On September 30, developer gman announced he would be pulling his popular Droid X app Real HDMI from the market. Now, it looks like that time has come and gone, as the app is no longer available for download from the Market, AppBrain, or anywhere else (as far as we can tell). He provides 3 main reasons for having done so:

Issue #1 = Droid X 2.2 is broke and I can't fix it.
There is (at least one) critical bug in the Droid X 2.2 that causes a statistical chance of the Droid X LCD Driver to crash when transitioning from HDMI ON → OFF. This bug occurs when using Real HDMI or the built in Gallery application when HDMI is disabled. This is a kernel bug which I have described on the Motorola forums: https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/38053
I can't in good conscience continue to sell/provide an application that will potentially crash someones phone no matter how much effort I put into the code. I am working out a method with Google to continue to provide updates to those who have already purchased it without allowing for new purchases.


Issue #2 = I don't have time to supply level of support application now requires under 2.2
The instability in the Droid X as a platform under 2.2 has caused the email volume to skyrocket. Am trying to respond to 300+ “new” emails a day, not including those email threads from individuals on previous days. I barely have enough time to support those who have already purchased the application and shown their support for my efforts without continuing to add more individuals to that list by leaving app up for purchase on the market.


Issue #3 = Android Marketplace model is broken
The Android marketplace does not provide a friendly environment for a developer to target an application at a subset of android users and punishes those who try. Combine the inability to manage the distribution of my application through the marketplace with Google always giving the purchaser the benefit of the doubt and its an unfriendly developer environment. The settings that is supposed to limit application availability just doesn't work. I have Real HDMI set to only be set to be visible to Droid X 2.2 phones on the Verizon network. But I deal with a hundred or more charge back requests a day from EVO users who still are able to purchase the app and do so without reading app description with states its for Droid X only. I am now dealing with more charge back/refund requests from users of other phones then seeing actual purchases from Droid X users. The high level of charge back/refund requests is putting my marketplace account in jeopardy of being suspended.

I'm no developer, but those sound like some pretty reasonable complaints to me. This isn't exactly the first time we've heard developers complain about the Android Market, and it's a little sad to see that Google has yet to make any changes to appease them. We've also heard about a fairly substantial number of users complain about the Droid X 2.2 issues, but this is the first we're hearing complaints from a developer. Considering that the issues have been persisting for nearly a month now with nary a peep from Verizon and a not-a-solution post from Motorola, it may be time for the companies to step things up and fix the bugs in one of the most popular Android handsets on the market.

[Source: DroidXForums (gman) via reddit]