Improve user experience with incompatible Android applications?
asked 2014-11-22 12:19:03 +0300
I wonder if it's possible to improve the user experience when it comes to Android apps that won't run on the Jolla phone because they depend on Google Services not provided by Alien Dalvik.
In an ideal world, as a first step before the installation, the APK would be checked for such dependencies. The user could then be warned that the app might not run properly. A short, easily understandable notice would be given on why the execution of the program will fail. Installation would only continue if the user wants to try anyway. (I have no idea if the APK exposes such information in an easily accessible manner.)
The reason why I propose this:
It is my observation that a lot of users don't know why certain Android applications work while others don't. They have no knowledge of the reasons. To them, it's just chaos and a "broken promise" of Android compatibility. Issuing a warning before installation will at least give some clarity here and hopefully make things appear less chaotic and unpredictable: A user who knows that an app is known not to work and who is given a reason for it is less likely to become frustrated.
On a related topic, I would love an option to disable the "Google Play services [...] is not supported on your device" popup. Some applications display it while actually trying to display a Map for example, but some poorly coded apps display it for each visited page, whereas the app works fine without them.
So a "don't show this popup again" would be great!
Sthocs ( 2015-05-07 11:24:56 +0300 )edit