Android Market App Destroying Phone Data

[bblackmoor]

Add mine to the chorus of voices pleading for moderation of comments on the Android Marketplace. If you post one of the dozen or so "first" posts or say something inane about "cupcakes" or advertise for some completely irrelevant web site, the comment should be summarily deleted.

I think it should cost $10 to post a comment, and at least half of that should go to the developer of the app. Then people would only post comments when they have something to say.

[Krak]

I've been writing software for a number of years and know that I tell my project lead very specific things, he tells our manager generalized overviews, and those generalized overviews are what finally make it to the clients. We have a very similar setup in that we have a wiki detailing some of the upcoming features of our application -- a roadmap. We're always taking end-user suggestions and feedback. In fact, one end-user emails us novels worth of suggestions, and one time my manager emailed him back with a very detailed explanation of why one of his ideas wouldn't work. He cited specific source code, prompting a "what?" sort of response. So my manager then responded and spoke of higher-level abstractions and business rules explainin why his idea wouldn't work. Again a "what?"-type response. Finally my boss said that it just wasn't possible, only to have the end-user say "oh" (literally, the entire response was "Oh." He's got the whole email thread posted in his office).

The Android dev team will detail what's going on, like how change 7345 needs to be "manually applied to get the same APNs preconfigured as in the ADP1". Chances are that makes no sense to a majority of their users -- it makes little sense to me without digging into the source. So they simply say "we're working on it", because what else could they say? How do you tell the "average customer" things that won't freak them out ("WiFi is broken in the current build" == "OMG THE G1 WON'T HAVE WIFI ANYMORE") yet convey the appropriate level of information?

yea i understand that...what i mean...is if they can have a roadmap stating everything there working on, why cant they have a roadmap for dummies... stating what there working on in very specific easy terms... i mean dont get me wrong...i can put together a computer from the ground up, but when it gets into programming i dont know much of anything, im in the music industry, not tech industry.... they call it branches... what im saying is, tell the customer what "leafs" your adding are, leave the branch that leads to that leaf for the techies.... thats all im sayin...
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Girlfriends Pics

[yowmoon]

How do you tell the "average customer" things that won't freak them out ("WiFi is broken in the current build" == "OMG THE G1 WON'T HAVE WIFI ANYMORE") yet convey the appropriate level of information?

It's an art. My brothers and I have tried to develop this art-form over the years with some limited success!

Here, with the G1, I am admit about remaining an average-Joe-end-user. No root.

[stopcrazypp]

People who have this app installed or have installed it in the past should report here if they have every experienced contacts deleted, or the SD card cleared, etc. I'm just interested if this is a serious security flaw or just people lying or not knowing how they got their contacts deleted.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5138822/rogue-a...e#viewcomments
You can see Gizmodo reporting on this, and of course the Apple (and some Palm) fanboys have attacked the Android platform for this and said it should be done the Apple way (with screening).

On the current off topic conversation about T-mobile & Google "abandoning" the platform/the G1, I say on the Google/Android platform side, it's the end user not understanding the information given, not that Google isn't supporting the platform. On the G1 side, it's T-mobile's responsibility to support it with updates. Google doesn't directly support the G1. T-mobile still seems to be doing it's job on the official T-mobile forums, but they are not talking about future updates because most companies don't do that.

On the market itself, I agree there should be improvements to the rating system. There should be an option of flagging an app as malicious and with enough flags it should be reviewed by Google (just like they do on Youtube). For comments you should be able to rate comments just like on Youtube. Usually only the really horrible comments (like "first!") get buried, it's quite rare a useless comment gets rated up and I haven't seen a useful comment get buried.

[goodfellabk718]

people who have this app installed or have installed it in the past should report here if they have every experienced contacts deleted, or the sd card cleared, etc. I'm just interested if this is a serious security flaw or just people lying or not knowing how they got their contacts deleted.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5138822/rogue-a...e#viewcomments
you can see gizmodo reporting on this, and of course the apple (and some palm) fanboys have attacked the android platform for this and said it should be done the apple way (with screening).

On the current off topic conversation about t-mobile & google "abandoning" the platform/the g1, i say on the google/android platform side, it's the end user not understanding the information given, not that google isn't supporting the platform. On the g1 side, it's t-mobile's responsibility to support it with updates. Google doesn't directly support the g1. T-mobile still seems to be doing it's job on the official t-mobile forums, but they are not talking about future updates because most companies don't do that.

On the market itself, i agree there should be improvements to the rating system. There should be an option of flagging an app as malicious and with enough flags it should be reviewed by google (just like they do on youtube). For comments you should be able to rate comments just like on youtube. Usually only the really horrible comments (like "first!") get buried, it's quite rare a useless comment gets rated up and i haven't seen a useful comment get buried.

i concur!!

[daniel142005]

Here is my suggestion on google ideas:

"Have two channels on android market. One for apps rated 3+ (default) and one for all. Google would use strict guidelines to rate apps, counting for 5 public votes. Public votes could override Google's rating."

http://productideas.appspot.com/#11/...cnlVc2VyGIEuDA

Vote for it if you agree. I don't think Google should take apple's approach and have to approve (or deny) every application, because not everyone that uses the G1 (and future android phones) is tech savvy, and they won't know any better. By letting the tech savvy switch to the all application channel, they get all new apps right away and can vote on the applications. X amount of votes with an average of at least 3 stars means it is published in the default channel. Google's team could use guidelines to approve these applications as well but their approve process gives the application a rating based on its score. This rating could be overridden by android users.

[Andrude]

"Google could rate apps worth 5 normal votes to "approve" apps."

Bad idea.

I don't want the purveyor of all things advertising to get their own special "tier" of applications when the developers have bid up the bucks to get there (take a look at AdWords !).

All that MIGHT be appropriate is an automated "do no harm" test that Google administers before an app gets on the market. No discretionary powers for anyone, just a step to filter out anything malicious.

[constellanation]

i kind of like the two tier thing, but perhaps one for stable, and another for unstable would be better, in truth we already have by popularity and date. popularity being very similar to 3 stars and up.

one correction apple does not approve every app.

[daniel142005]

"Google could rate apps worth 5 normal votes to "approve" apps."

Bad idea.

I don't want the purveyor of all things advertising to get their own special "tier" of applications when the developers have bid up the bucks to get there (take a look at AdWords !).

All that MIGHT be appropriate is an automated "do no harm" test that Google administers before an app gets on the market. No discretionary powers for anyone, just a step to filter out anything malicious.

Oh when I said Google rates the apps, i meant that they do a approval test from a strict set of guide lines and the rating they give the application is based on the score of the test. If it approves it will be a 3 star or higher. Google doesn't actually get an opinion unless the employee is a G1 user himself. Also, even if it does not get approved by Google's process, if enough people like the application it will overrule Google because the rating will still go up.

i kind of like the two tier thing, but perhaps one for stable, and another for unstable would be better, in truth we already have by popularity and date. popularity being very similar to 3 stars and up.

one correction apple does not approve every app.

The thing about popularity though is that it is done by number of downloads and not rating. Basically the main goal would be that the default channel has the stable, ready to go, quality applications without the apps that force close consistently or the ones that still use the default icon... This may improve the reputation of the OS with certain news sites.


I reworded the idea on Google's Product Ideas:
"Have two channels on android market. One for apps rated 3+ (default) and one for all. Google would use strict guidelines to rate apps, counting for 5 public votes. Public votes could override Google's rating." Maybe this one is more clear?

[Bratag]

I will be happy to post the code of my memoryforlemmings if anyone is worried about it deleting items

B