Always-on Display review process

[ted-tanner]

Per this article in the Fitbit Developer blog, "For now, AOD [Always-on Display] is gated behind a restricted permission that needs to be granted to a developer profile, and also granted for each clock or app (once reviewed)." Does this mean that I can submit an app with AOD capabilities for review or do I need the permission to be enabled to even submit one for review?

I've created a watch face that I'd like to publish, but I think it looks bad when the AOD face is drastically different from the chosen watch face so I don't want to publish my watch face if it will not have AOD support. My AOD display meets the guidelines described in the blog article--is there a way I can submit my watch face for review to have it published with AOD?

[JonFitbit · Accepted solution]

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@ted-tanner wrote:

is there a way I can submit my watch face for review to have it published with AOD?

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Not right now, we're unable to grant this permission to everyone and you cannot upload to GAM without it.

[JonHagen]

@JonFitbit 

I don't think this needs to be said-

but the development community is blocked. If the "prioritized devs" are given first dibs on new enhancements, it's going to kill the hobbyists. There's no reason devs should be restricted in the dev environment for technical requirements that the SDK is unable to optimize. 

It's one thing to set requirements, and even attempting to restrict the publication of poorly optimized watchfaces/apps is admirable- but it makes the review process useless.

There are a lot of things I enjoy about the fitbit platform, and that includes the development side of things. However, these type of roadblocks are frustrating.

[JonFitbit]

We allow devs to work in Studio with AOD, you just can't sideload on a real device due to the risks. That's the same for everyone, except the review team.

The current situation is far from ideal, but we're working towards unblocking this for everyone once we're happy with the tooling and the process itself. Even when that does happen, we probably still won't allow sideloading on a real device though.

[Drifty26]

"Even when that does happen, we probably still won't allow sideloading on a real device though."

Does that mean that we will need to submit an untested app for review???

John

[JonFitbit]

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@Drifty26 wrote:

Does that mean that we will need to submit an untested app for review??

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You can't test AOD mode on the device, you can test the clock in non-AOD mode.

[ted-tanner]

@Drifty26, the app can still be tested with the Fitbit OS Simulator. That makes the software tester side of me cringe a little because a good product should be tested in a true use-case environment (not a simulator) before release, but it is much better than not being able to test at all. From what I have seen, the Fitbit OS Simulator works pretty well.

[ted-tanner]

Thanks for the prompt reply, @JonFitbit.

This will likely weed out hobbyists altogether because customers would prefer to download a clock-face that supports AOD than one that does not.

I am a little disappointed--I personally feel that, if there is already a review process in place, any developer should be able to take advantage of that review process to submit a fully-featured app.

[InvisibleBacon]

It's very disappointing that we can't sideload AOD clockfaces. I just got started with development (today actually) and I understand that I can use the OS Simulator to test, but that's not the same as testing it for real on your device. I want to be able to use it for a few days with AOD to make sure the behavior is good.

I wasn't necessarily even planning to publish my clockface. Just a side project for me for now. Now I can't get AOD until I'm ready to publish it.

[ted-tanner]

@JonFitbit, is there a time-frame for when you are hoping to allow developers generally to begin submitting clock faces with AOD?

[PatrickBiz]

"Even when that does happen, we probably still won't allow sideloading on a real device though."

WOW!!!!

I guess Samsung, Apple and others don't know what they are doing.   

I don't think Fitbit's position is about risk management. Fitbit simply does not know how to develop a bullet proof platform!

It's really frustrating.

[bdarnell]

That's disappointing, but I understand the need for caution when rolling out a risky feature. I have a suggestion that may be more palatable than opening up the floodgates.The biggest thing that annoys me with the current situation is that my custom analog clock face turns into a digital clock in AOD mode. A setting that let me choose between an analog and digital AOD face would make the transition far less jarring.

In fact, if the source for the AOD faces were published as examples, I'd incorporate parts of their design into my own face to minimize the differences.

[ted-tanner]

There is a setting that allows you to switch between Analog and Digital AOD clock face. On the Versa 2, go to Settings > Always On Display > Customize (You will have to turn AOD on to enable the “Customize” button) > Clock Style. There you can toggle between Analog and Digital for the device’s default AOD clock.

[tejasp]

This seems like discrimination against non 'privileged' developers. The ones who has acceess to create AOD faces get free advertisement on front page. This is totally unfair. If you don't provide access to some developers none of them should have it

[JonFitbit]

That's certainly not our intention. Since the initial beta process, we have invited some additional developers to publish AOD enabled clocks, but this is still a labor intensive process and not scalable at this time. We're working behind the scenes to continue to improve our review process and tooling. We'll announce more when the time comes. In the meantime, we will still continue to invite a limited number of developers based upon criteria such as ratings and downloads.

[PatrickBiz]

So we wait. Weeks? Months? Years!!!
Fitbit is alienating the developer community!!! 

[Drifty26]

What is the problem that makes this review process so much different than any other.  Are the always on displays so fragile that this is necessary?

John

[JonFitbit]

The blog post describes some of the additional review criteria, but the risk of hardware damage due to incorrect usage of the API is why it's currently gated.

https://dev.fitbit.com/blog/2019-12-19-announcing-fitbit-os-sdk-4.1/#always-on-display-api

[PatrickBiz]

Fitbit can learn from

Samsung, Apple and others.  They manage AOD so nicely and easily. They don’t talk about hardware damage and incorrect use of API. 
Let’s learn from others who have been doing this for years. Let’s make Fitbit platform a solid one - together. 

[PatrickBiz]

Any update coming out soon? Is Fitbit reconsidering allowing sideloading of AoD watch face?