Chu said there was a team tasked with "weeding out apps that violate Android Market’s terms of service," an indication that Google's free-for-all market design was recognized to have serious drawbacks. The company also took steps to restrict its licensing partners and discourage them from making drastic changes that fragment the platform.
What? That's not "open." Sounds like a curated store to me.
What? That's not "open." Sounds like a curated store to me.
having guidelines doesn't make something unopen...if I have a restaurant that anyone can eat in as long as they wear a white T-shirt and jeans that I provide them free of charge and don't bring a gun I don't see how my restaurant is now closed.
It may be curated, sure...but curated and open are not mutually exclusive.
"apps for android coded today are mostly at API 2.1," i.e., the lowest common denominator to sell to the biggest number of user, which is a much more limited OS than Android's current ICS 4.0 - and not even as good as Honeycomb 3.1.
This is what I've been saying all along (and I've even used the "lowest common denominator" example). BTW, I develop for iOS (and also have for Android, but abandoned it due to this very problem).
Android fans will tell you it's easy to code an Android App that will run on all versions of Android, thereby trying to say there's no fragmentation. Which is true if you write an App with the most basic of features. If you want to write an advanced App that takes advantage of the latest API's in ICS, then you're going to be severely limited as to how many potential customers you might have.
having guidelines doesn't make something unopen...if I have a restaurant that anyone can eat in as long as they wear a white T-shirt and jeans that I provide them free of charge and don't bring a gun I don't see how my restaurant is now closed.
It may be curated, sure...but curated and open are not mutually exclusive.
There are so many problems with Android, but even if their app store was perfect, they can never fix their biggest problem. And it is a problem that they themselves invited, as it is part of their wonderful strategy. That problem would be Android's customers. This customer on average is simply not willing to spend much money on any apps.
I constantly see Fandroids on various forums bragging about how they don't have to pay for many apps, as there are always free alternatives, even though they're infested with ads. There are also other Fandroids who pirate apps, and you end up with a customer base who is not willing to open their wallets, not like there is much in those wallets to begin with. Google invited these cheap customers by letting everybody and their brother release junky Android devices that are one step above something that you'd find in a land refill.
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
There are so many problems with Android, but even if their app store was perfect, they can never fix their biggest problem. And it is a problem that they themselves invited, as it is part of their wonderful strategy. That problem would be Android's customers. This customer on average is simply not willing to spend much money on any apps.
I constantly see Fandroids on various forums bragging about how they don't have to pay for many apps, as there are always free alternatives, even though they're infested with ads. There are also other Fandroids who pirate apps, and you end up with a customer base who is not willing to open their wallets, not like there is much in those wallets to begin with. Google invited these cheap customers by letting everybody and their brother release junky Android devices that are one step above something that you'd find in a land refill.
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
Agreed. Google's strategy as an ugly cheap imitation simply makes it dysfunctional.
..a perfect example of how Android fragmented hardware and no minimum spec destroys the experience and fucks developers. The app needs to be so tiny because many android phones have so little internal storage. Additional content is download upon the launch of the app and moved to the SD card. Yeah, what a messy system.
There are so many problems with Android, but even if their app store was perfect, they can never fix their biggest problem. And it is a problem that they themselves invited, as it is part of their wonderful strategy. That problem would be Android's customers. This customer on average is simply not willing to spend much money on any apps.
Those of us old enough to have been around for the dawn of the "home computer" market during the late '70s thru the mid '80s have seen this exact dynamic play out once before. What's happening to Android is nothing new.
Anybody remember the Commodore 64? It was a low-quality rip-off of the older but superior - and far better-built - Atari 800. Commodore moved boatloads of the things - I think it's probably still the single best-selling computer model ever (if you don't count the iPhone 4!). Atari was so poorly mismanaged by the idiots Warner Communications hired to run the place they couldn't get their manufacturing costs under control to compete. Tramiel over at Commodore launched a price war and forced Texas Instruments out of the PC business. Tandy got bloodied. Coleco crashed and burned with their Adam.
Oddly, the only one of the bunch to survive the onslaught was Apple, which had the oldest, least technically-impressive hardware. They did however have the nicest cases, the best build-quality (by far), a classier dealer network, vastly superior support and - crucially - an enormous if expensive software library. The machines also sold for at least twice as much as Commodore's.
And that's why Apple survived while the rest of the bunch - even Commodore - was destroyed in competition with the IBM PC and its clones. Because Apple users had enough income to spend on software. Lots and lots and lots of software. So Apple's platforms - the // series and later the Macintosh - became a haven for developers looking to actually make money from their efforts.
Oh sure, Commodore sold millions more machines. But their users couldn't afford to buy much software, and worse didn't have to since the huge install base virtually guaranteed they knew someone they could pirate software from. This freeloader mentality carried over to the 16-bit successors to the 8-bit machines from Commodore and Atari, so the Amiga and ST were also plagued with users who didn't pay for software, which in turn meant they never built the kind of ecosystem that would make those platforms attractive to a broader audience. The Mac ultimately outsold both the Amiga and the ST, even though the cheapest Mac cost at least twice as much when the ST and Amiga hit the market, and several times their cost a few years later, as first Commodore and then finally Atari collapsed into bankruptcy.
We're going to see the same scenario play out with Android. It's going to end up on ever cheaper, ever junkier, poorly-supported devices sold to idiots as part of a massive race to the bottom. Those users either won't buy any software, or they'll pirate it, or their junkphones and junktabs will only be capable of running stuff for a 2-year-old version of Android nobody wants to develop for anymore. Apple will walk off with the entire userbase of people willing to pay for software, because the iOS ecosystem will be the only one vibrant enough to attract such users.
Apple isn't doing anything new here - they're only executing (better this time) on the same strategy they used to survive the home computer wars and the arrival of the PC clones almost 30 years ago.
[QUOTE=sunspot42;2069375]Those of us old enough to have been around for the dawn of the "home computer" market during the late '70s thru the mid '80s have seen this exact dynamic play out once before. What's happening to Android is nothing new.
Your thoughts are mine in different words.
A race to the bottom is a death spiral.
Apple this time around has taken competition to a new level with superior and some would say maximally competitive supply chain contracts, which can effectively keep out entrants for some period of time, meaning the competitors are perpetually behind Apple's advanced equipment.
Mika Mobile recently explained why it was dropping support for Android, noting that "it doesn't make a lot of sense to dedicate resources to it," and stating, "we spent about 20% of our total man-hours last year dealing with Android in one way or another - porting, platform specific bug fixes, customer service, etc."
The developer told customers, "I would have preferred spending that time on more content for you, but instead I was thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn't go through. We spent thousands on various test hardware.
"These are the unsung necessities of offering our apps on Android. Meanwhile, Android sales amounted to around 5% of our revenue for the year, and continues to shrink. Needless to say, this ratio is unsustainable.
"From a purely economic perspective, I can no longer legitimize spending time on Android apps, and the new features of the market do nothing to change this," the developer wrote.
This is exactly why Apple has succeeded in it's App Store and iOS platform. By making it a closed platform (controlled), Apple allowed itself and its developers to concentrate on making great content and better profit margins. The haters alway degrade the so called "walled garden" as a huge negative but Steve Jobs knew better. Google can make their marketplace for their version of Android work if they follow Apple's lead and wall off there platform with Apple-like control.
Tight control of Apple's platform wasn't revolutionary to Apple's iOS platform. Its been their history. Apple has from its beginning tightly controlled and supported its developer community, whether they made software or peripherals. As a long-time computer users (and an Apple Old Timer), I agree with this control philosophy because it produces better products, that work together, in the innovative computer field. How closely a developer adheres to the platform's guidelines is the first thing I look for when researching products I want to buy for my iMac or iOS devices. It surprises me that Google, and others, are just now realizing it.
..a perfect example of how Android fragmented hardware and no minimum spec destroys the experience and fucks developers. The app needs to be so tiny because many android phones have so little internal storage. Additional content is download upon the launch of the app and moved to the SD card. Yeah, what a messy system.
I tend to disagreed. I started programming in the late 60s. The first personal and business computing devices had to deal with a code base that fit into less than 64k. When memory and storage became abundant, some programmers got lazy and no longer made their code tight, elegant, or recursive. Many of today's developers don't even know how to program with limited storage. That's too bad because it can be done.
However limited code isn't the only problem Android programmers and its app marketplace face. The biggest problem IMO that is holding back the Android platform is its openness and ability to control the devices at its lowest level. The security problem is keeping many from purchasing Android apps. The cheapos and pirates expect infections and malware but potential customers won't put their money in these apps because of these risk but they're even more concerned with losing control of their data. Apple's control of the sandbox is what Google needs. The pirates, telcos, fandroids, and developers looking to make a buck selling personal data won't like it but it needs to be done for the platform to survive.
Trying to code for android is like playing whack a mole. There are too many flavors of android and too many different types of phones, which makes it near impossible to make good, optimized software.
And once you finally get your app done, you just know you have another 6 months of fixing all the issues to accommodate all those different configurations.
Also, the imitation is never as good as the original. This plays out in everything associated with android when compared to the iPhone.
Those of us old enough to have been around for the dawn of the "home computer" market during the late '70s thru the mid '80s have seen this exact dynamic play out once before. What's happening to Android is nothing new.
Anybody remember the Commodore 64? It was a low-quality rip-off of the older but superior - and far better-built - Atari 800. Commodore moved boatloads of the things - I think it's probably still the single best-selling computer model ever (if you don't count the iPhone 4!). Atari was so poorly mismanaged by the idiots Warner Communications hired to run the place they couldn't get their manufacturing costs under control to compete. Tramiel over at Commodore launched a price war and forced Texas Instruments out of the PC business. Tandy got bloodied. Coleco crashed and burned with their Adam.
Oddly, the only one of the bunch to survive the onslaught was Apple, which had the oldest, least technically-impressive hardware. They did however have the nicest cases, the best build-quality (by far), a classier dealer network, vastly superior support and - crucially - an enormous if expensive software library. The machines also sold for at least twice as much as Commodore's.
And that's why Apple survived while the rest of the bunch - even Commodore - was destroyed in competition with the IBM PC and its clones. Because Apple users had enough income to spend on software. Lots and lots and lots of software. So Apple's platforms - the // series and later the Macintosh - became a haven for developers looking to actually make money from their efforts.
Oh sure, Commodore sold millions more machines. But their users couldn't afford to buy much software, and worse didn't have to since the huge install base virtually guaranteed they knew someone they could pirate software from. This freeloader mentality carried over to the 16-bit successors to the 8-bit machines from Commodore and Atari, so the Amiga and ST were also plagued with users who didn't pay for software, which in turn meant they never built the kind of ecosystem that would make those platforms attractive to a broader audience. The Mac ultimately outsold both the Amiga and the ST, even though the cheapest Mac cost at least twice as much when the ST and Amiga hit the market, and several times their cost a few years later, as first Commodore and then finally Atari collapsed into bankruptcy.
We're going to see the same scenario play out with Android. It's going to end up on ever cheaper, ever junkier, poorly-supported devices sold to idiots as part of a massive race to the bottom. Those users either won't buy any software, or they'll pirate it, or their junkphones and junktabs will only be capable of running stuff for a 2-year-old version of Android nobody wants to develop for anymore. Apple will walk off with the entire userbase of people willing to pay for software, because the iOS ecosystem will be the only one vibrant enough to attract such users.
Apple isn't doing anything new here - they're only executing (better this time) on the same strategy they used to survive the home computer wars and the arrival of the PC clones almost 30 years ago.
Most excellent analysis, sunspot, undoubtedly fortified by hindsight.
I too recall the heady days of the Atari ST (my first microcomputer) and the rival Amiga system, excitedly poring through the enthusiast magazines and LOOT (a printed precursor to eBay and CraigsList in the UK) for utility software and links to pirated stuff like C-Labs Notator (now Apple Logic Pro) and Cubase, two software giants that survived by leaping the chasm onto the more durable platforms.
So much water has flowed under the bridge since then, but some things never change: Good design (as per Dieter Rams' 10-point guidelines), Customer Support, sharp marketing/execution and, yes Mr Ballmer: "Developers, Developers, Developers!" will win out in the smart device marathon.
A word is enough for the wise., those that have ears let them hear, etc etc
For the most part, Apple is synonymous with quality but that's not why I remain loyal to their brand. The main reason, and most important to me, is trust. I trust Apple to do everything in their power to keep my privacy and personal data securely safe within their ecosystem. I allow them to keep my credit card numbers on their servers and devices because of trust. I allow them to send me advertisements through email, without flagging it as junk mail, because of trust. I know they need to make profit. I buy the products they sell, and those of their developers who live Apple's mantra, because of trust. Those who gain my loyalty through trust, have longterm profit security, for I will always look first to buy their products.
I don't trust Google, Facebook, or the Android platform. Google and Facebook's main product is you; those who use their free services. Many Android developers are more of the same. I'd rather pay for those services and not be open to an invasion of my privacy or sold to the highest bidder. Many Apple customers respect and trust Apple simply because they earned it over the years. I realize free services like those within Facebook or Google services, plus their search engine, aren't cheap to give away for free. However, I am not for sale and I value my privacy. The way I do this is by keeping within Apple's ecosystem as much as possible, using monitoring software like Little Snitch and DNT+, and paying for software that respect these principles.
It's these sentiments that Android developers, Google and Facebook need to learn to earn my trust and wallet, in order to profit from me, the consumer. I would be happy to use their products if they have my trust. Trust and Privacy are paramount to me, and if these companies act more like Apple, it will also benefit their profit margin too. The Telcos could also learn a thing or two from Apple's mantra.
For the most part, Apple is synonymous with quality but that's not why I remain loyal to their brand. The main reason, and most important to me, is trust. I trust Apple to do everything in their power to keep my privacy and personal data securely safe within their ecosystem. I allow them to keep my credit card numbers on their servers and devices because of trust. I allow them to send me advertisements through email, without flagging it as junk mail, because of trust. I know they need to make profit. I buy the products they sell, and those of their developers who live Apple's mantra, because of trust. Those who gain my loyalty through trust, have longterm profit security, for I will always look first to buy their products.
I don't trust Google, Facebook, or the Android platform. Google and Facebook's main product is you; those who use their free services. Many Android developers are more of the same. I'd rather pay for those services and not be open to an invasion of my privacy or sold to the highest bidder. Many Apple customers respect and trust Apple simply because they earned it over the years. I realize free services like those within Facebook or Google services, plus their search engine, aren't cheap to give away for free. However, I am not for sale and I value my privacy. The way I do this is by keeping within Apple's ecosystem as much as possible, using monitoring software like Little Snitch and DNT+, and paying for software that respect these principles.
It's these sentiments that Android developers, Google and Facebook need to learn to earn my trust and wallet, in order to profit from me, the consumer. I would be happy to use their products if they have my trust. Trust and Privacy are paramount to me, and if these companies act more like Apple, it will also benefit their profit margin too. The Telcos could also learn a thing or two from Apple's mantra.
/ End of Rant
I totally agree with you. BTW you can add LinkedIn to that list of what not to trust!
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
I wrote a simple iPhone game (it's a port of a DOS classic by the way, it's called Snipes! and you can all go get it if here you're feeling nostalgic ), and even though I considered porting it to Android (well, at least for a few minutes ), I would never ever be able to justify to myself spending time on it.
The problem starts with the SDK and dev tools. They are all freely available, but it will take you at least a full day to get them up and running. You need slow, bloated, inconvenient and overly complex IDE to be able to work somewhat comfortably. You need a dog-slow simulator that makes it almost impossible to do quick fix-and-debug cycles, since it takes minutes to start up each run. You cannot do _any_ preliminary performance testing on the simulator (the iOS simulator isn't representative for the device, but at least on iOS you can to comparative profiling using Instruments). All peripheral debug/testing tools need to be installed and configured separately and many do not integrate with NetBeans or Eclipse.
So I'd say the dev tools suck big time compared to XCode, which has many flaws, but at least it is fast, easy, full-featured, well-integrated and documented, and you'll have it installed within minutess.
Even if I would have gone through the effort of setting up the development environment, I would still be stuck, since the 2D graphics and sprite framework I used was not available on Android, nor any credible alternative. If I would have to do all the sprite stuff and the animation effects I used, it would have taken me at least 2 months on top of the total effort to just port the game logic. The same problem holds for many other third-party frameworks: iOS has a very rich ecosystem of high-quality, freely available third-party libraries.
And then there is Java. I know different people have different preferences if it comes to programming languages, but anyone telling you Java is 'just as nice' or even nicer than for example Objective-C simply never used anything but Java for anything non-trivial. I've been developing software for over 10 years, with over 2 years of experience in many languages (Java, C, C++, Objective-C, Python, PHP), and I think I can honestly say I'm a polyglot programmer by now. I can only say that Java is a terrible language to develop in. It's too verbose, too restrictive in how you are supposed to do certain things, it makes simple things hard, the standard libraries are a big convoluted mess full of legacy stuff, it's slow to compile and start, and the whole language is very archaic and static, missing many of the modern features of other languages. It's a PITA to work with, and I would never voluntarily choose to use it over some other language (even C++), unless absolutely necessary.
So all in all, I can verify that at least for me, this article is spot on. It's not even so much that I think Android would not make me any money (it's only a hobby for me, not my day job), it's just too painful and annoying. XCode + Objective C + Cocoa = fun, Android + Java + NetBeans/Eclipse = pain. I would rather port my game to WP7 than Android, because I know from experience that Microsoft dev tools are fantastic and pleasant to work with.
My brother who used to be a big Android fan but switched to WP7 a while ago confirmed the sorry state of Android apps many times as well. All the apps from big companies are great and very well done, I'd say almost on par with iOS. Then there is a *huge* quality gap, where the iOS App Store is full of great applications by small developers, this whole category is almost absent on Android. With some minor exceptions, the indy/small developer apps that are availble on Android are inferior to even the mediocre ones on iOS. It's this category that makes the iOS app store so interesting to find new stuff, not the Facebook and Google Apps you have on every other platform. In terms of crapware made by wannabe-developers though, Android definitely has the upper hand .
Comments
Chu said there was a team tasked with "weeding out apps that violate Android Market’s terms of service," an indication that Google's free-for-all market design was recognized to have serious drawbacks. The company also took steps to restrict its licensing partners and discourage them from making drastic changes that fragment the platform.
What? That's not "open." Sounds like a curated store to me.
That could be Google's problem.
What? That's not "open." Sounds like a curated store to me.
having guidelines doesn't make something unopen...if I have a restaurant that anyone can eat in as long as they wear a white T-shirt and jeans that I provide them free of charge and don't bring a gun I don't see how my restaurant is now closed.
It may be curated, sure...but curated and open are not mutually exclusive.
"apps for android coded today are mostly at API 2.1," i.e., the lowest common denominator to sell to the biggest number of user, which is a much more limited OS than Android's current ICS 4.0 - and not even as good as Honeycomb 3.1.
This is what I've been saying all along (and I've even used the "lowest common denominator" example). BTW, I develop for iOS (and also have for Android, but abandoned it due to this very problem).
Android fans will tell you it's easy to code an Android App that will run on all versions of Android, thereby trying to say there's no fragmentation. Which is true if you write an App with the most basic of features. If you want to write an advanced App that takes advantage of the latest API's in ICS, then you're going to be severely limited as to how many potential customers you might have.
having guidelines doesn't make something unopen...if I have a restaurant that anyone can eat in as long as they wear a white T-shirt and jeans that I provide them free of charge and don't bring a gun I don't see how my restaurant is now closed.
It may be curated, sure...but curated and open are not mutually exclusive.
I constantly see Fandroids on various forums bragging about how they don't have to pay for many apps, as there are always free alternatives, even though they're infested with ads. There are also other Fandroids who pirate apps, and you end up with a customer base who is not willing to open their wallets, not like there is much in those wallets to begin with. Google invited these cheap customers by letting everybody and their brother release junky Android devices that are one step above something that you'd find in a land refill.
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
There are so many problems with Android, but even if their app store was perfect, they can never fix their biggest problem. And it is a problem that they themselves invited, as it is part of their wonderful strategy. That problem would be Android's customers. This customer on average is simply not willing to spend much money on any apps.
I constantly see Fandroids on various forums bragging about how they don't have to pay for many apps, as there are always free alternatives, even though they're infested with ads. There are also other Fandroids who pirate apps, and you end up with a customer base who is not willing to open their wallets, not like there is much in those wallets to begin with. Google invited these cheap customers by letting everybody and their brother release junky Android devices that are one step above something that you'd find in a land refill.
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
Agreed. Google's strategy as an ugly cheap imitation simply makes it dysfunctional.
Daniel,
You scalawag you.
,dave
"...The .apk will need to be under 50mb"
http://mikamobile.blogspot.com.au/20...h-android.html
...The dirty truth...
"...our Android apps aren't making money"
"...The .apk will need to be under 50mb"
http://mikamobile.blogspot.com.au/20...h-android.html
...The dirty truth...
..a perfect example of how Android fragmented hardware and no minimum spec destroys the experience and fucks developers. The app needs to be so tiny because many android phones have so little internal storage. Additional content is download upon the launch of the app and moved to the SD card. Yeah, what a messy system.
There are so many problems with Android, but even if their app store was perfect, they can never fix their biggest problem. And it is a problem that they themselves invited, as it is part of their wonderful strategy. That problem would be Android's customers. This customer on average is simply not willing to spend much money on any apps.
Those of us old enough to have been around for the dawn of the "home computer" market during the late '70s thru the mid '80s have seen this exact dynamic play out once before. What's happening to Android is nothing new.
Anybody remember the Commodore 64? It was a low-quality rip-off of the older but superior - and far better-built - Atari 800. Commodore moved boatloads of the things - I think it's probably still the single best-selling computer model ever (if you don't count the iPhone 4!). Atari was so poorly mismanaged by the idiots Warner Communications hired to run the place they couldn't get their manufacturing costs under control to compete. Tramiel over at Commodore launched a price war and forced Texas Instruments out of the PC business. Tandy got bloodied. Coleco crashed and burned with their Adam.
Oddly, the only one of the bunch to survive the onslaught was Apple, which had the oldest, least technically-impressive hardware. They did however have the nicest cases, the best build-quality (by far), a classier dealer network, vastly superior support and - crucially - an enormous if expensive software library. The machines also sold for at least twice as much as Commodore's.
And that's why Apple survived while the rest of the bunch - even Commodore - was destroyed in competition with the IBM PC and its clones. Because Apple users had enough income to spend on software. Lots and lots and lots of software. So Apple's platforms - the // series and later the Macintosh - became a haven for developers looking to actually make money from their efforts.
Oh sure, Commodore sold millions more machines. But their users couldn't afford to buy much software, and worse didn't have to since the huge install base virtually guaranteed they knew someone they could pirate software from. This freeloader mentality carried over to the 16-bit successors to the 8-bit machines from Commodore and Atari, so the Amiga and ST were also plagued with users who didn't pay for software, which in turn meant they never built the kind of ecosystem that would make those platforms attractive to a broader audience. The Mac ultimately outsold both the Amiga and the ST, even though the cheapest Mac cost at least twice as much when the ST and Amiga hit the market, and several times their cost a few years later, as first Commodore and then finally Atari collapsed into bankruptcy.
We're going to see the same scenario play out with Android. It's going to end up on ever cheaper, ever junkier, poorly-supported devices sold to idiots as part of a massive race to the bottom. Those users either won't buy any software, or they'll pirate it, or their junkphones and junktabs will only be capable of running stuff for a 2-year-old version of Android nobody wants to develop for anymore. Apple will walk off with the entire userbase of people willing to pay for software, because the iOS ecosystem will be the only one vibrant enough to attract such users.
Apple isn't doing anything new here - they're only executing (better this time) on the same strategy they used to survive the home computer wars and the arrival of the PC clones almost 30 years ago.
Your thoughts are mine in different words.
A race to the bottom is a death spiral.
Apple this time around has taken competition to a new level with superior and some would say maximally competitive supply chain contracts, which can effectively keep out entrants for some period of time, meaning the competitors are perpetually behind Apple's advanced equipment.
Mika Mobile recently explained why it was dropping support for Android, noting that "it doesn't make a lot of sense to dedicate resources to it," and stating, "we spent about 20% of our total man-hours last year dealing with Android in one way or another - porting, platform specific bug fixes, customer service, etc."
The developer told customers, "I would have preferred spending that time on more content for you, but instead I was thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn't go through. We spent thousands on various test hardware.
"These are the unsung necessities of offering our apps on Android. Meanwhile, Android sales amounted to around 5% of our revenue for the year, and continues to shrink. Needless to say, this ratio is unsustainable.
"From a purely economic perspective, I can no longer legitimize spending time on Android apps, and the new features of the market do nothing to change this," the developer wrote.
This is exactly why Apple has succeeded in it's App Store and iOS platform. By making it a closed platform (controlled), Apple allowed itself and its developers to concentrate on making great content and better profit margins. The haters alway degrade the so called "walled garden" as a huge negative but Steve Jobs knew better. Google can make their marketplace for their version of Android work if they follow Apple's lead and wall off there platform with Apple-like control.
Tight control of Apple's platform wasn't revolutionary to Apple's iOS platform. Its been their history. Apple has from its beginning tightly controlled and supported its developer community, whether they made software or peripherals. As a long-time computer users (and an Apple Old Timer), I agree with this control philosophy because it produces better products, that work together, in the innovative computer field. How closely a developer adheres to the platform's guidelines is the first thing I look for when researching products I want to buy for my iMac or iOS devices. It surprises me that Google, and others, are just now realizing it.
..a perfect example of how Android fragmented hardware and no minimum spec destroys the experience and fucks developers. The app needs to be so tiny because many android phones have so little internal storage. Additional content is download upon the launch of the app and moved to the SD card. Yeah, what a messy system.
I tend to disagreed. I started programming in the late 60s. The first personal and business computing devices had to deal with a code base that fit into less than 64k. When memory and storage became abundant, some programmers got lazy and no longer made their code tight, elegant, or recursive. Many of today's developers don't even know how to program with limited storage. That's too bad because it can be done.
However limited code isn't the only problem Android programmers and its app marketplace face. The biggest problem IMO that is holding back the Android platform is its openness and ability to control the devices at its lowest level. The security problem is keeping many from purchasing Android apps. The cheapos and pirates expect infections and malware but potential customers won't put their money in these apps because of these risk but they're even more concerned with losing control of their data. Apple's control of the sandbox is what Google needs. The pirates, telcos, fandroids, and developers looking to make a buck selling personal data won't like it but it needs to be done for the platform to survive.
And once you finally get your app done, you just know you have another 6 months of fixing all the issues to accommodate all those different configurations.
Also, the imitation is never as good as the original. This plays out in everything associated with android when compared to the iPhone.
Those of us old enough to have been around for the dawn of the "home computer" market during the late '70s thru the mid '80s have seen this exact dynamic play out once before. What's happening to Android is nothing new.
Anybody remember the Commodore 64? It was a low-quality rip-off of the older but superior - and far better-built - Atari 800. Commodore moved boatloads of the things - I think it's probably still the single best-selling computer model ever (if you don't count the iPhone 4!). Atari was so poorly mismanaged by the idiots Warner Communications hired to run the place they couldn't get their manufacturing costs under control to compete. Tramiel over at Commodore launched a price war and forced Texas Instruments out of the PC business. Tandy got bloodied. Coleco crashed and burned with their Adam.
Oddly, the only one of the bunch to survive the onslaught was Apple, which had the oldest, least technically-impressive hardware. They did however have the nicest cases, the best build-quality (by far), a classier dealer network, vastly superior support and - crucially - an enormous if expensive software library. The machines also sold for at least twice as much as Commodore's.
And that's why Apple survived while the rest of the bunch - even Commodore - was destroyed in competition with the IBM PC and its clones. Because Apple users had enough income to spend on software. Lots and lots and lots of software. So Apple's platforms - the // series and later the Macintosh - became a haven for developers looking to actually make money from their efforts.
Oh sure, Commodore sold millions more machines. But their users couldn't afford to buy much software, and worse didn't have to since the huge install base virtually guaranteed they knew someone they could pirate software from. This freeloader mentality carried over to the 16-bit successors to the 8-bit machines from Commodore and Atari, so the Amiga and ST were also plagued with users who didn't pay for software, which in turn meant they never built the kind of ecosystem that would make those platforms attractive to a broader audience. The Mac ultimately outsold both the Amiga and the ST, even though the cheapest Mac cost at least twice as much when the ST and Amiga hit the market, and several times their cost a few years later, as first Commodore and then finally Atari collapsed into bankruptcy.
We're going to see the same scenario play out with Android. It's going to end up on ever cheaper, ever junkier, poorly-supported devices sold to idiots as part of a massive race to the bottom. Those users either won't buy any software, or they'll pirate it, or their junkphones and junktabs will only be capable of running stuff for a 2-year-old version of Android nobody wants to develop for anymore. Apple will walk off with the entire userbase of people willing to pay for software, because the iOS ecosystem will be the only one vibrant enough to attract such users.
Apple isn't doing anything new here - they're only executing (better this time) on the same strategy they used to survive the home computer wars and the arrival of the PC clones almost 30 years ago.
Most excellent analysis, sunspot, undoubtedly fortified by hindsight.
I too recall the heady days of the Atari ST (my first microcomputer) and the rival Amiga system, excitedly poring through the enthusiast magazines and LOOT (a printed precursor to eBay and CraigsList in the UK) for utility software and links to pirated stuff like C-Labs Notator (now Apple Logic Pro) and Cubase, two software giants that survived by leaping the chasm onto the more durable platforms.
So much water has flowed under the bridge since then, but some things never change: Good design (as per Dieter Rams' 10-point guidelines), Customer Support, sharp marketing/execution and, yes Mr Ballmer: "Developers, Developers, Developers!" will win out in the smart device marathon.
A word is enough for the wise., those that have ears let them hear, etc etc
I don't trust Google, Facebook, or the Android platform. Google and Facebook's main product is you; those who use their free services. Many Android developers are more of the same. I'd rather pay for those services and not be open to an invasion of my privacy or sold to the highest bidder. Many Apple customers respect and trust Apple simply because they earned it over the years. I realize free services like those within Facebook or Google services, plus their search engine, aren't cheap to give away for free. However, I am not for sale and I value my privacy. The way I do this is by keeping within Apple's ecosystem as much as possible, using monitoring software like Little Snitch and DNT+, and paying for software that respect these principles.
It's these sentiments that Android developers, Google and Facebook need to learn to earn my trust and wallet, in order to profit from me, the consumer. I would be happy to use their products if they have my trust. Trust and Privacy are paramount to me, and if these companies act more like Apple, it will also benefit their profit margin too. The Telcos could also learn a thing or two from Apple's mantra.
/ End of Rant
For the most part, Apple is synonymous with quality but that's not why I remain loyal to their brand. The main reason, and most important to me, is trust. I trust Apple to do everything in their power to keep my privacy and personal data securely safe within their ecosystem. I allow them to keep my credit card numbers on their servers and devices because of trust. I allow them to send me advertisements through email, without flagging it as junk mail, because of trust. I know they need to make profit. I buy the products they sell, and those of their developers who live Apple's mantra, because of trust. Those who gain my loyalty through trust, have longterm profit security, for I will always look first to buy their products.
I don't trust Google, Facebook, or the Android platform. Google and Facebook's main product is you; those who use their free services. Many Android developers are more of the same. I'd rather pay for those services and not be open to an invasion of my privacy or sold to the highest bidder. Many Apple customers respect and trust Apple simply because they earned it over the years. I realize free services like those within Facebook or Google services, plus their search engine, aren't cheap to give away for free. However, I am not for sale and I value my privacy. The way I do this is by keeping within Apple's ecosystem as much as possible, using monitoring software like Little Snitch and DNT+, and paying for software that respect these principles.
It's these sentiments that Android developers, Google and Facebook need to learn to earn my trust and wallet, in order to profit from me, the consumer. I would be happy to use their products if they have my trust. Trust and Privacy are paramount to me, and if these companies act more like Apple, it will also benefit their profit margin too. The Telcos could also learn a thing or two from Apple's mantra.
/ End of Rant
I totally agree with you. BTW you can add LinkedIn to that list of what not to trust!
And from a developer's point of view, developing for Android must be a complete nightmare with all of the gazillion devices out there. Anybody who uses Android deserves what they get.
I wrote a simple iPhone game (it's a port of a DOS classic by the way, it's called Snipes! and you can all go get it if here you're feeling nostalgic
The problem starts with the SDK and dev tools. They are all freely available, but it will take you at least a full day to get them up and running. You need slow, bloated, inconvenient and overly complex IDE to be able to work somewhat comfortably. You need a dog-slow simulator that makes it almost impossible to do quick fix-and-debug cycles, since it takes minutes to start up each run. You cannot do _any_ preliminary performance testing on the simulator (the iOS simulator isn't representative for the device, but at least on iOS you can to comparative profiling using Instruments). All peripheral debug/testing tools need to be installed and configured separately and many do not integrate with NetBeans or Eclipse.
So I'd say the dev tools suck big time compared to XCode, which has many flaws, but at least it is fast, easy, full-featured, well-integrated and documented, and you'll have it installed within minutess.
Even if I would have gone through the effort of setting up the development environment, I would still be stuck, since the 2D graphics and sprite framework I used was not available on Android, nor any credible alternative. If I would have to do all the sprite stuff and the animation effects I used, it would have taken me at least 2 months on top of the total effort to just port the game logic. The same problem holds for many other third-party frameworks: iOS has a very rich ecosystem of high-quality, freely available third-party libraries.
And then there is Java. I know different people have different preferences if it comes to programming languages, but anyone telling you Java is 'just as nice' or even nicer than for example Objective-C simply never used anything but Java for anything non-trivial. I've been developing software for over 10 years, with over 2 years of experience in many languages (Java, C, C++, Objective-C, Python, PHP), and I think I can honestly say I'm a polyglot programmer by now. I can only say that Java is a terrible language to develop in. It's too verbose, too restrictive in how you are supposed to do certain things, it makes simple things hard, the standard libraries are a big convoluted mess full of legacy stuff, it's slow to compile and start, and the whole language is very archaic and static, missing many of the modern features of other languages. It's a PITA to work with, and I would never voluntarily choose to use it over some other language (even C++), unless absolutely necessary.
So all in all, I can verify that at least for me, this article is spot on. It's not even so much that I think Android would not make me any money (it's only a hobby for me, not my day job), it's just too painful and annoying. XCode + Objective C + Cocoa = fun, Android + Java + NetBeans/Eclipse = pain. I would rather port my game to WP7 than Android, because I know from experience that Microsoft dev tools are fantastic and pleasant to work with.
My brother who used to be a big Android fan but switched to WP7 a while ago confirmed the sorry state of Android apps many times as well. All the apps from big companies are great and very well done, I'd say almost on par with iOS. Then there is a *huge* quality gap, where the iOS App Store is full of great applications by small developers, this whole category is almost absent on Android. With some minor exceptions, the indy/small developer apps that are availble on Android are inferior to even the mediocre ones on iOS. It's this category that makes the iOS app store so interesting to find new stuff, not the Facebook and Google Apps you have on every other platform. In terms of crapware made by wannabe-developers though, Android definitely has the upper hand