DroidIn – reporting problems

What I really dislike in Android Market feedback is style of comments where people would trash your app and complain but will not give even a slightest hint on what the problems are. I don’t mind good beating, I don’t mind critique. But if I get just general statement like “this widget sucks” then it doesn’t help me to improve it. So next time you place your comment please, pleas let me know what the problem is so I can address it

Here’s shining example from Michael

Has the creator tried using it? Buggy, incomplete. Shouldn’t be in such a rush to post things.

“Buggy” Where, how? “Incomplete” – same thing. Yes, I have G1 phone and I test and use the widget extensively. It has tight dependency on availability of the network so don’t hold messages like “Page is not available” against me, I try to make my notification as user friendly as possible. The caching is on works
Yes, I know that DroidIn is missing major pieces such as “Inbox” and “Groups”. Alas so does http://m.linkedin.com and very unfortunately there’s no access to any sort of API that LinkedIn is willing to give me.

All I’m asking for my users to be a little bit more constructive and provide me with a valuable feedback and not just hatemail

DroidIn gets Updates feature in v. 1.1

I’m very excited to announce that DroidIn is now have “Updates” features as well as some UI upgrades and new configuration screen.
Here is a short scoop:

• Updates will allow you to receive notifications in the title bar the same way you receive “new email” alerts, etc.
• Pulling down notifications pane and selecting DroidIn entry will open up DroidIn app
• For the paid version you can have frequency set fro 15min to 24h. Please be aware that running frequent updates will use your battery more
• You can disable updates by selecting “None” which is a default
• Lite version can only have “None” or 24h (Ah – c’mon it’s only 2 bucks to upgrade)
• Once you done – hit the “Back” button it will bring “Updates” view
• “Today” section is now displayed open by default
• There are some smaller UI improvements

DroidIn.com

Thanks to Android Silicone Valley’s Austine Teames who generously donated DroidIn.com to this project. Check out his new cool site here

Android – deploy multiple versions of the same app

So you have paid and free version of the same app and you want to deploy both to the Android Market (AM). There you’ll have a nasty surprise – AM wants to identify your app by its package and you will have to move one of the versions to the another package. I had to do it for my DroidIn app so here’s least painful way of doing it that I could come up with:

Let say you have your paid version in com.foo.widget and you want your free app to be in com.foo.widget.free

1. Deploy your paid version to the AM
2. Come back to your code and open Android manifest
3. Change <manifest package=”com.foo.widget”/> to <manifest package=”com.foo.widget.free”/>
4. Save it – and you will be horrified with all errors in your project at this point
5. The most important thing from this point on – you will no longer be able to refer to your activities and services by a shortcut in the manifest file. The example of shortcut? Here – <activity android:name=”.HOME”/>
6. You will have to refer to these by full package name so the element above will look like <activity android:name=”com.foo.widget.free.HOME”/>
7. Save the manifest again. Now your R generated file will appear in the new package (ROOT/gen/com.foo.widget.free.R.java)
8. Which means you will have to go to your activity(s) source file, or any file that refers to R.class and change import statement(s) to look at the new location. The more files you have, the more painful that will be, of course.
9. When you no longer have compilation errors change @string/app_name to reflect free version and you ready to package and deploy

If you know of easier way of achiving the same result – please let me know, I would love to hear it

Until furter notice

If you have any question, suggestions, bugs, etc. plase add these as comments to this post

Hello DroidIn!

DroidIn gets new home!