Android Market Client Update | Hacker News Reader

Android Market Client Update

android-developers.blogspot.com

20 pointsabraham20 comments

"To make it easier for developers to distribute and manage their products, we will introduce support for device targeting based on screen sizes and densities"

This is MUSIC TO MY EARS.

So many of my 1-star ratings are from users who have very specific device related issues, particularly with tablet devices with 480x800 screens and 160dip densities. My games look terrible because the graphics don't scale up under these conditions, and it's not realistic to create hundreds of graphics at different sizes for games as simple as mine.

Please keep in mind that non-tablet devices have 800x480 screens, too. (Mine phone, too at 3.5").

Yes, but most phones with this resolution report a density of 240dpi and auto sale images to fit the full screen.

Tablets on the other hand have 800x480 screens but report a density of 160dpi and images don't scale up and look like little images in the top left corner of the screen.

"Since most users who request a refund do so within minutes of purchase, we will reduce the refund window on Market to 15 minutes"

I'm concerned that's gone too far the other way. Twenty four hours was too long for a utility/short game but at fifteen minutes, you're cutting it fine if you have installation problems or need to properly evaluate the app.

I think this is fair. If you end up using the app for more than 15 minutes, I think you have to pay for it.

This is still generous compared to the App Store which doesn't give you an easy way to refund your app purchase.

I'm not sure about "fair" but as a practical measure I think it's counter productive. I've never asked for a refund but every single purchase I've made has been partly because I could rationalize that I could return the app if I really didn't like it. With only 15 minutes to try it that logic won't work for me any more - I think I'll be doing way less purchases.

I don't understand why Google wouldn't just drop it down to an hour which would accomplish the same (stated) purpose but be a lot more reasonable.

I completely agree. Too many users will purchase an app to play for the evening somewhere (while on a trip, for example) and just refund the next morning. It's unfair to the developers. 15 minutes is ample time to determine if the app is something you want to keep or not. As a developer, I still think this is better than the App Store, as buyers deserve the opportunity to return a purchase that is defective or not what they were expecting.

EDIT: I just thought about this another way....

With only 15 minutes, we're asking users to make pretty short snap decisions as to whether or not they want to keep the app. Just as purchasing an app is usually a spur of the moment decision, now canceling may work under the same conditions - causing MORE cancels.

With only 15 minutes, I'm a lot less likely to buy an app. For instance, I recently purchased Alchemy Premium only because of the 24 hour return policy; I'm not willing to use the ad-supported version, so I tried out the pay version. It wasn't interesting enough to me that I would have kept it on my own, but my girlfriend got enough of a kick out of it when I showed it to her an hour or two later that I did decide to keep it. Had there been a 15 minute return policy, I would have returned it and never again gone back to it.

Another example would be 8pen. Interesting idea, so I decided to try it out. But it's something that takes enough learning you need more than 15 minutes to decide if it will be worth it and you'll be dedicated enough to learn it. Turns out that it didn't really click with me, so I returned it; but had it been a little more appealing, I might have kept it. Without just a 15 minute return window, I wouldn't have enough time to make an effective decision and would most likely not buy in the first place or just return it because of that.

I, for one, will be much less likely to buy apps with only a 15 minute window.

For every time you do that, there are users who download apps trying to accomplish one task. I've had several friends do exactly that. They'll download the app, use it do whatever they want, and refund it. This way at least you have to do whatever your doing quickly.

They'll download the app, use it do whatever they want, and refund it

That is tempered by the fact that Google only allows the refund once - next time they need to do the same task they have to make a permanent purchase, and the app they used last time is in poll position to be the app they use (assuming it's any good).

What apps are there that are particularly useful for a single task? Most apps that I download I do so because they'll be useful in the future, not just once.

How about backing up your text messages, call history, etc so you transfer it to another phone?

This is a one-time task. If it's 24 hours, I can easily finish the backup and get refund.

If it's only 15 minutes, I won't have enough time.

Games.

If you just want to kill some time playing a new game, you can, then just refund.

I think this works both ways.

With only a 15-minute window, less people will buy your app but there will be less cancellations.

With a 24-hour window, more people will buy your app but there will be more cancellations.

I don't have any data to back things up but it's possible that the number of downloads will be the same. And according to Google's stats, most refunds happen within 15 minutes.

However, having a shorter refund window is more beneficial to developers in terms of handling their business and will reduce abuse.

We are also increasing the maximum size for .apk files on Market to 50MB, to better support richer games.

They should increase this. There are some amazing games on the iPhone that are well above 50 MB. RAGE HD is 743.6 MB (but its an iPad app too) and Myst is 533.4 MB.

The Gameloft game Dragon Hunter(Which isn't on the Android Market) comes with a 5mb .apk. Then once the app installs it connects to the internet to download the rest of the 240mb of files. That seems like the best way to work around the limit.

That work-around comes at a cost of the server bandwidth tho. You'll have to maintain a server with the game resources. It's one time cost (or probably 2-3 times if the user uninstalls and re-installs again a few times).

But your idea is actually cool if your app needs a lot of screen specific resources. They can be downloaded later after checking the device screen specs.

On the bright side, its a bit easier on the device itself, as the package manager needs to copy the APK from the download location when installing, so by storing application resources outside of the APK, installs will be faster and less likely to fail.

It is also much more flexible. Aura (GPS navigation) downloads maps only of those states or countries, that you are interested in. You don't have to store all maps.

That's why the possibility for those games to download and install their content on the SD card exists.

Android phones unlike the iPhone don't all have a huge internal memory but when it's not the case it can be extended with sd cards.

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