I have an iPod Touch, and now I have an Android tablet, and even though it's only my second day with my tablet, I've already encountered a frustrating paradigm that's been an annoyance with the iTouch for awhile. I'll download an app or a game, use it for a bit, then when I'm not home and don't have access to wifi, I discover that it doesn't work offline. or I'll use an app that doesn't need to be online for any sane reason, but will still detect that I'm not connected and give me a nonsensical error message and/or pop-up prompting me to connect to a network that isn't there (often for the sole purpose of updating ads)
I've looked at some of the other threads, and they seem to fall into two categories. Either someone asked for specific suggestions for offline apps, or someone expressed frustration similar to mine and asked if there's somewhere one can go specifically for offline stuff, and the response was basically "nope". so my question is, why not? there are many people that have Android devices which are not phones and which are not connected to wifi 24/7, and not everyone can get an unlimited data plan from their mobile provider, this isn't a niche market for a handful of people who are behind the times. it seems that there is definitely a demand for a decent "hub" of sorts for quality content that is fully functional in offline mode, but nobody with the resources and motivation.
in one thread I saw a response said that you have to pay attention when viewing an app's description to determine if you can use it offline. there are two major problems with this. first of all, very few app descriptions actually contain this information. the people preparing these blurbs either assume users are going to be online 24/7, or just don't care. second, I think it's unfair to put this responsibility entirely on the end-user. in other words, even if the descriptions told you if you could use something offline, think of how frustrating it would be. "oh, that looks good. *click* *read read read* dammit. *back*" repeat several times until you either get lucky or give up.
I'm not demanding that the Google Play Store add an offline section. I would love that, but I live in the real world, I know it's not going to happen. but it would be fantastic if a third party could provide a service like this.
I've looked at some of the other threads, and they seem to fall into two categories. Either someone asked for specific suggestions for offline apps, or someone expressed frustration similar to mine and asked if there's somewhere one can go specifically for offline stuff, and the response was basically "nope". so my question is, why not? there are many people that have Android devices which are not phones and which are not connected to wifi 24/7, and not everyone can get an unlimited data plan from their mobile provider, this isn't a niche market for a handful of people who are behind the times. it seems that there is definitely a demand for a decent "hub" of sorts for quality content that is fully functional in offline mode, but nobody with the resources and motivation.
in one thread I saw a response said that you have to pay attention when viewing an app's description to determine if you can use it offline. there are two major problems with this. first of all, very few app descriptions actually contain this information. the people preparing these blurbs either assume users are going to be online 24/7, or just don't care. second, I think it's unfair to put this responsibility entirely on the end-user. in other words, even if the descriptions told you if you could use something offline, think of how frustrating it would be. "oh, that looks good. *click* *read read read* dammit. *back*" repeat several times until you either get lucky or give up.
I'm not demanding that the Google Play Store add an offline section. I would love that, but I live in the real world, I know it's not going to happen. but it would be fantastic if a third party could provide a service like this.
