Built For BlackBerry

[TheMarco]

Maybe we can do our own peer-reviewing among each other. Could be nice maybe!

[peter9477]

I was just realizing that Google's store is the wild west... no police and anything goes, and there's always someone waiting to shoot you in the back. That's how the west was won. ;-)

BlackBerry World is more the Canadian version, appropriately. We always had a bit more law and order up here what with the RCMP and all. Please, sorry, and may I help you across the street ma'am?

Personally, I'll take the Canadian way. In fact, it's what I signed up for. One big reason I'm involved is because this wasn't going to be just another clone of the other platforms and stores.

In any case, call it an experiment, if you like, but you'll just have to let it run its course for a while. Time will tell whether it was a failure or a success. I plan to do my part to make sure it's a success.

[BBSJdev]

TheMarco,

Great idea let's start with mine if everyone could download it from here,

stokLocker

and let me have there feedback it would be much appreciated.

[Innovatology]

Gosh, just worked through the 15 pages of this thread...

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peter9477 wrote:

So I'm sticking with BlackBerry, but I've had it up to here with these deadlines and other carrots which, at least for me, are amounting to nothing so far but a source of stress and a wasted direction for my efforts.

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I couldn't agree more, Peter. We have decided to withdraw the BB10 version of Files & Folders from BB World untill the dust settles, stress levels are reduced and numerous issues are resolved.

As for the B4BB program, Files & Folders was rejected too, with only a "Please comply with BB10 UI" reason. That's it. Not a word more. For an app that has taken the better part of a year to research, re-invent, re-design and re-engineer, it is simply insulting.

Now, Files & Folders is quite a big app. Dozens of screens, menus, prompts, UI elements, many of which are dynamically constructed. Trying to second-guess what  reviewer Yossy was looking at when he/she decided to hit "reject" is futile. But I'll try to anyway.

Most of the Files & Folders UI complies with the BB10 UI guidelines. Some of it does not, and there are very good reasons for that. We conducted usability testing of various UI patterns with Real Users, and found out that some of the BB10 UI conventions are - at least for our purposes - flawed. We made conscious decisions to adhere to the guidelines where they make sense in our app, and to deviate from them where other solutions proved more understandable, user-friendly, productive, or reliable. And that is IMHO exactly how guidelines should be applied.

Usability testing has shown that other file managers who do attempt to follow the guidelines to the letter simply do not work as well from a UX perspective.

Now, perhaps reviewer Yossy was looking at the better positioning and operation of our context menu for right-handed users. Perhaps he/she spotted that we've simplified tree navigation by having only a Back button and not an Up button. Perhaps he/she doesn't like our peek-back and peek-into feature. Perhaps he/she disagrees with our iconography, terminology, choice of colours.... I have no idea, and untill I hear from BB what the problem is I'm not going to undertake any action.

For now we'll wait until BB makes up its mind about this program. For an app that is and always has been specifically built for BB and with the PlayBook version even awarded Best New BlackBerry App by CrackBerry, it shouldn't be impossible for Files & Folders to obtain that once-covetted but now irrelevant B4BB badge. As for the $10K program, I couldn't care less. A relevant quality app will earn that anyway.

Hopefully we'll be able to reintroduce Files & Folders to BB10 once bugs in BB10, the AIR runtime and BB World are ironed out. Sure, there are some bugs in our app too, and they will be fixed, but at present, the whole experience doesn't meet my quality standards and disappoints our loyal users. I refuse to destroy our good reputation by selling a sub-par solution.

[TheMarco]

BBSJdev I'm gonna try it later this afternoon!

[jtegen]

Peter has been saying this for a long time. A decent app should make 10K/year regardless of the incentives BB tries to put in front of us. It is best to make a plan and stay the course and let many of these mini-incentives run their course. If you have time to submit and it is not a big deal to do, certainly apply, but dont let it side track from getting improved and new apps out.

[BBSJdev]

TheMarco,

All jokes aside I'd appreciate it if you would and I'm happy to reciprocate I don't need a calculator but I'm sure my son would love playing with Screamager.

And in a lesson to those who may regret getting what they wish for you could help me balance out my first review which was a one star from a guy who I believe has probably just forgotten his password and apparently can't contact me even though I am on Twitter (@StokApps), FaceBook, have a website that has these on plus email plus a support form, he's used none of these.

Sad really that I can't contact him as I would have loved to talk to the first person who bought the app.

The non-contact issue may I believe be a bug in App World delaying adding the 'contact developer' menu item to the menu. But hard to prove without buying lots of apps.

I have a 5 star review as well but the system has marked it denied (can't spot any dodgy words though so no idea why).

Happy to refund you if it really doesn't open as he says. :-)

[jetstreamblue]

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BBSJdev wrote:

And in a lesson to those who may regret getting what they wish for you could help me balance out my first review which was a one star from a guy who I believe has probably just forgotten his password and apparently can't contact me even though I am on Twitter (@StokApps), FaceBook, have a website that has these on plus email plus a support form, he's used none of these.

Sad really that I can't contact him as I would have loved to talk to the first person who bought the app.

The non-contact issue may I believe be a bug in App World delaying adding the 'contact developer' menu item to the menu. But hard to prove without buying lots of apps.

I have a 5 star review as well but the system has marked it denied (can't spot any dodgy words though so no idea why).

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Don't let the occasional (irrational) bad review get to you.  I had one user write to me on a Sunday morning.  I responded to his issue first thing Monday morning, only to find that Sunday night he had already wrote a 1-star review citing "zero support from dev".

As for the denied 5-star, sometimes the system flags reviews for unknown reasons.  Just request approve in the portal and it'll show up.

On another note, I've also noticed more than an expected number of "app will not open" (way more than I ever had on PlayBook) for BB10.  All resolved by reinstalling the app.  Not enough data points to be sure, but seems more unsuccessfully completed installs/upgrades on BB10.

[TheMarco]

You can approve/deny reviews yourself in the ISV Portal. I do it all the time. For example, I happily deny nonsense 1-star reviews making false claims about the app.

[BBSJdev]

This is something I prefer about Android you at least get reports if your app has problems.

I thought about putting something similer in stokLocker but decided against it as I didn't want any data traffic going out of the app making any paranoid people think I'm possibly stealing their information.

Never having had a low star rating before, my other apps were free, I've only just realised the user can't change his rating or review later on, not good.