Android: Verizon Droid Puzzle

Question

I work in Germany and publish "Last Call Widget" on the Android Market. I confidently improved it over time, but one group of users still complains that it does not work on their devices.

My widget listens for the intent of "android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE" and then sets an alarm to update the last call UI in 20 seconds, then 60 seconds, then 5 minutes, 1 hour, etc. This works reliably on all my test devices, even with aggressive task killers (try it yourself). Unfortunately, I have a group of users with Motorola Droids on the Verizon network who complain that the user interface is not updating automatically.

I believe Verizon is a CDMA network (we have GSM here in Europe), although there are no differences in implementation in the Android API docs. It can also be a problem with drivers on the Motorola Droid (we have GSM Motorola Milestone in Europe).

I am wondering if anyone can read any ideas or check the widget on the Droid and / or CDMA network to see if they can reproduce the problem (with the magazines)?

Relationship Mark

Answer 1

Well, although I have DROIDs, no one has active Verizon accounts since I transferred my Verizon account to Incredible. Therefore, I can’t test your application because I can’t place phone calls (except 911, and the police really won’t appreciate that I’ll call them to check the application’s widget).

You can integrate logging like Flurry to make sure that you are not getting Intent at all, or if it somehow does not meet your expectations (for example, EXTRA_STATE not what you expect).

In addition, you can use the Build class to detect DROID and turn off the alarm every N seconds all the time when the phone is awake, and not based on an incoming call. It chews on more battery, and DROID users with your application who attack you with a task killer will stop these alarms. This is why I only did this for DROID or other devices that you define with similar behavior.