The CC V3 beta program was so helpful that we have decided to run all future CC releases through an "early availability" testing program. People who sign up will receive CC releases directly from Google Play 5 to 7 days before they become generally available. There is no manual installation of APK files; instead you will be offered updates in the normal Google Play manner. When notified, you can update to the prerelease or stay with the current production release, waiting for the general availability announcement.
What we (CC's developers) hope to get is more confidence that a release does not have any serious gotchas. A perfect example was the HTML comment font size problem that raised its head almost instantly upon release. It was easy to fix, but thousands of CC users were inconvenienced by the rapid updates. If CC had been using this prerelease program, we could have released a fix within hours, starting the 5 to 7 day clock again.
What testers get is a better chance that CC works for you, and perhaps more importantly you get our ear. Even though there can be no guarantee that we will do what you ask, we do listen very carefully during test cycles.
There are three criteria to join this program:
- You must have purchased CC. The prerelease versions are fully licensed.
- You must have a MobileRead account so you can leave comments.
- You must supply the Google mail account you used to buy CC so you can receive the releases.
If you are willing to join, send me (chaley) a private message giving me your Google email account. I will add your email address to a special "Google Group" that lists the people signed up for the program. Once I have added you to the group I will send you a link that you must follow to start receiving the prereleases. Once you take the steps described when you follow the link, you will start receiving notification of early releases.
As far as I can tell, once you join you will get prereleases until you drop out, which you can do at any time by removing yourself from the special group. I haven't tried dropping out, so I don't know how hard or easy it is.
Notes:
- Google has 3 levels of release: production, beta, and alpha. We are using the beta level for this program. The word "beta" will appear in some of Google's emails that you receive, for example in the initial opt-in email
- We have the option of using the google group to discuss the prereleases. For the moment I have disabled that option, figuring that discussion here at MobileRead is better.
- The "5 to 7 days" is totally arbitrary. We can choose to lengthen or shorten the time, based on how things are going. Also, we might choose to do several prereleases before we make a general release, meaning that general availability could be several weeks after the first prerelease.
- I will start threads here on MobileRead when a prerelease is available.