[CaptainBern]

Why download updates at all without the user knowing? Is prompting before downloading such an awful user experience in comparison? Or, you know, prompt once per day and add a 'remind me in x days/minutes' option?

The whole take-away of this article feels backwards. Instead of going 'hey maybe we should not just download stuff in the background without prompt', the author doubles down and actually proposes to add a way for the server to signal to the client that an update should be forced.

I'm actually baffled by this entire thing.

[michaelt]

Well, if the user wants the update, downloading in advance is a much better experience, because you only get interrupted once, for a restart that only takes a second or two.

That's in contrast to being interrupted twice (once to download, then again to restart) or a single long interruption (shutting down, then downloading, then restarting).

Of course, it's a different matter if the user doesn't want the update. But we developers don't like to think about that :)

[CaptainBern]

An easier fix could be to just add a toggle so users can decide for themselves if they are fine with the app downloading unprompted or not. (This is just based on the post, the app could very well be behaving that way already but since the post doesn't mention it, I'm assuming it does not).

But also: a check every 5 minutes? I understand what you're saying but the only reason those interruptions are frustrating is because of the high volume of daily updates. This could be solved by just keeping this update-frequency reserved for beta users and maintaining a more sane update-frequency for regular users (now what a sane update-frequency is, is a whole other discussion judging by the comments so far :P)

[aldarisbm]

sooo if I ship 3 times a day, let's restart the app 3 times a day?

Oof, imagine you're using the app to demo something and bam update Lol

[pmarreck]

A UI/UX designer wrote the code.

Now I’m not saying coding is rocket science (because it isn't), but there are certain types of people who are a little (too?) obsessed with thinking of ways their logic can break and covering it with checks and tests… I'm guessing that designers are less likely to be one of those.

I love designers, btw. I think UI/UX is a hugely underrated discipline (see: "dark patterns", designing for safety). But unless you stare at logic all day, the implications of a code change like this might not immediately strike you as a risk.

[CaptainBern]

I agree with you. Bugs happen, that's just the way it is.

But my issues with this aren't really related to code: * downloading without user 'consent' (in the loosest sense of the word) * and mainly: a proposed fix being a way the server can force an update on the user.

This whole issue just stems from the unreasonably high update-frequency imposed by the developer. They aren't addressing that and instead conclude that perhaps they can avoid a high bill by building remote code-execution into their app. As opposed to just adding a toggle and letting users decide whether they want updates to be auto downloaded. I would argue that's more of a UI/UX issue than a coding issue.

[pmarreck]

That's a very good point!

[rkangel]

> Why download updates at all without the user knowing? Is prompting before downloading such an awful user experience in comparison? Or, you know, prompt once per day and add a 'remind me in x days/minutes' option?

Yeah, it's a pain in the neck. If I've got 20 bits of software on my PC and they all update once a month, then most days I'm going to get a random popup asking to update. Just get on and do it please.

[CaptainBern]

That's fair. From the post my impression was that auto-update is forced, so users don't get a say in whether it can download in the background, if that's not the case then disregard that part of my comment.

[nchudleigh]

The bug was the app kept downloading after the user agreed to download the new version.

[CaptainBern]

The article did not mention that as far as I can tell.

>The app checks for the update every 5 minutes or when the user activates the app.

>Normally, when the app detected the update - it downloaded it and stopped the 5 minutes interval until the user installed it and restarted it.

To me this reads as them downloading the update unprompted (as they mention their issue with the previous updater was that it would prompt the users every 5 minutes, which would be solved by just not checking every 5 minutes).

Either way, whatever the bug and its effects are, my gripe is that their conclusion is to add a way for them to remotely force-updates. As opposed to just notifying once or any of the other hundred ways to handle auto-updates that don't involve you remotely forcing an update.

Edit: the founder has confirmed in the comments the app does download without user confirmation, so my original point still stands.