Database Develop

Why are "devs" posting "test apps" to the market???

Jesus, there's like two or three of them a day now. Between all the "Don't download this, I'm just testing" apps and those ****ty $5 apps by Khalid Shaikh the market is rapidly going down the toilet.
Really y'all, stop that. Just sayin.

I can see why they'd publish them. I can't, however, see why they leave them for more than 5 minutes. On my first publish I did exactly that. Tested to make sure that I could do it properly, and that it could download and install properly. Of course, I published my finished app and not a test version... I agree though...

yah i hate it. especially since google's plan is for a user managed market place.

That Khalid Shaikh is getting annoying with his lame apps indeed.

I have to agree with you guys. True, its a user-managed market, but I think users really ought to realize that if they want a good market, they gotta put up good apps! I don't want to be hating on Shaikh, considering he actually knows how to make apps and has the SDK environment all setup and I have absolutely no idea how, just, he really oughta do a quality check.

I can understand as a developer wanting to get your apps on the market asap to have all of your hard work recognized. But yeah, releasing apps before they're at least usable and pretty stable does nothing but hurt your reputation. You only get the "Sort by date" promotion once. I made that mistake on my first app..

You only get the "Sort by date" promotion once.
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So true... And if you waste that opportunity with unfinished work (particularly more than one unfinished work) you can really screw up acceptance of future works... Oh well, i guess that's up to those devs, I just wish I could weed them out of my view.

Right, why dont we just have Market Sections specifically for things like test apps, and fart apps, so we dont hafta sit there and freakin look through an infinite list of fart apps to find anything good? I mean, seriously, there should be some kinda category besides "Apps" and "Games on the main market page that you can lump all those LAME, annoying, USELESS apps into so that serious android users dont hafta filter through fifty fart apps to see decent work by serious devs...we should Just have a category called "Nonsense Apps", and all those apps should be kept separately from the regular apps section so you can browse through frickin fart apps all day long if thats what floats your boat, but if you actually wanna find something USEFUL, all that nosense crap will get filtered out...And honestly, its freakin 2009, people, there are Gays and Lesbians everywhere, openly expressing themselves as such, theres a black man running the white house...and somehow FARTS ARE STILL FUNNY?! I guess i didnt get the memo, cuz if i wanted to laugh at a fart id just fart, considering that the human anatomy is a generator of such sounds...why waste all that effort writing a program that makes fart sounds, when you can jusr rip one whenever, and its WAY funnier than a stupid phone app, cuz ppl can actually smell it...so what is the problem with all these moron devs that come out actin like they didnt know anyone else had put out a fart app? I agree with OP...JUST STOP IT...

Memo to bmfc187. Farts will always br funny. Fart apps, on the other hand, are pretty lame.
No farts were ripped during the creation of this reply.
/Liar

They do have a demo section for random bullcrap like this.
-bZj

ryan75 said:
Memo to bmfc187. Farts will always br funny. Fart apps, on the other hand, are pretty lame.
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I'm not sayin i cant appreciate a good rip, but why go to all that trouble to digitize a fart sound that your own body already makes naturally, knowing full well that your little sound machine could NEVER reproduce the funk from those Supreme Burritos i had last nite at El Tapatio...
-BMFC

Right on, the G1 speaker doesn't seem to have enough "low-end" sound to do a good rip justice.
I must confess, I did get a kick out of one of the apps that let me put a fart alarm on my phone when anyone moved it. My girlfriend wanted to kill me after I set it and went to the mens room at Outback. Guess she moved it when the waitress brought out my salad, aanf well, many lols were had at her expense.

I sent an email to Jay at Cyrket.com to see if he'd be willing to do anything to allow us to apply filters to the data provided by his site. In the mean time, I set up a Yahoo Pipe for myself that filters out all apps with the words theme, skin, fart, or soundboard.

My "big idea" being an interface to the market which uses allows for very customizable seort and filter settings. Of course the actual market app would be used for purchases/downloads. This would only be a market browser.

It would be nice if we had the option to filter out certain developers (IndiaNIC, LLC and Khalid Sheikh) who are flooding the market with nonsense that obviously isn't selling.

ryan75: My Pipe does that.

The main problem with the Pipe approach though is that it's a work-around and as such is limited. Particularly in the case of sorting... You have to get all of the data first before you can reliably sort it, that can take a really long time with Pipes.

These developers should just provide links to themes, comics and icon packs etc. Test apps should go in the demo section. Finding 50 comics/books/storys/bs or themes or icons a day is friggin annoying. The farts I can deal with because there aren't 50 a day.

Petition to rid the market if Khalid Shaikh's apps!

I browse the market every day and I see this guy putting apps that consistently get low reviews. His highest ranking app is 3 stars. He spams the market with apps that are overpriced photo galleries that show pics and play sounds of one specific thing. I think we should help him get the message that his high refund/low ranking rates are not giving him. Please reply if you agree that his apps need to stop spamming the market. If you have not tried one yet, look here. I am not doing this to be mean, but he needs to be told not to quit his day job.

Where's the option for "No. I dislike spam apps, but I hate censorship more." ?

So if his apps were malicious would you vote to have them removed? Do you feel spam filters on email are censorship? They fill your box with junk in hopes of making a few dollars off of you. I am against censorship but his apps are rediculous.

So if his apps were malicious would you vote to have them removed?
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There are rules in place for the Market in regards to malicious apps. There would be no need to vote because the gatekeepers of the Market have already said malicious apps would be removed.
Do you feel spam filters on email are censorship?
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Of course not. The key difference is who gets to decide what is removed. With a spam filter, each user gets to decide whether he wants to see content or not. Any system that removes apps from the Market (that aren't infringing the basic rules as stated above) without your knowledge and consent is basically censorship, whether the decision is made by ten people at Google or a hundred people on xda-dev.

Not if your email provider passes your email through spamhaus you dont. Also I would ****LOVE**** to have a configureable filter but I doubt we will. As an acceptable alternative, I would like for consistantly low rated and highly returned items to be removed. Guess what walmart does if a product gets returned 80% of the time it is sold. Do they ask you?
Also, I am not trying to start a fight with anyone, just stating my view on the subject.

Darkrift said:
Also, I am not trying to start a fight with anyone, just stating my view on the subject.
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I don't care to start a fight either; I'm just pointing out that what you are proposing is a path down a slippery slope, and it generally goes against the "open participation" ethos of Android. You should also keep in mind that one person's junk may be another mans treasure. Would I ever buy one of Khalid's lame $5 joke apps (literally, they're joke books!)? No probably not. That doesn't mean that someone else might not want it.
Edit: Just as an example, back in the early days of Market before developers could geotarget the regions for distribution, some Chinese developers put up some app whose interface was completely Chinese. I think it was a Chinese input method or a frontend for a Chinese website. Regardless, the ignorant fresh T-Mobile masses downloaded it, didn't understand what it was for, and then promptly uninstalled it and rated it zero stars. If you do a filtering system based on ratings, you are giving every uninformed ignoramus an equal say in whether an app is allowed to stay or go.

The Markets sucks! It needs the possibility for user to set their own filter
e.g.
dont show apps publiced by Khalid Shaikh! lower than 2stars, more expensive than x$ and so on..
only show apps of a specifig language (e.g. for traffic,taxi,bus,tv gadgets..)
sort for recently updated and so on .. that's what the market app really needs!

bassbox said:
The Markets sucks! It needs the possibility for user to set their own filter
e.g.
dont show apps publiced by Khalid Shaikh! lower than 2stars, more expensive than x$ and so on..
only show apps of a specifig language (e.g. for traffic,taxi,bus,tv gadgets..)
sort for recently updated and so on .. that's what the market app really needs!
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Yes, the market app needs customizable local (meaning on a user's own device) filters. That will partially solve the problem of crap apps littering the marketplace. However, I think overhauling Market client is low on the Google Android team's priority list. Unfortunately since it is a proprietary closed source app, there is no way for the dev community to take the matter into its own hands.

You would think that the king of searching would have some sort of decent searching on their own platform..

jashsu said:
Yes, the market app needs customizable local (meaning on a user's own device) filters. That will partially solve the problem of crap apps littering the marketplace. However, I think overhauling Market client is low on the Google Android team's priority list. Unfortunately since it is a proprietary closed source app, there is no way for the dev community to take the matter into its own hands.
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I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
I will have to agree though on the statement about censorship. While it is true that his apps may be without any true merit, I do not believe that they are (or he is) breaking any of the Market rules or developer agreements. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the the "free" market and the iPhone AppStore, people are willing to download and even spend money on useless apps. I think as long as there is a market for this type of app we will continue to see them. Now, unfortunately that means we all have to deal with him, his apps, and others like him and his apps until either the Market allows for better filtering/sorting or a developer creates this for the community... It is much needed nonetheless.

nEx.Software said:
I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
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thats awesome. if its anything like BarTor its going to be good

nEx.Software said:
I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
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That's good to hear. What I meant is that the actual Market App itself cannot be modified to work the way we want it to. While being able to display Market data with filtering on a PC is nice, the bulk majority of users are still going to be suffering the standard Market app interface.
Unfortunately, as we've seen in the the "free" market and the iPhone AppStore, people are willing to download and even spend money on useless apps. I think as long as there is a market for this type of app we will continue to see them. Now, unfortunately that means we all have to deal with him, his apps, and others like him
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There will be more, that much I can assure you. As the Android platform grows, there will be more opportunist developers seeking to make a quick buck. It really is like spam. You throw a line out and because digital publishing is free, anything you get back is profit. There is basically no monetary risk involved in creating and distributing crapware. Atleast we won't have to suffer iPhone's idiotic ninety-nine cent "custom" name dialers. Although the number of soundboards posted daily is reaching dangerous limits...

I intend to make it an Android app. While it won't be a permanent fix,it might be what is needed to get Google moving on updates to the official Market app.
Anyway, on another note. I haven't looked at any one of the apps in question but I would venture a guess that they are in violation of copyright laws and as we have seen with the Tetris clones, Google does take action on matters of copyright. Maybe the best recourse then is to inform this developer of the copyright issues either directly or through Google.
?

Frankly i can't agree with having a dev (does this word really apply in this case) removed from the market for producing crap. However i am completely in favour of spamming his inbox with as much crap as i can possibly manage just to see how he likes it. Free porn search here i come!
Anyone wants to help it's --EMAIL REMOVED-- Yes this is a very childish response but i'm pissed with having to sift through his crap every morning, i think it's only fair!
Ideally google can resolve this issue by allowing to create a list of blocked developers. And the ability to block any apps containing the word soundboard would make my day

nEx.Software an app that was basically cryket.com for the android would be awesome. What would really be sweet was if it had an independant comment system that was filterable as well. So we could ban commenters based on their username, words, etc... Filtering by ratings, developer, keywords, etc.. I love it already. Just link the products to their entries in the market. Basically, cryket for the android with comments... I CAN HAZ IT NOW PLZ K?

Also, I'd love to add IndiaNIC, LLC to the filter list. I'm sure *someone* out there likes that they're putting out 300 e-books about India a day, but I'm sure tired of scrolling past them.

The last thing I'd want is to see rigorous policing on the Android Market. He's spreading expensive crapware but I'm sure people are buying it and I'm sure some actually enjoyed it. I don't think removing his apps from the market is the best solution, keep the market as free from censorship as possible if you ask me.
I think the best solution is market search filters as discussed above.

I agree, the ability to "ignore" certain developers would be nice. The new developer I would instantly add to this list would be IndiaNIC, LLC. or whatever the hell they are called. They have about 40 apps on the market, and I don't think a single one has a comment.
/if anyone affiliated with IndiaNIC, LLC reads this, no offense, but please get the message when nobody is buying what you're selling

The more I think about it, the more I realize a filter would be a better idea than removing junk from the market. While I do not agree that anyone will find his apps useful, I do see the point in letting them choose. But at the same time we should be able to choose not to see his crap. As for IndiaNIC, I disagree with placing them in the same category. They have products with good ratings and seem to be making at least SOME useful apps. While I agree they put out too many at once, they seem to have a market for their apps unlike Khalid Shaikh.
Still, a filter would be better for all. I wish I could edit the poll now to add that as an option

ryan75 said:
/if anyone affiliated with IndiaNIC, LLC reads this, no offense, but please get the message when nobody is buying what you're selling
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Spammers don't need to "get the message"! They know exactly what they are selling (junk). The whole point is they are trying to make a quick buck. And in the immortal words of P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Nevermind the fact that all of those texts can be downloaded for free from manybooks or feedbooks and then read on FBReaderJ...

yelp for android

we finally have yelp for android!
right now its just read only but hopefully we will get all the iphone features after version 1.0
http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/12/its-time-to-break-out-the-robot-yelp-for-android-is-here.html

I don't really think the majority of us care.
It's not that isn't a great app or anything [well right now it really is a bad app] it's just by the time the iphone and Blackberry devs got there head out of there ass Android developers already published better similar applications.

Yelp is a great way to find a new place to eat, want to impress a date with a nice hotel or searching for a decent spot to throw back a few. There is rating feedback on a restaurant, bar, club or just about anything you can possibly rate. Yelp trying to jump on the Android market is most definitely a GOOD thing.
If they see support from our end I am sure you will see updates and added features in the near future... IM IN!!

Looks like another one of those US-only apps.
Nothing here for Rest of World. Move along.

linuxluver said:
Looks like another one of those US-only apps.
Nothing here for Rest of World. Move along.
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Hahaha I'm sorry about that, it's just that other countries are much nicer to visit so we get centered around "US"

linuxluver said:
Looks like another one of those US-only apps.
Nothing here for Rest of World. Move along.
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I don't know about the rest of the world but I can confirm that there is a uk version on the official webiste look on the top right corner. Try the app, change your location.. if that doesn't work for the uk then just go to your browsers address bar and type "www.yelp.com"
Why the hatred towards the U.S. xda members? We have no control on what these developers do with THEIR apps?

US-only apps
Icebergxx said:
Hahaha I'm sorry about that, it's just that other countries are much nicer to visit so we get centered around "US"
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It struck me how many apps I *can't* see.
The Android Dev Challenge winner: "SweetDreams". I can't see it.
Pandora? Nope. (Can't buy music outside the US, either....but I stopped buying music years ago when the stopped treating me like a customer).
Photostitch (paid)? Nope.
...and so on. I can see a lot of the paid apps....but the gaps are annoying.

we've had where for a long time, which has yelp built in...

I thought where took out the yelp reviews? It was the reason I uninstalled it. Anyway, Layar's Yelp layer is pretty good for me.

last I checked WHERE was using citisearch reviews.

jasnmb said:
last I checked WHERE was using citisearch reviews.
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You're correct just used 'Where' 5 mins ago and it clearly says Citysearch reviews. Its kinda annoying when people don't get thier facts right before posting.
Yelp has helped me find alot of interesting food places and saved me money avoiding certain ghetto and low-class nightlife locations..

legend221 said:
You're correct just used 'Where' 5 mins ago and it clearly says Citysearch reviews. Its kinda annoying when people don't get thier facts right before posting.
Yelp has helped me find alot of interesting food places and saved me money avoiding certain ghetto and low-class nightlife locations..
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chill dude
i haven't used where in a while, but i remembered it used to have yelp reviews, I didn't realize they changed it, thats unfortunate

mswiss said:
chill dude
i haven't used where in a while, but i remembered it used to have yelp reviews, I didn't realize they changed it, thats unfortunate
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Sorry dude, misinformation will and should be corrected as not to misinform other xda members.

legend221 said:
Sorry dude, misinformation will and should be corrected as not to misinform other xda members.
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Of course it should be corrected, but should be done in a courteous manner.

Yelp is a very good app, been treating me well and syncs addresses with Google Maps flawlessly.

looks like yelp for android might get better quicker than any of us think....or perhaps incorporated into google places?
google looking to buy yelp
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/17/google-acquire-buy-yelp/

a clean up is NEEDED

I read that Google is cleaning up the Android Market. I have yet to see this. !
Why don't they just update the market app to allow blocking of certain developers and their crap apps..
For example free4android and their 146 crap games, Susan xin and her 40 different versions of the same "funny pictures" app, Andy.Li who I'm pretty sure is also aka Susan xin, Puzzle and their 267 different apps of wallpaper puzzles...which the market is LOADED with along with memory games. Instead of a "flag as offensive", just let us block them. You can delete them but they'll just make another gmail name and reflood the market again.
For once i'd like to check the Just-In and not thumb scroll endlessly through crap apps from these spam like developers.

It is annoying, but I really don't care. I usually just search or look at top apps/games.
Let's not turn it into a locked down app-store.
They could let users apply a filter to their market app to filter out the offending devs I suppose. ie-go to one of offending devs pages in marketplace and click "add dev to block-filter" or something similar. I'd guess I might filter a few out if I had the option.
I thought this was about our forums at first and was excited!

yollasho said:
It is annoying, but I really don't care. I usually just search or look at top apps/games.
Let's not turn it into a locked down app-store.
They could let users apply a filter to their market app to filter out the offending devs I suppose. ie-go to one of offending devs pages in marketplace and click "add dev to block-filter" or something similar. I'd guess I might filter a few out if I had the option.
I thought this was about our forums at first and was excited!
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eh maybe it's just my personal annoyance. :\ i liked how Apple has their iphone market setup to where you can see the NEW apps without wading through so much junk.
if anyone can point me to a website or e-newsletter that informs you of NEW good quality legit apps and not these wallpaper, puzzles, memory game wasters. than PLEASE tell me

asiancuta said:
eh maybe it's just my personal annoyance. :\ i liked how Apple has their iphone market setup to where you can see the NEW apps without wading through so much junk.
if anyone can point me to a website or e-newsletter that informs you of NEW good quality legit apps and not these wallpaper, puzzles, memory game wasters. than PLEASE tell me
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Pocket now (youtube), app judgement (youtube), droid dog (net)
From a phone on an app

Off Topic.......ADS.

I love XDA but it is getting annoying anymire with ads popping up all over everyrume I click something. Very evasive ads at that. I end up in the google play store every three clicks. I practicly live on this site. I have lernt so much here that i am evwn building my own ROM now. And I know the site needs a source of income to survive. But there has to be a way to keep it a bit less annoying and "IN YOUR FACE".
Please dont take thiabthe wrong way guys. I just wantwd to express a concern that I am sure many other people face. I know an AD blocker will solve the problem but still wanted to voice my opinion.
I love this site and some of the brightest minds in Android.
Happy Holidays guys.

Use tapatalk

What ads?

Most senior members or members most likley have ad blockers by now. But when you have a rom that does not include it or are new and dont know how to do anything, there are actually ALOT of ADs. When I forget to enable AD block, I am bombarded by ADs that get right in the way and take you to either the play store or a shady looking site. Dont know why those. But l8ke i said, if your blocked then its not an issue at all.

Jesse72 said:
Use tapatalk
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I have tried uing tapa, but i think i just am not right with it because it seems less than. Im sure its user error on my part and if i knew all it could do it would be great. I see many many people here use it. When I tried it though it didnt seem right. Guess i should try again.

You can either use an Ad Blocker extension for your browser.
Or you can get a title, once you get a title you can select an ad-free template.

What ads?
https://adblockplus.org/