ubuntu-appstore-developers team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Martin Albisetti wrote on 21/04/14 20:04:
> ...
> 
> Currently, and for a little while until we hit critical mass,
> we'll be lacking apps that people expect their phones to have. We
> will, however, have similar apps that may help bridge the gap.
> 
> I'd like to propose we add to empty search results the possibility 
> for the server to return "related apps".

Applications often show up in search results only incidentally, so
whether the search results are empty isn't relevant to whether related
apps should be shown.

For example, if someone searched for "Spotify", and it wasn't
available, you might want to show streaming music services X, Y, and Z
that are available. Airfoil isn't a streaming music service, but it
happens to mention Spotify in its description. So if Airfoil was
ported to Ubuntu Touch, the search results for "Spotify" would no
longer be empty. But that would not change whether X, Y, and Z should
be included in those results.

> We can change over time what the server uses to calculate what to 
> return, we just need to agree what the changes to the API would
> be, and make sure the server and the client can represent this.
> 
> On the server side, Fabian is ready and eager to work on this.
> 
> Who can pick up the scope side of things, help define the API and 
> make this change?
> 
> ...

Ubuntu Software Center already has this capability (though the
database has never been populated), so it may be worthwhile looking at
its implementation.

- -- 
mpt

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