Some of you would have noticed, others won’t have yet but lets get it out in the open – the Ausdroid App is down for now…
We have had a number of queries via our various social media asking about the app and its apparent disappearance from the Play Store, so we thought it was probably best to explain the reason for what has occurred.
Essentially it’s a culmination of a few factors, both technical and business for Ausdroid. The main proponent is that the app uses a now non-functional API within WordPress and the plugin that drives the app now conflicts with a plugin we actively use on the site for you guys to make the website work. This basically means it’s not a trivial fix and will require development work that within the team we don’t have the know-how to deliver, and while we like having an app, it doesn’t make sense to spend what it would cost to fix just now.
Given the relatively small number of app users vs the vastly higher number of direct website hits, we’ve had to end the app support for now. It may be back at some stage in the future but right now, it won’t work and we apologise for the inconvenience to our readers who do use the app.
If you’re particularly keen to maintain a connection via app, you can subscribe to the Ausdroid Pushbullet Channel and get a notification to your device every time an article is published.
You can help us
C’mon you knew this was coming surely?
In all seriousness though, there are a couple of things you can do quickly and easily to help us. The team at Ausdroid all do this because we love the Android platform, we enjoy the interaction with our readers and we volunteer our time. There are some reasonably significant costs involved with running Ausdroid from our servers, review devices and getting staff to release events.
The quickest and easiest way you can help us immediately is to please disable your ad blockers, it’s quick and painless. A lot of work goes into our page layout including making adverts and non-intrusive as possible on your reading experience. The invasion on your reading is minimal, but in all honesty; so is the income we gain from this but it keeps the site running.
The next step if you’re a regular reader of Ausdroid is to check out our Patreon Campaign and consider backing us, even for a few dollars a month it does make a difference when it comes to being able to get our team to events like MWC or Google I/O.
We hope that clears the air a bit about what has happened to the app, your options to maintain connectivity with Ausdroid and ways (if you’re willing) to help us improve delivery of content to you.
What ways would you like to further engage with the Ausdroid Team and Community?
Hey Phil, I think the Ausdroid team should maybe engage more with the readers/supporters in the G+ Ausdroid Community and/or in the Disqus comments like AP writers do. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception but the Ausdroid G+ community seems to have died a slow death.
Is offering the app as a paid app something that can be feasible? As I’d be happy to pay a few dollars for it.
I’m down with this.
Me too. Hate ads, happy to pay a bit to help out