I know many apps use coin system, but in many cases it's just a children manipulation.
I pre-ordered a Purism 5 from the next batch in anger a few weeks ago. I want off this Android/eyeProduct bullshit. I want full control of my mobile device again.
Genuinely interested as I'm looking to explore this as a potential project myself with my team.
I think that is a valid reason, but it should be clear that is the reason.
So you fucking want me to advertise for you, Google? And for what reason? Does someone want their promotion/bonus and for that they have to reach x downloads?
In fact I'm going to go to the Play Store and give them a shitty review...
> Does someone want their promotion/bonus and for that they have to reach x downloads?
10x yes.
I don't know why anyone puts up with that.
Seems like someone messed up somewhere and is probably being resolved.
In all honesty though, no app with IAP (especially easy-to-access IAP or IAP that can't be locked by a parent) should get an E rating. Fleksy should get a higher age rating for this reason, not because of an emoji.
I disagree. I think it's Google's job to provide parents with the tools to lock down IAPs for children. Once the phone is locked down, IAPs shouldn't matter. And the ratings would be useless to a parent if every app with IAPs was rated > E. They wouldn't know if the content is what is giving it the higher rating or just the IAPs.
Under-12s can't have a Google Account of their own, so they can't spend money, so why would IAP be dangerous? The purchase part is behind a 13+ wall.
I would say, it’s probably because they added something to that toolbar.
It’s always like that for most apps, especially keyboard apps. A company abandon their app, then another company buy it from them and not know how to deal with the app. The app ends up with bloatware that no one asked for and then the app gets abandoned
Nope, the article states otherwise.
I'm bothered by how pilloried I am consistently when mentioning that most of these are 'free' apps and someone, somewhere, somehow needs to pay for it. Very few 'open source' projects make good 'Products' (they help, but alone OSS is not consumer oriented). It takes work to do these things. All kinds of work.
$1/download or 25 cents/month would wipe out 1/2 of consumer issues like this pretty quickly, but almost nobody wants to pay.
Edit: I should say this is Android 10 on Pixel 3a, not sure about other versions/manufacturers.
http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php
(I'm using it because in my particular case predictions and autocorrect of other keyboards always backfired, plus swiping on those big buttons works better than trying to hit the right tiny qwerty button)
Someday I might buy an ortholinear keyboard for the desktop, it depends really on when the DasKeyboard deck breaks.
I would switch over to it today if the swipe typing was better but its currently "in beta" and that's a bit of an understatement tbh. in my experience the predictions are wrong 80% of the time
Well, they've been doing it for years and that's why there's people in the US Government talking about anti-trust investigations... Hopefully something comes of it.
2. Other keyboard apps have IAP but still have an E rating: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gingersoft...
I find it very unlikely that Google is intentionally picking on this small app, but by being more lenient in reviewing its own apps, Google is abusing its position.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Having a separate review system that provides different and more favourable treatment for (equivalent) internal apps is in and of itself an abuse of the store.
It's extremely convenient that Google had an oopsie that's entirely aligned with their own interests.
At a certain point (and both Google and Apple are big enough) it becomes their fault. You should have good enough policies. It’s been 10 years or so since the app stores launched. This isn’t new stuff anymore. It’s not untrodden territory.
It’s laziness at best, and that shouldn’t keep getting excused.
It seems nobody talks about that.
As a software developer I would find it way too uncomfortable to build on a platform like that.
Malign neglect -- build a regulatory system that is valid in principle, but it implemented in a complex enough way that it tends to fail often, which has a tendency to scare off consumers, and subject everyone except yourself to it. People will tend to choose your product to avoid the hassle.
You see it everywhere, from non-Pixel Android phones trying to keep with new OS versions, to Windows and MacOS API churn and "secret APIs".
It is also as bad, but on the other hand I think internet infrastructure like app stores and all the other stuff should also be treated like roads in the end.
But government sucks with managing money :/
I think is most likely inconsistent reviewing. I've seen this with Apple, as well as with Google. The apps stores need to have very clear guidelines and well-defined appeal process, possibly with 3rd party arbitration.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
> Fleksy’s team have done so over the years — and come up with the PEGI 3 rating without issue. But this month they found they were being issued the questionnaire multiple times and then that their latest app update was blocked without explanation — meaning they had to reach out to Play Developer Support to ask what was going wrong.
> After some email back and forth with support staff they were told that the app contained age inappropriate emoji content. Here’s what Google wrote:
> > During review, we found that the content rating is not accurate for your app… Content ratings are used to inform consumers, especially parents, of potentially objectionable content that exists within an app.
> > For example, we found that your app contains content (e.g. emoji) that is not appropriate for all ages. Please refer to the attached screenshot.
Google is apparently upset that the app contains a middle finger emoji. Which GBoard also contains. GBoard is rated 3+, not 12+/16+.
Should python 3.5 have a PEGI rating? How about vim?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/python-37/9nj46sx7x90p?act...
If you're a CLI poweruser Hacker's Keyboard (FOSS) [1]. There is also Simple Keyboard (FOSS) [2] and there's a bunch of others available on F-Droid.
I do wonder what we should switch to from Qwerty, on mobile specifically. There is, for example, Keybee [3].
[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.pocketworkstation.pckeyb...
[2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/rkr.simplekeyboard.inputmeth...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rkr.simplekeyb...
The Swastika exists as a Unicode character, yet is outlawed in Germany, along with other Nazi-associated symbols (Strafgesetzbuch section 86a).
A famous example, is that Wolfenstein 3D was outright refused a rating in Germany. Arguably it may have been legal as artistic use, rather than propaganda promoting an unconstitutional organization, but that was not sufficient to get a rating.
I hear you. I really hate prompts to post to social media myself, but companies do it because it is hard to get people interested in your product.
I'm passionate about this issue because I faced this problem myself many times when trying to generate reviews for my Amazon products. It is hard, if not impossible, to compete without breaking any rules.
The bottom line is, customer acquisition costs are high. In most free apps, it seems you are losing money until / unless you can reach critical adoption rates that make decrease those acquisition costs below your customer LTV. A single social media post could save the publisher $5-10 in customer acquisition costs.
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So what can be done to fix this?
One idea is making reviews mandatory. There could be an optional prompt that can only be dismissed after a user has left a review. It could be a requirement to leave a review on a previous app before downloading another.
Any strategy to shape how or when users leave reviews will have the potential to be gamed, and I by no means have the answer.
But I think the solution to the review begging / social proof demands needs to be solved at the app store level.
As it stands, established companies have a massive, massive, advantage over indie publishers.
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I could talk about this all day, so I'll leave it here, but I'm interested to here others thoughts on this:
How do you balance the need for businesses to generate reviews with customer convenience?
What would you change to fix this problem?
Is there an opportunity for a third party fix this?
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>I don't know why anyone puts up with that.
Because honestly, it's just a single click to say "no" and users are already invested in that particular app.
Responsible apps should only ask once, but there are countless apps that ask every time.
Gboard came preinstalled on my phone and is not removable. I doubt they need more advertising.
Which doesn't make it acceptable, obviously. It just means that malice isn't required for unfairness - all it takes is Google fixing the dumb mistakes which hurt them faster than the ones that hurt others.
I guess I can imagine some special cases that wouldn't be Google treating itself differently, like triggering reviews when a publisher's largest app crosses a size threshold and assuming established publishers can trusted more generously. But honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Google just carved out an internal exception.
And the PEGI 16 request goes beyond "not the same treatment as Gboard" to "objectively incorrect review outcome", so regardless something is fishy...
* In app library, ability to filter apps by permissions required
...... Specifically, I would want to be able to blacklist permission sets. Eg, search for Keyboard apps, but exclude any apps that require access to my contacts.
* Ability to pay for apps directly through those apps rather than having to go through the smartphone's software author.
...... Totally fine with the software having a default payment option in case I don't want to entrust a certain app with my payment info.
* An interface that lets me see logs of which URLs each app hits and what data it sent.
* An interface that lets me see which servers are sending data to my apps and what data is included.
"App Library" here representing the same sort of app as the Play Store, but looking to disassociate from the term "Store", as that model is not necessary.
Edit: Formatting sub-lists on HN isn't intuitive, apparently
- network connectivity as a separate permission (no reason every app should be allowed network access)
- also, permissions systems everywhere need to get updated for this millennium. Some thoughts:
-- to read my photos is OK as long as they don't have direct network access.
-- but today every app has Internet access by default
-- and just because I trust an app to read my photos doesn't mean I should have to give it permission to delete photos
And in general, I would prefer most apps actually don't have any access to photos, the photo picker could be completely OS level and the app never actually has access.
I guess you could also have non-free repos and some kind of payment API (does Ubuntu/Snap do this?) but I really want to see if I can just write apps for the gaps I find when trying to use a PureOS or KDE Plasma device.
edit: see some comments on permissions. Honestly I've not looked into this space very much. I assume there might need to be some cgroup isolation that can be used to lock off hardware and filesystems, similar to containers (not sure if Snap/Flatpak use cgroups).
I suppose malicious code could get in and spy on you, but we've got the same concerns on Linux desktops and official package repos. I don't know exactly ... there's a lot to think about there.
Just letting developers get paid without taking a 30 percent cut, or not banning open source apps for including a Patreon link [1] would be a great start.
I don't think that any financial model can fit all usages. Except, of course, paid up front with paid upgrades (and a subscription if there is a cloud component). But that ship has sailed.
That's the real issue with computing nowadays, this desire to lock everything down. You see it with DRM, you see it with walled gardens, you see it with almost everything nowadays.
I fear that a world like the one described in "The Right to Read" [0] is closer than ever.
0: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html (yes, I know it's Stallman, but even he was right on a few things, as disgusting as he was in a lot of other things. Stopped clock right twice a day, etc)
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen...