Nice app, and good to see some solid updates coming through. Here’s some feedback based on my first impressions with the app:
Marketing is good, nice app description and logo / promo graphics. Similarly the About box looked very nice. However, I would like to see more colour in the main interface. Starting up the app and seeing a blank white screen with “Add New Item” was just a little jarring, after the nice pics I’d been looking at on the Android Market (actually, Google Play). Apple does this really well with background textures.
The app FC’d on me when I added an item, turned the screen off & on again. Seems to have issues resuming the main list view after losing focus. Sent a bug report I’m using ICS on the Samsung Galaxy S II.
When first starting up the app, it’s not immediately clear how to use it. Sure, there’s a button to add a new item. But then I have to pick categories (what is “Bathroom” for?), and overall it’s just a bit confusing for me, who didn’t read the app description very thoroughly Maybe a quick “how to use this app” dialog, or even better an integrated tutorial (I think Taskos has something of the sort).
Hope some of that feedback’s useful! Bearing in mind, I’m picking on flaws deliberately, for the sake of constructive criticism
Thanks David. Some of the issues you mentioned are on my todo list. I might raise the priority on the empty screen issue, I was planning on doing that later but you are right some may uninstall without really giving it a try.
Strange error, that has top priority to look into. On the ics emulator it worked. Hope the error report helps tracking it down.
Overall im happy on the progress of the app. I use a development model that focuses on quick release and making the app better with each update. That way I can quickly switch priority on task’s that have to be done.
Pffff that error is a big pain.
Turns out from Honeycomb and up the managedquery function is the cause of this error.
Now I have to refactor the whole app to use cursorloaders instead. On the up side this will in result in an asynchronous data loading.
Asynchronous loading would be good - never know how slow a handset will be, with a largeish data set. Hope the refactoring doesn’t cause you too much trouble!
Got two of 5 activities done. The most difficult will be the main activity because it use
s a custom adapter.
Just wish I could get the downloads higher. 200 downloads on slideme and 56 on Google play.
I wonder how I can get more downloads.
The listing is ok.
The listing for my other app is very poor and im not getting any downloads on that app in google play. If you search for note apps it does not show in the first 10 pages, some totally unrelated apps get shown before mine.
I know the quality of my apps are pretty good.
Yes, this seems to be a perpetual problem with the Android Market / Google Play (I still can’t bring myself to completely discard the name “Android Market”!) Without a big advertising budget or cross-promotion campaign, it seems difficult to get noticed, or for your app to be surfaced in the search results.
Have you tried to get reviewed by a prominent blog, such as Android Police or AndroidSpin? Micro CPU Monitor was on Android Police the other day, and that gave it a nice spike in downloads.
Yeah im going to send it in for reviews after the next update. I do not want it reviewed while the ics bug is still there.
But its just strange that when I search for notes app I get results like games and other none related apps but not my note l!st app. Thats just a big failure in the results algoritme in the market.
I’ve found the same thing - especially for new apps, or weird spellings. Even now when I search for “Tap That Number” my app is not the first result.
For the first few months after I published the app, I wasn’t anywhere in the top 10 pages or so (ridiculous, considering I was searching for my exact app name!). Now I’m closer to #2 or #3, which is acceptable I guess.
I like the splash screen & fade in animation Might I suggest though, only show it the first time the app is launched? It can get a little annoying when you want to add an item to the list fairly quickly, and have to wait for the splash screen every time.
The explanatory message when the list is empty looks great though. And I don’t have trouble resuming the app anymore. So overall, great update!
The splash screen only shows when launching the app. But if you press back the app will close and the splash screen will show again. I Might put a date check to see if its launched that day/week, and maybe a settings option to hide the splash screen.
I do think that the splash screen adds to the overall experience of the app. Makes it a bit more complete. Normally I would avoid splash screens if there is no loading in the background. But the app loads so fast that you would not be able to read it in the time the data is loading.
Yes, I can see where you’re coming from. The splash screen does add to the visual polish of the app. Even just adding that option to disable it might be enough. That way users who are inconvenienced by the loading time can change that option to suit them.
Personally I use the back button to exit an app like this most of the time. I’ll only use the home button if I deliberately want to save the state (for example, am entering unsaved data).
Yeah. Btw thanks for all the featback it really helps me with the development.
Although this app is not a money maker, it’s a great to test out ideas that I can reuse in future apps.
New version of Wish l!st is released. (v1.5)
An action bar is added to the application to make it more compatible with devices without a physical menu button.
Here’s the complete change log:
Added an action bar to the application, this will resolve issues with users that do not have a physical menu button on their device.
Small layout change to the categories list screen.
Fixed: Application would crash when an Unsupported ISO 3166 was used in the phone settings.
Cool app. I really like your icon and your promo pics. Nice, clean interface and good use of the action bar. It would be cool if you could add a pic of your item!