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Why the Google Android Phone Isn't Taking Off
Hugh Pickens writes "Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate that while the iPhone commands nearly 14 percent of smartphone sales and BlackBerry about 21 percent, Android has only 3 percent. And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone. Manjoo writes that Google went wrong by giving handset manufacturers and carriers too much control over the design and marketing of Android phones so there is no idealized 'Google phone' — instead, Android devices get names like the T-Mobile G1 or the myTouch 3G, and each is marketed separately and comes with its own distinct capabilities and shortcomings. 'Outside handset manufacturers lack ambition — -none of them even seems to be trying to match the capabilities of the iPhone, let alone to knock us down with features that far surpass those of Apple's device,' writes Manjoo. 'A smart handset manufacturer could build a top-of-the-line Android device that outshines Apple's phone in at least a few areas — better battery life, a much better Web browser, a brighter or bigger screen, faster or more functional controls... something that might help Android inspire gadget lust. But so far, that's not happening.' John Gruber echoes this advice and adds this advice to Android manufacturers: 'If Apple is BMW, you can be Porsche.'"
I spent several months at a startup where we were going to make $$profit by writing and selling Android applications. The problem is that the phones are, well, awful. The iPhone has set the standard, and things like the G1 are simply uninspiring by comparison. We would try to raise money, and in a room full of tech-savvy investors, most people have iPhones. We would pass around the G1 so they could see our app. Bottom line, they were not interested in investing money in a product that ran on a phone that was ugly.
Consequently I now write SQL for a living and get paid by the hour.
Android has done some great things. The control the user can have, the security model, the interaction between apps are all well thought out. One of these days it's going to be significant. Probably right after Linux is ready for the desktop.
And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone.
I hear people parroting the first part of that statement, invariably without any supporting evidence. Please explain - I'm asking this seriously - why Android is "far friendlier to developers". If the apps aren't being developed, I'd argue that's at least one piece of evidence running counter to that assumption. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) seemed to have a significant number of third-party apps already available at launch, so marketshare can't explain it all away. Besides, as people love saying here, the iPhone's market share is not really all that big compared to some others (no, you can't have it both ways).
So is Android actually friendlier to developers, or is it just the old "it's on Linux and Open Source, so it contains the maximum degree of friendliness possible no matter how much a pain in the butt it is to use"?
#DeleteChrome
google is giving you a 98% tax cut, assuming even distribution among states for your sales. any billing zip code in your state you had better set aside and remit sales tax to the local authorities, but the other 49 states aren't your problem. if google collected sales tax they would have to collect on every transaction.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Reading the comments I got the feeling I was reading a 9 months old article, I actually went to check the date on comments a few times.
Might I remind you that Android handsets have been released around the world, not only in the USA.
In France for instance, the HTCMagic (the G2 I believe) had advertisement in the metro and was labeled as a Google Phone (it's the Android name that doesn't pushed get out there, not the Google name). In Australia there are also ads for the same phone in phone shops.
Also, they are about 4 phones available right now running android (HTCDream, Magic, Hero and Samsung Galaxy).
Always going back to the T Mobile G1 is a little backwards looking and sort of like complaining about how the iPhone 1 doesn't have 3G.
The HTC Hero has an entirely revamped UI for instance, so things are also evolving outside the hood as well as under (even if the Hero's hardware admittedly isn't good enough and not future-proof).
So although I agree that Android lacks a killer app and the I want one factor that the iPhone has, saying that Android has problems because T Mobile's network sucks is really USA-centric.
From the different reports we've seen, the Magic has sold a million units since it was released in May. Now we're nowhere near iPhone numbers, but it isn't exactly a failure commercially speaking.
Considering another 15 or so phones running Android should come out before the end of the year (probably quite a few Samsungs, at least one Sony-Ericsson and some more HTCs), Android is gearing up.
I'm not saying it doesn't need a whole lot more marketing, a lot more see how easy it is to do this on Android type ads on TV to explain to non tech-savvy people why it's good, better form factors and gadget lust or some unified branding to avoid having a same phone have 5 different names, but it's nowhere near the catastrophe some seem to see it as. As someone said, it's going to gain momentum slowly, not become the next big thing overnight.
No wit here.
Android is a platform that give much more, and more meaningful, freedoms to app developers.
Freedom? Yes. Friendliness? Not that I've seen, and you haven't cited a single piece of evidence towards "friendliness", just "freedom".
It's really, really easy to get started with iPhone development. You pay Apple a small fee and get access to piles and piles of sample code, great documentation, a mature API, and you even get 2 support incidents in which you get to interact with a real Apple developer for your money. And now there's an ecosystem of developer forums, third-party libraries, articles, server/ad services, marketing support... it's actually a pretty friendly experience. It's true that Apple gets veto power, but even then the rejection letter is friendly :)
E pluribus unum
The current cell phone oligopoly needs to be broken the same way the Bell system was busted. There was a time when you could only buy your land line phone from Bell, there was only one directory (Free -white pages, advertised - yellow pages), and they owned the system from handset to handset. Costs were high, service was slow, and innovation was non-existent. There was a time when having two phones in the same house was the province of the ultra-rich. Then it was broken, you no longer had to rent your phone from Bell, but could go to the local store and buy one. Plug into an rj-11 jack and go. Soon every house had a phone in every room, you could buy answering machines, plug in a modem.... heck it wasn't too long before phone companies started to innovate and provide other services like caller ID. Sorry for the history rant, but we need the major cell and network providers to stop owning us handset to handset again. Apple shouldn't have had to convince AT&T to carry its phone, there should be a generic standard like RJ-11 where we can plug our phones into their network, and they move the bits. If they want to innovate on top of the bit moving, great, but don't their ownership of the devices is the problem that is stifling the market.
Probably because no one calls them "Android Phones". There are 5 phones on the market in the US right now that run Android, made by 2 different manufacturers. There are a half dozen more phones coming out by the end of the year, made by 3 more manufacturers, and that's soon enough that people have seen advertising and may be considering them for purchase. Can you name more than 2 of the phones? Conversely, would you know they were Android phones if a friend talked about getting one?
Hi there... Part of your comment is a bit misleading... you say:
"You pay Apple a small fee and get access to piles and piles of sample code, great documentation, a mature API"
Well, yeah, I guess you could go that route.
OR - you could sign up for the FREE account, get the SDK, get all that great documentation, get the mature API and get a fantastic emulator to test in.
When, and ONLY when you're ready to test on physical hardware, you can pay Apple just under $100 and get the ability to deploy to hardware and release to the store. But for all your getting started steps, you don't have to spend 1c more than it costs to start with Android.