It may be VERY easy for you, but the vast majority of iPhone users don't jailbreak. For them, it's easier to go to the App Store and pay their 99 cents. That's why the real money to be made is off of iOS.
And there are those that jailbreak but dont care about pirating apps fo 99 cents. It is just dumb. My time is more precious than that and i WANT to support artists and developers. Im glad to pay for something that is nice and works. Thought there are instances that i have bought crap from appstore. There should be some return policy of nonworking piece of shit apps that dont do what they tell you, or are justa so bad that they crash all the time and have no support. They should have some auditing of developers so that the shody ones that dont care about geting the bugs out will not get the fame they dont deserve.
ezshare pro is a prime example of a software that is unique in the appstore (afp client) but its so god damn buggy you will crap your pants half the time you use it. The developer has moved to another software (cloud connect) name that they probably work on but with the software costing that much it just sucks to have developers abandone all updates like that... Now that could be a reason to pirate....
If it was normal equipment you could get a refund for that but theres no such thing for software it seems...
If indeed Apple is working on a TV, I am particularly interested to know to what extent a final product will result from a pre-determined, Steven Jobs' ordained path and whether there remains any major decisions to be made. In other words, will Steve's fully realised vision be implemented or were there unknowns in the execution that will require major work, such as negotiations with third party content providers?
Interesting times. \
EDIT - Wrong thread - sorry (although I am interested all the same)!
I dunno if Schmidt is right, but I would certainly like to see some balance. More devleopers being platform agnostic would be nice. As a consumer, I don't really like having to buy certain hardware just to run certain software. I'd hope that some day they go one step further and allow somebody who bought an app on iOS to get the same app free on Android or vice versa (iTunes Match for apps?).
Developers are gonna go where the profits are. Why should the spend their time and resources if there is no financial gain?
I can't see why any developer of a paid app would target Android first, if at all.
There are already developers doing just that. One example : new Adobe Touch family is available on Android and apparently selling very well, while just a few applications are available on iOS.
Some gaming companies announced Android-first policy as well. With lots of them using Unity3D, it doesn't matter anyway, as their games are available virtually at the same time for both platforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregalad
But convincing someone to download, install and run your app isn't easy. The average number of apps on a phone is really quite low and I believe the Android figure is lower than the iOS one. Then there's the whole issue of whether or not your app supports the version of Android that users have.
Which OS version to target?
Phones still under contract run 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 4.0.
The majority of Android phones are never updated from the OS they shipped with.
Developing for older OSs involves trade-offs that can make your app less appealing and multiplies the testing effort.
Developing for new OSs leaves millions of users unable to run your app.
If you target 2.2 you have over 90% of the market without any of the problems you mentioned. And it is not that hard to add features specific to newer OS version.
On iOS, there are multiple versions of the OS, too, and there are multiple device types as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregalad
Which manufacturers/carriers to support?
Every manufacturer has its own UI layer and selection of hardware buttons
Hundreds of carriers around the world have exclusive phones, exclusive software, etc.
And pretty much none of this matter to the developer. The API is still the same and how manufacturer changes the Launcher application has usually absolutely no effect on how application run on various devices. All that "fragmentation" is greatly exaggerated, and I think it is really funny that it is mostly non-Android developers who talk about it. Think about FUD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregalad
What screen size to target?
Phones available for sale today range from the minuscule 240x320 all the way up to 720x1280.
If your whole UI fits into 240x320 it's going to look like crap on many larger screens.
If your UI needs more than 240x320 then it's going to get cut off on small phones.
Have you ever heard about the UI not based on absolute dimensions ? This whole HTML thing is dealing with multiple dimensions of browsers and seems everybody is happy with that. The same for the Android. Plus the platform has quite decent support to make this even easier to handle. Again, real Android developers don't complain about this a bit.
Plus the same problem is with iOS too, look at the different screen resolutions of various iOS devices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregalad
What screen ratio to target?
Phones available for sale today come in 4 different screen ratios from 1.33 to 1.778.
No matter what shape you target your UI will be stretched/compressed/cropped on a lot of phones.
Same as above. This can be handled easily. Android development is not that different form iOS development. It helps that developer has access to the source code, which gives him a chance to pinpoint eventual problems, while on iOS you are out of luck.
It really goes down to decision which platform is more lucrative for your particular application. It is iOS quite often, but times might be changing. The number of potential customers is already in favor of Android, and with more and more countries finally able to buy applications it might be possible that paid application sales will catch up as well.
I'm not going to be a popular guy but I'm predicting he is going to be right. This has the stink of deja vu all over it from the early 90's. Apple was raking in huge cash being the only decent GUI out there and being the only real solution that could address things like color correction, prepress, etc.
The Mac's were more expensive than PC's but you had the complete value proposition to justify that. Then Windows 95 came along and though it still sucked, it was within the tolerably sucky realm for most people. The Mac OS and it's limitations suddenly seemed quite old. The bottom fell out of PC pricing. I can distinctly remember a friend of mine financing a Pentium class Acer computer for about $2500 and less than a year later they were half that. 18-24 months after that there were PC shows everywhere where a machine 4-5 times as powerful were being built for $800.
It's pretty clear that the smartphone is getting ready to become the commodity feature phone. In less than four years we will have gone from a single core 400 mhz processor to quad core processors at 1-1.5 ghz on phones.
That doesn't mean that Apple will die, go extinct or go broke or anything like that. They've simply reverted back to their old ways too much. I've seen it. We've all watched it happened like a frog being boiled and it is getting ready to bite them in the butt.
Fragmentation won't matter at all. You really are only talking a few changes because the fragments still all center around the same few variables. Kindle Fire and BN Nook, they still have the same processor and screen size as examples. Even if it causes a few issues people just don't know better, put up with it, or the network effect of everyone around them having the same devices and finding the same kludgy solutions overrides the problem. We exactly this happen with Windows. Did Windows 95-98, NT, etc. all suck? Absolutely but when everyone can find the one guy on the block who can fix it and there is one guy every block, then the problems don't seem so big.
It's already estimated that Android has 52% of the market for smartphones. I'm predicting Apple will stay between 15-20% and that Android will continue to march toward higher marketshare and as part of that marketshare the prices of smartphones will come crashing down to the point to where $175-199 OFF CONTRACT for a dual-core HD video shooting 3.5 inch smartphone becomes reality.
Apple has become too insular again and they are hurting themselves. They are also biting the hands in their own eco-system that feed them. People are noting that not only is Apple still selling iPods but that they command a majority of the PMP market. That was because they made the very controversial decision for them at the time to put Quicktime and iTunes onto Windows. They've stopped doing things like this and are watching competitors walk past them putting their solutions on all platforms while making it best on their own platform.
You don't see Google declaring that gmail is only going to work on Android. Where is Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for Windows? Where is iMessage for Android and Windows Phone? Where is Facetime for Windows? Why can't Apple even provide iBooks for Mac? They can't even sort out if I'm using iChat or Facetime for goodness sakes. It smells like rot on the vine.
Amazon will sell me a Kindle. They'll sell me a Kindle Fire. They'll have an app store for everyone who doesn't have a Fire. I can read my Kindle books on my iPhone, my Android phone, my Mac, my whatever. Google is doing the same thing. Put it out everywhere. They aren't trying to lock you in by pure ecosystem, they are locking you in via network effect which then becomes the true eco-system. In addition they now have an incentive to make their Kindle reader app better for other platforms and can even blame Apple for the iOS inferiority by declaring that items like the links to their bookstore had to be removed per Apple. I have an Android phone to play with and for the first time the Kindle app has become better on Android. For the first time the Facebook app has reached parity with the iOS app within the same month. The gap is closing quickly and Apple demanding a 30% cut, tossing out any app they feel competes with them too much while not improving their own solutions and finally, simple declaring certain features can't be touched or added until they deem it so (Hello volume up button for camera) just lets the competition catch up and leapfrog them.
Apple can still fix this and change what they are doing wrong. They are estimated to push out 30 million iPhones this quarter and that will be amazing. I'm sure it will help versus the 150 million Android phones that will probably be shoved out there in various forms. However there's definitely been a change. Grandma knows what a Kindle Fire is and that is very different than the past. Apple's solutions are definitely still the best and also still good enough but the spec whores, the cheapskates, and everyone else is finding a good enough solution in Android. Also the ecosystem for their solutions is showing up everywhere. It isn't as tightly integrated but they are also willing to put it on your Mac, PC, car who knows what. That counts for something too.
Apple can still fix this and change what they are doing wrong.
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
I have no thoughts on if Apple is doing anything wrong...I probably don't think they are but "wrong" doesn't seem to be a word to use when so much of what they do seems right, however, your argument seems to be "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'."
I have no thoughts on if Apple is doing anything wrong...I probably don't think they are but "wrong" doesn't seem to be a word to use when so much of what they do seems right, however, your argument seems to be "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'."
Seems flawed.
I'm not making that argument, though it might seem so in response to the quoted post. My honest opinion is that there is nothing in it for Apple to follow the strategy of those who advise Apple to get with the non-closed system program. They have a model that works for them, unsatisfied as some are with it.
It's similar to their "professional" applications strategy. They have alienated a huge portion of their pro audio/video/photo user base by releasing the products very sporadically and not catering to the needs of the high end users, many of whom they are losing their grip on. (I speak as one of all three). But are they missing the boat by making billions with the user they are targeting instead of hundreds of thousands keeping the pros happy? Not at all. I'll have my pro needs met somehow, with Apple or not, but they have clearly boomed by getting these apps into the prosumers hands and not being too concerned with the pros needs, unhappy as we sometimes have been. It's not "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'", but it is "they would be a fraction of the success they are if they listened to the advice".
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
This has nothing to do with being open. It has nothing to do with Apple sinking. It has everything to do with network effects and if they can overcome the superior and single source solution Apple offers at a price premium. We know they can because we saw this with Windows vs. Mac.
Quote:
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Let me say you are right that Apple has the majority of profits in the market. They have been the best solution for their developers and have paid them more than any other platform. The change here is two-fold. First you have a product that everyone is charging a premium for getting ready to move to commodity pricing. Also no one is declaring they will go broke, go away, be sold off or anything. The claim by Schmidt is that developers will start going to Android first or giving it priority. Understand his statement wouldn't be true of Apple had 20% of the market and Android had 30% and everyone else was carving up the last 50% and this remained true forever.
Instead what is clear is that Android is destroying everything that is NOT Apple. That means Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile are all quickly giving up share to Android. It is pretty clear that Android will be everything that is not Apple real soon.
So as a developer, it makes perfect sense to write for 20% of the market and get access to 50% of the profits, especially when getting access to the other 50% requires rewriting your app four more times. The value proposition makes perfect sense there and the smart money would write for iOS first, best or even exclusively.
However the other half of those profits and likely 80-85% of the market will soon be Android. In addition to the network effect 80-85% of the market will bring, the prices of those phones will be falling dramatically. Do you know why I have an Android phone to play with? Someone bartered it to me. They owed me $100 and gave me a Motorola Droid2 with 16 gigs of storage. It's a whole year old phone and came out the same time as the iPhone 4. It might fetch $125-$150 if I sold it and it is in perfect condition.
The rate of progress on the Android side of things is clearly faster. Apple is starting to lose the spec wars but still offers a better overall solution. The higher specs mean that the prices will soon be falling. If you have a quad core 1.5 ghz chip for a phone at $600, the dual-core 1.2 ghz chip has to be lower. This rate of progress means $200 dual-core HD cam shooting camera here quick and that will be the price OFF contract. Apple must have premium pricing for their product to maintain their stock price and also maintain all they must do to be the best solution in all areas and a one stop solution shop for most needs.
Quote:
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
Apple was doing great back in 1992 and 1993. Their marketshare was high and their profits were premium. It also didn't seem to hurt them when the solutions being fought over were OS/2, Windows 3.1, DOS, Mac OS, Amiga, Atari, etc. The scales tipped somewhere when Windows garnered between 50-75% of the entire market and when people began to realize that even having to write for one fragmented platform netted them more mindshare and profits then writing for multiple platforms. Apple got hurt very badly by that and I'm afraid they will again if they don't at least throw their stuff out there and take advantage of the same network effects. I'm not talking hardware because that is where they make their money. They can throw iWork, Facetime, iBooks, etc out on Mac and Windows for cheap or next to nothing and really improve the value proposition of the iPhone and also become a more comprehensive (and thus premium) solution for everyone.
It's the original argument that Microsoft supposedly 'won' in the 90's, that the money is in the SOFTWARE not the hardware...I knew SJ was determined to prove that one wrong. In fact, that was in every business school's curriculum as THE worst business mistake of a generation, Apple's refusal to license its OS to any manufacturer. Well, SJ PROVED THEM WRONG. Apple will continue to prove them wrong, and I'm sure the business case studies books are being changed to reflect that.
Apple will continue to develop highly proprietary gadgets with universal appeal. They can put custom fabbed chips in that nobody can duplicate. Closed system? Network effect? I'd say they ran circles around everyone else by giving the best user experience and are creating their own network effect. Lots of people are willing to pay the extra for the ease of use. The spec nuts can tout this or that whiz bang, but what good is a screaming fast part if it's throttled down by a lousy UI concept?
Yeah, grandma knows the kindle fire is only $200, and that's probably still too much for her. But it's still a POS.
Soon Apple will corner the low price range too, and there won't be much reason to buy crap balky buggy interfaces. If nothing else they will continue the practise of selling last year's product for cheap. They make durable stuff, I can personally say.
Deja vu? Are you saying Apple should put their software out everywhere? How are they going to support Windows etc. OS problems? Im sure they got a good taste of that with iTunes. If you want Apple's ease of use you need an apple OS, that's mostly true.
What happened after Windows conquered the world? They are still out there but slowly leaking air. The computer business became a race to the bottom in price. Microsoft was forced to keed adding code to the same base to keep enterprise happy, they aren't exactly winning any acclaim. Apple chose to be 'closed' and proprietary for a good bunch of reasons. Their stuff 'just works'. Most people prefer that once introduced.
I'm not making that argument, though it might seem so in response to the quoted post. My honest opinion is that there is nothing in it for Apple to follow the strategy of those who advise Apple to get with the non-closed system program. They have a model that works for them, unsatisfied as some are with it.
It's similar to their "professional" applications strategy. They have alienated a huge portion of their pro audio/video/photo user base by releasing the products very sporadically and not catering to the needs of the high end users, many of whom they are losing their grip on. (I speak as one of all three). But are they missing the boat by making billions with the user they are targeting instead of hundreds of thousands keeping the pros happy? Not at all. I'll have my pro needs met somehow, with Apple or not, but they have clearly boomed by getting these apps into the prosumers hands and not being too concerned with the pros needs, unhappy as we sometimes have been. It's not "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'", but it is "they would be a fraction of the success they are if they listened to the advice".
If Google would overhaul their app store and make it work more like Apple's, then Android app development could be profitable.
Right now there's just no money in it. You just don't make back your development cost.
Even if every dumb phone user switched to Androind, that wouldn't change the fact that all of the mobile app revenue would still be in the iOS space. Google needs to take simple steps to make app sales better for developer. The ball is in Google's court.
I fully acknowledge the problems. Schmidt's stated reason for attracting more developers is utterly moronic. "It's open." WTF?
That's not enough to bring developers over.
But the reasoning that most Apple-lovers have for Android users not buying apps ("They're cheap.") is wrong too.
There's real challenges to buying apps on Android.
1) Paid apps aren't available everywhere.
2) You can't buy an app without a credit card. There's nothing equivalent to iTunes gift cards for Android.
3) Disovery. Apple just makes it easier to find what you want. How a web search and marketing company sucks at this is beyond me.
4) Quality. The quality on Android apps is usually lower than iOS apps. And users just aren't going to pay for apps they don't like. Part of the problem here is fragmentation. Developers are forced to use a lower API level to make their app available to more users.
5) Storage. Not all apps can be loaded on the MicroSD card. Yet, most cheaper or older phones come with very limited onboard storage, severely limiting the number of apps one can buy. Even the Nexus One only came with a little over half a gig.
Google would have to address all these issues before app sales really started to pick up. But it's quite likely they are hoping some of them work out. Hence, the Ice Cream Sandwich comment from Schmidt. With updates slowing down, in a year or two, you'll only see two Android version dominating the installed base (for example virtually 90% of Android devices will be Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich in a year). This should make it a lot easier for developers. But in other areas, Google still has to put in some effort. It has to either encourage OEMs to put more memory onboard or encourage app developers to make apps that are App2SD capable. It has to address the availability of paid apps and look at ways to pay for apps. And it has to work on discovery (though that is improving).
You and 3 other guys. Seriously, who picks a phone because a certain app is only available on it? I'll wager almost no one.
I doubt I'm the only one who's ever considered an iPad largely because of Apple's productivity apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) or if a regular Google Docs user hasn't considered an Android tablet simply because Android has a Google Docs app available.
Heck, there are people that bought the iPhone 4 largely because of Facetime or the iPhone 4S largely because of Siri. People motivation to buy certain goods can vary quite widely.
Yeah, grandma knows the kindle fire is only $200, and that's probably still too much for her. But it's still a POS.
Except that outside of Apple fandom, people have a threshold and value system for spending their disposable income that sometimes says spend $200 for a POS Kindle Fire and using the other $300 on something else makes more sense to them. Get enough people thinking like that and you reach a tipping point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by palomine
Soon Apple will corner the low price range too, and there won't be much reason to buy crap balky buggy interfaces. If nothing else they will continue the practise of selling last year's product for cheap. They make durable stuff, I can personally say.
People keep saying Apple will make cheaper stuff. Hasn't happened yet. For example, on the phone market, Apple's idea of competing was to make the iPhone 3GS free on contract or sell it for $375 off-contract. Stack that against what you can get for the same or similar prices. And argue what you like, but most people would rather spend $375 on a phone that isn't 3 years old, no matter how good it is. I would of thought Apple would have made the iPhone 4 free, instead of extending the 3GS' life and taking on another model to support. But they didn't do that. Cheap is not in Apple's DNA. And there's a positive and a negative side of that trait (or lack thereof).
We'll see how it shakes out. But here's the thing, Moore's law ensures that we get better and better tech everyday at cheaper and cheaper prices. And increasingly smartphones are reaching the point where added functionality just isn't that much of a deal to a regular user who just wants the web, Facebook, email, messaging, etc. You now have phones with the capabilities of a Nexus One (3GS equivalent roughly) that sell for about $250 without a contract. In a year's time, it's realistic that phones with more capability than that will sell for $200 or less. The capability/price point is reaching territory where many consumers can afford smartphones that do virtually all of what they want to do on a phone, for a price that they consider to be commodity pricing. And to add to that, phone companies are even further incentivized to push these phones, because giving away a $250 phone for free is still cheaper than paying Apple's hardware subsidies.
Good luck then, to Amazon and all the rest, losing money on every device, maybe in a few years they can make a better product. Apple put in the effort to get the best overall blend of features and ease of use, I doubt any other company can catch up to that. So much rant about Apple, it seems like their only problem is they are TOO GOOD.
Yes, I understand people must prioritize their spending and an iPad is too rich for purchase for many, but after they try the Fire and compare it to an iPad in a store, they may want to save up and get one, even if it is a prior year model. FWIW I'd still rather have an older iPhone than a brand new android phone if for no other reason than security. Actually, for no other reason than it's elegant operating system, ecosystem, parental controls, durability, etc.
He's wrong. Verizon doesn't even want to release the Nexus from the looks of it. While 4.0 seems nice, and Android is catching up in quality apps (albeit slowly), there's no effing way this would happen in 6 months, if ever.
I've just been reading that ICS won't even be on ANY devices for some good number of months - and that upgrades for existing devices will come along (for some and when/if they do) "sometime" after that.
Meaning there still won't be ANY meaningful number of tablets to even host decent tab applications for at least a year or two - and a phone base mired in the 2.x's - not even 3.x and let alone 4.0.
Which makes Dr. Schmidt's basic math a weee bit suspect.
I've just been reading that ICS won't even be on ANY devices for some good number of months - and that upgrades for existing devices will come along (for some and when/if they do) "sometime" after that.
Meaning there still won't be ANY meaningful number of tablets to even host decent tab applications for at least a year or two - and a phone base mired in the 2.x's - not even 3.x and let alone 4.0.
Which makes Dr. Schmidt's basic math a weee bit suspect.
The only reason 2.3.3 Gingerbread is at 50% making Android look like a unified and homogeneous mobile platform is because it's been allowed to stagnate for over a year. All that effort was moved to 3.0 Honeycomb which was only for tablets, which aren't selling, and then eventually locked down. Once ICS get going in it's drawn out focused manner we'll start seeing Android OS numbers all over the field again. I had hoped Google would have finally gotten this squared away but I guess not. This will end up hurting them on the high-end of the platform.
Comments
It may be VERY easy for you, but the vast majority of iPhone users don't jailbreak. For them, it's easier to go to the App Store and pay their 99 cents. That's why the real money to be made is off of iOS.
And there are those that jailbreak but dont care about pirating apps fo 99 cents. It is just dumb. My time is more precious than that and i WANT to support artists and developers. Im glad to pay for something that is nice and works. Thought there are instances that i have bought crap from appstore. There should be some return policy of nonworking piece of shit apps that dont do what they tell you, or are justa so bad that they crash all the time and have no support. They should have some auditing of developers so that the shody ones that dont care about geting the bugs out will not get the fame they dont deserve.
ezshare pro is a prime example of a software that is unique in the appstore (afp client) but its so god damn buggy you will crap your pants half the time you use it. The developer has moved to another software (cloud connect) name that they probably work on but with the software costing that much it just sucks to have developers abandone all updates like that... Now that could be a reason to pirate....
If it was normal equipment you could get a refund for that but theres no such thing for software it seems...
Interesting times.
EDIT - Wrong thread - sorry (although I am interested all the same)!
I dunno if Schmidt is right, but I would certainly like to see some balance. More devleopers being platform agnostic would be nice. As a consumer, I don't really like having to buy certain hardware just to run certain software. I'd hope that some day they go one step further and allow somebody who bought an app on iOS to get the same app free on Android or vice versa (iTunes Match for apps?).
Developers are gonna go where the profits are. Why should the spend their time and resources if there is no financial gain?
I can't see why any developer of a paid app would target Android first, if at all.
There are already developers doing just that. One example : new Adobe Touch family is available on Android and apparently selling very well, while just a few applications are available on iOS.
Some gaming companies announced Android-first policy as well. With lots of them using Unity3D, it doesn't matter anyway, as their games are available virtually at the same time for both platforms.
But convincing someone to download, install and run your app isn't easy. The average number of apps on a phone is really quite low and I believe the Android figure is lower than the iOS one. Then there's the whole issue of whether or not your app supports the version of Android that users have.
Which OS version to target?
Phones still under contract run 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 4.0.
The majority of Android phones are never updated from the OS they shipped with.
Developing for older OSs involves trade-offs that can make your app less appealing and multiplies the testing effort.
Developing for new OSs leaves millions of users unable to run your app.
If you target 2.2 you have over 90% of the market without any of the problems you mentioned. And it is not that hard to add features specific to newer OS version.
On iOS, there are multiple versions of the OS, too, and there are multiple device types as well.
Which manufacturers/carriers to support?
Every manufacturer has its own UI layer and selection of hardware buttons
Hundreds of carriers around the world have exclusive phones, exclusive software, etc.
And pretty much none of this matter to the developer. The API is still the same and how manufacturer changes the Launcher application has usually absolutely no effect on how application run on various devices. All that "fragmentation" is greatly exaggerated, and I think it is really funny that it is mostly non-Android developers who talk about it. Think about FUD.
What screen size to target?
Phones available for sale today range from the minuscule 240x320 all the way up to 720x1280.
If your whole UI fits into 240x320 it's going to look like crap on many larger screens.
If your UI needs more than 240x320 then it's going to get cut off on small phones.
Have you ever heard about the UI not based on absolute dimensions ? This whole HTML thing is dealing with multiple dimensions of browsers and seems everybody is happy with that. The same for the Android. Plus the platform has quite decent support to make this even easier to handle. Again, real Android developers don't complain about this a bit.
Plus the same problem is with iOS too, look at the different screen resolutions of various iOS devices.
What screen ratio to target?
Phones available for sale today come in 4 different screen ratios from 1.33 to 1.778.
No matter what shape you target your UI will be stretched/compressed/cropped on a lot of phones.
Same as above. This can be handled easily. Android development is not that different form iOS development. It helps that developer has access to the source code, which gives him a chance to pinpoint eventual problems, while on iOS you are out of luck.
It really goes down to decision which platform is more lucrative for your particular application. It is iOS quite often, but times might be changing. The number of potential customers is already in favor of Android, and with more and more countries finally able to buy applications it might be possible that paid application sales will catch up as well.
The Mac's were more expensive than PC's but you had the complete value proposition to justify that. Then Windows 95 came along and though it still sucked, it was within the tolerably sucky realm for most people. The Mac OS and it's limitations suddenly seemed quite old. The bottom fell out of PC pricing. I can distinctly remember a friend of mine financing a Pentium class Acer computer for about $2500 and less than a year later they were half that. 18-24 months after that there were PC shows everywhere where a machine 4-5 times as powerful were being built for $800.
It's pretty clear that the smartphone is getting ready to become the commodity feature phone. In less than four years we will have gone from a single core 400 mhz processor to quad core processors at 1-1.5 ghz on phones.
That doesn't mean that Apple will die, go extinct or go broke or anything like that. They've simply reverted back to their old ways too much. I've seen it. We've all watched it happened like a frog being boiled and it is getting ready to bite them in the butt.
Fragmentation won't matter at all. You really are only talking a few changes because the fragments still all center around the same few variables. Kindle Fire and BN Nook, they still have the same processor and screen size as examples. Even if it causes a few issues people just don't know better, put up with it, or the network effect of everyone around them having the same devices and finding the same kludgy solutions overrides the problem. We exactly this happen with Windows. Did Windows 95-98, NT, etc. all suck? Absolutely but when everyone can find the one guy on the block who can fix it and there is one guy every block, then the problems don't seem so big.
It's already estimated that Android has 52% of the market for smartphones. I'm predicting Apple will stay between 15-20% and that Android will continue to march toward higher marketshare and as part of that marketshare the prices of smartphones will come crashing down to the point to where $175-199 OFF CONTRACT for a dual-core HD video shooting 3.5 inch smartphone becomes reality.
Apple has become too insular again and they are hurting themselves. They are also biting the hands in their own eco-system that feed them. People are noting that not only is Apple still selling iPods but that they command a majority of the PMP market. That was because they made the very controversial decision for them at the time to put Quicktime and iTunes onto Windows. They've stopped doing things like this and are watching competitors walk past them putting their solutions on all platforms while making it best on their own platform.
You don't see Google declaring that gmail is only going to work on Android. Where is Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for Windows? Where is iMessage for Android and Windows Phone? Where is Facetime for Windows? Why can't Apple even provide iBooks for Mac? They can't even sort out if I'm using iChat or Facetime for goodness sakes. It smells like rot on the vine.
Amazon will sell me a Kindle. They'll sell me a Kindle Fire. They'll have an app store for everyone who doesn't have a Fire. I can read my Kindle books on my iPhone, my Android phone, my Mac, my whatever. Google is doing the same thing. Put it out everywhere. They aren't trying to lock you in by pure ecosystem, they are locking you in via network effect which then becomes the true eco-system. In addition they now have an incentive to make their Kindle reader app better for other platforms and can even blame Apple for the iOS inferiority by declaring that items like the links to their bookstore had to be removed per Apple. I have an Android phone to play with and for the first time the Kindle app has become better on Android. For the first time the Facebook app has reached parity with the iOS app within the same month. The gap is closing quickly and Apple demanding a 30% cut, tossing out any app they feel competes with them too much while not improving their own solutions and finally, simple declaring certain features can't be touched or added until they deem it so (Hello volume up button for camera) just lets the competition catch up and leapfrog them.
Apple can still fix this and change what they are doing wrong. They are estimated to push out 30 million iPhones this quarter and that will be amazing. I'm sure it will help versus the 150 million Android phones that will probably be shoved out there in various forms. However there's definitely been a change. Grandma knows what a Kindle Fire is and that is very different than the past. Apple's solutions are definitely still the best and also still good enough but the spec whores, the cheapskates, and everyone else is finding a good enough solution in Android. Also the ecosystem for their solutions is showing up everywhere. It isn't as tightly integrated but they are also willing to put it on your Mac, PC, car who knows what. That counts for something too.
Apple can still fix this and change what they are doing wrong.
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
What are they then? Should be easy if there's so many of them (and why you didn't list them before is beyond me).
Well for starters the entire topic is wrong...
Schmidt said that developers will begin to pay attention to Android more PERHAPS even releasing for them first.
Perhaps is not just a useless qualifier here as omitting it changes the entire tone of the article.
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
I have no thoughts on if Apple is doing anything wrong...I probably don't think they are but "wrong" doesn't seem to be a word to use when so much of what they do seems right, however, your argument seems to be "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'."
Seems flawed.
I have no thoughts on if Apple is doing anything wrong...I probably don't think they are but "wrong" doesn't seem to be a word to use when so much of what they do seems right, however, your argument seems to be "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'."
Seems flawed.
I'm not making that argument, though it might seem so in response to the quoted post. My honest opinion is that there is nothing in it for Apple to follow the strategy of those who advise Apple to get with the non-closed system program. They have a model that works for them, unsatisfied as some are with it.
It's similar to their "professional" applications strategy. They have alienated a huge portion of their pro audio/video/photo user base by releasing the products very sporadically and not catering to the needs of the high end users, many of whom they are losing their grip on. (I speak as one of all three). But are they missing the boat by making billions with the user they are targeting instead of hundreds of thousands keeping the pros happy? Not at all. I'll have my pro needs met somehow, with Apple or not, but they have clearly boomed by getting these apps into the prosumers hands and not being too concerned with the pros needs, unhappy as we sometimes have been. It's not "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'", but it is "they would be a fraction of the success they are if they listened to the advice".
A lot of what you say is true, but the basic premise that Apple is sinking and needs to fix anything is misguided. According to who? Possibly users who want it to be an open system, but certainly not to stockholders or according to any yardstick of profitability to the company.
This has nothing to do with being open. It has nothing to do with Apple sinking. It has everything to do with network effects and if they can overcome the superior and single source solution Apple offers at a price premium. We know they can because we saw this with Windows vs. Mac.
When you have 20% of a market but to the world at large it seems like 80%, it's your competitors who are doing something wrong. Apple serving that 20% the way they are would still make them the most profitable company in the world (did they slide back behind Exxon? Haven't kept track.) What tech company is poised to approach this? Certainly not any connected with Android or any other phone OS.
Let me say you are right that Apple has the majority of profits in the market. They have been the best solution for their developers and have paid them more than any other platform. The change here is two-fold. First you have a product that everyone is charging a premium for getting ready to move to commodity pricing. Also no one is declaring they will go broke, go away, be sold off or anything. The claim by Schmidt is that developers will start going to Android first or giving it priority. Understand his statement wouldn't be true of Apple had 20% of the market and Android had 30% and everyone else was carving up the last 50% and this remained true forever.
Instead what is clear is that Android is destroying everything that is NOT Apple. That means Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile are all quickly giving up share to Android. It is pretty clear that Android will be everything that is not Apple real soon.
So as a developer, it makes perfect sense to write for 20% of the market and get access to 50% of the profits, especially when getting access to the other 50% requires rewriting your app four more times. The value proposition makes perfect sense there and the smart money would write for iOS first, best or even exclusively.
However the other half of those profits and likely 80-85% of the market will soon be Android. In addition to the network effect 80-85% of the market will bring, the prices of those phones will be falling dramatically. Do you know why I have an Android phone to play with? Someone bartered it to me. They owed me $100 and gave me a Motorola Droid2 with 16 gigs of storage. It's a whole year old phone and came out the same time as the iPhone 4. It might fetch $125-$150 if I sold it and it is in perfect condition.
The rate of progress on the Android side of things is clearly faster. Apple is starting to lose the spec wars but still offers a better overall solution. The higher specs mean that the prices will soon be falling. If you have a quad core 1.5 ghz chip for a phone at $600, the dual-core 1.2 ghz chip has to be lower. This rate of progress means $200 dual-core HD cam shooting camera here quick and that will be the price OFF contract. Apple must have premium pricing for their product to maintain their stock price and also maintain all they must do to be the best solution in all areas and a one stop solution shop for most needs.
Apple is doing great by Apple, better than anyone, regardless of how amazing we could have it if they would only be less insular. Why would they want to open up and sink to the 144th most profitable?
Apple was doing great back in 1992 and 1993. Their marketshare was high and their profits were premium. It also didn't seem to hurt them when the solutions being fought over were OS/2, Windows 3.1, DOS, Mac OS, Amiga, Atari, etc. The scales tipped somewhere when Windows garnered between 50-75% of the entire market and when people began to realize that even having to write for one fragmented platform netted them more mindshare and profits then writing for multiple platforms. Apple got hurt very badly by that and I'm afraid they will again if they don't at least throw their stuff out there and take advantage of the same network effects. I'm not talking hardware because that is where they make their money. They can throw iWork, Facetime, iBooks, etc out on Mac and Windows for cheap or next to nothing and really improve the value proposition of the iPhone and also become a more comprehensive (and thus premium) solution for everyone.
Apple will continue to develop highly proprietary gadgets with universal appeal. They can put custom fabbed chips in that nobody can duplicate. Closed system? Network effect? I'd say they ran circles around everyone else by giving the best user experience and are creating their own network effect. Lots of people are willing to pay the extra for the ease of use. The spec nuts can tout this or that whiz bang, but what good is a screaming fast part if it's throttled down by a lousy UI concept?
Yeah, grandma knows the kindle fire is only $200, and that's probably still too much for her. But it's still a POS.
Soon Apple will corner the low price range too, and there won't be much reason to buy crap balky buggy interfaces. If nothing else they will continue the practise of selling last year's product for cheap. They make durable stuff, I can personally say.
Deja vu? Are you saying Apple should put their software out everywhere? How are they going to support Windows etc. OS problems? Im sure they got a good taste of that with iTunes. If you want Apple's ease of use you need an apple OS, that's mostly true.
What happened after Windows conquered the world? They are still out there but slowly leaking air. The computer business became a race to the bottom in price. Microsoft was forced to keed adding code to the same base to keep enterprise happy, they aren't exactly winning any acclaim. Apple chose to be 'closed' and proprietary for a good bunch of reasons. Their stuff 'just works'. Most people prefer that once introduced.
Here is what he said, with more context:
http://julianyap.com/2011/12/08/What...ally-said.html
I really have no opinion one way or the other but it helps to actually take a breath and consider things in context and detail.
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I'm not making that argument, though it might seem so in response to the quoted post. My honest opinion is that there is nothing in it for Apple to follow the strategy of those who advise Apple to get with the non-closed system program. They have a model that works for them, unsatisfied as some are with it.
It's similar to their "professional" applications strategy. They have alienated a huge portion of their pro audio/video/photo user base by releasing the products very sporadically and not catering to the needs of the high end users, many of whom they are losing their grip on. (I speak as one of all three). But are they missing the boat by making billions with the user they are targeting instead of hundreds of thousands keeping the pros happy? Not at all. I'll have my pro needs met somehow, with Apple or not, but they have clearly boomed by getting these apps into the prosumers hands and not being too concerned with the pros needs, unhappy as we sometimes have been. It's not "well since they make a lot of money they can't be 'wrong'", but it is "they would be a fraction of the success they are if they listened to the advice".
Agreed.
If Google would overhaul their app store and make it work more like Apple's, then Android app development could be profitable.
Right now there's just no money in it. You just don't make back your development cost.
Even if every dumb phone user switched to Androind, that wouldn't change the fact that all of the mobile app revenue would still be in the iOS space. Google needs to take simple steps to make app sales better for developer. The ball is in Google's court.
I fully acknowledge the problems. Schmidt's stated reason for attracting more developers is utterly moronic. "It's open." WTF?
That's not enough to bring developers over.
But the reasoning that most Apple-lovers have for Android users not buying apps ("They're cheap.") is wrong too.
There's real challenges to buying apps on Android.
1) Paid apps aren't available everywhere.
2) You can't buy an app without a credit card. There's nothing equivalent to iTunes gift cards for Android.
3) Disovery. Apple just makes it easier to find what you want. How a web search and marketing company sucks at this is beyond me.
4) Quality. The quality on Android apps is usually lower than iOS apps. And users just aren't going to pay for apps they don't like. Part of the problem here is fragmentation. Developers are forced to use a lower API level to make their app available to more users.
5) Storage. Not all apps can be loaded on the MicroSD card. Yet, most cheaper or older phones come with very limited onboard storage, severely limiting the number of apps one can buy. Even the Nexus One only came with a little over half a gig.
Google would have to address all these issues before app sales really started to pick up. But it's quite likely they are hoping some of them work out. Hence, the Ice Cream Sandwich comment from Schmidt. With updates slowing down, in a year or two, you'll only see two Android version dominating the installed base (for example virtually 90% of Android devices will be Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich in a year). This should make it a lot easier for developers. But in other areas, Google still has to put in some effort. It has to either encourage OEMs to put more memory onboard or encourage app developers to make apps that are App2SD capable. It has to address the availability of paid apps and look at ways to pay for apps. And it has to work on discovery (though that is improving).
You and 3 other guys. Seriously, who picks a phone because a certain app is only available on it? I'll wager almost no one.
I doubt I'm the only one who's ever considered an iPad largely because of Apple's productivity apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) or if a regular Google Docs user hasn't considered an Android tablet simply because Android has a Google Docs app available.
Heck, there are people that bought the iPhone 4 largely because of Facetime or the iPhone 4S largely because of Siri. People motivation to buy certain goods can vary quite widely.
Yeah, grandma knows the kindle fire is only $200, and that's probably still too much for her. But it's still a POS.
Except that outside of Apple fandom, people have a threshold and value system for spending their disposable income that sometimes says spend $200 for a POS Kindle Fire and using the other $300 on something else makes more sense to them. Get enough people thinking like that and you reach a tipping point.
Soon Apple will corner the low price range too, and there won't be much reason to buy crap balky buggy interfaces. If nothing else they will continue the practise of selling last year's product for cheap. They make durable stuff, I can personally say.
People keep saying Apple will make cheaper stuff. Hasn't happened yet. For example, on the phone market, Apple's idea of competing was to make the iPhone 3GS free on contract or sell it for $375 off-contract. Stack that against what you can get for the same or similar prices. And argue what you like, but most people would rather spend $375 on a phone that isn't 3 years old, no matter how good it is. I would of thought Apple would have made the iPhone 4 free, instead of extending the 3GS' life and taking on another model to support. But they didn't do that. Cheap is not in Apple's DNA. And there's a positive and a negative side of that trait (or lack thereof).
We'll see how it shakes out. But here's the thing, Moore's law ensures that we get better and better tech everyday at cheaper and cheaper prices. And increasingly smartphones are reaching the point where added functionality just isn't that much of a deal to a regular user who just wants the web, Facebook, email, messaging, etc. You now have phones with the capabilities of a Nexus One (3GS equivalent roughly) that sell for about $250 without a contract. In a year's time, it's realistic that phones with more capability than that will sell for $200 or less. The capability/price point is reaching territory where many consumers can afford smartphones that do virtually all of what they want to do on a phone, for a price that they consider to be commodity pricing. And to add to that, phone companies are even further incentivized to push these phones, because giving away a $250 phone for free is still cheaper than paying Apple's hardware subsidies.
Yes, I understand people must prioritize their spending and an iPad is too rich for purchase for many, but after they try the Fire and compare it to an iPad in a store, they may want to save up and get one, even if it is a prior year model. FWIW I'd still rather have an older iPhone than a brand new android phone if for no other reason than security. Actually, for no other reason than it's elegant operating system, ecosystem, parental controls, durability, etc.
I'd like to put money on that.
He's wrong. Verizon doesn't even want to release the Nexus from the looks of it. While 4.0 seems nice, and Android is catching up in quality apps (albeit slowly), there's no effing way this would happen in 6 months, if ever.
I've just been reading that ICS won't even be on ANY devices for some good number of months - and that upgrades for existing devices will come along (for some and when/if they do) "sometime" after that.
Meaning there still won't be ANY meaningful number of tablets to even host decent tab applications for at least a year or two - and a phone base mired in the 2.x's - not even 3.x and let alone 4.0.
Which makes Dr. Schmidt's basic math a weee bit suspect.
I've just been reading that ICS won't even be on ANY devices for some good number of months - and that upgrades for existing devices will come along (for some and when/if they do) "sometime" after that.
Meaning there still won't be ANY meaningful number of tablets to even host decent tab applications for at least a year or two - and a phone base mired in the 2.x's - not even 3.x and let alone 4.0.
Which makes Dr. Schmidt's basic math a weee bit suspect.
The only reason 2.3.3 Gingerbread is at 50% making Android look like a unified and homogeneous mobile platform is because it's been allowed to stagnate for over a year. All that effort was moved to 3.0 Honeycomb which was only for tablets, which aren't selling, and then eventually locked down. Once ICS get going in it's drawn out focused manner we'll start seeing Android OS numbers all over the field again. I had hoped Google would have finally gotten this squared away but I guess not. This will end up hurting them on the high-end of the platform.