Android app killed by its author due to incompatible phones | Hacker News Reader

Android app killed by its author due to incompatible phones

blog.iwonderphone.com

15 pointsriobard20 comments

Leech Killer is a SMS/call block app for Android phones http://iwonderphone.com/leechkiller/

This particular app appears to need some seriously low level access to the phone. I can completely understand his frustration.

However, with most general apps, you can debug all your problems with a number of emulators (which all suck because they move twice as slow as the actual phones).

Screen resolution differences are definitely a big challenge, then after that, the application's state. Someone can exit your app from the back button or the Home button, and then getting back in to a complicated app without a "Force Close" error can be a nightmare.

Then you have to account for the fact that the phone is doing a number of other things at the same time as your app and it could get slowed down even more. When there is NO multitasking, you don't know how good you have it until you have it ;)

Some days I dream of what it would be like to be an iPhone developer. No multitasking, one screen resolution. Ahh the life.

Leech Killer (http://iwonderphone.com/leechkiller/) is a SMS/call block app for Android phones. The author decided to kill it due to maintainability difficulty caused by so many incompatible Android phones.

Given part of the app's functionality is SMS related I wonder if the author only used official APIs? I know there's a bunch of Android SMS functionality that is only available via "undocumented" APIs which could cause problems across multiple phones.

Phones, or API levels?

no he didn't. Killer needed to be used on rooted phones as root to enables all of it magic.

So from the beginig he knew it would not work on all phones.

But again. If there's need to do this, i still blame the api, not the person that hacked around it's limitations.

I'd honestly just say "supports these OS's and these Phones" and tell everyone else to bugger off if they wanted to complain from a different handset or donate to the cause to get support for their platform.

Discontinuing development and making a dramatic blog post about it doesn't really benefit anyone, including him.

Looks like he was mad that it got bad reviews.

Personally, I will never put any of my Android apps in the market for this reason. I don't really care about your opinion of my app. If it doesn't work, send me a patch.

The author of this app should do the same thing; get a thick skin, and accept patches on Github. That way it is the user's fault for the app not working, not his.

Wow, you actually want your users to submit you a patch? How about ask the users to make the app for you!

They're getting the app for free, so the onus is on them to add any features they want.

If you are writing a paid app, then maybe you should be nicer. But I wouldn't want to listen to your whining for 99 cents either.

some people will always whine whether it's free or not.

How do you find buyers for your apps if not in the Market?

iPhone vs Android reminds me a bit of Amiga vs PC.

Having one platform (or a few variants) with well-known hardware/software allowed to focus on the 'real' work on the Amiga, and we saw amazing things despite the lower raw power compared to PC.

In the end thought, PC took over Amiga.

I'm be curious to know how the future will go for both iPhone and Android...

I was thinking of getting into android development. Is this a real concern? Should I quit before I start?

Depends what you're doing... if you're making a fairly low-level utility, then I'd carefully check out the available APIs for whatever you'll need to mess with (i.e. SMS). Otherwise, as far as supporting device differences like, say, multiple screen sizes and resolutions, it's just a matter of being careful about the APIs.

Compared to developing for a single device, yes, you definitely need to put more thought and care into platform differences (though you can also target individual phones and OSs, if your app requires e.g. a physical keyboard for some reason rather than an on-screen one).

This was exacerbated by the fact he was using very low level interfaces which were likely not consistent among models.

Android is a tough platform to target, as its basically 8 platforms or so currently with differing OS versions and screen sizes.

You may have been alluding to this but all phones should/could be 2.1 OS in the future:

http://androidandme.com/2010/02/news/all-u-s-android-phones-...

Striped and Buttered Pancakes! That will help the platform SO MUCH in many efforts if they force this update.

If palm ever got their heads out if their.... and released an unlocked gsm developers phone I'd be all over it.

The irony is they are more open than android at this point. Hell it's been rooted forever, they've acknowledged it, and still don't care.

Aren't all palm phones potential dev phones? I recall you just have to do a konami style code to flip it into dev mode (it's described in the palm sdk)

I think google just needs to expand the sdk- and of course- update everyone's OS.

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