Comments on: App Developers Not Happy With Android

By: tom t

tom t — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 05:04:31 +0000

I read this article and had to stop. This is such a horse sh*t artile. I hope you didn't get paid because I seriously wish I had you job and could release this crap. You spoke with "app developers" meaning people who have been clearly developing apps for the iphone before android. Apple created the app craze with their iphone. You pull data and say that downloads per platform is one reason. Is it MAYBE a problem? Right now for the $ it is. However the simple fact is people don't like apple. It is love hate among people who actually know tech/computers. Those of us that are serious about wanting the functionality of an iphone, but not apple or at&t's horrendeous coverage, have went to android. I have the droid and it blows the iphone out of the water. OS 4.0 has "limited multitasking, folders, categories...etc." Guess what my jailbroken iTouch has done that for a year and the droid does it without the "limited" portion.

I have developed an iphone app and it is not cake. I am not going to bring up an argument between the SDKs since I have not developed an android app yet. However, I would like to return to the android platform and the users who tend to use it. We only download what we want, with the occassional app whore. On the app store there used to be an "I'm rich" app which was some ridic amount of money (I think about $1000) that just said you are rich with a single image. Iphone is shoved down at&t users throat and the app store is treated like a nickle candy shop. So why would developers side with iphone? Simply because the app store is similar to myspace now. Even if you app is terrible somebody will download it if its flashy enough.

By: William

William — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:52:00 +0000

To all app developers I have not bought a lot of apps yet. but i will. new to Android 1 month. My Sprint Samsung Phone is a bit buggy with Android 1.5 cupcake running on it. I am waiting for the 2.1 Android update 1st half of 2010 per Sprint. Then I will be buying apps. I can see maybe 500.00 a year on apps between my wife and children and of course ME..lol. So hang in there this is going to get you guys rich. Just spend the time to make quality Apps. If it starts turning into garbage it will lose its appeal. Android is TOO early to give up now. I predict this is going to be the PREMIER system with a year.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:06:46 +0000

Apple will always have their share of the marketplace and be handsomely rewarded. However, I think because we love technology so much (i. e. people that read a board like this), we forget that we are a miniscule segment of the population.
Android and cheaper smartphones will dominate ultimately; I mean does it really matter that Apple has 120,000 apps when an iPhone user probably only regularly invokes 5-10 of them?
Apple is a g-damn religion for a lot of people. But I am willing to bet that the majority of the population are like me. I find it very un-american to buy music from the iTunes shop and still not truly own it. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are simply different sides of the same coin. The world is going horizontal not vertical. I will by my own phone and choose the network that gives me the best deal. Oh one last thing – you app developers (or as some noted – french farmers) get over yourself – your younger brother or sister will build the same app for a lot cheaper than you think you’re worth.

By: Pat R.

Pat R. — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:42:25 +0000

This is a shame. Although I'm an iPhone user, I recently checked out a Motorola Droid phone at Verizon. And I have to say that I think the phone itself is easy to use and (in my opinion) will be able to compete with the iPhone in time. I hope they can work the bugs out.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:55:38 +0000

I also find the lack of a desktop market the biggest disadvantage. The popular site http://www.cyrket.com clearly showed the need for it. And what does Google do? They take down the site, but provide no substitution! You would think they put more effort in their market, but it just merely works.

By: Mohan Rathore

Mohan Rathore — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:33:50 +0000

Not having a big enough customer base is the only problem really that I see right now. With 50 million customers coming up soon (is that really!) that problem not only would be gone, this turns into a great opportunity for developers. Once apps begin to sell and profit starts coming in, developers will be motivated enough to produce more apps.

By: .

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:15:35 +0000

how many developers? 30?

Who cares how many apps Apple has if they're craptacular? Out of all those apps in the store i only have about 30 on my iPhone. So stupid. You have tons of calculator apps, tons of tip apps, etc. WHO CARES??

Give me Google Voice AT&T!! Im so done with this iPhone 3g of mine. Its so 2007 anyway. Im jumping ship to Android.

By: bennyb

bennyb — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:23:22 +0000

Exactly. iPhone users want to be entertained even if they have to pay for it, but like all geeks, android users believe they can always have what they want for free

By: bennyb

bennyb — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:18:42 +0000

Mine has been downloaded: 41273 total 31997 active installs (77%)

But it is a free app.

The paid version with more features/options: 106 total - 102 active installs

By: jay

jay — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:50:36 +0000

Holy crap! 30 developers? Are u kidding me? You all never took statistics did u? Your confidence intervals are probably so wide that u can't see them! Should have conducted a stratified random sample and stated the parameters. All you've shown here is that you are capable of conducting a biased/unrepresentative sampling and basing a pointless article on it. Congrats idiots.

By: David

David — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:33:28 +0000

Its all about billing. End users are not familiar with google checkout.
Apple is a unique situation because of iTunes and its billing relationship with users.
If the Android app store is going to gain traction then it has to offer operator billing, but they need to play hardball with the operators over revenue share.
Anyone working in mobile content knows the shocking cut they take- 50% is the norm.
Its a ‘take it or leave it’ deal the mobile content industry has had to suffer for years but maybe Google can bang their heads together and sort this out ?
But these guys have their heads so far up their backsides they can’t see the light.Android needs developers and they will only stay if they see theres revenue to be made.
If you make it difficult for mobile users to either a ) find and discover content / apps. b) offer them a difficult or unfamiliar payment process to purchase content / apps then you are in trouble. If you have both problems then alarm bells should be ringing.

By: BUGabundo

BUGabundo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:23:03 +0000

Hi again Dianne. I have no intention in getting you, or anyone, cranky :p its enough to pick on JBQ. :p I'm just an user, an user that see from out side the box, but also an user that for several years has contributed to several FLOSS projects with all my good qualities and abilities, that usually circle around testing, bug filling, bug triaging, and user support. I'll ask the developers that stated problems with the mention API breakage to file specific bugs on HW, and hope to talk to you again soon.

Thanks for all your help in making Android all it can be. :D

By: Dianne

Dianne — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:15:50 +0000

Let me try explaining again -- there are already a lot of pro-active things done to reduce fragmentation, a small part being the check I mentioned to ensure all APIs exist.

If you have ideas for other things to do, sure feel free to open a feature request describing them. If you really want to help, you can even contribute code (tests, whatever).

But a bug that essentially is "prevent fragmentation from happening" is not useful to anyone. It is not actionable -- there is nothing specifically that can be done in response to it, and thus as I said there is no measure to say when it is "fixed". It clearly is a message bug. So okay, you sent the message. That has pretty much served its purpose, and there is nothing else to be done with it.

And again, if you have concrete examples of APIs that are broken on certain devices, that is the exact kind of thing to file bugs for, with as detailed descriptions as possible to help them get resolved.

And you still haven't addressed the questions I raised about your original example, to please point to the specific official API that is broken and how it is not working. If I want to get cranky, when I look at this exchange -- if you want to accuse people of not being pro-active, at this point you can certainly have that same accusation leveled back at you. But I assume you do want to help improve things (and keep them as good as they are, which honestly is not all that bad), as much as others do.

By: BUGabundo

BUGabundo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:41:14 +0000

Hi Dianne.
I was the one who opened the bug, meant to be a generalist one, and a reference to all the manufactures/devs fragmentation.
Inf act what led me to open it, was while talking to two other devs that make apps that I use on my Magic, being faced with several difficulties among the different devices, behaving differently, hence my practical example.
But if you guys prefer a more passive action, and then handle case by case with each manufacture, instead of pro-actively preventing manufactures to define and make their own implementations of the OS, well, fine by me, as long as you do act on those, and not close them as “working as intended”.
Cause if you do, you guys will be losing the community devs (sure not all are good coders).

By: Dianne

Dianne — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:02:13 +0000

I closed the bug because, as I said, this is not an actionable bug. For example: when would one close this bug as "fixed"? I can't see how that would even make sense for this bug: when is "manufacturers should provide same identifiers" fixed? Never.

Also, it wasn't clear to me from the specific example that was being used in that bug, but my impression is that this is talking about identifiers that are NOT part of the SDK. If so, this is very much "working as intended" -- if you step outside the bounds of the SDK, you have no guarantees about working anywhere. We try extremely hard to make the supported SDK very well defined and consistent across devices. It's not perfect, and the cases that have come up where there are problems very much need to be fixed, but it is definitely a strong focus. For example, an Android device that ships with Market will have gone through tests that ensure ALL SDK symbols do in fact exist on the device.

And so I also said in the bug -- if there is a specific case of an API that is broken on a device, to file a specific bug for the API that clearly identifies the API in the SDK. Again, as the bug stands, this is not the case, and there is nothing that can be done with it.

We do care a lot about the compatibility across Android devices. In fact some times I think we care more than many of our third party developers who, after repeated warnings, continue to use private APIs and do other things that we have clearly said will not be compatible. Sure, there have been some specific issues with some devices, but I am willing to bet that there have been just as many issues with developers doing things we have told them is not safe.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:32:41 +0000

While there is an "inevitability" meme to Android, if for no other reason than the anyone but Apple crowd NEEDS an alternative, the jury is out.

The fragmentation challenge of supporting a heterogeneous platform across form-factors and carriers is far harder than most recognize since it's the consummate highest common divisor v. lowest common denominator topic.

As a developer, do you wait until one killer form-factor emerges and develop around that feature set, ignoring a bunch of other handsets, installed bases? Do you focus on a global subset, and get sucked into the multi-handset tweak/debug/QA test lifecycle?

Plus, many forget how much the iPod media player + iTunes Client & Media Marketplace acts as foundation/feeder to the overall user engagement and monetization workflow that consumers happily default into with iPhone (and iPod touch).

So much of the Google DNA is about loose coupling and 'good enough,' which is a buzz kill when you have experienced best of breed, tight integration and of course, a deep, deep library of media and apps with iPhone.

Only point is that Android has a longer way to go to realize its inevitability premise than most realize, and a corporate DNA that while a great fit for the web, is somewhat at odds with what consumers expect in mobile, post iPhone, something that I blogged about in:

Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness May Not Be Best http://bit.ly/4lfbF

Check it out, if interested.

Mark