1) Set a whole suit of AVD devices with all the possible screen-size/ resolution/OS version combinations 2) When developing, test on your main target devices and a few AVDs 3) When you are nearing completion, do a full test of your app on all of your AVDs - automatic testing can help take a lot of the work out of this - see Hello Testing http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/testing/helloandroid_test.html 4) It's initially difficult to get feedback, but hopefully these few pointers will help a) Put an email/support button in your info/about screen and make it obvious straight away - I usually use a ScrollView for my about content then have a strip at the bottom with two buttons - this way the buttons are always visible b) Implement an unhandled exception handler. When you get one, offer the user the option to email a report to you (you can then fill out all the details from the error) c) If your next version is bringing some much requested feature or something that will significantly improve the app. Delay the release a bit and offer it only as a beta through your site (let people in Market know). This way you generally get early adopters or people who are more technically proficient and therefore more likely to actually report errors.
As for getting hold of devices: I'm afraid I doubt carriers will offer any kind of plan to small/individual developers, simply because they don't have to and to them the Android market appears to be growing at a pretty good rate (even if a lot of them are tat, carriers can still tout 80,000+ apps or whatever the number is these days). What I'd REALLY like to see is what Nokia provides for their developer forum - remote device access http://www.forum.nokia.com/Devices/Remote_device_access/ Quite simply it's the only kind of solution that is going to work as the number of devices increases, especially if some of them mess with lower level APIs and code. User testing is all well and good, but most users won't test your app - they'll just use it. In order to test an app well, developers need to be able to test it themselves and be able to use automated unit tests. On Jul 23, 7:24 pm, "Maps.Huge.Info (Maps API Guru)" <cor...@gmail.com> wrote: > You can post your apk to a website and just send a link. That's how I > do it. The user must select "menu button-settings-applications-unknown > source" for it to install. Users on AT&T will be SOL though, AT&T has > disabled that feature from Android devices they sell. We all love > AT&T, this is another reason why. > > As far as beta testing, there are a couple of methods I've tried. > > My first idea was to advertise at the bottom of the help text that I'm > looking for beta testers. That worked well at first but the problem is > one of interest. I had over 200 people volunteer but at the last beta, > only a dozen actually downloaded the app and only three gave me their > feedback. I certainly can understand why: attrition. My second idea > was simpler and worked out a lot better. When I have a beta to test, I > advertise in the help that I have a beta ready and give a URL where > they can download it. This resulted in over 200 tests and a few dozen > responders with feedback. > > An official beta test community of regular users would be the ideal > situation. > > -John Coryat -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
