1 Star Rating with Unhelpful Comments

This is a bit (a lot) of a rant so you have been forewarned.

My rant is about people who leave 1 star ratings with unhelpful or untrue comments without attempting to contact the developer. I have noticed this on other peoples apps but have only recently started receiving them. I generally try to ignore them as the comments don't provide anything to work from and I have no way to contact the author for clarification. However a couple of days ago I received a comment from a chap named Paul that went past the stage of ignoring. Apparently Paul has commented on my am that it "Has to be the worst support for a application ever". The problem is Paul has never actually contacted me for support. He even went to the effort to purchase my donate version so he can make the same claims there as well!

Well Paul here are some facts for you, I spend more than an hour a day on average answering clients support emails for an application that is free. That's everyday Paul, every single day. It doesn't matter where I am, at work, dinning out, shopping, I will answer a support email as soon as I see the flashing icon on my phone. Sometimes there may be a lag if I've got a back log or am swamped but I get to each email as quickly as possible. To me they are of the highest priority because there is somebody out there being inconvenienced by something I created. Although you wouldn't know it Paul because you never contacted me.

I admit there are times where I cannot fix the problem on some clients phones. In which case I am continually email them back trying different solutions or asking more questions. Sometimes they get frustrated and stop emailing back which, while I wish they'd continued with support a little while longer, I completely understand if they choose to leave a low rating. What I don't like nor understand is for people to make unhelpful or snide comments with 1 star ratings who have never bothered to seek support.

I put the Virgin Usage Meter on the market for free because I want people to have access to the functionality it provides. It allows me to give to the community which makes me feel good about myself and my work. The problem is when people like Paul leave 1 star ratings with bullshit messages they start to remove that good feeling. If there is no good feeling then I have to ask myself why do I bother at all. Luckly there are many many more people who have left kind and encouraging comments or emails which make that question rather rhetorical. Though the fact I have asked myself that question at all is the most maddening part.

The point of all this is, we as developers pour hours into these apps to give you the functionality you need. All we ask in return is you to show us a bit of decency and let us help you if you're having trouble using our apps. It makes for a much happier ending!

Virgin Usage Meter Tops 10,000 Downloads

A little while ago I wrote an update saying that the Virgin Usage Meter had just broken the 1000 active users mark. Well now I'm ecstatic to say that it has just topped 10,000 total downloads, 10098 to be exact. This is a milestone I never imagined I'd reach let alone in the small time it has been on the market.

Now I know what you're saying, that's a very impressive number but it doesn't really indicate anything of substance. I understand, I mean what's the point of a million downloads if only 100 are actively using it? Well, with that in mind I proudly present the active user count...

75% of downloaders are active users which equates to 7574 active users.

Lets put that number in perspective, I hit 1000 active users in September 28th 2010, which is approximately 5 months ago. Since that time the active user base has grown around 650% in 5 months, that's 130% user base growth per month on average. Now that's some perspective.

Before I sign off I'd like to say the usual thank yous.

A big thank you to all the users, espeically those who stuck through the bugs. I'd also like to say a big thank you to Virgin Australia who have been more than understanding when it comes to my barrage of tweets.

Virgin Members Site Back Online

As most of you probably already know the Virgin Member's Site is back up and running. I would advise people to login to the members area and just make sure all your data is correct. There have been a few people who have missing call and data usage. If you find anything incorrect on your account it'd be great if you could give Virgin a call on their support line and report the problem. The quicker they know about these things the quicker they can fix them.

The other good news is that the app is in perfectly fine shape so I can keep on chugging away at the promised upgrades.

Virgin Members Site Down

As per the title, the Virgin members area is now down for maintenance. If all goes well it should be up on the 22nd around lunch time. Although I have some good news, I fired off a tweet to Virgin Support and they have informed me that it's mainly just a hardware upgrade so hopefully the Virgin Usage Meter shouldn't be effected when the servers come back online, which is great news as I can continue to concentrate on improvements rather than fixes.

Edit:

I have some good news and bad news, the bad news is that the techs over at Virgin are having trouble with the server upgrades and as of yet the servers are still down. I have been told they came online briefly for a short period of time, which luckily was long enough for Strafer333 to confirm over twitter that the Usage Meter still works after the upgrade. Hopefully the servers will come back online soon.

A Little Teaser

There hasn't been as many updates to the Virgin Usage Meter as I would have liked in the last few months. With a new job and a few other projects I've been pressed for time. Well no more, I'm wiping the agenda list so I can put some good hard hours into bring some much needed improvements to the Virgin Usage Meter.

So what is it you can expect in the next couple of months? Well here is a small list of the most important ones.

• New 2 x 1 customizable widget with 3 different views
• Auto updating that is no longer be tied to the widget
• Historical usage statistics
• Better prepaid support
• Multiple account support
• Rollover account support
• A few other bits a pieces

I can't promise you'll see all the above in the next release but they will appear throughout the next three or four updates.

Virgin System Upgrade

Virgin has notified users via it's members page that it will be doing a systems upgrade from the 19th of February 2011 to the 21st of February 2011. Some of you will recall that Virgin had scheduled the system upgrade for a little under a month ago but was delayed for unknown reasons. Obviously the Virgin Usage Meter won't work during this time. What is worse is that I don't know exactly what a "systems upgrade" for Virgin intails. If it is a website upgrade it's almost certain that my app will no longer work and I will need to release a fix. Depending on how much the webpage changes it could take a day to release a fix to a couple of weeks if they use delayed ajax calls.

I will be releasing an update for the app which will warn people of this and to avoid a market rating plummet I will be removing it from the market over the upgrade period. I hate to do this as it feels like I've left people in the lurch but the alternative is a 1 star rating that will be next to impossible to get back.

I appreciate your patience over this period and I want you all to know that I will be working hard to get a fix up as soon as I possibly can. I will amend and comment on this post when I have any further information on the upgrade itself or the progress on an app fix.

HTC Desire HD Review

I recently purchased a HTC Desire HD to replace the Nexus One which unfortunately was starting to get a little unreliable keeping a data connection. Why the Desire HD? Well the decision wasn't an easy one, for the week leading up to the purchase, my mind was constantly switching between the Galaxy S and Desire HD. Infact if Virgin had a Galaxy S in stock when I first inquired this may have been a review on the Galaxy S. Eventually however, the Desire HD with it's camera flash, slightly larger screen, and less problematic GPS eventually one me over.

Size

The first thing I noticed when I took the Desire HD out of the box was just how big this phone really is. I was a little concerned at first, it looked a little too big, and felt rather weighty. However, after a few minutes of playing around with it the weight didn't seem to be much of a problem and the phone fit surprisingly well in my hand. The phone also feels very solid thanks to an aluminium unibody case, which is in stark contrast to the plastic feel of the Galaxy S. While I'm on build quality one criticism I do have is the battery and sim compartments feel a bit fragile and could have been designed a bit better. I can see a lot of potential for them to break or deteriorate if constantly removed.

Screen

Lets be honest, the massive piece of glass on the front is the main calling card for the Desire HD and at 4.3inch it really is massive. Screen size is all well but unless the screen performs the extra size is rather worthless. So how does it fair against the competition? Well lets just be clear, it's more than adequate. The color representation is great, and the lower pixel density doesn't appear to subtract from the overall image quality at all. The only real issue I have, which is a rather pet peeve, is the light bleed from the SLCD in dark environments. The screen lights up the room substantially even when the screen image is black. Now that I've spent some time with both an AMOLED and SLCD screen I think the benefits outweigh the cons of the AMOLED technology, at least for my usage patterns.

General Performance

With 768MB of RAM there is no noticeable lag even with an uptime of a few days and 10+ apps running in the background. The UI is also very responsive with little to no lag swiping and scrolling. The app tray load is around average for most Android devices but in my opinion the scrolling seems to be smoother when compared to the Nexus One and Desire. All in all I couldn't be happier with the snappiness.

Call Quality

The phone clarity is also very good, it seems to handle in car calls a bit better than the Nexus One with very little to no fade out and higher clarity when traveling along the same routes. The clarity on the other end of the line is also very crisp and clear, I was pleasantly surprised to hear how much clearer voice was when listening to the Desire HD through my girlfriend's Milestone as apposed to the Nexus One.

Music and Video Payback

Music and video playback is equally surprising. Both stock music and video apps contain Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD sound enhancement and they really pack a punch. With even an average set of headphones I was surprised how much depth was added to the sound playback with good solid base and clear mids and treble. Another nice addition is the added DivX and XVid support straight out of the box, which is a good thing as the sound enhancements are only available to the Stock music and video players, which is quite disappointing. I would have thought it would make more sense to include them as a global equalizer rather than segregate them in individual apps.

Internet

The internet is where the larger screen really becomes a great asset, you wouldn't think a jump from 3.7inch to 4.3inch would add much, well I'm here to tell you when it comes to browsing that .6 of an inch makes a world of difference. The whole web experience is much less frustrating and I find myself using it more often than I did with the Nexus One.

Battery

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty happy with this phone. Solid performance, great screen real estate and a very enjoyable online experience. However, there is one thing I'm not happy about and that is battery life. In fact I'd go so far to say that it's rather abysmal. HTC recommend giving the battery 10 days to work itself in, and while I did notice an improvement through out the 10 days it wasn't exactly astounding. I honestly cannot see the reasoning behind putting the effort into creating such an amazing phone only to pair it up with a totally inadequate battery. I find myself having to charge it throughout the day in order to avoid running out of power by the end. Now to be honest I'm a pretty heavy user, I have auto sync on plus a few auto updating widgets and background processes so the average person may come out a bit better but don't expect miracles here.

Pros

+ Large crisp clear screen

+ Aluminum unibody design

+ DivX/xVid compatibility out of the box

+ SRS Wow HD and Dolby Mobile sound enhancement

+ Great performance

Cons

- Battery and simcard slots a little fragile

- Sound enhancements restricted to stock music and video apps

- Abysmal battery life

- Light bleed through