ClickTime and the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Note4

Recently we received a few reports of serious usability problems with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and our Android application. Around the same time, we also noticed poor user reviews in the Google Play store all coming from S5 users.

We were (obviously) concerned so we ran through a full troubleshooting process to see what was the matter. The first step was to reproduce the problem. We saw this behavior on none of our Android devices, even other Samsung devices, but we didn't have an S5 on hand. So we looked to our other users to see who was using the S5. Fortunately, our logs tell us which devices are being used and we did see that the S5 was being used repeatedly by a sizable group of users who had not complained. That neither confirmed nor contradicted the reports we were hearing, so we took the process to the next step.

We acquired an S5 on Verizon (the exact unit in the original bug report) and we immediately saw for ourselves the nature of the problem. Samsung's "improvements" to the regular Android OS have altered the sensitivity of screen touches, which made our application very difficult to use. (We later learned that this was a common issue for applications built on PhoneGap, our mobile development framework). This was unsettling, to say the least, but extremely helpful to see for ourselves.

So what are we doing about it? We've begun the process of altering our app to fully support Samsung's atypical screen interactivity. This work is receiving priority over other mobile efforts since Samsung is a large and growing contingent of our Android user base. It's esoteric work but we're fortunate that we can test it fully on our test unit prior to release.

In addition, we've withdrawn all new downloads for Galaxy S5 users. We'd rather not have unpredictable results while we're working out the kinks. We have also withdrawn all new downloads for Samsung Galaxy Note4 users which seem to be exhibiting the same symptoms.

This is just one more episode in the incredibly fragmented world of different carriers, hardware manufacturers, operating system versions, and screen sizes which make supporting mobile users so challenging. We're working very hard to support all of the popular devices -- despite the frustration it causes us and our users -- because we recognize just how critical and useful these devices are in our lives.

We're looking forward to some simplification as older operating systems disappear from the market and more device manufacturers support standard Android versions instead of trying to change Android to appear unique. And we're also very excited about mobile products which we'll release later in the year. Stay tuned.

So thanks to those users who have reported problems and those users who are patiently awaiting for Samsung Galaxy S5 and Note4 support to return.

(And please note that no other Android users or iOS users have been affected by this issue.)