Beta, it's not You, it's Me...

Well, in 24 hours I had around 300 downloads (though the developer console is very data sparse and doesn't update all too often).

So far I've had nothing but 5 star ratings and not a single complaint about crashes or instability so I pushed out an update a few minutes ago which brings NF: Envoy out of beta and up to v1.0 with an improved about screen.

Also, I considered dropping the price of the "tips" version to €0.50; I'm really going to need to think about the business model a lot more (0 downloads at the €1 price point is a little disappointing and won't exactly attract other writers).

Aside from that though, I'm really chuffed with the feedback, all of it is positive so far and to see all the downloads, even if they're just the free version, it kicks ass.

NF: Envoy Pro

NF: Envoy

Edit: clarified some details/typos

We Have Lift-Off!

My application is now on the market!

15 Seconds after hitting "Publish"

It's free and will stay that way, but a donation version should be going up tomorrow at some point.

The QR Code below links to it so just scan it from your phone!

This is a public beta (v0.9.1) until I see that there aren't any obvious bugs on other devices, though I wish that the Developer Console gave a more "Google Analytics-ish" breakdown of the devices your app is installed on.

I'll do a much more extensive post tomorrow, this is just a "Squee" of excitement post.

:)

     

Navigate Fate: Envoy

Edit: Added the "Just In" Market screenshot.

How to Help Developers

I noticed something when I first went onto the App Market; a lot of 1 star ratings were for bugs in the app. I figured "Uh-oh, there's a dev who doesn't act on their bug reports".

But then, I came across a bug in an app I had downloaded (it would force close at a certain point). So, as the email for every dev is given with the app I sent off an email to report the bug. This was the first bug report I'd ever made on Android. The dev got back in touch within an hour and very helpfully taught me how to get a log* and send it to them to help solve the problem. All told my bug was squashed and I had a perfectly working app in 48 hours or less. Now that's service! 

The dev then thanked me for helping out, explaining that a lot of people just leave a bad rating when a bug crops up. That was weird. It wasn't the first time either, just last week another dev with another app said exactly the same thing after I sent off my log.

The app in question was FaceBook Sync:

Facebook Sync for Android on AppBrain

As you can see from the screen capture below, both one star ratings are for bugs that maybe could have been fixed had these guys just bothered to send an email. 

This ain't rocket science, if you just thumb your nose, the problem'll never get fixed, if you have enough motivation to bother rating an app then just send the log. If the problem isn't addressed within a few days/a week then you can think about leaving a bad rating. 

The success of any modern phone relies on the success of its third party apps. Android reduces the barrier for app development, allowing more people to innovate and produce apps (hence all of the top-notch free apps) but if people don't submit bug reports, the Market will just be a wasteland of alpha/beta quality projects backed by very frustrated developers. 

So, if you've ever given a one star rating for something that could've been a bug, try to just send an email next time and wait a week or so before your review. 

*If you want to get a log, try this app:

Log Collector for Android on AppBrain

It'll let you collect and send logs, works a charm for me.


EDIT: The developer for Facebook Sync also has a blog post about this. (I only discovered this on 18/5/2010)