Immediately after the release of the Android client, I got a lot of negative feedback from users: about the app itself, about the methods I choose to use, about the limitation, the bugs, the UI, but I also got some positive feedback and some compliments.
I want to quickly explain why I released a not-so-perfect app:
The whole AppFeed project (Website, Chrome extension, Android app) are being managed, developed, tested, maintained and supported by me, a single person. I have a real full-time job that pays living expenses, but during my free time and weekends, I like to stay updated about development, tech and Android, so I created the AppFeed project.
Having so little free time to do development, I had to choose between launching a complete and perfectly tested and working android app (or website), that will require me around 5-6 months of work (in weekends, all for free), or released the app as beta, with bugs, and add features when I have time. Knowing my time limits, I went with the second option.
Sorry for those who expect everything from a single person, and for free, that’s not how I work, AppFeed started as a personal project and for my passion for the Android world, but ended up open to everyone.
Thanks for your understanding, and hope that you enjoy it…
As I have mentioned recently, I have been working on an Android client for the AppFeed.net, and today I am glad to announce that you can download it from the Play Store.
This is my first Android application, I am still learning on how to develop Android apps, so it has still many bugs and issues, can be enhanced in many ways, but all of that need time and resources. It is still Work-In-Progress, but I wanted to give you early access to a working release, so you can give me feedback on what you want more in the Android App.
Please, for now don’t leave negative feedback on the Store listing, but contact me directly with the issues you have.
This is a first release of the App, currently it allows you to view your track list, add and remove apps to the track list, nothing more. It doesn’t allow you to signup from the app (You must register on the website), you don’t get notifications, the list doesn’t show what apps were updated, just a plain listing of all the apps. Future versions will have more functionality.
Thanks in advance, and hope that you enjoy it, and report all your ideas and thoughts about it.
Update [19 Jan 2013]:
After the initial release, the app had a couple of updates, now it allowes users to sign in using their normal Google/Twitter/Facebook account (in addition to QR Code), and also to create an account directly on the device (The registration form is not yet optimized for small screens, but registration is doable).
It also had some fixes, and improvements, more is on its way on this app.
Installation process
To use this app, you must first enable the Mobile Access on on the AppFeed website. This is done by going to the Settings menu and checking the “Enable mobile access” (Check screenshot on the right).
After enabling the Mobile access on the website, you have to link the Android app to the website (via QrCode): Start the app on your device and go to the Settings menu (opened by default on first usage), select “Get QrCode”, and finally scan the QrCode on the Settings page on the website.
Usage
Add Apps to your list: from the Google Play store, open the app you want to track, then select the “Share” menu, and select “Track with AppFeed”.
Remove apps from your list: in the main screen, click on app name, and select the Unfollow option
I have just found about the issue that AppFeed reported all apps as updated, with the app name and icon empty.
The issue has just been fixed, but the feeds will still report updates for apps that were not really updated. I am so sorry about this inconvenience, but this was due to an unexpected change on the Google Play website.
The issue was caused by an update on Google Play website, that changed the HTML structures of where the app name and icon were saved, and this prevented AppFeed from correctly extracting the name and icon of the app from the HTML code of the Google Play website, and the result was empty data that triggered the notification because of the change.
Precautions has been taken not to allow this to happen again.
AppFeed launched in early May 2012, and since then it has been serving 800 users, tracking around 2500 Android Apps. Daily feed requests are increasing, currently they are about 7000+ feed page requests/day, which give the total of more than 680,000 page hits since launch, and still counting. Users are visiting from more than 115 countries all over the globe.
The rate in which App data is polled from the Play store is limited to around 350 / hour (to save server load and bandwidth), which means that each app is refresh once every 7 hours. The initial design was made to have updates polled at a rate of once or twice a day, I am already doing more than that, which is better for the users.
As it is already mentioned in the FAQ, AppFeed is not intended to be used as an App discovery service, this is because the Play Market already got more than 580,000 apps, importing and tracking updates for all those apps will need a lot of time and bandwidth.
In the last few days I made some small changes, which are:
App name appears in the Title of the pages, to help users in consulting the History of their browser;
The feeds now contain the old version number and old price in the description;
App change log is visible without needing to have to sign-in;
Added a page to browse all apps currently on sale (for the holidays);
Multi-language interface (early stages, translators needed to make it better).
I already have some plans for some new cool features, fixes and user suggested modifications, but my real job is consuming most of my time, so they will be implemented over a long period of time.
Some of the features currently on my list are:
Multi language user interface: it is already live but in early stages of development, not everything is translated, still work in progress. To complete it I need translators for other languages, those who feel that they can do the job, please contact me;
Selective notifications for apps: the ability to select on a per-app basis of what changes to get notification for, such as price increase/decrease or app version update;
Persistent sign-in: already received messages from a few users asking for the ability to have persistent login, which is not possible at the moment, need some work on the OAuth login libraries I use;
Android app for AppFeed.
All this is currently offered for free, and supported by few donations from very little percentage of the users, barely covering the hosting and bandwidth costs, and the time needed to develop all the planed features.
I have the ability to insert Advertisements into the feeds that users get, but being someone who hates web ads, I am trying not to rely on this alternative to monetizing AppFeed. My other alternative will be subscriptions: when the service gets more stable and out of beta, I can make a monthly/yearly subscription for the service. Still looking on what is best for me and the users.
That’s all what is happening and will be happening over here at AppFeed.net, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, full with Joy & Happiness, and many Android Apps.
I am glad to announce that I have just released a new feature to AppFeed.net: “Export to XML”.
With this new feature users are able to export the list of their whole tracking list to an XML file for backup (or Data liberation, Takeout). This XML file is also compatible with the android app Zemna AppList Backup. I choose to export to this XML format because I use this app since some time and it is just great to backup and restore the app list. Later I will be adding other export formats (CSV, text, and other XML formats if suggested by the users).
This is just the first step for another feature that is on the long-term ToDo list: adding a bulk import of apps from an XML file (or another kind of lists).
As always, comments, remarks and bug reports are welcome on my contact form.
I am glad to announce that I have just released a Google Chrome extension that allows adding apps to the AppFeed.net track list from within the Google Play Store.
This is still an early version of the extension, which adds a new tab to the Google Play Store app tabs (check screenshot on the right).
Currently this extension lacks the ability to execute the sign-in to AppFeed.net, to use it you have to be already signed in before trying to add apps to the track list.
The extension has a couple of settings that can be set from the “Manage Extensions” of Google Chrome.
I have just found about the issue that AppFeed reported all apps as updated, with the app name and icon empty.
The issue has just been fixed, but the feeds will still report updates for apps that were not really updated. I am so sorry about this inconvenience, but this was due to an unexpected change on the Google Play website.
The issue was caused by an update on Google Play website, that changed the HTML structures of where the app name and icon were saved, and this prevented AppFeed from correctly extracting the name and icon of the app from the HTML code of the Google Play website, and the result was empty data that triggered the notification because of the change.
Precautions has been taken not to allow this to happen again.
I have just published some minor updates to AppFeed.net:
Sign-in page now is more clear, with some information on the progress of the sign-in providers. My testing for this new method was always successful, but if anybody starts getting issues, please contact me
I added more categories and answers to the Frequently Asked Questions page, if you still need more answers, contact me and I’ll try to answer all your questions.
I have just published some updates to AppFeed.net, which includes:
Updated Bootstrap front-end framework to latest version (2.1.0), which changes the navigation bar color to white (instead of black)
Some fixes for the What’s New section, and strange characters in the what’s new information
Some clarification about the donation process (Donations are processed manually, allow 24 hours to upgrade account status)
Profile page now includes the used sign-in provider with a link to the profile page, and a gauge for app usage.
Note about app usage, limits and donations:
As it is already mentioned in the FAQ, the free account gives the user the possibility to track up to 25 app. To increase this limit users are asked to make a donation (link in profile page), which will give users a greater number of apps (depends on the donation). I did this because this website needs hosting and bandwidth, which are not free, so instead of putting ads (on the website or the feed), I prefer to ask for a donation.
I received many messages from users who wanted to be able the see the “What’s New” information in the feed updates, so I am glad to announce that I have just added this functionality.
From now on the AppFeed website and the RSS/Atom feeds you will get the “What’s New” information for the updated apps.
Please report any issues using this new feature, I had little time to test it, but it should be working just fine.
