Sunday, January 1, 2012

Android Resolutions: Resolve to leave better comments in the Android Market

Android Central New Year's Resolution

The New Year holiday traditionally is a time when people resolve to do things better.  Many of us will resolve to lose a bit of weight, or stop a bad habit, or any number of things we can think of that would make life, or the quality of it, better.  Some things we resolve to do are big and important, others are a bit more simple, but they all work towards the same goal -- improving ourselves.  We all have our personal New Year's resolutions (guess who started smoking again and is going to put a stop to it), but here at Android Central we'd like to extend some more community-based ways we all can improve, and we're calling them Android Resolutions.  We'll start small:

Resolve to leave better comments in the Android Market

If you've ever made something for use by others, you know how important feedback can be -- and, more important, the right kind of feedback.  Android's open spirit and nature means there's more possibility for things to go wrong, so communication is important when you're talking with a hard working application developer.  Consider this:

Dis app sucks yo. zero stars

That's a real comment left in the Market, by a user whose name I won't mention for an app I'll also not mention.  The comment is 100 percent worthless, both to the person reading it and trying to decide if they should spend 99 pennies, and to the developer who would like the app to work well for everyone.  We have no idea why the app "sucks," and it may as well have not even been posted.  In contrast, look at this one from the same app:

Everything seems good until a text comes in, then the app crashes. Have to force close it and reopen to get back.  3 stars for the effort (Optimus V-Froyo)

Same app, and very likely the same issue "Mr. app sucks yo" is having.  But this time around, the developer knows where to look for the problem, and you and I know that if we have an Optimus V (which is an amazingly popular Android phone) or if we're running Froyo we might experience issues.  This is helpful in every way. 

So I'm suggesting we all resolve to leave clear and concise comments in the Market for apps we try and use.  We all benefit, and it's really not a lot of effort.  (If you really want to go the extra mile, take 60 seconds and e-mail the developer. They'll likely thank you for it.)

Remember -- developers and the applications they create are a huge part of any smartphone platform, and we're lucky to have a ton of them.  Let's all do our part to help make them better.



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/KQyffBxAfyE/story01.htm

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