Better Market APP?

[cideas]

So I have a question for you guys, if you had a choice to have a better market app (web or desktop app) what features would you be looking for. I know there is AndroidZoom.com - Browse the Android Market and download all available applications and games and AndroLib.com but they dont allow you to download apps (free)...

I been working to decode the Market and have made some great findings and have the basic requesting and fetching o data done.. so wondering if something like this would be needed for the community

 

[Backnblack]

Not sure, I see nothing wrong with Market when I use it.

What added function would your app have?

 

[cideas]

Not sure, I see nothing wrong with Market when I use it.

What added function would your app have?

Not sure at the moment, thats why I'm asking the community to see if one even needs to exists

 

[Matth3w]

In short, there isn't a replacement.

@Backnblack - the ability to filter would be awesome...the huge downfall of the Market is you can't subtract terms like fart, soundboard, theme, etc. So every time I want to look through apps I have to sift through 43209743259078 different metro stop apps, fart and gun soundboards, lyrics apps, and a million other worthless apps that shouldn't even exist.

@cideas - if you could implement my above suggestion, that would be great. But I'm not sure how you would implement it AND still retain the Google checkout. If you could do both you could probably charge people 5 bucks and they would use it just to not have to surf through all that worthless crap when they go to the Market. Me personally I'd pay at least 10 bucks to be able to do so, but most of the people here I see are pretty cheap with what they spend on an app. I had someone send me a PM complaining about having to spend 99 cents (the equivalent of a friggin candy bar) for SetCPU to be able to overclock.

 

[mad3963]

Not sure, I see nothing wrong with Market when I use it.

What added function would your app have?

Not sure at the moment, thats why I'm asking the community to see if one even needs to exists

I've been waiting for something like this for a while now. I would like to be able to sort results (i.e. - by date, alphabetically, developer, etc.).

 

[Matth3w]

All I care about is being able to filter. If you do that, you're a hero in my book. If you added some sort of feature where you could permanently ignore other programs as well, that would be a plus. For example, I will NEVER use certain home replacement apps. So it would be nice to long press some results and never see them again, like X number of themes and whatnot.

 

[cideas]

All good ideas,

@Matth3w - not sure about recreating the google checkout aspect.. dont think google would like that very much ..

About the filter that would be great.. at first I was looking towards doing a desktop client, but it may be more beneficial to do an actual droid app ..

Still open to suggestions

 

[Matth3w]

So if you can't re-create the Google checkout then how would you pay for the apps? If you can't pay for the apps then your project is worthless to a lot of people, myself especially. The majority of GOOD programs that I use with the exception of ChompSMS and Quick Profiles are paid apps. I have the pro or donate version, or simply straight up pay apps of just about every app I have. Sure, stupid programs like "dictionary" are free, but the stuff I really use is not...

 

[cideas]

So if you can't re-create the Google checkout then how would you pay for the apps? If you can't pay for the apps then your project is worthless to a lot of people, myself especially. The majority of GOOD programs that I use with the exception of ChompSMS and Quick Profiles are paid apps. I have the pro or donate version, or simply straight up pay apps of just about every app I have. Sure, stupid programs like "dictionary" are free, but the stuff I really use is not...

Well I havn't even started to check into the google checkout implementation .. in theory it should all be doable .. The main reason I brought this up was to see if there was even a good reason to take on the task to develop another market application.

 

[Matth3w]

There is definitely a good reason, just for filters alone (number one complaint usually)...you just have to make sure you can do the checkout of some sort and if Google would even allow you to put such an app on the Market.

 

[cideas]

Wonder if a "Searcher" would be better, searcher/comment app.. That way if you need to download a paid app ( maybe all apps) the app would just redirect to the Native Market app. This way the enduser would just go through google checkout and dont have to worry about the "what if" aspect of sending over private data.

Also this route may be better since you will have the market history stored and can backup via other apps if needed to, just a thought

 

[Matth3w]

That's a very good idea, actually. Would be much more manageable on your end, too. When someone submits a query it just checks the apps. Then they find what they are looking for they can either retype into the stock app or have it redirect. I say retype because you might have to use the website you linked in post one. If the market doesn't natively support filter, not sure how you would filter server side because if you sent a query something like "home replacement -GDE -home++" not sure the market would be able to filter out the negative queries. Unless you run the query serverside and apply the filters clientside so the client doesn't see the the pre-filtered results.

The only problem is how would you browse in this manner? Like how could I browse all apps like: -fart -soundboard -lyric -flashlight etc?

 

[cideas]

The market does have some filters but doesn't have bitwise filters.. so that would be done o the client side. To answer you last question, you can page the whole return set, cache it and move on to the next batch of 1000 apps,filter them and move on. You will know your at the end when you have no more results.

From there you could navigate to the app info, see the information, view comments or download/buy . I'm pretty sure I can mimic the free app download via code, while I would just allow the Native Market app to handle paid apps.

But I do agree the filtering would be the main feature of the application, i hate navigating through all the useless apps. Would be a good idea to also store some items as blacklisted, so even if you dont apply the correct filter but you have that application or company/user or whatever attribute you can always be sure to not see them .

 

[Matth3w]

Yeah like the company or person that adds literally like 100 lyric apps at the same time.

 

[cideas]

lol yeah, those spammers.. Well it seems like this may be a fun app.. I'll continue to do some research this friday/sat and see what I can come up with. But if you have any more ideas do let me know.