AMA: Apps + Marketplace Edition

[Taylor_Savage]

Hi everyone!

Lots of exciting announcements today on the Airtable Platform! For more information specifically about how this launch impacts developers - including updates to the Blocks SDK and how to submit an app to the marketplace - check out our post here.

We’ll be hosting a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) session in this thread on Thursday 9/17 at 10am PT, where a number of folks from our platform engineering team will be online to answer any developer-focused questions you might have related to building Apps and submitting to the Marketplace.

Feel free to begin posting questions here in advance! We’ll do our best to get to everything we can on Thursday.

See you there!

[somehats]

kuovonne:

How can I tell if I’ve already filled out this form or not? Lol, I feel like I’ve filled out a zillion forms for Airtable signing up for different things.

If you can create custom apps in the base you have creator access to, you have developer access! I’m super confident that in your case, you already have access :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

[Billy_Littlefie]

Hey @kuovonne ,

Good questions! I’ll take a few of these…

kuovonne:

How can a Developer remove an app from the marketplace if the developer no longer wants the app to be available?The Developer policy states that apps may not use unpublished APIs. What about an internal unpublished APIs that the developer has created specifically to interact with Airtable but does not want the public using?

The “unpublished APIs” bit of the developer policy is meant to refer to unpublished Airtable APIs. We don’t currently have any specific restrictions in the policy regarding external API usage. As part of our app review process, we will look at all requests to and responses from external services to ensure app security.

kuovonne:

The Developer policy states that apps must function on the desktop version and all supported browsers. It is not realistic for independent developers to actually test all of those scenarios. What do you consider to be a reasonable amount of testing for an independent developer?

Regarding cross-browser compatibility, I think a “best effort” approach - my recommendation would be to use a tool like https://caniuse.com/ or MDN docs when evaluating whether to use a given DOM / JavaScript API. More broadly speaking, our interpretation is that if users are repeatedly encountering a specific browser-related issue while using a supported browser, we’ll forward that bug report along so we can resolve retroactively.

kuovonne:

The Developer policy states that apps may not “display advertising or promotional content beyond your (or your organization’s) name and logo” Does this mean that we cannot include even a website in the app itself?

Regarding in-app branding: linking to your site within the app is OK, this policy is more geared towards blatant in-app ads.

[Billy_Littlefie]

kuovonne:

You probably haven’t had time to create developer resources yet for all of the information you need from people submitting blocks/apps. However, that would be really useful. For example, if you could have examples of reviewer directions, short and long descriptions, etc. Do’s and don’ts for screen shots and other graphics would also be nice.

Thanks for the great feedback! We plan on continuing to improve/streamline the app submission process, and these definitely would be good resources to add for developers submitting apps.

[kuovonne]

Taylor_Savage:

One thing will always be true - we also want to continue to support the “Makers” and “DIYers” in a first-class way. Partially selfishly, since we’re “Makers” and “DIYers” ourselves on the team, and would never want to feel like the Airtable platform is only a place for enterprises and businesses to play.

Thank you very much for this comment. This attitude is one of the things that I find very attractive about Airtable.

[somehats]

kuovonne:

Submitting a block by running block submit without any other prior contact or registration feels emotionally odd to me.

While I understand that a block/app should be as polished as possible before submitting it, if Airtable finds issues, what is the review process for correcting those issues?

About how long can developers expect it to take from block submit to the block appearing in the marketplace?

block submit is very much just the entry-point to the process. Because this process is very new, I’m not sure how long it’ll typically take for apps to get listed in the marketplace, but we’ll get back to you with at least a status update within 2 weeks. In practice though (especially whilst this process is new) you’ll probably hear from one of us personally much sooner!

After an initial round of review, if we encounter any issues, we’ll give you details of those. We can work with you to get them resolved, and any code-changes can be sent to us by running block submit again.

[kuovonne]

somehats:

block submit is very much just the entry-point to the process.

After the custom blocks contest, I was told that Airtable was interested in two of my three blocks for the gallery, but to hold off on my winning block. However, I did not get clear instructions on the next steps for placing my block/apps in the gallery/marketplace, or what to do with the third block.

Should I just run block submit for those blocks to start the process?

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Billy_Littlefield:

Regarding in-app branding: linking to your site within the app is OK, this policy is more geared towards blatant in-app ads.

@Billy_Littlefield @Taylor_Savage @somehats @Emma_Yeap

Please, please, please, whatever you end up doing with the Marketplace, DO NOT ALLOW MONETIZED ADS OF ANY SORT IN MARKETPLACE APPS.

I realize it’s a personal opinion, more than anything, but I can’t stand monetized web and mobile app ads. I think they degrade the quality of the apps themselves, the products they appear in, and the marketplace overall.

I would fully support an across-the-board ban on in-app ads for Marketplace approval.

[kuovonne]

Kamille_Parks:

As someone who has an app in the Marketplace, and two apps that there’s no way I’m open-sourcing,

I agree with Kamille. I don’t have an app in the Marketplace, but one of the reasons why I haven’t pursued creating more blocks/apps or putting them in the gallery/marketplace is because I don’t want to open-source all of my code and I need to be careful in investing my time in activities that don’t have a financial return.

[somehats]

Thanks for all the great questions, folks! We’re going to answer all the questions that have already been asked, but questions asked after this point might not get answers.

Thanks again all :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

[somehats]

kuovonne:

After the custom blocks contest, I was told that Airtable was interested in two of my three blocks for the gallery, but to hold off on my winning block. However, I did not get clear instructions on the next steps for placing my block/apps in the gallery/marketplace, or what to do with the third block.

Should I just run block submit for those blocks to start the process?

Yes please! We’d love to get your apps listed