Android News
Update Crazy on the Android Market
December 12, 2009 | by Ed Clark
Android Apps, Uncategorized
Assuming that you pay attention to the notification bar on your Android phone, you’ve seen it. Apps on the Market are being updated constantly, and often the same app will be updated several times in a week. For folks like me with a rooted phone and lots of apps, this is becoming quite a burden. Since I have almost 150 applications on my G1, I regularly see notices like today’s “22 updates available.”
Why don’t I just uninstall a bunch of applications? Well first of all, I paid for them. I admit I have a problem with uninstalling things that I’ve paid for, no matter how rotten they are. Plus, I don’t think that the frustration is limited to folks with rooted phones and huge SD cards. I have a perfect test case in my wife, who has an unrooted phone and only a few things she has downloaded from the Market. The update process has turned her off to the point that she completely ignores update notifications. The only way she gets updates is when I happen to grab her phone and do it for her.
The update process itself is a bit clunky as it connects to the Market, and you can only have two active downloads going at any given time. Then, when the application finally moves from the “downloading” phase to the “installing” phase, the phone becomes unusable for a brief time. Adding to the annoyance is the fact that developer descriptions of what these updates are supposed to accomplish are extremely variable–from very clear to nonexistent.
Two main factors are causing these frequent updates. First and foremost is the release of the Droid, which forced developers to adapt their code that was working in 1.5 and 1.6 versions to incorporate Android 2.0 models. Second is that users are far more demanding than they were in the early days of Android, when a slapped together app with a “home-made” UI was fine. While all of this is a good thing, I am looking forward to a time when updates can be packaged together and downloaded in the background, much like an OS update for Windows or Mac.
It turns out that at least one such a project is in the works: Android-Omnipatcher on the Google code site hopes to be a “universal Android .apk patcher” that can “automatically download and apply patches/fixes for installed apps.” Let’s hope that someone makes it work, and soon. In the meantime I will mentally prepare myself for the next batch of updates.
UPDATE: Richard, the developer of Android-Omnipatcher, says that his application actually has a much narrower focus: “It is a tool for creating and applying user fixes to 3rd party closed source apps. I’ve started working on it cause of my “Google Maps Navigation outside USA fix” – I don’t want to distribute proprietary Google’s code, only fixes and it is what this tool is for.” My apologies to anyone that was misled or had their hopes up. Let me know if you hear of any other new or tools that promise to help fix the Market update madness!!
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It's especially annoying when the app has the same version number, almost as if developers are using a technique to push their apps back up to the top of the Just In list for the sake of exposure. It's a headache on the end user and it definitely is off putting. In this week alone, I've been notified about 5 of the 10 or so apps I have installed EVERY DAY. This is ridiculous even for just 10 apps, so I can't imagine what 150 would fair like. Heres to hoping Google is working on a way to remedy this for the future of the platofrm
Good point about this possibly being some kind of bogus marketing scheme for some apps. I would hope that anyone trying this would see it backfire with a lot of uninstalls from disgruntled users.
I'm an app developer and I try to be responsible with updates – I don't update often and only when I believe the update will be beneficial to users. However, it's obvious that updates increase sales because the app gets noticed by more potential users and I have no doubt developers use that to increase sales. My advice is to notice which apps get updated too often, write to the developer and if that doesn't help – write a review or give and appropriate rating on the market. However, this must be addressed by Google – the way the market pushes every update to the top is naive at best and it's easy to create a mechanism that will push an app to the top of the list only once a week or so, regardless of the high update frequency. This will prevent developers from gaming the system.
"…can “automatically download and apply patches/fixes for installed apps.” Let’s hope that someone makes it work, and soon. " let's not. i want to continue to have control over which of my apps are updated or 'fixed'. too many times i've updated an app only to have it worse off than it was. yes i backup my apps so i can always roll back to a working or preferred version, but i'm sure not everyone does. user control is a must in this environment.
David, I like your comment. I agree that the user must still have some fine controls over the updates, some way to say "this one, but not that one." Maybe a list with checkboxes? I am hoping that the eventual solution can bring the suggested updates in locally so that they can be installed or discarded locally instead of going through the Market every single time. Ideally, the updates that are agreed on by the user could then be installed as one bundle instead of a bunch of tiny repetitive ones. The other big issue is that the update process itself needs better controls–developers should clearly explain what the updates are for, or not be allowed to offer them. Also, the patching process could ideally filter through
(sorry about that) …the updates and give some better feedback to the user about what is being offered.
There is an open issue for this in the Android project, please go and click the star to show you want the feature as well: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id…
Great website – I am learning so much. Had been a Sidekick user since 2002 and now a Cliq user since November and have realized I should have jumped ship to the G1 and Android a year ago, but better late than never. So Ed, would you like to list your 150 apps? Just wondering as you may have some great apps that I would like to check out.
Mike, I probably will get around to posting that list, but maybe it would be more useful to compare mine with the rest of the Androinica staff. Or maybe simple categorized lists from each of us without comments would do the trick. Hmm…sounds like a good suggestion to me.
I know the frustration too – to get around this, I uncheck Notification for updates in the Market App under the Downloads button. Then, when, and only when I feel like I'm up to the task, I'll check it for updates and the downloads on my time.
Personally I am running 47 apps on my HTC Magic and I like being notified of updates so I can have the latest features in apps that I am using. I even use aTrackDog to manually check for updates. People would complain if their apps were not updated frequently… just read some of the comments in the Android Market for proof of that.
You have misunderstood Omnipatcher's purpose. It is a tool for creating and applying user fixes to 3rd party closed source apps. I've started working on it cause of my "Google Maps Navigation outside USA fix" – I don't want to distribute proprietary Google's code, only fixes and it is what this tool is for. And by "automatically download and apply patches/fixes for installed apps.” I meant repo of user fixes with simple "apply" button, not loosing control of a device
Ooops! I will update the article right away. May I humbly suggest that you add the qualifiers you wrote above to your app description on Google code?
The very first two sentences on my website: "An Android app that can automatically download and apply patches/fixes for installed apps. It makes possible to add features to closed source apps without distributing proprietary code." Soory, but it means exactly the same to me
I just wish there was a feature to ignore updates for specific apps, so it wouldn't keep notifying you for updates that you have explicitly chosen not to apply. The first thing I do before applying an update is read the comments, and if the majority of users are complaining about problems with that new version, I skip it.