Google declined to review an extension because they can’t find a Kindle to test | Hacker News Reader

Google declined to review an extension because they can’t find a Kindle to test

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79 pointslongnguyen27 comments

This is an extension for a $50 a year service for sending articles to your Kindle that as far as I can tell, is not demonstrably better than the free extension or using a service like Instapaper or Pocket.

So yeah, sorry they won't feature your extension for an extremely-overpriced service dude, but crying about it on Hacker News in an attempt to drum up publicity doesn't make me sympathetic.

But think of the *value* it creates! The value!

For context, his next tweet [0] in the thread was:

> But for an extension (with the exact same functionality) from a Big Corp, they magically found a way to test it

> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-kindle-for...

[0] https://twitter.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/155516779079696793...

When the big corp releases an extension it then it likely gets reviewed by the exec team's gophers to ensure it gets done expediently. For anyone else, the review is processed by folks at the bottom of the organization, possibly even contractors, that have no budget control for devices.

They can only review a certain set of things based on what they've been provided. In the case of mobile, they will actually be using their own hardware instead of being offered test devices. Therefore, they have to go and find the one guy who has a specific Android device to repro an issue.

In way it's good that they got a response like this. Many times the folks doing the review want to do their best, but it takes a lot of time to escalate. Eventually there is a spat internally because no progress is being made. Someone forces the folks dealing with the external person to use some generic response because they don't want to admit the real reason.

I mean, that other extension is by Amazon itself. If they want Google to feature it, they can literally throw all the money and Kindles at them they want - no magic required. Money buys stuff. More news at 5. People seem to forget that Google is still a marketing company. This is precisely their business model.

it kind of implies that google might have a kindle that amazon sent them to test the other app?

Hot take here but maybe, just maybe, there's more than 1 reviewer, even dispersed across different offices.

We don't know if Amazon said they can keep it. And even if they did, whether or not Google actually chose to keep it in storage for potential later use. Or if they even sent them one in the first place instead of just outright buying the "featured" plaque.

thus I say "might". idk why either of those companies deserve your time giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I don't care about the companies, I was merely pointing out that this is pretty much just another made up drama for the blogger feeder. So noone should care about this post either.

Maybe the Big Corp send Google a Kindle device for reviewing?

Note that this is not about allowing the extension in the store, it's about showing it on the Featured page.

Does OP expect them to buy a Kindle to test the extension?

Or install the Kindle app on any phone or tablet.

Is buying/having a few kindles for testing a unreasonable expense for a company like Google?

Yes.

How many random devices out there should they have laying around in case someone writes an extension that involves sending data to those devices? The Kindle accesses the internet through a WiFi network -- this would be required to test the functionality in the extension. Their security team should vet all of these devices, create environments where it's safe for them to be on the network, and ensure they're kept up to date also?

  Their security team should vet all of these devices, create environments where it's safe for them to be on the network, and ensure they're kept up to date also?

Yes? How else would they test anything?

The point is they shouldn’t need to test everything and someone self submitting an add on for review to be featured isn’t what triggers an additional device.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Maybe tech giants don't like the legal implications of signing each other's consumer EULAs.

What do Kindles have to do with their business?

Before everyone jumps to conclusions, note that the extension is approved and available: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ktool-send-web-ati...

The author wants to apply for the “Featured” badge. There are many reasons why I don’t see this ever happening, including the fact that the name of the app includes obvious typos.

This isn’t just a case of Google refusing to approve someone’s extension. The Featured badge is supposed to be a more curated tier.

I wonder if there's a day in which Google's app review policy isn't fucking somebody over.

I understand that there are complexities at scale, but is it that hard for google to have in the manual review process somebody looking and verifying that indeed there's another fucking app that does the same, maybe we should figure out what to do ?

Is this actually "fucking somebody over"?

My understanding is the extension was allowed on the extension store https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ktool-send-web-ati.... This is them making an editorial decision, electing not to "Feature" the extension, whatever that means.

Some "Hey Social Media/HN, shame Google for me!" posts are legitimate hardships, but this one is... cringeworthy.

For one, OP needs to spell "articles" properly. Imagine your app getting featured with an important word in the description being wrong.

Aww boohoo, the OP couldn't self nominate their app to be at the front and center of the entire chrome web store.

Perhaps the wording of the response was done wrong. It sounds like there’s a lack of tools to fully test on Amazon’s Kindle architecture.

What I am surprised by is that there is no way to emulate a Kindle. I

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