Sunday, August 12, 2012

Android Activity Wizard : please let me create a simple activity !

Today, I wanted to create a new activity in my next application...

Nothing really strange for now...

So I tried the new Activity wizard to create a very simple activity ( it's just to play a video, so I don't even want an action bar ) :

Then I choose not to use any navigation option :



And Taadaaa !!
It just failed :


Note that I've installed the latest support library version ( 9 ), and restarted Eclipse :

But no, it won't let me create a new activity :(

It's no big deal as I can still create it manually, but I was expecting more support from this wizard :)

Saturday, June 23, 2012

What's wrong with Search in Google Play

What's wrong with the search in Google Play ?

Yesterday, I was looking for something in my sliding tile puzzle called 'Nature Puzzle'.
So I opened Google Play website, and started with a search for 'Nature Puzzle'.

Here is the result :












We have :
* Photo Puzzle Game, NumberPuzzle,
* Nature Puzzles,
* Nature Puzzle,
* Natural Seasons,
* Zoo and Nature Puzzle 2 in 1
* kids Puzzle:Animal

and my game is not listed !

What I don't understand is that I gave the exact name, and I didn't find it !
I looked at the last app (kids Puzzle Animal ) more closely, and there is only 1 occurence of 'natural' in the description.
And the application called 'Nature Puzzle' ( so with the exact same name as mine ), it has the same rating, and less downloads.

Note that
* I'm not complaining here that my application does not have enough visibility : I only published it as a proof of concept of Html5 android applications
* I'm not asking the description of the search algorithms in the Google Play Store !

I'm just amazed that, from a customer point of view, giving the exact name of an application does not bring this application to the top !


Actually, if I specify that I want to search only in Android apps, then my game appears at the 7th rank :


















I even discovered another application named 'Nature Puzzle' ( it now sounds like a very common name ), that is even more badly ranked than mine !


Am I the only one to found it strange ?
Do you feel like there are some reasons, for the customer, not to put the application with the exact name first in the search results ?
Do you understand how the ranking is done ?

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Ghost Recon Future Soldier

It's been a long time since my last update on this blog.

Actually, my Android's developments are only hobby projects. My real job is working on console video games.
 And we've just finished Ghost Recon Future Soldier !
I was very busy finishing the game, so I couldn't really post any more.




But the game is now done, I am really proud of it, the whole team has done an amazing job, so I will now be able to return to more Android developments !

During this time, I could port my 'Word Prospector' game on the Blackberry Playbook, and I started a new project.
More on all this later :)
Now I just want to enjoy the Ghost Recon Future Soldier launch.