Articles‎ > ‎

GPS Essentials 1.4 is out

posted Jan 26, 2011, 1:04 AM by Michael Schollmeyer   [ updated Jan 26, 2011, 1:45 AM ]
I just rolled out version 1.4, with some minor tweaks we are currently on 1.4.5. The biggest remaining issue for the release is that this version doesn't seem to install on the Motorola Milestone.

Where is the long jump in the version numbers (from 1.0 to 1.4) coming from? You don't see many new things in the user interface. The major improvements of this new version are under the hood. This was necessary to integrate new features in the future. 
 
I also receive fewer bug reports since the version is out. Currently, most of the reports coming in are about Google Maps causing force closes. Most of them are on modded devices where there seems to be an issue with the Google Maps library.

Another interesting thing is that complaints about the "read contacts" permission are coming up whenever I roll out a new version. I discussed this topic in many emails and I think that the feature that requires the permission is clearly documented so I will not state it over again. The interesting thing I want to point out is that the number and sharpness of the comments seems to cumulate around updates. Why is this so? I would assume the number of people that download the app and check the list of required permissions without reading anything should be distributed evenly. One idea is that Google Market boosts an App's ranking when it receives a new version (or to state it differently: App's that are more active receive higher rankings), and more downloads means more of these users.

We'll see, I started to capture the download numbers to do some statistics. Once the chart shows something, be sure I will post it here.
Comments