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Amazon Appstore Complaint

L

lexluthor

Android Expert
I wanted to call attention to a complaint I have about the Amazon Appstore and/or application developers.

I'm starting to find more and more apps that are being updated in the Google Market, but are not updated in the Amazon Appstore.

Pocket Casts - Developer completely removed app from Amazon. I think they offered a Google Market license for people who paid for it on Amazon, but left people who "purchased" it free from Amazon out in the cold.

Jenga - 5 month old version in Amazon, recent release in Google.

Flight Control - 9 month old version in Amazon, recent release in Google.

IM+ Pro - Took a month for recent major update to show up in Amazon.

These were all apps that were free app of the day apps on Amazon. Still, there are lots of people who paid money for each of them, I'm sure.

So, who is at fault here? Are developers treating Amazon Appstore customer's like second class citizens since many got the app for free? Are they holding back app updates on purpose? Is the Amazon update process really that horrible that it could take 6-9 months to push updates into the appstore?

I find this situation unacceptable and someone needs to take control and correct this. It's not fair at all.

Yes, I got the apps free, so I shouldn't complain, right? But, when I "purchased" the apps, I was told that I'm getting it free because of a 1 day promotion, not that I get a limited use app with no ability to update. Plus, what about the people who did pay full price?

I shot emails off to the Jenga and Flight Control developers. I'll be very interested in seeing if I get a response from either.

Anyone found other apps that are in the same situation?
 
I'm not sure why you wouldn't be getting updates from these apps. I have a few apps on my phone I got for free as Amazon's free app of the day. I'm getting updates. I don't have any of the apps you listed though. However, I've never compared the version I have to what's available on Market.
 
I'm getting updates for plenty of my Amazon apps. These are just ones that I've found to have ceased updating their apps in the Amazon Appstore (not really counting IM+ Pro in that list).

How can a developer justify to release updates to one set of customers and not the other? That just seems very unfair to me. If they put it up for sale in the Amazon Appstore, they should have to continue release all updates to it as well.

Or, perhaps it's Amazon that is taking a ridiculous amount of time to publish updates.

I'm leaning more to the developers being the issue though. It couldn't possibly take Amazon 6-9 months to turn around an update. Even in the case of IM+ Pro, a month to publish an update is unreasonable (though the IM+ Pro developer never really said if he gave Amazon the update the same time he gave it to Google).
 
I have heard developers complain that Amazon's approval process is very slow compared to the Android Market.
 
lexluthor said:
So, who is at fault here? Are developers treating Amazon Appstore customer's like second class citizens since many got the app for free? Are they holding back app updates on purpose? Is the Amazon update process really that horrible that it could take 6-9 months to push updates into the appstore?
Click to expand...

Amazon.

1) They're review/approval process sucks. They'll miss completely obvious bugs (for example the app not working at all due to the wrapper that Amazon adds to every app). But they'll complain about non-existant issues (Amazon: Your app doesn't work on Android 2.1. Steps to reproduce... Me: It works on 2.1. You are wrong. Amazon: Oops just kidding.

Amazon: Your app links to the Google Market. Me: No it doesn't. Them: We'll escalate you to someone else. Escalated: So Sorry! You're right!).

[Based on real life events, but the conversations were unfortunately much longer].

Also because of the no-market-links thing, they pretty much require you build a special amazon-only version which takes additional resources

2) It's buggy. Sometimes it lets you upload, sometimes it gives cryptic error messages. Sometimes it breaks the update for all your users.
3) It's time consuming. Like 90% of a developers update-related time is spend on Amazon, versus the Market. But the Market has > 90% of the users versus Amazon.
 
Here's the response from the flight control developer. Doesn't quite make sense to me though.

---
[FONT=&quot]Thank you for contacting Namco Bandai Games America Inc. Customer Support. Generally, our Android updates are for bug fixes. The last few updates for the Android Market version were to resolve issues with the game. The version in the Amazon Appstore is a different version of the game than the one in the Android Market. We haven’t received any reports of issues with the Amazon Appstore version of this game. Unless there are reported issues, there probably won’t be an update. We hope you find this information useful. Please feel free to contact us again should you require further assistance.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Regards,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Namco Bandai Games America Inc. Customer Support[/FONT]
 
Yes, I can almost understand slow as in the IM+ Pro update, which was about a month late. That was a major version update. Maybe Amazon has a process that takes longer for major versions.

But, for Jenga and Flight Control, those have to be developer issues. I posted the Flight Control response, which doesn't make sense. I have every expectation that if I pay for a program in the Amazon appstore, I get the same version that's in the Google market, not some lite/watered down/not frequently updated version.

I'm sure if you all looked at your Amazon apps and compared versions, we'd find many more that haven't been keeping up with the updates.
 
lexluthor said:
Yes, I can almost understand slow as in the IM+ Pro update, which was about a month late. That was a major version update. Maybe Amazon has a process that takes longer for major versions.

But, for Jenga and Flight Control, those have to be developer issues. I posted the Flight Control response, which doesn't make sense. I have every expectation that if I pay for a program in the Amazon appstore, I get the same version that's in the Google market, not some lite/watered down/not frequently updated version.

I'm sure if you all looked at your Amazon apps and compared versions, we'd find many more that haven't been keeping up with the updates.
Click to expand...


Just a few posts above your post there was some info that Amazon requires almost a new build of the app due to their wrapper etc. This may mean that the Flight Control version had some code improvements made before it was recompiled for Amazon. They may have simply taken updates and bug fixes that they had in flight for the market and applied them before creating the Amazon one - or the bugs reported may be hard to reproduce and without reports from the Amazon users - they may not feel they are worth repairing.
 
Flight Control dev replied again. I guess I can accept this.

Anyone find any other Amazon apps not being updated?

---
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot]The version submitted to Amazon was a later version of the game that did not contain some of the issues that the Google version did. The updates that we’ve done to the Google version were only to fix issues with the game. There was no additional game content added in the updates. The gameplay in both versions should be identical. You can see exactly what was done in an update by looking in the “What’s New” tab in the Android Market listing for this game. The last updates only had the following changes.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]v.3.4[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Addressed sound issue when locking a device[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]3. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Modified the DRM to be more user friendly[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]4. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Corrected minor graphic issues on higher resolution devices[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]5. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]v.4.0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]6. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Bug fixes[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As you can see, no actual gameplay changes were made. The only changes that were made in the updates were to fix issues. You are not missing out on anything by not having an update to the version of the game you have. We hope you find this information useful.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Regards,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Namco Bandai Games America Inc. Customer Support[/FONT]
 
I have found this issue frustrating as well. I used Titanium to "attach to Market" several of my Amazon apps. While I can't update them thru the market, I can see when they are due for updates. I've had Convertr, Gem Miner & Gentle Alarm sitting in my market update column for months. Many others are updated on the market weeks before they are updated on Amazon. :confused:
 
I have stopped using Amazon Appstore due to the old (sometimes extremely so) versions of some apps. Additionally, for some apps that I had purchased from Amazon, the Android Market would offer me an update, which sometimes would fail.

Given there have been several apps that I wanted that were not in the Amazon Appstore at all when I looked, I have found it's best for my peace of mind to not run the Amazon Appstore.

I tried to point out the version skew to them for a particular app, but I got the standard helpdesk answer (totally useless). On the plus side, they did give me a $10 credit for my trouble, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I really wanted them to be a viable competitor to the Android Market.

It's not like I need to save ~$2 every day on some goofy game I'll never run anyway.
 
I am a developer and release my apps for both. Yes Amazon is a bit more labor intensive, but not enough that it is a problem. I spend less than 10 minutes posting updates to both markets.

That said, the reason some applications are not continuing to be updated I believe is because of the revenue model. While it is exactly what developers agreed to they end up not liking it for whatever reason. I have not had one of my apps chosen as an app of the day (hope I do though), but my understanding based on the contract is that I would only get 30% of the price I listed my app at rather than the normal 70% if it sells at the price I listed at. From what I read in my contract I have no control over what price Amazon lists my app at, nor do I have any control over it being chosen for the free app of the day.
 
And the last info I have is to list in Amazon there is a annual renewable fee we need to pay correct? Google Android Market only charge us a one-time off fee instead.
 
SkipFire said:
I am a developer and release my apps for both. Yes Amazon is a bit more labor intensive, but not enough that it is a problem. I spend less than 10 minutes posting updates to both markets.

That said, the reason some applications are not continuing to be updated I believe is because of the revenue model. While it is exactly what developers agreed to they end up not liking it for whatever reason. I have not had one of my apps chosen as an app of the day (hope I do though), but my understanding based on the contract is that I would only get 30% of the price I listed my app at rather than the normal 70% if it sells at the price I listed at. From what I read in my contract I have no control over what price Amazon lists my app at, nor do I have any control over it being chosen for the free app of the day.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. This could be an interesting discussion.

Actually, from what I've seen, if they do choose you as app of the day, before they do so, you have to agree to take no compensation for that day.

I thought it was even more work to publish to the Amazon market, but I could be wrong.

Think of it from a consumer standpoint. It doesn't seem very fair to me that if I buy the app from Amazon, I might never get it updated or updated less frequently then if I buy it from Google. Even if I "buy" the app for free, I'm not sure how that matters. When a dev decides to no longer update Amazon, they are standing both people who did pay and people who got it on the free day.

To me, it almost sounds like it's more Amazon's fault then the developer's fault, but, either way, I'm not sure it's fair to the consumer.
 
I have some apps that I've bought from the Market, only to find them come up free on the Amazon store. for a while, i would often decide to then "buy" it free from Amazon because in case having it there would be useful in the future for some reason (not sure why I thought this, but I did.). which meant that, as soon as an update came up on the Market, the app would be in my Market update list, but wouldn't update since the one I have installed was tied to Amazon.

As a result, I've noticed that nearly every app I have from Amazon gets updates after the Market version does. still, I've never noticed it taking longer than a few days, like 3 or 4. then again, delays could easily be much worse than that with some other apps and I never noticed due to not having bought them through the Market, hence no update notification there to make me realize it.

on a related note, does anyone know a way to force the amazon store to not put "you have X new apps available" spam in my notification bar? it's very annoying and it's obvious they won't update the app to let us disable it because they want you to enter their store as often as possible to get you to buy more stuff (hence my calling it spam). I figured maybe since i'm rooted, there may be a way to disable that particular app's ability to put notifications or something.
 
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