Now that our Android app has been out for a while, I figured I’d make a “looking back” post.

The app is doing very well. No major bugs. Daily downloads have increased, user engagement is up, and the ratings are higher. Unfortunately, the version we replaced had a well-established mediocre score, so it will take some time to nudge the average rating up.

One thing I’ve learned is to take the Android Market reviews with a thick skin and a big grin. Some reviews offer valuable feedback. Some don’t. For example, this 1 star review:

“I didn’t even get to enjoy one episode of a podcast before I was told that my ‘lite’ trial had expired!”

Our app doesn’t even have podcasts. Obviously, we got someone else’s bad review.

Here’s another 1 star review:

“There is no reason this application needs to be accessing my / your contacts = privacy issue. Uninstalled!”

The app loads email addresses from the user’s contacts to offer auto-complete for an email field. We are not harvesting emails, and we won’t use a single one until the user asks us to. I wish I had the opportunity to explain this to the angry reviewer… but then again, it’s still valuable feedback. Despite our good intentions, something we did looked scary. Perception matters. Lesson learned.

If you want to see the app for yourself, you can find it here.