As you may have seen, a 5MB asset size limit per project will appear for the Free plan:
Free plan
Kodular Premium
Total asset size
5MB
Unlimited
However, you can easily bypass it without paying by following tutorials like this one: App Inventor Tutorials and Examples: Webprefetch File by File | Pura Vida Apps. The idea is that you can keep developing apps without any asset limit if you reduce the app size, which at the same time helps to override the 32MB limit when exporting the apps.
I think most users should be aware of this by now. However, it takes a bit more than basic knowledge to build (at least with my How to build a big app approach) an app (APK / AAB) that will be accepted in the Play Store. Because this not only requires decompilation of the APK, but also correct signing of the APK / AAB. And that over mightwhelm (put off) many beginners (new users) at first.
The option to download the required (assets) files on the first start is / was NEVER an option for me - for very good reasons.
Once again, if we wanted to censor you, all your posts regarding the Premium plan would have been gone, as well as many other people that are not really agreeing with it.
We allow all opinions as you can see, because we want to see the reception of the Premium plan, to better adjust it in the upcoming weeks. Even though you may not believe it, community means a lot, and we want to hear everyoneâs opinions and suggestions for the Premium plan, so we can offer a better solution and alternatives.
And again:
Isnât it censorship if a mod loses status because of an opinion (which was actually expressed legitimately and for very good reasons)? Of course it is!
As I said before, I will NOT allow / accept my freedom of expression to be restricted!
Trust me, if they wanted to censor you, then your existence could have been wiped out entirely from here. So, Kodular wants you to stay here and criticize or do anything you wish, but not as a moderator. As a moderator, you canât do that because then your statement can be considered as official one, maybe.
Anke, App Inventor and Kodular have their different ways to deal with Moderators.
Thatâs correct. Being a moderator somehow represents Kodular in an indirect way. The way you have stated your opinion is not something people would expect from a moderator (and I repeat, the way, not the opinion itself).
You are free to give your opinion, as well as all users here, but respecting your manners. Other mods are not happy either with the Premium plan, but yet we can discuss it and share their thoughts using proper manners.
Additionally, as you say, you were a moderator. This implies that you were aware about the possible implementation of a Premium plan since April, 19th of April exactly. On that day, we had a meeting that was allowed for both Moderators and ProKoders.
We mentioned the possibility of Kodular implementing a Premium plan, as well as stating the features that would be unlocked by paying and the detailed motivation behind this. Since that day, we provided a recording of the meeting for everyone that could not attend it live.
You did not show any interest at all in giving any feedback since that day, nor discussing it with other mods, so they way you are stating your opinion is definitely not appropriate considering you could have said it a long time ago, and with different manners.
It doesnât matter if information is âofficialâ or not. It is precisely the so-called âofficialâ information (whatever that may be) that I also question. For me it doesnât matter how moderators or ânormalâ users are treated, but ONLY how PEOPLE are treated.
By the way, I didnât make any announcement for Kodular, I only made legitimate criticism. Thatâs all.
In this respect, it is completely independent of how users / moderators are dealt with at AI2, Kodular, Niotron or wherever. I will ALWAYS behave the same way - exactly how I see fit!
What should be âofficialâ about a critical remark?
I have had an excellent education with the best manners in Germany and I certainly donât need any instruction on my manners from anyone. Itâs starting to get very personal.
Maybe the Kodular team should just admit that after months of radio silence they have launched a disastrous update. And the update after that is even worse.
Therefore, my criticism is and was justified. I had repeatedly offered Kodular my help to fix the bugs. But no one even answered.
Sorry, Diego, but I couldnât attend it live and I didnât know you were providing the recording of it. Maybe I shouldâve emailed you for getting information, but, unfortunately, I didnât.
I have no problems with asset limit, but limiting extensions is something I do worry about because I use at least 6 âfixed onesâ in my apps.
Since it is not at all predictable when all these (countless) bugs will be fixed, I recommend everyone to at least take a multi-pronged approach and also look around for alternative platforms. At least thatâs what I did because I canât/donât want to put my Play Store apps at risk.
Currently I see Niotron as one of the best alternatives if you are not willing to build apps with Android Studio, which would require a long learning curve. (Iâve created my iOS apps with Xcode and Swift, so I know pretty well what it means to get used to a new development platform (Xcode) and to be able to create native apps with Appleâs Swift programming language.)
It remains to be seen how freedom of speech will be respected here on the forums by the Kodular team, or if my opinion will be censored again or Iâll be still further downgraded (if thatâs still possible ). At least that was the case when I still had my moderator status.
Conclusion:
I would have continued to be positive and supportive of Kodular as at least in the past (prior to targetSdk 30) everything worked satisfactorily apart from a few bugs. But after that there was a long period of no response for months and then came this devastating update. If you donât do your homework (or do it poorly), you not only have to put up with justified criticism, you should also take immediate action to remedy the situation. Apparently there is no willingness to both of them! At least neither has happened so far!
Instead, there is this premature and abstruse premium offer.