“After long and painful discussions in the Game Oven office, we made the tough decision to delaying the launch of Bounden on Android,” Eline Muijres reports via the Game Oven blog.
“In the Vine (video below) are 7 devices all running the same compass app (ironically named Steady Compass) on Android. Yet, all compasses indicate that North is somewhere else,” Muijres reports. “Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with electromagnetic fields confusing the compass; it has everything to do with the diversity of hardware inside these devices.”
“We have been developing Bounden for Android alongside its development on iOS, and have tested the game on a number of devices,” Eline reports. “It was only a week ago that we started expanding our list of test devices, after we quickly discovered that: a) some devices had ‘broken’ gyroscopes that didn’t work on all axis, b) that some devices were faking gyroscopes by mixing and matching the accelerometer data with compass data, or c) that some devices did not have a gyroscope at all.”
“These are all major problems for our heavily gyroscope-precision based game. We weren’t just testing on low tier devices, by the way. Popular devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 are problematic as well. We’re not the only ones though – after posting the Vine, we got an enormous amount of response from other developers recognizing the problem. For the user, buying an Android phone means you can choose between hundreds of different devices and pick the one that fits you best. For developers, the fragmentation on Android is frustrating: you can develop an app for one phone, but you can never be sure it will work on another Android device as well,” Muijres reports. “Releasing Bounden on these devices would be catastrophic.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Forget for a moment about broken or non-existing gyroscopes, the fact that some outfits go so far as to attempt to fake them tells you all you need to know about the shiteous cesspool that is Android.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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Android – good for nothing.
“good for nothing”? take back your words. My android device is a very goor paparweight .. no wait, it just brust into flames and burn everything at my desk ..
Ok, forget what I said.. 🙁
Too funny
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. This is too funny. Really. Tell me why again would anyone buy an Android device? They’re friggin’ toys!
Because they are cheaper and there is always going to be a low-end of the market. I’m happy the Android market exists so that Apple isn’t pressured into selling junk. Remember the Performa days? *shudder*
Fake gyroscopes in fake iPhones sound appropriate…
never will be developed on Android!!!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sushi-backgammon/id388777641?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Faulty gyroscopes on android devices could be a danger to aviation and should be banned from the cockpit. I’d never choose to fly on an airline whose own choice was to standardise on such shoddily built hardware.
Are you joking?
Or do you actually think an android phone or tablet might be used it a plane cockpit?
How pathetic. I knew Android had issues, but to fake having a gyroscope? You’ve got to be kidding. To think of the millions of fools talked into buying one of these POS! Can you say class action lawsuit. I pity the fools.
Android is a total cesspool and disaster.
The vast bulk of it’s market share is made up of subpar, barely functioning devices with little ram, bad processors, low quality components, many without wifi, gyroscopes etc , many released with an OS version years old (with no hope of updates). Many phones are released locked down and can’t even run Google services or generic apps (you have to buy apps from the manufacturers own store) like the millions of China ‘O’ phones. Even top of the line android phones have problems e.g finger print sensor of S5
And all of them are bombarded with hordes of malware, developers are ripped off by pirates. When customers get problems they are faced by buck passing as the OEMs blame the OS (Google) for problems and Google blames the hardware from the OEM.
(the flagship Samsung S5 by the way has an OS by Google, processors by Qualcomn and a body design stolen from Apple. What did Samsung innovate? So if the top is like that, imagine the bottom which is the market share bulk …. )
ETC.
BUT the Tech Press continually praises Android as Android is their Bread Basket.
The Tech Press like Zdnet etc make money from reviews and articles. They make a LOT more money from the dozens of android devices than Apple devices. If you are tech writer you can’t live off ONE iPhone review a year for example, it is to your own interest to push the Android bandwagon along. It’s your own interest to praise Samsung etc to get the dozens of free devices to review. Take apple fanboy Andy Ihnatko, when he expanded out of macworld and went into the general press he had an abrupt turn around and said “android is better”….
Thus the Tech Press simply REFUSE (except in rare and limited occasions) to FLAG the MULTIPLICITY of Android problems. When a reviewer gives and android phone 5 stars do they talk about malware, no OS updates, bad apps etc? No. They are not going to pee into your bread basket. See what happened to iPod… no more money reviewing other MP3 players…
And the general press picks up the B.S from the Tech press and thus the continuous “apple is dying” stories.
Android is a house of cards, or perhaps more apt: a house of rotting manure and anybody using it is at risk of being buried…
American journalism operates on the philosophy that there are two sides to every story and that both side are equally valid, thus their job is to show both side and let the viewer decide. That’s why CNN puts up a climate scientist against a climate denier and gives them equal time to debate, never once attempting to follow up or ferret out the truth. Same with the tech press. There’s Apple and Android, which is better? You decide! We have to get out of the USA to find real journalism in the world. The Americans just can’t do it anymore.
I just visited the site and wow, the Android Fans are really ripping into these developers.
That Bounden app is a funny and creative app, bravo!
A few years ago, before I went with the iPhone, I had the top-of-the-line Android product as my main driver. The following is a sample of the issues: The MicroSD card failed. I did not routinely do backups so 50% of the data was lost. Over time, the screen became less sharp. The phone got malware even though there was virus protection. Battery life decreased to one hour. The plastic back backplate broke even though the device was never dropped. The charger broke. Google Play stopped working after a year or so. This meant new apps could not be downloaded and installed apps could never be updated, etc, etc. The only person I know that has an Android phone is on device number three within the last year. He now has a Samsung S3 and that is failing. Android hardware is garbage.
Fake products are grounds for a refund &/or a consumer fraud claim with possible class action suits.
The Bounden developers are asking Android users to volunteer their devices to test out the app. That’s pathetic.
And there was such an outcry when iPhone compasses were a few degrees off.
How ridiculous is it that the Great Compass Spinoff doesn’t show an actual, real compass next to the smartphones for comparison? Wouldn’t that be the OBVIOUS baseline for calibration? This is what I find frustrating about claims like these, that there is very little understanding or consideration for the scientific method when it comes to doing basic, mind numbingly simple tests.
They are sitting there, all pointing in a different direction and while they are not being moved, the pointers are wandering by themselves.
The test is right before your eves. All the compasses are inaccurate. You would have to use the compass on an iPhone to get a correct direction.
Trouble is, they are just using Android phones.