Developers: Android Market Needs Some Work

[Shadez]

Developers: Android Market Needs Some Work


Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Developing, News

The H Open wrote an interesting article on a post from developer Jon Lech Johansen’s blog. Johansen, co-founder and CTO of doubleTwist, had some pretty legitimate complaints about and suggestions for the Android Market. For example:

• The Android Market is available in 46 countries; developers can only offer paid apps in 13 of those
• Prices for foreign apps are not displayed in a users local currency – they are displayed in the dev’s currency
• Developers can’t customize their price by country – they set it in one currency, and it is automatically converted into others at the current exchange rate
• Foreign apps can’t be paid for with American Express or billed to your phone plan
• No support for in-app changelogs or payments
• Google is too hands-off about the market – there are more than a few apps that are blatantly illegal

​

All in all, they seem like very reasonable complaints to me, and most seem like they would be (comparatively) easy enough to fix.

​

The article goes on to list some other issues dev’s have with the marketplace:

• The web version of the Android Market shows a fraction of the apps that are available
• The Android Market’s return policy is too generous
• Spam comments need to be better controlled and more actively removed

​

Again, pretty reasonable if you ask me. I’ve said before that the



Marketplace is doing well as a whole, but I’ve also acknowledged that dev’s still prefer the Apple App Store.


[Source: H Open, Nanocr (John Lech Johansen’s Blog)]


Developers: Android Market Needs Some Work | Android News, Reviews, Applications, Games, Phones, Devices, Tips, Hacks, Videos, Podcasts - Android Police