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Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

There's aware-and-doing-something-about-it and aware-and-don't-care. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Android both dev-side (I had my first app on the Market a month after it launched) and user-side, and while I'm very happy with Android's progress, the Market is, IMO, the weakest part of the package these days.

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.

... 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?

Devs are in pain right now, and considering that Google does web apps for a living, it is actually quite mindbogglingly that the Marketplace sucks so badly.

If they discussed these at Google IO, that's irrelevant: they should just deliver, everything else matters less.

Another annoyance the article hasn't mentioned: my European country is not on their frickin' list (not even with the latest update) and I cannot upload priced apps, even though I can do that in Apple's iTunes store. I mean, WTF ?!?

> It is actually quite mindbogglingly that the Marketplace sucks so badly [...] they should just deliver, everything else matters less.

I agree, but I still don't agree with this...

> There has been no indication from Google that they think anything is wrong with the market or that they're planning to fix it.

Complaints should only stop rolling in when they're resolved, not when resolutions are announced for the next major upgrade.

What's Google IO? What's Gingerbread?

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.

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

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