Android: The Platform for Prototypes | Hacker News Reader

Android: The Platform for Prototypes

robsandhu.tumblr.com

21 pointsrsandhu14 comments

Don't forget on iOS that you can't easily push out new revisions. That 10+ day wait not only applies to your first release, but to every change you want to make.

Aside from slowing down iterations a lot, it means you want to REALLY test well before you push an iteration to them. Just heard about a top grossing iOS game that pushed out a new revision with a bug that affects 1% of their users ... causing THOUSANDS of tech support emails. And it's still another week or so before the fix will be published.

To say this causes a chilling effect on experimentation on iOS is an understatement.

Not totally true: for such case if you have a nasty bug and you are quite sure to have fix the problem, then you can ask Apple review team for an expedite review. There is an online form to fill up, and you are good to go. I know at least 2 developers that had to use it and their update was approved in less than 4 hours. Obviously it is not for abuse and only for critical issue but the idea that it will take a standard full review time for Apple to approve an emergency bug fix is totall untrue.

Got a link for that form? I need to file it away for future reference :-)

(and could have used it at least once before! :-\ )

http://developer.apple.com/appstore/contact/appreviewteam/

Yes, this is the correct link/form the devs I know have been using in the past. Obviously it is a case by case basis but for the folks I know their apps were not anywhere close to a top 100 position, and the review team did for them the "right" thing and got their updates approved ASAP. Their apps was not a first version but they had done multiple releases, and never had to ask for the expedite review. So I think that the review team took that in consideration, and on top of that the fix was required because one of the web service outside their control changed their API without notice.

I'll ask them about that (AFAIK this issue is still outstanding), but I'm talking about a major publisher with good connections at Apple, and a game that has been in the top 25 grossing of ALL iOS apps for much of the last 3 months, and so either they don't consider this to be a "critical" enough bug (only 1% of users, remember), or they simply don't know about that procedure.

In which case I'd also like a link to the "expedited review" page. :)

I thought this would be a plus for Android, and yet the lack of decent music-making software continues to disappoint.

That has more to do with the unacceptably high audio latencies endemic to the platform and the complete absence of any MIDI support. I'd like to port some of my audio apps over but until Google makes these things a priority it's just not an appealing target for a music app.

Yes, it's infuriating. You'd think Google would want creative using it; I'm on the point of getting a used iPad 1 or something just to have some decent tools in portable form.

I'd suggest you consider spending the extra $ for an iPad 2 if you're serious about using it as a musical tool. It has a lot more CPU headroom for DSP.

I just want basic midi and audio recording capability with low latency. I hace all the DSP power I need in specialty gear, but would like a lightweight musical sketchpad.

Not accurate. The current wait time is documented at http://developer.apple.com/news/

    iOS submissions reviewed in the last 5 business days:

    New Apps: 96%
    App Updates: 99%

Also another great resource for getting iOS submission review time: http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com/

"Android - immediate distribution"

Another important metric is how quickly users start using the update. When you measure using this metric Android is anything but instant.

Web apps "check for updates and install" every time you use them. Users are forced to update and depending on the site within a matter of minutes nearly everybody will be using the new version.

Android apps don't go through a review process, but it still takes a few minutes for the servers to get the update. It will take an hour or two for every phone to get notified of the update (it's not pushed) and give the user a notification. It will then be even longer for the user to push the button and receive your beautiful new code. There are a few users with "automatic updating" but it's not enabled by default. The majority of your user base will take a while to finish migrating over. I would love if anybody here had real numbers on this, our app only just started reporting version numbers so we haven't been able to collect the data yet.

There are exceptions. The Facebook app renders webpages so most updates happen instantly, but when they update one of the native sections there's still a long wait before everyone has it.

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