(Warning: this really doesn't have much to do with the author's Appstore problems.)
This is more from a proficient user perspective than a developer's, but...
I absolutely loathe the Market. I'm pretty sure I have never had a positive experience with it.
The simplest thing is its packaging. The Amazon Appstore will run on anything - install the APK, and you're done. I've had a grand total of one app (Peggle) tell me that my device (CM7 Nook Color) was unsupported, and even then I could still manually install it from the My Apps list.
Compare that to the Market, which doesn't come in a nice little APK. Instead, if you're on an AOSP-based ROM, you have to install a separate gapps package through the freaking recovery menu. That is a huge pain in the ass. Then, there's the whole "unsupported app" crap. I don't care if you haven't tested your app specifically for my device, there's a fairly good chance it'll work perfectly fine. Having the Market restrict apps like that is quite irritating.
Then there's the installing. Somehow, even the simple act of installing an app doesn't work right. On multiple devices, running multiple ROMs (official and un), I have had the exact same problems: An app will, after pressing the install button, take forever to actually pop up in the notifications bar, and even then there's like a 20% chance the download will fail if you have more than one app download going at once. The worst thing the Appstore does when you're downloading more than one app is that the UI gets a tad laggy.
Also, Google's "unique" software license management. On both the iOS App Store and Amazon's, if I "purchase" a free app, it's mine forever. Period. Even if it goes to being a paid app. On the Market, if I purchase a free app and it goes paid, I basically get to keep the copy on my phone and that's all. If I go to another device or wipe my existing one, app goes bye-bye.
Google's awful management of the Market doesn't help, either. If you look outside the top fifty apps or so, it's all garbage- redundant soundboards, extremely poorly-coded games that wouldn't pass any sort of quality checks, that sort of thing. It's a little hard to look for good apps when there's so much complete crap.
> On the Market, if I purchase a free app and it goes paid, I basically get to keep the copy on my phone and that's all. If I go to another device or wipe my existing one, app goes bye-bye.
That's because they're technically different apps. Google doesn't let developers turn a previously free app into a paid one. The developer has to create a new package and obsolete the old one.
Yeah, Google's official market is the glitchiest thing I've seen in a while. I will note that I've had no problems with the concurrent downloads/installs failing since I bought a Galaxy S II (my previous Nexus One had that problem constantly), but aside from that, I have every problem you described and several more.
I have a Xoom as well as the SGS2, and I'd estimate that 70% of the time, the two devices disagree on what apps I've bought. If I buy one on the phone, it never shows up on the Xoom, and vice versa. The web interface is the only one that has a consistent picture of apps I've bought. However, it doesn't always work. On several occasions, I've gotten into situations where an app has an update available, but trying to update just fails silently (and immediately - you see the download indicator flash for maybe a tenth of a second and then it just vanishes). The only way to get past it is to use the web interface to send to a device, which will also fail, and then retry the update from the device. This doesn't always work, but if I repeat it enough times, eventually it will. Usually at least. I have had to, on a couple of occasions, resort to googling for an apk file that I can put in my dropbox account to manually install from the phone -- for apps I got from the Market already. I think I've only had to resort to a web search once. Usually, I can find the apk/odex files on the one device it install on and pull them from there. Isn't it great that I'm considering "adb pull" as a victory for installing an app that has a big "Install" button right next to it?
Some apps show up one day as available in my country (Iceland), and then 15 minutes later they aren't.
Sometimes I get notified that updates are available for built-in apps like Maps. Those often fail, and there's no way to get rid of the update notification.
In short the Market is a train wreck, and that's not even considering the poor state of discoverability and management.
Amazon on the other hand has at least solved the problem of producing software that functions to a minimum standard of fitness of purpose. Their organization doesn't seem much (if any) better than Google's, but at least I know what's going to happen when I click a button on their site. I'm confident that I'm not going to spend the next 20 minutes hunting for an apk file for the app I just bought because the store I bought it from went up in a puff of smoke for no apparent reason.
The sad part is that even with all this, I still prefer Android, and I've been a heavy user of both the iPhone and iPad. Just imagine how much nicer it would be if they gave a shit.
Mostly, my complaints about Android revolve around issues outside the devices and OS. The market is dreadful, but day-to-day life with the phone is nicer (better notifications, widgets, additional useful functionality, etc.)
iOS5 should close the gap on a lot of this, and it's certainly a more usable OS in a lot of ways. I'm probably committed at this point, but it'll be interesting to see one way or the other.
Comments
(Warning: this really doesn't have much to do with the author's Appstore problems.)
This is more from a proficient user perspective than a developer's, but...
I absolutely loathe the Market. I'm pretty sure I have never had a positive experience with it.
The simplest thing is its packaging. The Amazon Appstore will run on anything - install the APK, and you're done. I've had a grand total of one app (Peggle) tell me that my device (CM7 Nook Color) was unsupported, and even then I could still manually install it from the My Apps list.
Compare that to the Market, which doesn't come in a nice little APK. Instead, if you're on an AOSP-based ROM, you have to install a separate gapps package through the freaking recovery menu. That is a huge pain in the ass. Then, there's the whole "unsupported app" crap. I don't care if you haven't tested your app specifically for my device, there's a fairly good chance it'll work perfectly fine. Having the Market restrict apps like that is quite irritating.
Then there's the installing. Somehow, even the simple act of installing an app doesn't work right. On multiple devices, running multiple ROMs (official and un), I have had the exact same problems: An app will, after pressing the install button, take forever to actually pop up in the notifications bar, and even then there's like a 20% chance the download will fail if you have more than one app download going at once. The worst thing the Appstore does when you're downloading more than one app is that the UI gets a tad laggy.
Also, Google's "unique" software license management. On both the iOS App Store and Amazon's, if I "purchase" a free app, it's mine forever. Period. Even if it goes to being a paid app. On the Market, if I purchase a free app and it goes paid, I basically get to keep the copy on my phone and that's all. If I go to another device or wipe my existing one, app goes bye-bye.
Google's awful management of the Market doesn't help, either. If you look outside the top fifty apps or so, it's all garbage- redundant soundboards, extremely poorly-coded games that wouldn't pass any sort of quality checks, that sort of thing. It's a little hard to look for good apps when there's so much complete crap.
Apologies for the rant... it's a bit late.
> On the Market, if I purchase a free app and it goes paid, I basically get to keep the copy on my phone and that's all. If I go to another device or wipe my existing one, app goes bye-bye.
That's because they're technically different apps. Google doesn't let developers turn a previously free app into a paid one. The developer has to create a new package and obsolete the old one.
Yeah, Google's official market is the glitchiest thing I've seen in a while. I will note that I've had no problems with the concurrent downloads/installs failing since I bought a Galaxy S II (my previous Nexus One had that problem constantly), but aside from that, I have every problem you described and several more.
I have a Xoom as well as the SGS2, and I'd estimate that 70% of the time, the two devices disagree on what apps I've bought. If I buy one on the phone, it never shows up on the Xoom, and vice versa. The web interface is the only one that has a consistent picture of apps I've bought. However, it doesn't always work. On several occasions, I've gotten into situations where an app has an update available, but trying to update just fails silently (and immediately - you see the download indicator flash for maybe a tenth of a second and then it just vanishes). The only way to get past it is to use the web interface to send to a device, which will also fail, and then retry the update from the device. This doesn't always work, but if I repeat it enough times, eventually it will. Usually at least. I have had to, on a couple of occasions, resort to googling for an apk file that I can put in my dropbox account to manually install from the phone -- for apps I got from the Market already. I think I've only had to resort to a web search once. Usually, I can find the apk/odex files on the one device it install on and pull them from there. Isn't it great that I'm considering "adb pull" as a victory for installing an app that has a big "Install" button right next to it?
Some apps show up one day as available in my country (Iceland), and then 15 minutes later they aren't.
Sometimes I get notified that updates are available for built-in apps like Maps. Those often fail, and there's no way to get rid of the update notification.
In short the Market is a train wreck, and that's not even considering the poor state of discoverability and management.
Amazon on the other hand has at least solved the problem of producing software that functions to a minimum standard of fitness of purpose. Their organization doesn't seem much (if any) better than Google's, but at least I know what's going to happen when I click a button on their site. I'm confident that I'm not going to spend the next 20 minutes hunting for an apk file for the app I just bought because the store I bought it from went up in a puff of smoke for no apparent reason.
The sad part is that even with all this, I still prefer Android, and I've been a heavy user of both the iPhone and iPad. Just imagine how much nicer it would be if they gave a shit.
"The sad part is that even with all this, I still prefer Android"
Why is that?, not trolling, just interested
Mostly, my complaints about Android revolve around issues outside the devices and OS. The market is dreadful, but day-to-day life with the phone is nicer (better notifications, widgets, additional useful functionality, etc.)
iOS5 should close the gap on a lot of this, and it's certainly a more usable OS in a lot of ways. I'm probably committed at this point, but it'll be interesting to see one way or the other.