

We just launched OpenSignal 2.0 for Android - brendan_gill
http://opensignal.com/android/

======
radley
Where do you (HN) guys draw the line between good app & bad app?

There seems to be a lot of "tin foil hat" responses here regarding permissions
and personal information. I'm an Android developer with a top selling app that
uses a TON of permissions (it features a bunch of system utility switches &
stats).

There's nothing I see about OpenSignal being a malicious app, but a lot of
responses seem to presume otherwise despite OpenSignal team members being
present and responsive here.

What justifies the hard, negative position?

I'm really very curious. What's the deal, please?

~~~
nicholasjarnold
As a technically inclined member of the HN community I am acutely aware of the
implications of leaking my personally identifiable information out into the
world and having it be stored/analysed/sold/copied for eternity. I think many
of us are.

Simply inquiring about how/why this information is used/asked for does not
imply that we're having a 'hard negative reaction'. It just means that we're
aware of our right to privacy and are actively trying to assert and protect
it.

Personally, I applaud the OpenSignal developers being active here and
answering questions. Also, just because you might not be using the information
you collect in your apps for nefarious purposes doesn't mean that nobody does.
Finally, I don't expect you or anyone else to be the guardians of my privacy.
Only I can be charged with that task.

~~~
brendan_gill
We posted on HN for exactly this type of constructive criticism (though we do
hope that there are a few quiet users who are enjoying our app and don't feel
the need to post a plain back slapping comment that isn't really part of the
spirit of HN anyway).

Privacy is something we take very seriously at OpenSignal. For one, we watched
CarrierIQ get torn apart[1] after it came to light the types of data that they
were collecting of their users. Its obvious to us that if we ever abused our
user's privacy the same thing would happen to us, so not only do we consider
ourselves moral people there are clear market forces from preventing us from
using your private data, which might be more reassuring to some.

We also only look at data related to your wireless service e.g. signal
strength, data speeds etc and always anonymize it. It's worth remembering that
not too long ago studies found that 50% of top android apps were tracking and
collecting personal data[2] such as IMEIs, phone numbers, sms etc and these
are not crowd-sourced data gathering apps, this was a random sample of the top
30 android apps at the time of the study. With that in mind, we don't begrudge
anyone who wants to check our privacy standards are up to scratch.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/carrier-iq-how-to-find-
it-a...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/carrier-iq-how-to-find-it-and-how-
to-deal-with-it/) [2] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/study-select-
android-apps...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/study-select-android-apps-
sharing-data-without-user-notificatio/)

------
JamesCRR
@RyanZAG That's the idea :) but a few things to note: 1\. All data is
anonymized 2\. You can turn data-sharing off in the settings (as pointed out
when you start the app) 3\. Providing data to the networks is not only a
funding source for our efforts to build coverage maps online (which will
always be free and independent at opensignal.com) but it allows the networks
to improve their service - showing them where their service is weak, or where
they should focus their marketing.

~~~
RyanZAG
Ah, interesting business model, thanks!

------
dal
I don't know what you are referring to when you're talking about open. Where
can I download the source code for your apps or a database dump?

~~~
sinak
We have an API and our maps are open for free for everyone to see. You're
totally right though, we don't offer source code or data dumps, and aren't an
open source project.

------
RyanZAG
Free with no ads? Curious to know why you're doing it. Do you somehow sell the
uploaded data to interested parties?

~~~
sinak
Just copyings James' response below here:

That's the idea :) but a few things to note: 1. All data is anonymized 2. You
can turn data-sharing off in the settings (as pointed out when you start the
app) 3. Providing data to the networks is not only a funding source for our
efforts to build coverage maps online (which will always be free and
independent at opensignal.com) but it allows the networks to improve their
service - showing them where their service is weak, or where they should focus
their marketing.

------
nicholasjarnold
Still works well even with almost all permissions denied using LBE Privacy
Guard. Want my Phone ID? Too bad!

~~~
JamesCRR
Hehe good to hear. We use a hashed version of phone IMEI as a unique
identifier for proper weighting and cleaning of the data. You can also stop
this without LBE by turning off data-sharing in the app, but then you won't be
contributing to the world' largest and most open coverage maps.

~~~
nicholasjarnold
Yep, I'm still contributing my data. I was just a little bit leery of giving
the unique ID of my handset. Will the data I share with my IMEI blocked still
be useful?

------
stanleydrew
I would love to install and try this, but it wants access to my SMS messages
and all my contacts. Why would a WiFi analyzer possibly need those two
permissions? I've all but given up on rejecting apps that request my phone id
since they all seem to do it now. But this seems excessive.

~~~
sinak
The SMS messages stuff is so we can run analysis on number of SMS's you send
and receive to display to you. We don't read any of your SMS's, we just count
them. Unfortunately Android permissions don't let us differentiate the two.
You can just not allow that permission though and the app will still work.

~~~
hayksaakian
Last I checked, you can't cherry pick permissions when you install an app, its
all or nothing.

~~~
sinak
Hmm, I'm the iPhone user of the company so I wouldn't know :). But according
to nicholasjarnold below LBE Privacy Guard might work for that?

~~~
nicholasjarnold
You can absolutely cherry pick permissions (and everyone should). You just
can't do it during installation and without a 3rd party helper app. Please
look into rooting your device and installing LBE Privacy Guard.

------
glogla
Is there way to simply get APK? Some people are not using google market, even
if they are using Android.

~~~
radley
Really? Why is that? I"m also an Android developer, so I'm curious why anyone
would avoid the Play market.

~~~
nickpresta
Kindle, not available in their country, etc.

~~~
radley
Kindle isn't really Android and doesn't use most of these features.

Countries that are not on Google Play usually have legal / export
restrictions, do they not?

~~~
r4vik
so what if they have legal / export restrictions, it shouldn't stop them from
getting software

~~~
brendan_gill
We have a lot of demand from users who aren't able to access our app on Google
Play. There's a lot of devices out there without market access e.g. Kindle
Fire and we get a lot of demand in countries which don't have Google Play e.g.
Iran & China.

------
derobert
Two things:

1) I'm unclear what I'm supposed to enter on the plan details screen's
"billing date".

My last bill covered 2012-12-10 through 2013-01-09. Do I enter 9 or 10 there?
Experimenting, it looks like you want the first day in the next bill, so 10.

2) The time on network graph is showing a lot of time on 3g, but that's
because the phone is on WiFi so it dropped the HSDPA+ connection, probably to
save power. Would be nice if you could exclude when on WiFi from that chart.

------
nakedrobot2
I enjoyed OpenSignal 1 on Android, but I also found that it was running in the
background (and using up the very limited RAM on my Nexus S) even when I had
not opened the app. So I uninstalled it. Are you able to explain why it was
doing this, or was I somehow mistaken? Thank you!

~~~
brendan_gill
Its user configurable. In the settings we allow users to choose how frequently
the app will take signal readings and whether or not it will do so in the
background. We also allow users to turn off data sharing completely if they
are so inclined.

------
th0ma5
Working in a large downtown building, it would be great to have 3D view of
what walls to be by to make a call. My brain sort of has a map like this, just
from the punishment of a hanging browser session or dropped call.

~~~
spwestwood
With the new version of Google maps you can view nearby cell towers on a 3D
map - you can see a screen shot on the android market:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3.opensignal&hl=en)
It's very cool :)

------
donniezazen
OpenSignal 1.0 crashed evrytime I opened it on my Nexus 4. I hope you guys
have fixed all those issues and I also hope the refresh is now automatic in-
app and not manual.

~~~
brendan_gill
We're always interested in bug reports. Its most helpful if you can provide a
detailed description so that we can try and recreate it. For example, you said
it crashes on start but is it immediate or does it occur consistently after a
particular element loads? Anything else that you notice? Also, detailed
breakdown of carrier, device & software version always helps. In terms of
updates we use the standard Google Play system, so you'll receive a
notification when you open the Google Play app & the app will update
automatically if you select the automatica updates checkbox. Thanks for the
feedback.

~~~
donniezazen
I have previously submitted bug reports when the crash happened through
regular Android bug reporter. I just gave it a try and now it doesn't crash
and start time has gone down too. It feels much more smooth now. Good work.
Two other things that I want to say are as follows.

1\. The app allows you to swipe among screens (Dashboard, Test, Stats,
Coverage, and report) but once you are in coverage/map section swipe among
screens doesn't work, instead it pans the map. May be a lock should be placed
in map screen to have a consistent swipe experience.

2\. I am not sure how stat settings work. I use Nexus 4 with Straight
Talk/ATT. It is a prepaid with $45 for everything unlimited. I pay on 7th of
each month. Allowances and Traffic settings in both Contract and pre-paid
revert back to default settings. I can't change top-up date in pre-paid
settings. Data/Call/SMS monitoring settings can be more intuitive.

Thanks for coming over here and answering questions.

~~~
brendan_gill
Thanks - glad the new version is working better. We've squashed a large number
of bugs.

1\. The map screen will swipe but due to the map extending to the sides of the
screen, a bezel swipe is required to switch to tabs adjacent to the map tab.
This was recommended to us by Google employees on the Android team, so I
imagine it's relatively standard practice.

2\. We'll take a look at this. When you look into the different types of
contract and pre-paid plans out there the functionality and settings rapidly
became very complex. Once we get a bit more feedback from users we'll do some
work to simplify them.

~~~
donniezazen
1\. Problem solved. Thanks.

------
yock
I love the idea behind this. I seem to recall that the previous version wasn't
terribly stable on my Galaxy Nexus. I'm eager to give the new version a try.

