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Defects That Make Me Angry....

As someone who works in software development, I fully understand the ramifications of bugs and defects.  I’ve got a bunch of pre-release software:

  • Cynaogenmod Alpha software on my HP TouchPad
  • Ice Cream Sandwich from Bigxie on my Nexus S 4G
  • A Google CR-48

So recently Google released “Chrome Beta” for Ice Cream Sandwich users… I began using it immediately.   I love the ability to get already opened tabs on my various computers but anyway I digress to the point of this post.  Annoying errors make me angry.  About a week ago, an update for Beta was release to the market.  I foolishly didn’t read the reviews, and as a result, Chrome Beta broke.  Now when I open Chrome I get this wonderful error:

Chrome Beta Fails Version Check

It’s been well over a week and an update hasn’t been released.  I’m well aware of defect fixes, and release alignment and what kind of terror they can cause.  However, if I were a product manager who had an App in Beta, and the release was preventing a good portion of the user community from not using it.  I would either:

  1. Release a new version, with the hot fix.
  2. At least post an acknowledgement.

Using Python to Verify the Version

However, I started thinking… maybe it’s my ROM’s fault, it might report a faulty version number.   My ROM does self report 4.0.3 in the settings menu, but I didn’t trust that.  So, I added SL4A and Python to my phone.  I browsed the API for SL4A and found “getPackageVersion” module under AndroidFacade.  I fired up SL4A and added a new python script, and put in the following:

import android
droid = android.Android()
vers = droid.getPackageVersion("android")
print vers

I had a little bit of trouble trying to figure out what the “package” for ROM was named.  However, it turns out it’s called “android.”

Here’s the response I got:

Result(id=1, result=u'4.0.3.0.2.0.1.0-eng.andrew.20120116.220323', error=None)

Sadly, the API doesn’t specify a return format, it says it’s just a string.  So maybe the response is invalid, or Beta was looking for something to specific to a official release by Google.  Anyway, I don’t really want to spend any more time trying to figure this out.   It appears that on the surface, the issue still lies with Google’s Chrome Beta, and I hope that they don’t wait weeks to release a fix.  What are your thoughts?  Did I miss something?