Ranting and raving about anything I feel like complaining about.

R.I.P. GooNews

by

GooNews Deceased

I recently wrote about the release of my GooNews application for the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.  The Application has now been pulled from the marketplace and will not be resubmitted.  There were a variety of issues that finally forced me to give up and just pull the application and give up on ever getting it out there as a successful application. Here's the story:

First and foremost I want to thank several people for trying to get this addressed including Jaime Rodriguez and Glen Gordon who both tried to get this resolved but I've spent way too much time trying to get it working before resorting to pulling the application and going public with the problems.

Let's start at the beginning...

Problems Part 1: Bing News

I took a short weekend and wrote the app because I needed it. Being able to keep up with the news is a natural thing for me on the phone. Using Silverlight and the development tools were a lot of fun and I got most of the app up and running pretty quickly. I wanted to be able to show some standard news feeds and have the user be able to submit custom feed search terms to create news feeds for custom topics. I first looked at using Bing's News instead of Google's News feeds.  Upon looking at the Bing News RSS feeds (which is how I use Google's), I found this copyright warning which scared me into avoiding Bing:

These XML results may not be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner or for any purpose other than rendering Bing results within an RSS aggregator for your personal, non-commercial use. Any other use requires written permission from Microsoft Corporation. By using these results in any manner whatsoever, you agree to be bound by the foregoing restrictions.

Problems Part 2: Development

But two issues early on caused me a lot of trouble and they both had to do with showing Internet content.  I had intended originally to just use the WebBrowserTask to show the stories when people navigated to them.  But the WebBrowserTask has been bugged for a while.  Every few URL's I sent to it seemed to just hang it.  I subsequently was told that there is a bug that if certain characters were in the URL, it would truncate them (the # symbol being the chief offender). 

To avoid the WebBrowserTask, I decided to use the WebBrowser control instead.  Initially my experience with it was great but it was clear that there was no way to manage the history of the control directly in the API so I had to rely on injecting JavaScript which seemed to only work about 80% of the time:

private void backButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  try
  {
    browser.InvokeScript("eval", "history.go(-1)");
  }
  catch
  {
    // Eat error
  }
}

So I settled on just making the back button return to the main page no matter what and have a Back button in the ApplicationBar since it wasn't guaranteed to work. I didn't want the user to be stuck on the page.

I had intended to be able to add the feature of sending a Twitter message about a story but that code never worked because the WebBrowserTask would never work and would lock up once you went to Twitter in this way.  Hrmph...feature removed. 

Next I had planned to make the application ad-driven so it could be 'free'.  But I ran into another problem...

Problems Part 3: PubCenter

As most of my intended customers were in the U.S. initially, I expected to just use the Microsoft Ads in my application. When I tried to sign up, I got stuck in a loop on the website when trying to create an account. After talking with support (and not being treated well *at all*, i was told there was something wrong with my Live ID and if I wanted to use it I needed to create a new Live ID.  I don't want to have to manage Live ID's and remember more names and passwords so I gave up. I went with AdMob to serve ads.  The experience there isn't great as their pay model is per-click not CPM (so I haven't received any revenue from GooNews' ads) but at least they were serving ads across the world, not just in the USA.  Subsequently I was warned that the current Microsoft Ad control is buggy and can slow down your app so I was happy I didn't go down the road of trying to get it to work.

While flawed and probably not going to be any real revenue, I was happy enough with the application to submit it to the marketplace.

Problem Part 4: The Marketplace

I submitted my application and it was my fifth 'free' application as I have other applications that I released without ads or revenue to get experience building apps.  My fifth free application should have been free but upon submitting it, I was asked for a credit card and charged $19.99 to submit the app.  I just wanted to get on with it so I paid the $20.

The application was rejected because of an errant assembly I left in the .xap file that indicated I needed push notifications (which I don't use).  Because I didn't have a way to turn off push (because the assembly was there, even though I wasn't using it) it was rejected.  Ok...my bad. 

I fixed it and resubmitted only to be asked for another $19.99 to resubmit the application.  Sheesh!  Ok, another $20 and the app was submitted and some days later it was approved and appeared on the marketplace. (NOTE: Subsequently after contacting support, they refunded one of my $20 and gave me a 'free' credit for the other $20...bad resolution but a resolution.)

Success?

I got some good press for the application and some asked how it was so fast and I posted some blog posts about some of the threading I was doing.  Some of the quotes include:

"the app brings Google's news feeds right to your device quickly with a smooth, clean UI"
- www.WPCentral.com

"...this is a great app."
- www.1800PocketPC.com

"You want news, it gives it to you in a clean and efficient manner."
- www.theAppNews.com

But Trouble was looming...

Problem 5: The Marketplace...Again!

I was asked by a number of users for some new features including localizing the feeds into different markets. I spent another weekend supporting 22 different localized versions of the feeds so that users could use the app to get news for their area/language. Wasn't too hard (I didn't localize the UI just the feeds).  I submitted an update with this feature and everyone seemed pretty happy.  This was about the fourth update for the app (though I can't quite remember the exactly #).

I found an inconsistency in the app in that the custom news feeds were not being localized so I found a way to address that and I submitted the application and it broke badly. But this update was *approved*.  I realized the problem was with the way I was serializing the settings and quickly got an update to address the broken application. That is where the Marketplace started getting bad.

I submitted the quick update to fix the broken version of the app and it took about five days to test the app and when it was rejected, it was rejected for a feature that had been their since v1.  They complained that when a user clicks on a link in the WebBrowser control that hitting the back button should take them to the last story they were on instead of back to the list of stories.  (NOTE: Not a single user/reviewer ever complained to my knowledge of this, just the tester). Remember, five days of a broken app out there on phones. 

So I resubmitted it and asked for a technical exception because the WebBrowser control doesn't let you do this reliably and moving it to the WebBrowserTask is too buggy. We're at day 10 waiting to be tested.  That means my broken version has been out there for 15 days and if you read the recent reviews you can see many users have given up on the app since an update hasn't show up.

After about 5 days I contacted support and things got trippy. The first response was that it was taking longer because my account hadn't been "vetted and activated".  Huh?  I've had a Marketplace account since the announcement at DevConnections six months ago. A second response said, sorry they were confused and that my app had been tested and released.  But the app they mentioned wasn't my app but another account's app.  The third curt email said that I should wait because it takes two weeks to test an app and that I should be patient.  Nice customer service!

Part 6: Giving Up

A couple of Microsoft people I contacted told me they'd help me figure it out and escalate the issue.  That was days ago.  Jaime in particular has been really trying to determine what the right procedure is but I've spent way too much mental energy, time and money to worry about it now.  I've withdrawn the application from the Marketplace.

While this app was free at first, I did change it to a $.99 application so that people who wanted to opt out of the ads could just buy the application. So if you've purchased GooNews, let me know and I'll determine how to refund your money or I'll send you a check for the $.99 if MS won't do the refund.

Am I Giving up on Windows Phone 7?

No.  I own a phone and like the platform and technology. I think that once they figure out their customer service issues, it'll be a good experience.  I know a lot of developers who have had good experiences with the Marketplace.  I just don't have enough time to deal with the ineptitudes. I won't be updating my existing applications or submitting new ones until I am satisfied that the Customer Service, Testing and Support issues are solved. Its not worth my time.

 

 
 

Comments

Gravatar Sorry! Shawn, Better luck next time, I appreciate your work.

I've learned a lot from your WP7 series.

Regards!
Shahnawaz (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar I have similar stories.
I don't know how there are about 6500 apps in the marketplace
Sergii (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar It's a shame you've had such bad luck with the process. You're certainly not alone as I still have yet to be successfully registered with an account. After one failed account and refund that took weeks, I have to use a NEW live id because my old one is inexplicably tied to the cancelled application for all time!

I think I remember hearing some guy called Ballmer say he wanted this to be a success...
Neil (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar I have to say the WebBrowser experience is one of the weakest links on this platform. Going with IE 7 was just a plain bad idea.

My issues involve navigating to HTML stored in Isolated Storage. It cannot reliably do so. It fails to find the file about 30-40% of the time in my testing. I solved it by checking the contents of the control and trying again up to 3 times. So far it has always worked on the second try.

The other thing I have noticed is that it is TERRIBLE at rendering gradients. The banding is just AWEFUL. Check out my dinosaur comic for am example: http://galacticbeacon.com/16 If I pull that comic into an image control, it looks pretty good. I tried it on an iPad at BestBuy and it looked better than it did on my monitor when I drew it...
jeffa (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar My experience as a WP7 has been up and down. Loving the development environment; but being forced to generate a new live id because my first one got associated with the wrong region... surely there's a better way to resolve.

Discussions like this make me wonder whether I should continue development for the platform.

As I said... Dev experience = excellent, customer support and deployment = needs improvement.

Please prove me wrong Microsoft!
Mobijack (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar Hi I have some similar issues.the testers system is really broken.i was refused twice an update on silly matters.i resubmitted the app without any changes and one day after published.I rant a lot regularly and yesterday a Windows Phone team director has asked me to have a phone call session to go through all the problem. I feel like someone is listening but look like they moved like dinosaurs.they will lose on all fronts if they continue treating us badly.As yourself the app development is not my main job, i love the phone but i wasted enough of my time for Microsoft stupidity
peter (Posted Saturday, January 29, 2011)
Gravatar Man Shawn, I'm sorry to hear you are giving up as GooNews was *the* app I launched all the time when I had just a few minutes. Not to mention, I was planning on writing a similar app but you beat me to it. Anything I can do to help? Ideas? You know how to reach me, let me know.
Keith Elder (Posted Sunday, January 30, 2011)
Gravatar I'm a Silverlight developer but have no interest in developing wp7 apps. This platform is DOA and the ineptitude of the marketplace folks just drives it into the groud faster. Love your SL articles Shawn but looking to Android for mobile dev.
Arch (Posted Sunday, January 30, 2011)
Gravatar Sorry to hear of the trouble and hassle. The MS team involved clearly is overburdened and unable to keep up, which needs to be corrected ASAP. The lack of developer devices pre-launch was an obvious indicator and for all MS profits they don't seem to get the big picture. I'd rant and rave but it would only give fanboys like "Arch" ammunition to post silly drivel (doa, drives it to the ground faster) which they seem to live for.

In regard to GooNews and most gNewsreaders.. the fact is it's just faster to use the mobile site. Much, much, much faster.

On the mobile site you lose the eye candy but gain serious speed and functionality. For example your app limited the number of articles to a very small amount (recent articles or today only? with no settings to change), whereas google.com/m/news has no such restriction, is FAST FAST FAST and has links to hundreds of other similar articles below each article.

This is not a knock to you or app developers but just a reality that the appficication of the web is not always the most useful way to surf the web. Best regards.
G.C. (Posted Sunday, January 30, 2011)
Gravatar I am very selective in what apps I put on my WP7, but GooNews is one of the best and most useful ones. I am sorry for your troubles. Don't worry about my 99 cents!
Martin Hauer-Jensen (Posted Sunday, January 30, 2011)
Gravatar Great story Shawn. It's good someone's experience in this.
The fact your had to contact some of your friends within MS to try and get it resolved is even more worrying, as the regular Joe Soap out there wouldn't have these kind of contacts.

It sounds like WP7 customer service has a long way to go and those windows live ID's are such a pain.
Adam (Posted Sunday, January 30, 2011)
Gravatar Bummer Shawn, it's a pity.

I like GooNews, it's my go to News app.
Craig (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar You're not alone buddy. I got stuck in the updates from Hell and one of my apps is stuck on testing (3 weeks counting now).

One app failed for the reason of not handling a user who hasn't configured email. It's a feature that allows them to email details of the screen. Okay, fair enough but that feature has been there since v1.0 and now on the v1.2 update it fails. I've also reliably taken other apps where they have the feature to launch the email system, done a smoke test and went dark, and it too crashes.

There's inconsistency with testing and that's the most frustrating thing. Sometimes your app fails for your own stupidity (like mine when I left in a true flag), sometimes it passes, sometimes it fails for something that previously passed.

Too bad about GooNews as it was a cool app. I can't believe the customer service issues you've had but I'm not surprised. I think the biggest problem with the marketplace and the app submission process is consistency both with testing and dealing with customers.

Happy programming!
Bil Simser (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar For an app which just displays information, I would go with web development using HTML/CSS instead of a native app. Works on most phones, you don't need to pay any $ to any AppStore, release as often and as fast as you want as you don't have to deal with app store testing and approvals or rejections. Host it yourself. I am developing an app using jQuery Mobile. It's a shame that WP7 uses an IE version which doesn't support HTML5/CSS3. I don't care if MS development tools are great when the final app is not very usable. It doesn't make sense.
Abdu (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar I had very similar experiences with my apps. I currently have four apps in the wp7 marketplace. The submission process for one particular app was agonizing. It was failing based on components that were already being used by apps that passed the testing process. It also took a full 14 days before I heard any feedback on it after the initial submission. My other three apps had some sort of response within three business days of submission.
Tyler (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar Hi Shawn
Had same problems, til it became a challenge for me and finally got my apps past, now they seem to go through everytime.
Juan Rodriguez (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar Have you considered trading the frustration you feel for the satisfaction of changing the world? I think if you keep after them you'll have something that not many others have. A path to publication. Your apps will get published and others will not. You fly around enough, why not set up a meeting with someone while your in Seattle or wherever they are and crush a path to application publication for yourself. It really sounds like this is a situation where you need freinds on the inside.
Stacy Draper (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar Stacy,

Sure, I have friends inside but that doesn't help the WP7 dev without friends inside. I tried back-channels first, then decided to blog about it in hopes that management is listening (squeaky wheels and all that). I posted this in hopes it will get fixed for everyone, not just insiders or MVPs. Its not about my app, its about the viability of the platform.
Shawn Wildermuth (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar Keith Elder turned me on to GooNews at Codemash. So sorry to hear that it won't live on in the marketplace. :( Please consider putting the source code up on CodePlex if you seriously aren't going to take another run at publishing it. It sounds like a good reference application that others could study to learn about the platform.
Kevin Hazzard (Posted Monday, January 31, 2011)
Gravatar Hey,
Maybe now would be a good time to try out another new OS that is awesome to develop for...webOS! It's great (as you probably know) & it has new hardware arriving very soon (finally!). Palm / HP really loves it's devs!
Nkbme (Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011)
Gravatar "I posted this in hopes it will get fixed for everyone, not just insiders or MVPs. Its not about my app, its about the viability of the platform."

Good on you Shawn. I am sure with your reputation the experiences described in your blog post will not fall on deaf ears.
Colin E. (Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011)
Gravatar Problems with MarketPlace, there was no such thing with previous versions of MS mobile OS.

They should simply stop that stupid thing... I've got nothing against app stores like that, but also allow people to install whatever they want from wherever they want, just like on previous versions (Pocket PCs & WinMobile phones).
Martin P. (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar Shawn, I appreciate your candid feedback regarding this process. I will think twice before submitting an app!
Stolo (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar shawn;
Good work & article. MS's main problem since the 80's has been it's convoluted perception of what developers are.

MS, we are not the enemy!
stan r. (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar I understand the pain, Shaun as I finally got my app Trafficpal in the marketplace. Now I must admit that many of my failures (I might have set a record) were my fault as I missed points in the requirements. However my app use web services and location so there were many issues. However the really annoying issue came in our Trial mode that send the userid (Live ID) to my database. I was getting rejected because the tester phone threw an exception on this call. Well I had all my phone buddies try and reproduce this with no sucess. Well it turns out there is a difference in the tester phone, they do not have a Live ID. I was told this was not possible but I plugged the hold and passed. However my app is now in wierd mode where there is no Trial mode being offered in the markerplace. This really sucks as that is why we went the extra to provide a timed full function trial experience.
John Mcfetridge (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar Actually, my own experience has been a positive one. After spending 2 months developing a twitter client, I was able to get the app certified for the Marketplace within 3 days. If you follow the certification guideline document that is avaialable to all developers, then you cant go wrong. The whole process will get better with time.
Jaycent (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar I understand the pain, Shaun as I finally got my app Trafficpal in the marketplace. Now I must admit that many of my failures (I might have set a record) were my fault as I missed points in the requirements. However my app use web services and location so there were many issues. However the really annoying issue came in our Trial mode that send the userid (Live ID) to my database. I was getting rejected because the tester phone threw an exception on this call. Well I had all my phone buddies try and reproduce this with no sucess. Well it turns out there is a difference in the tester phone, they do not have a Live ID. I was told this was not possible but I plugged the hold and passed. However my app is now in wierd mode where there is no Trial mode being offered in the markerplace. This really sucks as that is why we went the extra to provide a timed full function trial experience.
John Mcfetridge (Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011)
Gravatar Shawn, in my mind you are the one voice I would listen to first on how the WP7 platform is fairing. Your story makes a very cautionary tale, and one that Microsoft *really* needs to fix fast if they want to be a player in the phone market. If they are going to make the developer experience painful, they will lose the developers - and the platform at the same time.
Up to reading your story, I had hopes that the developer tooling and market place had been thought out and had potential. I note that you do say - you are not giving up on WP7, and that you have other apps, but that this one app, and the market place issues - killed your desire to continue that app.
I will continue to monitor your experience here on the blog, and in your presentations (which I enjoy).
One year after reMixAlanta that trumpted the developer platform of the phone, this news was a damper on the enthusiasm.
There is an idea that the hype on a product will be strong at first - and show its true direction within 3 years - the Marketplace may be having V1 issues if they mess up - they will kill the WP7 phone as a platform within 2 years - and leave the market to iOS and Android pretty quickly.
I hope that does not happen - and that your issues get the Marketplace system to get their act together - fast.
In the meantime - I will just wait and see.
Mark Mitchell (Posted Thursday, February 03, 2011)
Gravatar This is a really discouraging story. Especially that part about them suddenly rejecting things on an update that passed when the app was initially released.
Bryan Johns (Posted Friday, February 04, 2011)

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