ProjectJourneyman

Updating Android ad network SDKs

Posted on July 29, 2011 by ProjectJourneyman

It has to be done, but it’s sometimes a pain. Updating the SDK libraries for your ad networks. As I discussed earlier, sometimes things go awry and can take a little time. Usually, however, it’s not a big deal and can be resolved with a little tinkering (and maybe some web searching).

A big plus, however, is that there may be bug fixes and more importantly feature updates. I just integrated 3.0 version of the MobFox SDK, and was pleasantly surprised that they removed another permission, the WiFi state access.

I also updated MobClix to 3.1.1, but I don’t recall any significant changes in this round.

Updating Permissions

Removing permissions is a good thing. I’d prefer my apps to be as trim as possible, and users do too. Excess permissions can scare off users, particularly if they don’t know why your app is requesting it. So, I’m always glad to see ad vendors shed permissions that they don’t really need.

When installing the MobFox 3.0 SDK (which interestingly includes the 1.2 jar), I noted that the instructions don’t require as many permissions any more. The following were removed from their list of required permissions: Continue reading →

Testing your Android app

Posted on July 18, 2011 by ProjectJourneyman

Android App Passed Inspection It can be very tempting to release your Android app immediately after you finish it. You want it to be available for download on the Android Market as soon as possible, right?

On the other hand, you don’t want to get a lot of bad reviews because you left in a lot of bugs. It is much better to find and fix bugs before you release your app than to have your users find them for you.

How should you go about testing, then? There are several types of testing that you should do.

Testing your basic use cases

First, do some testing in the emulator. Fire up your favorite AVD (or create one if needed – see the Android developer site for detailed instructions). Verify that it indeed looks as you intended.

Your layouts should look correct in the emulator, including any ads you are showing (such as MobFox). If so, everything is working! It is important to test different resolutions and orientations to verify that it always looks as you expect. Test all activities that you have set up to show ads. Continue reading →

Amazon Appstore marketing promotion – AppStoreHQ

Posted on July 14, 2011 by ProjectJourneyman

Amazon Appstore for Android Another quick news item for anyone close to releasing an Android app. The Amazon Appstore has announced that they’re running a promotion with AppStoreHQ.

Update: AppStoreHQ seems to be defunct, and has disappeared.

They’ll select five apps out of all apps that get released on the Amazon Appstore before July 22nd, 2011. These apps will get showcased on the AppStoreHQ website, which should get a lot of visibility and traffic for those apps.

I find this interesting, as AppStoreHQ has been a market browser tied to the Android Market. I suspect that this operation might signal that they are switching over to use the Amazon Appstore instead. That’s likely good, as there are a number of browsers for the Android Market, but no third party browsers for Amazon.

You actually don’t have to do anything difficult to get into this promotion. You just need to release a new app. If you don’t have any apps up there yet, you can read my review of the Amazon Appstore here.

Android Market Update released

Posted on July 12, 2011 by ProjectJourneyman

Just a quick update – the Android Market released an update for phones on July 12th, which should start rolling out to phones running Android 2.2 or higher over the next few weeks.

This update reflects changes that have already been rolled out to the web version, as well as other changes in a completely redesigned market browser for phones.

It remains to be seen how this should affect Android developer strategies, but it would be good to be on the watch for new trends. The new Market app will incorporate new ways to discover apps, and I’m sure it will require new strategies to remain (or become) highly discoverable.

Read more at the Android Developers blog:

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-android-market-for-phones.html

Android market statistics from AppBrain

Posted on July 12, 2011 by ProjectJourneyman

Entirely separate from the Android market statistics that Google provides in the Developer Console, AppBrain has a statistics section of its own. Android developers can mine this source for ideas when fine tuning their revenue strategy.