Android :: Custom ROMs Varying Configurations

I just wanted to quickly bring up a topic that I had noticed lately. This comes to my attention for two reasons, firstly someone had posted that he had a user that reported a vague error message like "deleted all my pics", and the dev's were not able to reproduce it. Secondly, I myself have seen bug reports that really may not be relevant to my application. I had recommended to that first dev to just ignore the error for now since there was not enough info to reproduce it, and also for a second reason, there is no way to know what the user is truly running. For example, I've had a few bug reports, where a user says of my app "Doesn't work on HTC hero", but then another user will post "Works fine on Hero". I also had found a posting on the internet in a forum where a user had tried to use some of my software on a custom ROM, and he was having problems.

I guess the issue I'm bringing up here is that with the android market being somewhat "limited" in functionality, it makes it very hard on us developers to handle any customer issues such as bugs, etc. Especially since they could be using a custom ROM, or have ROOT access which also may even be affecting the software. My point is that developing for android in a professional manner is really not an easy task, and possibly it's just starting to be worth it (with market 1.6 at least there are some improvements) to develop paid apps. Basically Google needs to work harder though to improve this situation - and if users expect better apps (there are lots of complaints about the market being full of junk) then they need a way to report issues better, etc. And really it's not even up to a dev to try to match up with a custom ROM, technically it's not supported! (It's up to the dev of course if they want to investigate and try to support it).

What seems is going to happen is android is not only going to have multiple configs (which fortunately for us seems that the market will help filter them out if you app does not support them), but also we never can really know what is on a user's system. They may have some custom stuff, and they see a bug, but it could really not be our bug, but rather, in the system itself. This is why I still recommend that bug reports have to be weighed carefully as to whether they may really be a problem or not. It's an investment in time and while makers of free apps no doubt may not mind, those of us who develop paid apps don't want to multiply our costs by going down blank pathways.

I don't think I see any resolution to the situation in the near future, but I just wanted to make it clear that if a user reports a bug in their comments and gives you one star, it's not the end of the world. If you can reproduce it quickly and fix it, then that is great. But if not, move on - there is no way you can know exactly what they are talking about. I think some devs get too anxious about that one bad report. There is no way we are going to avoid that report! Because they may be using an untested ROM or such anyway, and it may not be worth your time to look at it in the long run. I've had few low stars here and there as well, and trust me, just keep improving your app and you will rise back up. As devs we need to encourage one another and I just want to try and help devs not get anxious about things that are really beyond their control.