Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Thursday 14 August 2008, 12:56 PM
Android devs less than gruntled
Yet more discouraging news on the Android front. Having hacked off its developer community by releasing updated SDKs to just a small group of chosen devs, Google has now given the brush-off to a petition that called for more to be given to the wider community.
A developer called plusminus/Nicolas organised the petition on the anddev.org website:
I'm starting this petition, to express my personal frustration about the release cycles and the information policy of the Android SDK. Before m5 we were waiting about 2 months, now we are waiting almost 4 months! Partially the SDK is buggy (i.e.: the MediaPlayer) and features like built-in Geocoding are not working.
In order not to lose many highly encouraged developers, I think its time to release some news about the development process of the SDK. Maybe let us know why we have to live with these long release-cycles.
Google's response? Somewhat uninformative:
Nicolas,
We appreciate the enthusiasm of our developers and we're excited that you're so passionate about the Android platform. Thanks for taking the time to send this.
Take care,
David
If that's how Google treats its developer community - and bearing in mind how wary many operators are about Google - Android's future success looks tentative at best.
A developer called plusminus/Nicolas organised the petition on the anddev.org website:
I'm starting this petition, to express my personal frustration about the release cycles and the information policy of the Android SDK. Before m5 we were waiting about 2 months, now we are waiting almost 4 months! Partially the SDK is buggy (i.e.: the MediaPlayer) and features like built-in Geocoding are not working.
In order not to lose many highly encouraged developers, I think its time to release some news about the development process of the SDK. Maybe let us know why we have to live with these long release-cycles.
Google's response? Somewhat uninformative:
Nicolas,
We appreciate the enthusiasm of our developers and we're excited that you're so passionate about the Android platform. Thanks for taking the time to send this.
Take care,
David
If that's how Google treats its developer community - and bearing in mind how wary many operators are about Google - Android's future success looks tentative at best.
PreviousComments on this post
Only by adding the text "This is an automated email - please don't reply" could google have further indicated how much they really couldn't care less.
Rather poor show on Googles part, hopefully there maybe some developers left when the first phone using Android surfaces.
