending goals for platforms improvements, that has already been successfully iterating at an extreme pace, is up against enormous competition from Apple and Microsoft, and is playing the long game for the future of mobile and computing as a whole... is really ignoring these extremely common complaints and resting on its laurels...

...uh, really? There are many very concrete reasons to believe they know about the vast majority of these issues and have respective solutions addressing them somewhere in their product roadmap. (ie, major UI revision in Gingerbread, along with optimization for tablets.) That, and they've been overwhelmingly successful so far, as Android phones now consistently outsell the iPhone each quarter.

ESchmidtSeesYou4• 16 years ago

Also, consider how Google just added Market support for buying and selling paid apps in ~20 countries: http://www.androidcentral.com/google-expands-paid-app-suppor...

The improvements really are constantly coming.

bad_user2• 16 years ago

Yeah, well, my country is still not on that list; although it is available in the iTunes store.

You consider it an improvement, I consider it a late partial fix of what should've been there from the start.

tvon2• 16 years ago

I'm having a hard time telling if you're being sarcastic or not.

slackerIII• 16 years ago

I'm sure they are working hard. I don't think anyone is resting on their laurels. But I'm not seeing any results. I'm guessing that they keep running into problems shipping an overly designed new thing, but since it will be ready any day now, they aren't putting any resources into patching up the old thing that I have to deal with.

jessriedel• 16 years ago

> ...a very small team creating an entire, enormously complex operating system...

I don't think the size of the team is a defense against the OP's critique. Criticism of Google's handling of the Android market includes the decision about how much man-power to devote to it.

This isn't a personal attack on the team members.

tvon2• 16 years ago

If the team size is a problem, maybe we can hold a bake sale so Google can hire another engineer or two.

The Android Market

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