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Android's "Flea Market" Needs Urgent Attention
andylim writes "According to Barry O'Neil, ex-President of Namco Bandai Network Europe, Google needs to understand that a constantly evolving 'beta' product doesn't cut it. It has to learn from the mistakes of the Java business in order to save Android. 'If Google is to present a threat to the Apple App Store ecosystem, it needs to address discovery and purchasing as a matter of urgency, or abandon control and hand over the entire management of the Android Market to carriers, OEMs and trusted publishers.'"
I'm sorry, but does android really need saving? I see more and more and more android based phones every day.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
I use the Android app market, and I find what I need. I think the Apple App Store is more plagued with marketers vying for positioning in the vaunted "Top 75" than in any other fashion. How about letting me sort by "5 stars"? Anybody?
I'm not sure I want anyone except the community "in charge" of what gets bubbled up in each category.
I ahve sent several emails, and posted on the form.
There online market SUCKS.
I have a G1. it's running Google android OS. It is fully integrated with Google.
Why can't I go to android.com and do a search for apps?
Yes, a Google site and you can't search for market apps.
http://www.android.com/market/
Not searchable. I'm sorry, what is Google's core business?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The market for the iPhone and Droid, who would purchase either are quite a bit different. Apple users are quite used to paying premiums for things that not only look nice but have had a lot of extra fringy things added. They pay a premium for this. The Android market on the other hand is more about open source, freeware, rough around the edges apps that more technically savvy users can work with. The markets are drawing different customers which also means different developers and different pricing.
Google needs to understand that a constantly evolving 'beta' product doesn't cut it
You mean like Gmail, Chrome, and a ton of other products that people use while in beta? Android's main strength is that it is open, cutting edge and changeable. A crappy interface or design on Windows Mobile is going to be slow to change, a crappy interface or design in Android is going to be quick to change.
Don't want something -slightly- unstable? Get a BlackBerry and its outdated architecture. Want something that is going to be nearly the same from beginning to end? Get an iPhone, but don't expect stability.
I had a Windows Mobile phone for a bit, it crashed so often I went back to my "dumb" phone before getting an Android handset that rarely crashes.
Android is doing the most things right at the moment. Windows Mobile is screwing customers by not offering software upgrades, Apple is screwing customers by not allowing them to use their apps, BlackBerry simply is a crappy environment to code for, and despite how much Palm wants WebOS to gain marketshare, it simply isn't happening.
Oh and never, ever allow OEMs, carriers or "trusted publishers" to take over app markets, otherwise you screw your customers even more. I don't want my carrier telling me what I can and can't have on my phone, same with OEMs and I don't want a "trusted publisher" removing all competition to their product.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Lets think about this, carriers love to nickle and dime you to death, hate anything that gets in the way of this, and only wish to allow enough function to sell stuff. The LAST thing the droid needs is the carriers getting involved. All I want from my carrier is fast reliable service. Some of my least technical friends have droids and after a few days of hating them they come to love them.
No sir I dont like it.
But some companies pretend they are not.
But maybe the author is right, and evolving betas do fail. Like GMail, Firefox, Chrome, GNU/Linux, they were all public evolving betas, and they all failed. Ah, wait, they didn't They are very successful, and keep gaining market-share every day.
Off course, other software that wasn't ever in public beta state, like Windows, Oracle, Photoshop, was successful. Ah, wait, they were Public betas too, just the companies behind them pretended they weren't. And they failed and succeeded at the same rate as the other more honest approaches.
All software evolves, and all software goes through a very long Beta period. Changing the label doesn't really change anything.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Allow sorting and filtering by rating. Problem solved. Let the community filter out the crap.
You *can* search the Android Market from your PC, without having an Android phone.
1. download the Android SDK
2. start an Android Emulator, this gets you a virtual phone that uses your PC's internet connection
3. load the Android Market application on to the Emulator
4. Open the Android Market application
5. Search the Android Market
This is not an easy process. But, I have done it, and it works.
I think the biggest problem with the Android market at the moment is its somewhat limited availability. You can't purchase apps in Sweden for example, and there are quite a good number of Android users here. Naturally, thats also going to skew the numbers that the article is using. You can't expect Android phones to have the same number of apps-purchased-per-phone, when a large amount of phones don't actually have that access to begin with. I think thats the point that the article is trying to make, although it doesn't do a very good job at it.
... and hand over the entire management of the Android Market to carriers, OEMs and trusted publishers.
Wait, is this guy implying that carriers are to be trusted publisher? They have tighter sphinxes than Apple does - how would this help consumers reach applications when phones purchased via said carriers disable functions on the phones they resell, just to charge extra money to re-enable them? (e.g. charging extra monthly fees so that their consumers can use GPS on their phones- which does not require any interaction with the cell towers, let alone the phone company!)
I'm considering buying a Nexus One right now and I really appreciate that Google has given us this other choice to the overly-controlled Disneyesque land of phones.
If this article's advice were followed, what exactly would distinguish Android from the other smartphone OSes? What would we need more "me too" phones for?
I do think the Android Marketplace could be better organized, but the answer isn't to copycat Apple's iTunes app store. For me, I'm tired of swimming in the sea of shovelware apps as Apple presents them, so I'd really hope that Google evolves theirs into something better.
In short, a bunch of sameness isn't what I'd like to see.
'If Google is to present a threat to the Apple App Store ecosystem, it needs to address discovery and purchasing as a matter of urgency, or abandon control and hand over the entire management of the Android Market to carriers, OEMs and trusted publishers.'
So, Google need to step up and do something right or do something a thousand times worse?
Just my opinion but that seems like a pretty extreme pair of options!
If the writer of the article would maybe stop and search the android market for 'android app discovery' he would find a bunch of apps that do what he thinks is missing. Appaware is probably my favorite. Perhaps sometimes it's better to let competition to breed excellence in this matter, rather than have a 'standard' dictated by an authority.
What android really needs is people to quit suggesting it be ran like the status quo. Or perhaps the author is past his time and doesn't understand why kids won't get off his lawn. We the people do not want the carriers to be in charge of phone appplications. Carriers need to focus on improving their crap networks rather than throwing money at ridiculous loss generating activities like the author suggests. Soon everyone will associate their phone with a manufacturer, rather than a network... similar to they way you run say 'I run Windows', not 'I have a dell... yep'.
Another thought, since everyone is perfectly happy with Apple's app review process, why don't we bring that over too?
I've been an Android user for over a year now. I kind of agree. Most of this isn't gaming specific though. Here's the problems as I see it.
The search functionality in the android market stinks. This is Google "king of search", but if you don't have the exact app name, good luck finding anything.
There's only 1 level deep categorization. Big hierarchies are a pain to manage, and some apps fit multiple categories. And it's hard to display a tree on a small screen. But only having 1 level deep makes it very hard to browse. If you don't know the name of the app, have a QR code, the app isn't a top 20, or if it's not updated almost constantly, it's almost impossible to find.
A desktop client for browsing, searching, purchasing, and installing apps, and perhaps other content (movies, music) would be helpful. Basically iTunes for android. DoubleTwist addresses some of this, but the market integration is in it's infancy (and I don't know that purchasing will ever work, unless google buys doubleTwist - hey, there's an idea!)
Not having any kind of review process in the market, there's a lot of shovelware, and a lot of ip infringing crapware. There's even been some malware. It's kind of like the wild wild west. Or the internet. Sometimes, being an "open" system isn't such a good thing from a user perspective.
Outside of the market, I think that divergent hardware is an achilles heel, not a strength. There's what, 3 or 4 iphone versions to deal with? Android runs on what, dozens of models (or will). With so many phones with varying capabilities, and os versions - not to mention bugs and quirks like the nexus one multi-touch swapping, some applications, especially games that like to get as close to the hardware as possible are going to be difficult to make portable.
Google is doing just fine on there own. They are bucking norms and the consumers are rewarding them for it.
That being said, having the android market searchable online with a lot more filters would be nice; turning over control not so much. I really don't want to be tethered to Verizon's or T-mobiles wishes. I prefer the openness of the android platform. If I didn't want the openness I'd have bought and iPhone.
Is having instant purchase. They should integrate ordering system with carriers, so when I click on buy app, it would bill my plan, instead of making me to type my credit card number.
That will increase sales as well. See amazon and their one click patent.
And I was hoping Google was getting into the market for android fleas. It's a highly untapped segment.
Not all countries have access to paid apps right now. Google has to speed up on making paid apps available to these countries, otherwise the ratio of apps purchased may just stay that way.
There's an even bigger problem w/the Android Marketplace when accessed from your phone. It's possible for developers to write applications that wont work on your particular phone model. With only a few Android models now that's not that big of an issue, but what happens when that Skyrockets to 50 devices in another year or so?
I have a Nexus One and while I love it I routinely download applications that don't work on my phone. They'll either frequently crash, or wont fully startup, or just hang when run. Now I refuse to download any app that doesn't have at least 100 comments and I scan the comments for people reporting that it doesn't work on my model of phone.
This is a terrible user experience. I'm probably not the typical Android user and can figure out why an application isn't working but your average user can't. They're just going to bitch and complain that apps they're downloading don't work and that the phone "sucks."
Google has got to fix this. What's the point of having a centralized marketplace if you're not going to even verify compatibility? I was able to download a "Droid" Flashlight app that doesn't work on my Nexus - how ridiculous is that?
I think maybe a compatibility section for each app in the market would be a start, even if user reported
You can't buy 100% of the applications on any android phone. For example on my wife's Motorola Backflip she can't get Google Goggles. Sit right next to her on the same network using a different Android phone we can download it. Other applications such as Facebook and Pandora are resolution limited and won't work on certain phones. Now you can argue that its up to the developers to make applications that work across the board but perhaps it should be a requirement for getting listed on the Android store. Either way, I currently have 2 Android phones in my house and an iPhone3GS. The iPhone is the one that I use the most.
It's "sphincter" dammit.
Compare:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphincter
A highlighted set of apps and games available in Android Market.
I get it.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Look, it was 200 years ago that Adam Smith worked out that not everybody's good at everything. Clearly they need to outsource the search to someone who's good at it. Like, I dunno, Google?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yeah, this 'article' isn't biased or anything. My droid runs twice as smoothly and even faster than my brother's iPhone.
I have no problem finding apps, and if I want something some misinformed developer wants to charge me $20 for, there's probably a slightly less-used version available for free somewhere. I have more entertainment on my phone than on my actual computer now, and I didn't pay a cent for it.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
I would guess that Google shrugs off "Just 21% of Android users purchase one or more paid apps per month, compared with 50% of iPhone users". A lot of the free apps are ad-supported. Google bought AdMob which seems to be the dominant way to deliver ads to Android phone apps. From Google's point of view, having lots of free ad-supported apps is just fine. I agree with O'Neil that the incentives for investing in development for Android are bad now, but that must be more a function of the smaller number of Android devices out there than the Android Market working poorly. More Android phones will get released and there will be more money in the pot for developers.
A more sophisticated search interface to the same selection of Android Market games would be good. I feel like you need one interface for newcomers, (the current one) and another interface for power users, i.e. Let's see all the titles from one publisher or have some tags or subgenres to look through. Still, I have never had much trouble finding anything with keyword searches. So I don't know what all the whining is about.
Hardware compatibility is a BFD, and yeah, it's only going to get worse. Unsophisticated developers will always be inclined to test just on whatever phone they have. And there is no practical way to make Android SDK developer-proof at this point. I don't want the solution to be filter-by-hardware queries on Android Market. It is possible to write one app that runs on all devices, it's just that developers don't write the apps correctly. There might be some automated testing tools that run on the submission side that check for more obvious errors like "Force closes" on hardware X. Maybe also some sort of automated collection of it-works-on-hardware-x votes from users downloading an app will earn an app a certain gold star, which in turn can be used to filter out "doesnt-work" apps from an individual users search results.
But holy jeezus, do not do not do not let the goddamn carriers run the app store. Oh my god, the horrors we have put up with. If BREW were a physical object, I would happily defecate on it.
I didnt consider the market itself as Beta but the entire Android OS.
I own a phone, a HTC Magic. So far here on the DOCOMO Japanese carrier I have experienced;
- 2-3 random crashes a day to the phone add (Forced Closes -> FC )
- Slow to access dialer (JITting the Java again?, Pulling from ROM? )
- Keyboard is slower than treacle in December ... 10-20 more but my hands are tired from typing.
- During MP3 playback mail/sms disrupts audio feed
- No wake-up-on-alarm
- API changes so an Android1.6 app wont always run on all devices.
- No APP assurance testing, resulting in Apps that lock/brick or otherwise destroy the plasure.
- No way to track apps
-
So the phone itself is Beta, I am as yet waiting for the day when someone puts down a class-action together against them for deceptive marketing.
I love linux, I love Google, Android is a nice idea but extremely rough.
Then there is the market entry plan, seems bad in USA - Japan, its virtually non existant. Shocking given how well they could dominate Japan with the right O/S.
Apple wins this one. I'm sorry, but the AppStore is far more polished and suitable for business use.
iPhone/AppStore:
- Daily reports, with regional totals for downloads and updates.
- Five screenshots for your apps
- Keyword search
- Large app descriptions
- Descriptions for app updates
- Semi-opaque approval process, but it's getting better and tools are moving many of the code-level stoppers to dev visible before submission.
- iTunes. For as many things that have been bolted onto it, it's better than nothing, and gets the job done.
- Up to date SDK with current examples on all major code paths, and iTunesU access to the Stanford iPhone Dev course.
Android:
- No reporting aside from a total download and currently installed count. (Yes, your android device phones home and lets Market know that app hasn't been deleted)
- Two screenshot max (Pet peeve: zero or two screens... one isn't permitted.)
- No keyword search
- 325 character app description
- No update descriptions, you get to fit them in the above.
- No approval, aside from the $25 to register on Market.
- No access to your app reviews, unless you're on the handset.
- SDK docs are up to date, but can be annoyingly sparse or wrong in spots. What examples there are often down-rev, hiding on the net and using deprecated APIs. Alas, it's a common fault in OSS: the code is the fun bit, the docs and examples aren't so much fun. They're often quickly written, are terse or flat out wrong.
The biggest problems I have, aside from the search problem, are the seemingly arbitrary limits on things, and the last of any meaningful web side to Market. It really feels like Market is someone's 20% project.
Google maybe should "mask" all apps reported not to work on your model. They could then appear only on the bottom of search results (if they provided a app search engine) and maybe not appear at all in categories to keep them uncluttered.
Barry's comments are not exactly neutral since his company is directly competing with independently produced applications.
It sounds like O'Neil is whining that it is not "fair" his company has to compete in an open market
This isn't about Java apps - TFA is about Java GAMES.
Another poster, above, points out that maybe iPhone and Android are for different markets - one wanting frilly add-ons, one wanting open source.
I think they're for the same market - we all want a phone platform that just works and comes from a big, trusted name for doing that - Apple and Google certainly qualify. Maybe this market does actually subdivide into those wanting a fully-integrated vs. a more open experience. I don't know - I can't extrapolate to infinity from myself as a data point.
Since TFA was about GAMES, does this raise a question about who's more likely to play games - an iPhone user or an Android user? TFA claims that the demand should be the same and it's the easy-buy feature of the iPhone that's proving that - and goes to claim that if the Android market had that, Java game sales numbers would be up there as well.
TFA author cannot know that a causal relationship exists for this. It's an interesting speculation - but his numbers only show association - not distribution as the cause.
He's into the gaming industry and seems to have frustration that Java games haven't caught on as pundits have speculated - but that their penetration is disproportionately higher for the iPhone.
His argument is more GAMES would sell if Google had an App Store equivalent.
Personally - the issue is confusing to me and probably others like me. I don't play games on my phone and never will. But I hang and work with gamers - mention games on a Mac to them and they look back cross-eyed. And I understand the Java promise is platform freedom. So I can make the leap to Java games being acceptable on an iPhone (and yes, I know it's not a Mac running OS X).
But I can't make the leap that Google needs to provide him with something better than the non-searchable flea market and that the Apple model is the one proven to be needed by Google.
Why doesn't he instead conclude that the Java game-building community should open their own app store - maybe a co-op - where any non-iPhone/Java-capable phone user could go for that sort of thing?
I don't buy groceries where I buy hardware - I prefer specialized stores.
TFA sounds like whining. TFS sounds very interesting - if it had referred to the subject it suggests that would be one thing. But it didn't - this is about games, a very narrow segment of a narrow segment of a narrow market.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Apple spent billions developing their commercial development platform and hardware to ascertain their position in the celluar pda market, and Google has only focused on an open source platform (AOSP), relying on end user contributions to fix a lot of their problems with their system.
I recently purchased a Nexus One, over the iPhone, since I already had a iPod Touch that I use for development, and I wanted to play around with Android for a while. I doubted my purchase while I waited it to be delivered, but upon arrival, I am unbelievably impressed. I am sorry but the previous article saying that the apple A4 processor is going to be better than the Snapdragon is nonsense. It may be slightly more energy efficient, but I sincerely doubt the comments in regards to performance. Also the Android market has everything I could imagine. It is not as saturated with garbage applications, so future development is still lucrative. I agree that the sorting routines in the android market application are limited, but come on, that is such a pathetic argument. It will be no time before Google improves the Android market from comments such as these. And if we compare the proprietary software from Google over Apple, there is no comparison at all (Gesture Search, Voice Search, Places Directory, MAPS, Earth, YouTube, Translate, Sky, Goggles, etc). Remember Apple was reliant on Google letting them use their software with their product (MAPS, YouTube), it was not the other way around.
The main reason why in my opinion the android market has already become superior to the market is that there is no ambiguity in the legal and illegal markets. There is only the one android market (plus marketing websites which also provide application downloads and software repositories, which is something Apple seems to frown upon). Google provides full access to their os (minus default root privileges, which is in my opinion the obvious choice for both devices, since people should not go where they are unfamiliar), and there are applications for everything. For the iPhone to stack up, it needs to be jailbroken, but I do not want to worry about the incongruities with the AppStore and so called "illegal applications". But to Google, its all legal as it should be. I should probably have left that part out since this isn't YRO, and I do not want a bunch of capitalists (ie. wealthy people) throwing their opinions down my throat.
Apple are relying on the thought that some developers will only develop for their system due to the initial quality, but over time, as Android catches up to the iPhone OS and SDK, it may even surpass it.
Anyways, this is just my opinion. And I AM NOT GOOGLE biased. I LOVE the iPhone, but I just happen to think that the Nexus one with Android market is a better product that the iPhone and AppStore for various reasons that I stated above (plus the awesome live wallpapers). The Nexus One with Android is the developers dream (though Java makes me puke a little in the mouth, but so does objective C, though at least with the iPhone you can use C++ as well). I can't wait for the next generations of these devices when we have front facing cameras, which will then be fully fledged communicators and with depth perception applications from head tracking!
It's called Google.com. http://tinyurl.com/ykccxvo
http://fathertom.net/hardwii - My Wii Hardware Centric Website
The author and many users make it sound like they're acquiring new apps for their phone every few days. I barely acquire apps. In 15 months with my G1 I got a GPS app for when I'm golfing, and two free games for when I'm on an airplane, and that's it.
I mainly use it for phone calls, email, and limited web surfing. I thought most people did.
I personally find it pretty easy to find stuff thanks to the search and being able to sort by ratings or inclusion date.
Where is fails is the fact there is *so* much shit to sifting through if you want to browse to discover something new and not looking for something specific especially in the games category.
I don't want to see Apple-like super control over the content but fuck me, do we really need a zillion nude girls card games and other shitty variations on the same awful content? It's not like any of them offer something over the other that can make a case for all of them being there. They are all usually from the same company just spamming the market place with same rubbish.
Maybe the option is to allow people to block apps from every showing up in any sort of search on an app by app basis and stop companies from uploading the same exact app to get around this?
Freedom seems to work well on PCs but why do phones get lumped with so many shitty apps even when companies show some sort of control?
I sometimes have a bit of trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. For example, to find a file manager (I couldn't believe one wasn't included by default), I had to google it and discovered that a lot of people were using AndroZip -- a zip program -- as a file manager.
I recommend Astro (Android Systems Tools Reporting). WFM.
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Yeah, they'll sell you a subscription to PacMan on your phone for the low price of 7.99.
I was excited to get an Android phone. When I finally got one, I was absolutely aghast at the user experience. Here is a one-liner list of SOME of my issues:
- My phone did not come with an Android Market app. WHAT? What does it need an app? It's a WEBSITE! So I cannot use Android Market.
- I cannot use my phone as a USB device and simply plug it into my computer with out DLing and compiling the Android SDK to compile a driver.
- Using the GoogleMail app, I logged into one of my Gmail accounts. There is NO option to allow you to log out and log into another. To do so requires that you use the browser and go through the "front door". That's fine, but holy hell is that retarded.
- The browser SUCKS ASS. EVERYTHING is a Google search. You want to go to a website, you HAVE to search for it, instead of simply typing it in. FUCK YOU GOOGLE.
Some of these issues are obviously with the manufacturer of my phone. But hardly all of them. After struggling with the whole thing I finally decided I simply cannot get any work done on this thing. Me = AGGRO.
Android as left me very disappointed. I was looking forward to an Android powered tablet (specifically the Notion Ink Adam), but I'll have to do a serious hands on before I purchase anything "Android powered".
I still won't buy any Apple products though. Especially the iPad. That's simply a physical front-end for their store.
Why? Because none allow a partial text search or advanced search options. This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with the Android market right now, because if you can't find apps based on a single word -or a fragment of a word- then how will you know what's out there?
By way of example, I just looked up "jewel" in each market you listed, as well as on my phone. I got back a long list of jewel-type games, but the best one, Jewellust, was missing. Who knows what other jewel games I'm missing out on because of a lack of partial matching?
I'm sure there's lots of stuff in the market I'd be happy to buy, but I probably can't find it because of a substandard search mechanism.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Oh, they just need a nice jingle and all will be well. Something like this will do nicely. :)
If they don't want to be just another crappy also-ran platform. Android phones so far have sub-par hardware, the OS is still unpolished, the lack of a controlled app store environment makes things confusing, and phone makers and carriers do whatever the heck they want which just makes it even more confusing for consumers.
Programming for Android is overall easier since many more programmers know Java, you don't have to own a Mac, and the cost of developing is less. They should be kicking the iPhone's ass but instead they are just an also-ran. Taking a bit more control and adding some polish they could probably take the number one spot. I'd love to see that kind of real competition (which I think would also pressure Apple to loosen up a bit).
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
..lets me search, install, share apps. It also leaves spam apps out and recommends new ones quite accurately. I bet more, better, competing marketplace web UIs are just around the corner. Google not providing one is, if nothing else, a great opportunity.
Maybe try some of this stuff before writing about it?
Here's my apps list:
http://www.appbrain.com/user/MagicFab/apps-on-the-nexus-one
The provided Marketplace app to search and install from the phone really is only one of many ways to get apps on such phones.
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