Plus42 Equations, Preview Release

[jonmoore]

(05-01-2022 12:09 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  The Android version is live at Google Play now. (link)

And just purchased this too to support your efforts.

I've noticed a few differences in the preferences of the Android version when compared with the iOS version, namely:

"Skin Smoothing"
"Display Smoothing"
"Always Paint Entire Display"

I'm guessing that these are connected to anti-aliasing of some sort, or maybe some sort of 'smart scaling' of skin graphics (beyond bicubic interpolation), but it would be good to know exactly what they do. Personally speaking, I prefer non smoothed graphics, so if the options are with regard to aliasing, it would be good to have them in the iOS version too, so the user has the same control.

And sorry to pick up on your pricing strategy again. The Android version is priced at £7.49 and the iOS version at £8.99. Yet again, I mention this as the perception can be that iOS users are paying an 'idiot tax' when I'm sure it's probably more a case of Apple charging a greater commission but that doesn't change the perception. As previously mentioned, I'm happy to pay for both iOS and Android apps to support your efforts as the DM42 is my most used device, and Free42 saw a huge amount of use before SwissMicros released their hardware. However, I've been involved with app development for long enough to know customers pick up on the differences between supposedly equivalent apps across the Android and iOS ecosystems. Sometimes it's better to make a smaller margin on iOS, so the customer doesn't feel the cost is being passed on to them.

[Vincent Weber]

Frankly, the only ones to notice the price difference would be hardcore fans like us, who are more than happy (at least I am) to pay on both plateforms whatever (small) fees are asked to support Thomas' 20 years effort on this huge and amazing project...

And so what if some people notice a price difference ? I'd rather them know that this is because of Apple's higher commissions, and bitch about Apple policies, rather than having the false idea that Apple is nice, at the expense of Thomas' margin...

My 2 cents.

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 01:07 PM)jonmoore Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:09 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  The Android version is live at Google Play now. (link)

And just purchased this too to support your efforts.

Thank you!

(05-01-2022 01:07 PM)jonmoore Wrote:  I've noticed a few differences in the preferences of the Android version when compared with the iOS version, namely:

"Skin Smoothing"
"Display Smoothing"
"Always Paint Entire Display"

Those options exist in order to deal with rendering artifacts on certain Android devices. It's possible they are obsolete by now, but with the great diversity of Android devices, I figure better safe than sorry, leave them in.

On iOS, in the early versions, the UI was always unscaled, so rendering artifacts were not an issue. With the iPhone 6, I started using non-integral scaling on iOS as well, but rendering artifacts never became an issue, so no tweaks to deal with them were needed.

(05-01-2022 01:07 PM)jonmoore Wrote:  And sorry to pick up on your pricing strategy again. The Android version is priced at £7.49 and the iOS version at £8.99. Yet again, I mention this as the perception can be that iOS users are paying an 'idiot tax' when I'm sure it's probably more a case of Apple charging a greater commission but that doesn't change the perception. As previously mentioned, I'm happy to pay for both iOS and Android apps to support your efforts as the DM42 is my most used device, and Free42 saw a huge amount of use before SwissMicros released their hardware. However, I've been involved with app development for long enough to know customers pick up on the differences between supposedly equivalent apps across the Android and iOS ecosystems. Sometimes it's better to make a smaller margin on iOS, so the customer doesn't feel the cost is being passed on to them.

My pricing strategy is very simple: charge around $10 or €10, while avoiding two-digit prices. Apple does indeed take a bigger cut (30% as opposed to 15% by Google) but that doesn't factor into my considerations.

The difference probably owes to another factor, and that is that my Apple account is linked to a U.S. bank account, while my Google account is linked to a Dutch bank account. This means I have to select my price tier in $ for iOS and in € for Android, and the specifics of how Apple and Google translate these into prices for other currencies etc. take care of the rest.

At any rate, I don't think I'm charging a premium for Plus42, so I would hope that people don't get hung up over users of one OS have to pay one € or so more or less compared to users of the other OS. And if they do, I figure it's fair to charge a bit more for the iOS version, since it is a bit nicer... although, on the other hand, it would also be fair to charge more for the Android version, since Android development is a great deal more painful than development for iOS.

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 12:33 PM)Marco Polo Wrote:  I would like to find the all the variable inizialized with a default value (i.e. 0_unit or whatever) according to a definition inside the equation itself.

Ah, OK. That would require some new syntax. I'll have to think about it...

[Marco Polo]

(05-01-2022 02:11 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Ah, OK. That would require some new syntax. I'll have to think about it...

Thank you for not dropping the idea :-)

[Marco Polo]

(05-01-2022 01:50 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  At any rate, I don't think I'm charging a premium for Plus42, so I would hope that people don't get hung up over users of one OS have to pay one € or so more or less compared to users of the other OS. And if they do, I figure it's fair to charge a bit more for the iOS version, since it is a bit nicer... although, on the other hand, it would also be fair to charge more for the Android version, since Android development is a great deal more painful than development for iOS.

IMVHO, the rate you are charging is quite fair, considering the quality of the product, the effort and time you spent over it and the continuous support and development we can expect (at least watching at Free42 hystory).

Just my two cents

[johanw]

Just bought it, it was €8,99 here.

Pitty that it is a split apk - I have 1 device with a Google Account active that I only use for purchases (no personal data on it, that iss none of Googles business), and I copy the app over to my other devices. Split apk'ss make that a little more work. The beta versions were a single apk.

And I get a signature mismatch so I can't install over the beta version (patching Android to ignore signatures didn't work on this device). So I'll have to uninstall, reinstall and restore my Titanium Backup.

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 03:19 PM)johanw Wrote:  Just bought it, it was €8,99 here.

Pitty that it is a split apk - I have 1 device with a Google Account active that I only use for purchases (no personal data on it, that iss none of Googles business), and I copy the app over to my other devices. Split apk'ss make that a little more work. The beta versions were a single apk.

And I get a signature mismatch so I can't install over the beta version (patching Android to ignore signatures didn't work on this device). So I'll have to uninstall, reinstall and restore my Titanium Backup.

Blame Google for that one. New apps must be uploaded as "bundles" (*.aab files), and you're not allowed to sign those using the same key as you used for *.apk files.

Although, on second thought, maybe I would have been able to upload my original keystore and have them use it to sign the final apk. If so, maybe that would have avoided the signature mismatch. But it's too late for that now... and the idea of giving someone else my private app signing key feels weird...

[ggauny@live.fr]

Hi,

I have get the Plus42 1.0 today.

I thank Thomas for this big work, I have now only 2 calculatrices :

- Plus42 1.0
- Hp Prime pro

But i recognize that I use many more often the Plus42 1.0,
I prefer programing with FOCAL (RPN).

again one more many thanks Thomas and many kudos !

.

[johanw]

(05-01-2022 04:28 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  [quote='johanw' pid='159741' dateline='1651418346']
Blame Google for that one. New apps must be uploaded as "bundles" (*.aab files), and you're not allowed to sign those using the same key as you used for *.apk files.

Although, on second thought, maybe I would have been able to upload my original keystore and have them use it to sign the final apk. If so, maybe that would have avoided the signature mismatch. But it's too late for that now... and the idea of giving someone else my private app signing key feels weird...

So Google has the signing key of the app too, and not only the developer. So when I'm a targeted individual they can now push specifically for me some changed version of the app. Nice to know. I'm probably not interesting enough but I guess Edward Snowden better doesn't use the Play Store on his phone.

[rprosperi]

Just purchased it, in USA the app cost $9.49 + state sales tax. Likely the bargain of the year! Maybe decade?

(05-01-2022 01:50 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  ...I figure it's fair to charge a bit more for the iOS version, since it is a bit nicer... although, on the other hand, it would also be fair to charge more for the Android version, since Android development is a great deal more painful than development for iOS.

In what way(s) is the iOS version better? I thought I had followed this through its gestation period, but don't recall functional differences?

Super nice Thomas, thanks so much for sharing this with all of us!

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 06:29 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  In what way(s) is the iOS version better? I thought I had followed this through its gestation period, but don't recall functional differences?

Swiping sideways to switch between calculator and print-out, and n-key rollover for reliable fast typing. I couldn't get those to work right on Android and ended up giving up on them. Also, Copy Print-Out as Image, couldn't get that to work because Android doesn't seem to support images on the clipboard. And finally, proper file extension mapping, and general polish.

Nothing major, but still, it bugs me a bit that it always seems to be harder to accomplish things on Android, and sometimes just too arcane or just flat-out impossible. Such is life, I guess.

(05-01-2022 06:29 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Super nice Thomas, thanks so much for sharing this with all of us!

Thank you! My pleasure.

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 05:31 PM)johanw Wrote:  So Google has the signing key of the app too, and not only the developer. So when I'm a targeted individual they can now push specifically for me some changed version of the app.

Exactly. I'm not a fan of that at all. But no way around it if you want to be in the Play store. At least I can continue signing Free42 the old way...

[johanw]

BTW, the Android version lists location under the possible permissionss it could ask. Does that have a special reason? Same for Free42.

[Thomas Okken]

That's for the LOCAT function.
https://thomasokken.com/free42/#nav

[rprosperi]

(05-01-2022 07:31 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 06:29 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  In what way(s) is the iOS version better? I thought I had followed this through its gestation period, but don't recall functional differences?

Swiping sideways to switch between calculator and print-out, and n-key rollover for reliable fast typing. I couldn't get those to work right on Android and ended up giving up on them. Also, Copy Print-Out as Image, couldn't get that to work because Android doesn't seem to support images on the clipboard. And finally, proper file extension mapping, and general polish.

Nothing major, but still, it bugs me a bit that it always seems to be harder to accomplish things on Android, and sometimes just too arcane or just flat-out impossible. Such is life, I guess.

It's funny I hear the opposite, i.e. that iOS development is more complex and persnickety than Android, by multi-platform developers that happen to have started on Android and use Android phones. I think this is both reasonable and natural, it's really a lot like RPN vs. RPL. Whichever type one doesn't use is clearly inferior.

For the clipboard, I've been told you can do that with an "Intent" object, described below, where Plus42 is both the sender and receiver, though I've only heard this and by no means have experience doing so:

https://developer.android.com/guide/topi...copy-paste

The swiping between Calc and Print-out sounds convenient, hopefully that will get another look someday. The other deficiencies don't sound like a big loss, though I'm not sure what 'proper file extension mapping' implies.

There is so much new stuff here, it will take ages to wade through it all, so those issues are truly nits, but I appreciate that missing them bugs you, it speaks to your aims to deliver balanced features among the platforms, which is always a good thing as it typically helps one to learn a lot of subtle 'stuff'.

[Thomas Okken]

I find that with iOS, sometimes APIs seem overly complex, over-engineered, and hard to wrap your head around. That can be frustrating. But once you've figured them out, they do work as advertised, no muss, no fuss.

Android, on the other hand, is sometimes too simple, half-finished, poorly thought out, and requires weird work-arounds to get things to work. While with Apple a common experience when googling a programming problem is to find lengthy and sometimes confusing explanations, with Android a common experience is to find nothing except other developers who are just as frustrated and clueless as you are.

When I got started with mobile development, I preferred Android over iOS, because it was easier to get into, while with iOS the learning curve was very steep. But over time, I've come to appreciate iOS more. If I had to choose between jobs doing Android or iOS development, everything else being equal, I'd go with the iOS gig every time.

The Android "Intent" description you linked is actually a perfect example of what I can't stand about Android. If you want to copy text, easy peasy, but if you want to copy anything else, you fall into the vortex of weirdness with content URLs, content providers, content resolvers, and god knows what else. Some sample code for how to use all those APIs to copy plain old bitmap data? Nowhere to be found, and bitmaps aren't even a standard clipboard data type. How on Earth is it possible that an OS reaches this age without supporting such basic functionality?

[Thomas Okken]

(05-01-2022 10:20 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  The other deficiencies don't sound like a big loss, though I'm not sure what 'proper file extension mapping' implies.

It's when you open an email attachment, or a file in a file manager. How does the OS know which apps to offer as targets to share those files with? Because apps can declare which file extensions they can handle, of course... right?

On iOS: yes, that really is all there is to it. It's not super obvious, but it's easy once you know where to add the required settings. But on Android? *shudder* It took me about two weeks before file extension mapping worked as it should. It's a totally insane, broken API, which has been exactly that way since Android 1.0, and has never seen the slightest improvement in the, what, 14 years? since then. *shudder*

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(05-01-2022 06:29 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Just purchased it, in USA the app cost $9.49 + state sales tax. Likely the bargain of the year! Maybe decade?

R$ 54,90 (~US$ 11.06) in Brazil, taxes included. This hardly buys two Big Macs here (R$ 27,50 each). Indeed a bargain!

[Eric Rechlin]

Thanks, Thomas, for all the work you put into this!

I just bought the Android version. $10.15 after tax for me in the US; a very fair price!