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UPDATE: We are LIVE - now in public beta. You can download the app here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stackexchange.marvin

Crash reports will be automatically reported back to us using Crittercism. Bugs or feature requests should be reported here on meta and tagged . Please do not use the Google community to report bugs.

A huge thank you to those people who have already helped us find amazing new ways to crash the app. We continue to welcome your feedback.

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  • If we are already in alpha, do we need to sign up again for beta, or will it be a standard update?
    – user206222
    Jan 13, 2014 at 19:26
  • @Emracool no - I clarified that above.
    – Geoff Dalgas
    Jan 13, 2014 at 19:28
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    You may want to mention that you need a Google plus account for the app, that threw me off at first ;-)
    – Doorknob
    Jan 13, 2014 at 19:47
  • @DoorknobofSnow I was wondering why you suddenly had those three numbers on your hand... ;)
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 13, 2014 at 20:05
  • Since it isn't mentioned, is this phase targeting tablet users also, or still just phones?
    – Geobits
    Jan 13, 2014 at 20:24
  • Thanks for all the hard work so far! The app is proving to be very useful to me so far. I can't wait to see the next phase.
    – Joe W
    Jan 13, 2014 at 20:33
  • @Geobits still just phones
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jan 13, 2014 at 20:43
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    @AndrewBarber Umm, what? I don't understand; is that a reference to something? (I'm probably missing something really obvious here :P)
    – Doorknob
    Jan 13, 2014 at 21:41
  • @Geoff what about iOS app? Any updates on that one? :)
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jan 13, 2014 at 23:17
  • @ShadowWizard the iOS team is working hard on an alpha release as well. Both apps are being developed in parallel however the Android version got off to an early start.
    – Geoff Dalgas
    Jan 13, 2014 at 23:33
  • Thanks! Will the iOS app be "private" too?
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jan 13, 2014 at 23:40
  • @ShadowWizard yep. iOS will track the same arc of progress made by the Android app. Alpha isn't far away. Only 6-8 weeks ;-)
    – Ben Collins
    Jan 14, 2014 at 0:22
  • @Ben noooo, anything but the dreaded 6-8 weeks! Oh well, I'll just wait patiently. ;)
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jan 14, 2014 at 8:31
  • @GeoffDalgas if you want this to get more attention, can you please make some sort of "event"? As it stands, Stack Overflow community bulletin displays only new blog posts and events, not featured Meta questions so the current audience of this announcement are only Meta regulars.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jan 14, 2014 at 8:36
  • 2
    Why Android App, iOS app, mobile website, desktop website... Why not one responsive website for all? All those codebases to maintain and admin!
    – JonW
    Jan 14, 2014 at 13:47

1 Answer 1

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This has been a large part of my experience of the app so far:

  • Open app during commute. Click question from feed. Connectivity lost for a few seconds. App crashes.
  • Open app at home/work. Click question from feed. Phone switches network interface (3G to WiFi). App crashes.
  • Open app during commute while on 2G or EDGE. Wait for feed to load. Keep waiting. Still waiting....
  • At other random times. Click any question from feed. App crashes. Click any other question. App crashes again. Loop till phone restart.
  • Open app. Go to any site. Click random question. App crashes. Repeat, but try another question from same site. App crashes. Repeat for any question on same site.
  • Go to question with lots (20+?) of comments. Click on show more comments. App crashes.
  • Go to question with lots of comments. Tap any comment for comment menu. App crashes.
  • If your feed loaded while on 2G^^^^, then try to open anything. And wait......
  • Once a post loads on 2G, if it loads, tap upvote. Wait. Keep waiting. App crashes.
  • On other random occasions, while on 3G/WiFi, tap upvote/downvote. App crashes.
  • Open MSO. Tap on any of the top locked posts. App crashes.
  • Do nothing. App crashes in the background at random times.

All of these do not happen everytime, but happen frequently enough to be a huge hindrance to using the app. Most so when you have reached a question while following a long chain of links, or through a long search query, or even when you want to fill in a few minutes while waiting. Also, I have experienced most of these within the past 4-5 days itself, so these are all problems present in the current versions.

Considering that the main purpose of the app will be to read questions and answers, the fact that the app fails to fulfill that basic use case with a very high frequency on an un-modded Android configuration on a decent phone, I feel that the beta may be coming too soon.

Also, going forward, the app should be tested on 2G or EDGE network speeds. The experience of using the app on such connections is, in one word, frustrating.

Why am I not posting these as bug reports? I kind of got tired after the first 19.

Also, this is no way a slight to the dev team. Their responses have been quick and they have been extremely helpful throughout.

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  • 3
    Thanks for the candid feedback, it's definitely appreciated. Low quality network testing hasn't been one of our strong in-house testing points and we definitely need to do more of it due to the nature of mobile applications being on well, mobile devices. We're going to take a look at every one you listed here but if you see any other bugs and don't want to make a full report feel free to just ping me details in the Tavern chatroom and we'll take a look.
    – Kasra Rahjerdi
    Jan 14, 2014 at 19:39
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    Good points. I've seen some of these too. Enough that I don't bother having the app open any time my commute train gets near a tunnel. On the other hand to be fair, of your 19 bug reports only some of them are about connectivity issues and 12 of them are marked status-complete, so I wouldn't write bug reporting off as wasted effort.
    – Caleb
    Jan 28, 2014 at 16:49
  • @Caleb I did not say or mean to imply that. On the contrary, the dev team's response to bugs has been very positive.
    – asheeshr
    Jan 29, 2014 at 13:11
  • On re-reading, I think I might have read something into your statement more than what you intended. My apologies. Do you mind if I edit so others may not stumble on the same thing?
    – Caleb
    Jan 29, 2014 at 13:33
  • @Caleb Go ahead. What i was trying to get across is 1)i have been using the app for a fairly long time 2) the app was and is buggy 3)i have spent as much time as i could on individual bug reports
    – asheeshr
    Jan 29, 2014 at 14:58

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