> Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be.
I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do that (there are maybe 1,000 devices or so out there). However, you can also restrict based on phone feature set like screen size, hardware capability, etc.
I think we should hold both Google and the developers to a high standard when it comes to marketplace apps.
> Should we stop making these high end apps
Of course not. Developers should stop selling them to people who they know can't run them.
Unfortunately most of us aren't able to buy the million devices out there to test with. More annoyingly we usually only find out about a device not working when someone writes a 1 star review such as "dont work HTC <xyz> cm7".
I've had people email me and get nasty because my app didn't work on their Touchpad with ICS. Or even better when people write low reviews from Tegra 2 devices such as "Textures missing" but they are using a kernel which reduces allocated video RAM from 128mb to 64mb.
I love Android from a user point of view but I hate it as a developer.
I'm sorry to hear that any Touchpad + ICS users have been so frustrating for you. In general I've been very happy with the Cyanogenmod on Touchpad community, but with the huge number of TPs that got dumped into the market there are some people who really don't get that when software is labelled "Alpha" and has warning about most apps not working, it's not the fault of a 3rd party developer when something doesn't work. Weirdly enough the webOS side of the community seems to be a lot more understanding despite really high overlap between the sides. Maybe it's the unity through adversity thing? Either way, hopefully as CM stabilizes on the Touchpad the users will get less annoying for you.
Ah, I didn't know if apps could be restricted (as I mentioned). Maybe there should be a flag in the market that tells the developer "it looks like your app might not run without a 1Ghz processor". I would imagine smaller devs wouldn't have a wide range of test devices.
It'd be nice if the market could offer a free copy to the first user of each phone model and then asked him for simple feedback ("Does it run smoothly? [Yes/No]").
I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do that (there are maybe 1,000 devices or so out there). However, you can also restrict based on phone feature set like screen size, hardware capability, etc.
I think we should hold both Google and the developers to a high standard when it comes to marketplace apps.
> Should we stop making these high end apps
Of course not. Developers should stop selling them to people who they know can't run them.