Google Hiring Android Devs To Close the 'Apps Gap'

jfruhlinger writes "Google is reportedly hiring Android developers specifically to boost the number of apps available for the platform. Obviously there's money to be made, but the search giant is no doubt also driven by the gap between Android and iOS apps in both quantity and quality."

Comments

Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[mlts]

This would take a lot of work, but what might be helpful for Google to do for making Android apps is making a source code conversion tool that would take Objective C code and convert the API calls to the equivalent Java calls.

Of course, this will take some doing because the Dalvik VM is a different beast than Objective-C (take the activities concept for example.) However, it would get software companies to at least dip a toe into the Android waters.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this will happen. Google would prefer it if devs shifted the focus from iOS to Android, the app you speak of would allow developers to continue focusing on iOS and port to Android as an afterthought. Android might just end up with slower iOS apps which don't really follow the conventions of android.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[MBGMorden]

I don't think such a tool would be worth the effort, particularly when even good versions of such translation tools almost always need to be heavily audited to ensure functionality, and most of the time the automated code is far less efficient than the original. I suppose you could take a "it's better than nothing" view of the situation, but realistically I don't think that flooding the Android market with a bunch of poor quality translated apps is going to be their goal when tackling the problem of low quality apps.

That said, I've never noticed a problem with it personally. As an Android and iPod Touch user I've never found a gap in what I could do on one vs the other.

The ONLY thing that I find better on the iPod isn't really an app on that side: the music player. The default music player on my Android phone is clunky and hard to use. It works much, much better on the iPod. On the other hand, the podcast functionality of that built in music player pales in comparison to what I can do with DoggCatcher on my Android phone.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Yuioup]

Good idea and perhaps may I suggest an Objective C to the Go language converter? My crystal ball says that Google is going to be hurt by the Oracle lawsuit and as a consequence will switch over to Go and the primary language.

I'm also wondering if they'll use a runtime or compile straight down to the metal (LLVM anyone?).

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[robmv]

And kill Android the same way Windows APIs on OS/2 let people code for Windows and make people use the Windows APIs and not the native ones. Steve Jobs is not dumb trying to force everyone to use only their tools and APIs (evil yes, but not dumb), If you want something like it, it will not come from Google. There is a tool to do that in reverse direction but that will never comes from Apple, no matter if the application numbers and quality iOS vs Android is reversed

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Stregano]

Yeah, it's an iPod. I hope its music player is much, much better seeing as iPods are built to be music players. There are lots of examples of this, but I am too lazy to think of a good one

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Low Ranked Craig]

"it's better than nothing"

Every single time I've seen this tried for anything even mildly complex it has turned out to be worse than nothing, not better. Once you have all the logic figured out, reimplementing in a new language generally isn't that hard to do. I've never understood why dev managers focus on conversion of code, when the hard part is already done.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[maxume]

I haven't seen any music specific device with a better interface than various audio players running on a computer, so I can't really say I follow your reasoning.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Ambitwistor]

What good would that do? It's not like Java is some esoteric language and software companies can't find anyone to write Android apps in it. Or, if you're implying that this conversion tool would let you port iPhone apps to Android, the programming language isn't the main barrier to that. It's the completely different APIs.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[oPless]

xmlvm ?

http://xmlvm.sourceforge.net/overview/

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Stregano]

Uh?!? Really? He is comparing a device specifically built to play music, an iPod (even though it does other things, those are simple "nice to haves") with an Android phone which is a device specifically built to get and send phone calls and text messages (even though it does other things, those are simple "nice to haves"). He compared a music player to a phone and said "you know, I think the music player plays music better than the phone". Why are you bringing a PC into it when this was in response to him comparing a music device to a phone? Come on now kid, if you did not read the context of what my post was about, I am taking a wild stab that you did not read TFA either (well, it is /.) If you think I am a Apple person supporting Apple, then you clearly took everything I said out of context of what it was meant for (you know, when you hit reply, that means you are replying to the parent post and not just randomly blurting out stuff, oh wait, this is /. and some people do that, well, I don't do that)

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[MBGMorden]

The music interface on the iPod Touch IS the music interface on the iPhone. The iPod Touch came afterwards. Your point is moot as for the most part the iPod Touch is simply an iPhone with the phone part removed. Given that we are talking apps, not phone calls, then the phone portion is irrelevant and it's perfectly reasonable to compare the iPod Touch and the Android.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[Stregano]

That tells you how much about Apple products I know. I should have read it better or looked into what the iPod touch was a little better. Touche Sir, and good show

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[maxume]

PCs are not built to be music players, so if

I hope its music player is much, much better seeing as iPods are built to be music players.

doesn't work in the iPod-PC relationship, why is it naturally a given that it must work in the Android-iPod relationship?

Basically, Android devices and the iPod are both small general purpose computers, I think it is strange that you would expect one to be quite a lot better at playing music than the other.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[SETIGuy]

The ONLY thing that I find better on the iPod isn't really an app on that side: the music player. The default music player on my Android phone is clunky and hard to use.

And I only see a billion free music players in the Marketplace. It's not like you're forced to use the default Android music player. I don't think I have ever used it. But hey, I can bring up Museek, turn on smart shuffle and wind my way through the 4500 songs on my phone, search/select albums or single songs to add to the playlist. It's nifty. It's easy to use. You should try it.

Are you forced to use the default iOS music player? What if you don't like it?

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[caerwyn]

Well, the problem with that argument is that the exact same music player is present on the iPhone- so it's clear that this isn't just a "well, we're just a cell phone, how you can you expect us to play music well?" situation.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[tkprit]

I'm not much of an audiophile (although I think I have every iPod almost, not including shuffles); I don't see a huge diff. w/ audio. (I have a profound hatred of iTunes the app, though, so my perception may be colored by that ;)

But come on, batt life on iPhone/touch *kills* Android. (And I say that as a sorta android fangirl).

Android needs tighter apps, imo. I'm thinking they have to greatly improve the SDK, change the programming lang. [from java to anything else]—they don't need to shovel out neater apps if they're still going to be leaky mem hogs and run the batt down.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[MBGMorden]

I'll try Museek. Truthfully though, it won't be the only alternate music player I've used (by a long shot). I just can't find a music player that I particularly like on the Android. The sorting options just aren't as intuitive. It also uses that dreadful "media scanner" setup (which seems to be ubiquitous across all players) that detects every single audio file on your SD card as a "song" and imports it into your library - including custom sounds you use for ringtones and/or alerts. You can get around that by putting a file names .nomedia in the directory with files you don't want to show up, but if you do that in your ringtone directory then they don't show up as ringtones either. Catch 22 there. There may be some even fancier way of solving the problem, but I wasn't able to find it in a few hours of searching, and the mere fact that it would take a few hours of searching is a downside in and of itself.

That said, it's not THAT big of a deal, as I listen to more podcasts than I do music, and as mentioned in my previous post, I've found a very good podcast client already.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Android phone and will be sticking to that platform - I just don't like the way the music situation is on it.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[adolf]

This might not work for you but:

Try subsonic.

I don't use a traditional media player on my Droid, and I don't intentionally load music onto it. My SD card is a barren wasteland of PDFs and camera pics, and I have no desire to fill it up with media, simply because I find no advantage in doing so. (Managing one pile of music is hard enough. Two is harder.)

I do listen to my music all the time, though, especially when driving (I drive a lot).

subsonic is a self-hosted streaming sort of thing, and it seems to work well. I generally have no trouble at all keeping myself fed with 320kbps non-transcoded MP3s, from the many tens of gigabytes of carefully-sorted music that I keep at home. (It also supports transcoding, but why bother as long as bandwidth is both unlimited and adequately available?)

The interface is reasonable, the performance is good, the server-side is open-source and multiplatform, and the price is fine (free-ish). It pre-caches music, stores a few hundred megs of it on the SD card (configurable) so you can get to your frequently-listened-to tracks without using bandwidth, and pretty much works flawlessly on Verizon.

Best of all, since it's geared toward playing music from your system at home, it never, ever picks up a stray ringtone...which I must say is the stupidest and most retarded "feature" ever to curse a thing which purports to play music.

Lately, I've even been using it at home with Firefox instead of [pick a random, platform-native media player], since it also does a fine job of album art and lyrics, is simple, and it automatically agrees with my preferred directory layout.

And (shhhh!), you and your friends can share subsonic servers, which can greatly increase the amount of available music you all have, including per-user restrictions on access and bandwidth.

I shot the author a few bucks after playing with it for less than half an hour, and haven't looked back.

Re:Perhaps an Objective C - Java tool?

[IceFreak2000]

Thank you for posting this; in the last half hour since reading your post I've downloaded and installed the Subsonic server on my home server and installed the client on my HTC Legend and it works perfectly! Definitely slinging some Euros to the developer for this!

Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[TheChief]

Mr. President, we must not allow a app gap!

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mon Calamari: The other companies have more programs on their market! How would you describe it?
Admiral Ackbar: It's a gap!

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[Kvasio]

I recommend applying substitution s/p/s/ to "app gap".

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[flanktwo]

... and so the No App Left Behind bill was introduced.

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[wallsg]

Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[ustolemyname]

s/p/s/g

Your solution produces "asp gap"

Re:Figured I'd get this out of the way...

[msuarezalvarez]

"asp gap"? Really?

Increase demand or demand an increase?

[xx_chris]

This sort of reminds me of that Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon (I think) where they speed up the car by moving the speedometer. Alternatively, Google could just concentrate on building a platform that doesn't suck.

Re:Increase demand or demand an increase?

[eclectus]

Amen to that! I have found the major applications that I need, However, the many annoying interface 'features' are really irritating me. I can only sort contacts by first name, I can't type in initials to get a contact, calDAV not supported natively, quick contacts cannot be renamed, I could go on and on....

Re:Increase demand or demand an increase?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be one of those poor folks whose carriers / device makers haven't kept up. I'm on Android 2.2.1 and I can choose to sort by first name or last name in contacts. I can also choose to display first name last name or last name, first name. This is on a Motorola Droid - native Google interface.

Re:Increase demand or demand an increase?

[angus77]

I can only sort contacts by first name....

What are you talking about? I have a Desire with Froyo and I can choose---on a contact by contact basis---whether to sort by first or last name.

Re:Increase demand or demand an increase?

[SETIGuy]

Go to your contact list. Open the menu. Select "Display Options". Select the "Sort List By" drop-down and select last name.

In other words it's exactly where you would think it would be. That's in Froyo. It was also possible in previous Android revisions, but the name of the menu items may have changed.

Re:Increase demand or demand an increase?

[Dayze!Confused]

It'd be nice if I could reply to everybody who replied to the parent but I think we are still missing the point. It's not just sort by first/last name, I'd rather sort by any piece of information in it, especially, get this, Nickname. There isn't even an option to display the nickname, you have to do your own hack and just use first name for their nicknames and then put their first name in the nickname slot in order to have it work. t's good to know somebody's name is Eugene, but if they like to go by Flynn Ryder then I would hope I could get that to be displayed. I'm running Android Gingerbread right now and it still has that same problem. Seems that with all the other things that they have updated the contact list is the last on their list of things to do.

please don't

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we would then get awful Android applications.
My provider (Bell Canada) as an application for Android, to manage your account. It is awful. Obviously ported from the iPhone, with the ugly buttons/tabs wasting space at the bottom and the "back" button at the top left. They forgot that Android had a "menu" and a "back" button. I bet there would be even more of these if there was a tool to translate objective-C to Java. Anyway, Java is a way more popular language than Objective-C, so I don't think the lack of developers is an issue.

Obviously?

[Tharsman]

Obviously there's money to be made

As a developer, I would like to be shown what makes it so obvious. Every developer I have asked says similar, if you cant get an application that's heavily used you wont be making much money in the Android platform, and then you will very likely make most that money through advertisement.

I honestly want to see actual analysis that show that developing for Android is really an obvious money making path. I am very aware that there is no certain success in any platform. Seeing comparisons of cross-platform titles and showing the Android equivalent making more money would be the best example. Maybe the web is full of Apple Fanboi propaganda, but I just cant find any success stories in the Android Market that rival the iOS equivalents.

Re:Obviously?

[bberens]

I can't imagine that it's any more or less of an obvious statement than iOS apps being an obvious money maker. Clearly angry birds is making money on both platforms. Most apps languish and don't make any money. I don't think this is really all that different from the rest of the software world with regards to success vs failure, though perhaps more pronounced since there's SO MANY dinky little phone apps out there.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Angry Birds makes more money through advertising on the Android platform than from all other platforms together.
Rovio said so.

Re:Obviously?

[B1ackDragon]

Clearly angry birds is making money on both platforms.

I think this interview may be interesting, given the reference to Angry Birds in particular:

Peter Vesterbacka, Maker of Angry Birds Talks about the Birds, Apple, Android, Nokia, and Palm/HP

9. Why did you decide to make the Android version free and is that going to change any time soon?
“Free is the way to go with Android. Nobody has been successful selling content on Android. We will offer a way to remove the ads by paying for the app, but we don’t expect that to be a huge revenue stream.”

Note: that article is something like two months old now, things may have changed since then for them.

Re:Obviously?

[LWATCDR]

Hard to say. I have an android phone and an iPod touch. I hate to pay for apps on those devices but then I hate to pay on any device. Thing is I will pay if the app is good enough.
On the iPod Touch I think I paid for three or for apps. On my Android phone I paid for four apps.
Three are games from EA that where on sale for .99 cents. One was a podcast catcher. that was like $4. I only paid for the ipod catcher because it was the only one that I liked and did what I wanted it to do.
Some programs like Angery Birds I would pay for just to get ride of the stupid ads.Others I don't use enough to pay for.
I think it is more of a cultural thing. People on the iPhone/iPod are used to paying for stuff in iTunes. The rest of us want free because well free is free.
What I want to know is what apps are missing?
Not counting games I do not really see any big gaps in the app store for Android.
Facebook check
Twitter check
Pandora check
TuneIn Radio check
Last.FM check
email check
Gmail check
All sorts of compass and GPS apps check.
Evernote Check
Drop Box check.

So what does iPhone have that Android doesn't? Now some of the special apps like the one for OnStar and such are missing but that would take the providers allowing the app.
Maybe Google is going to offer to write them for big companies.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Android was in development as early as 2005, far far far before the iPhone was ever seen.

Re:Obviously?

[metrometro]

Yes, apparently it's difficult to make money off software that doesn't get "heavily used". It's a feature.

I don't want 500,000 apps on my phone. I want about 20, and I want them to work really, really well. This has implications for the software industry.

Re:Obviously?

[Altus]

I read something about 6 months ago, I dont have the link handy, but the article said that iPhone users spend a lot more money on Apps per month (per person) than Android users. Among the folks I know, this seems to be true. I can't say why, it may have to do with the people (iPhone users have more disposable income than folks buying the cheepest Android phone just to have a smart phone) or it could be because the iPhone is more locked down and more people are pirating apps on Android phones or it could be something else entirely. But it is quite possible that there is simply more money to be made in iPhone app development and that wont necessarily change just because there are more Android devices if the per-device money available is much higher on iOS devices.

Of course there is nothing to say that this trend might not change, but if developers know the money is on iOS they will make more apps there, which might lead to more sales of iOS devices.

Re:Obviously?

[ray_mccrae]

Go back and look at Android circa 2005, and you'll find it was nothing like what shipped. Back then it was just a rip off of the BlackBerry. It was only when the iPhone was release that Android change who it was copying from.

http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wild

Re:Obviously?

[rreay]

And what did Android look like in January 2007 when the iPhone was announced? I dunno, but I found photos from January 2008.

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

Well, Apps I can't live without on my iPhone, there is the American Express app, that I think is not available for Android, I'd have to put up with their mobile web site.

I can't live without my dear Netflix.

There is Air Video, an app that allows me to stream video over the internet from my computer. There may be similar alternatives for the Android. I know for one there is ZumoCast, not out yet but it was just purchased by Motorola and likely will go either Android only or at least make it into the Android market. Then again, it may become a Motorola only app.

There are a lot of games, too many to count.

PBS, ABC Player, ABC News, TED Mobile, CNN app and the NPR app are some I may live without but really rather not. Not sure if any of these are available for the Android.

Not essential but I love my 8mm Vintage Camera, would dislike departing with it.

That's without going into actual OS features, although at first I thought the new Apple TV was a stupid gimmick (other than being useful as a Netflix player, but I had an XBox for that,) I am now in love with it due to Air Play. Now, yea, that's just an OS feature, but now any app that uses video of any type will be able to stream the video to the TV completely wirelessly. That's something I wont be able to do with any app in the Android [right now.] To be fair, though, 3rd party apps wont be doing it ether for the iPhone until 4.3 is out (but it's not too far off.)

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

As a consumer, I don't want apps I must use a lot, I want apps I can use quick and get results out off. One example is a weather app I purchased called Weather Alert USA. I don't ever open it, but it will give me a system notification if there is a weather alert for my area (or any area I tell it to alert me about.) Such an app would never be able to survive based on ads.

For me, "heavily used", is only a feature in video games and media players, and those to don't really click with games, at least not for me.

Re:Obviously?

[LWATCDR]

American express app is available for android.

"PBS, ABC Player, ABC News, TED Mobile, CNN app and the NPR app are some I may live without but really rather not. Not sure if any of these are available for the Android."
I am pretty sure those are all available. I know CNN and NPR are as well as CBS, CNET, and I think NPR is as well.

But notice that with the exclusion of the 8mm Vintage Camera app off of these are tied to a specific vendor. You or I couldn't just write it ourself.
But from your list the gap seems very small and I am willing to say the air play app is too apple specific to count. Maybe Google TV will have something like ti.

Re:Obviously?

[metrometro]

That's a weekend hack of some public data calls + the GPS lookup. Why can't I have that as a feature of an app called "Weather"? I want heroic, high quality apps that are light and fast and mostly don't suck. And I'd pay for them. But instead I have features federated around to a dozen weather apps, very few reliable brands of mobile apps, and devs wondering why they can't seem to make money selling 1/12th of a software solution anonymously.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Angry birds sucked. That is why it was free on android. Android users won't pay as much for crap as Iphone users will.

Re:Obviously?

[peragrin]

It is much simpler than that. Tinkers like the slashdot crowd don't pay for apps unless they have too. they go I can do that, and then make some crude knock off 6 to 24 months later if they feel like it.

By catering to the tinkerer crowd google is cutting it's own throat on app sales. Why do you think that most downloaded apps for android include a decent web browser and keyboard software. Those should be basic apps that should have been done right at the beginning.

Apple however caters to the 90% of users who don't have time to waste on doing crappily themselves. While I can code my own apps, as well as fix my car, and rebuild a computer in my sleep. It isn't worth my time to do so.

Now having said that I am still waiting for a wifi only tablet. the iPad is close but I only want a 7" screen. Since google doesn't support the market place without 3G I guess i will have to code my own apps(tinker) as google doesn't care about me as a potential customer.

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

That's a weekend hack of some public data calls + the GPS lookup. Why can't I have that as a feature of an app called "Weather"? I want heroic, high quality apps that are light and fast and mostly don't suck. And I'd pay for them. But instead I have features federated around to a dozen weather apps, very few reliable brands of mobile apps, and devs wondering why they can't seem to make money selling 1/12th of a software solution anonymously.

Who said the app does not have full features? It has plenty of reporting tools, access to street cameras and video, active maps, detailed forecast reports, etc. However, I don't have to spend my full day looking at the stupid app, I have better things to do with my time (like play Angry Birds without ads.) The main reason I paid for this one is because it was full featured AND didn't need my constant nagging to tell me if a blizzard is coming my way (something I need since I don't watch TV nor listen to radio.)

This is one thing I got to give MS, despite the horrible Windows Phone 7 marketing campaign, I do agree with the idea of making their phone quick to look at to get the info you need out of it so you can put it away as quick as you can.

Re:Obviously?

[kuzb]

Probably because there is no way to BUY angry birds on the android platform which I fucking hate. They put ads in places where it makes the game more difficult to play. I would gladly pay to remove that trash.

Re:Obviously?

[hedwards]

That was my thought, apart from apps for things like banking or where it's a free app for users of a given service, I haven't seen anything particularly obvious that's missing. I've yet to have a burning desire for something that was completely unavailable or otherwise replaceable.

It would be nice to get those sorts of convenience apps, but for the most part they're coming and as the marketshare of Android continues to grow, this problem will be remedied at some point. Having an initiative like this is mostly about accelerating that process.

Re:Obviously?

[shutdown -p now]

So what does iPhone have that Android doesn't?

A Skype app that works on 3G (if you're in US; elsewhere, it's not restricted).

Re:Obviously?

[blair1q]

The ads in Angry Birds are the Hard skill level.

Re:Obviously?

[Pollardito]

Netflix is the obvious first example of a missing app on Android, but honestly the gap in quality in just simple games is the most frustrating thing to me (iPhone owner for 3 years, Samsung Tab owner for 2 months, Nexus S owner for 1 week). I wish developers like Pop Cap would bring their games to Android, but they're taking their sweet time. I'm not even talking about fantastically powerful games like Infinity Blade or the latest ID whatchamacalit, just simple puzzle/tower-defense/match-3 type games on Android can be pretty rough.

I think the real problem with Android might be that the users are not as likely to open their wallets, and so developers don't see as much reason to make Android apps. If nothing else Apple is really good at making it easy and seductive to throw down a couple bucks on an app. Ultimately it seems like the strongest voices in the Apple community are marketers (including Apple themselves), and the strongest forces in Android are do-it-yourselfers and modders who would rather write their own unpolished game than pay someone else for a polished one.

Two things that I think would be huge would be support for gifting apps and gift cards, because they both make it easy for people to buy apps for friends and they just build the market in general. The fact that they were missing those two items during the most recent Christmas season seems like a huge oversight to me.

Re:Obviously?

[drolli]

I think you are right in stating that it is by no means obvious. The question is: Are there apps missing for which people would pay enough? I think the user base for Android right now has not yet developed subcultures in which you can trivially get or estimate revenue. I think trying to target the broad base of customers will only work out if use ads. This has the funny consequence that there are actually quite a few spezialized apps which i am missing on my Android device, which would be easy to program and where i would pay some money for it. However, for each of the popular application types I often have the choice between 10 or more (often equally crappy) apps.

So to come back to the statement (that it is not obvious): It is not obvious if either path (specialized audience vs. broad customer base) can overcome the associated problems.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the web is full of Apple Fanboi propaganda, but I just cant find any success stories in the Android Market that rival the iOS equivalents.

You mean other than Angry Birds who is making $1,000,000/month on Android (yes via advertising)? Or how about Fring who is making $10,000/day?

I am only making about $3000/month with my apps. But, considering I am just doing app development as a hobby, that is not bad. And yes, nearly all of my revenue is from advertising. Almost none of my apps are on the Android Market. Most of them are on Mikandi.

Considering that Android has over twice the sales as iPhones in 2010, and will soon have more total phones out there, developing for Android does seem to be a pretty good decision at this point.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to having more discardable income and more free time than Android users, iPhone users get bored very quickly and have to have a new game, the same way they get bored with their iPhone every 9 months and need to buy the new one.

Re:Obviously?

[SETIGuy]

Apple however caters to the 90% of users who don't have time to waste on doing crappily themselves.

Which explains Angry Birds and the abundance of fart apps. These people have no free time!

Re:Obviously?

[SETIGuy]

That's not an Android problem, that's a Rovio Mobile problem.

Re:Obviously?

[SETIGuy]

There are a ton of Vintage Camera apps in the Market ranging from free to $4.

For video streaming, check VLC Direct. Free, of course. It probably won't stream to AppleTV. But then again who has AppleTV?

Every thing he asked for is on Android, with possibly the exception of streaming Netflix movies (he didn't actually say that, but I'm assuming that's what he meant.) I would guess that is on the way soon. Personally, aside from NFL Sunday Ticket, I haven't had much use for viewing video on my phone.

Re:Obviously?

[mcrbids]

I want Netflix and Hulu+ and for these, the platform must have some kind of DRM subsystem, which Android doesn't have.

Google? You listening?

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Train time table applications, TomTom, The Age Good Food Guide, Melbourne Cheap Eats Guide, pretty much any video game by a notable company. Rage? No. Infinity Blade? Mirrors Edge? No. Chaos Rings? No. Even indie darlings like the Passage? No. Robot Unicorn Attack? No. Canabalt? No.

Ive recently just switched to Android and its pretty dismal.

Re:Obviously?

[Caerdwyn]

I think the real problem with Android might be that the users are not as likely to open their wallets, and so developers don't see as much reason to make Android apps. If nothing else Apple is really good at making it easy and seductive to throw down a couple bucks on an app.

Exactly.

When you say you "support" a platform, it's more than just buying the phone. You have to also support the app developers. If Android users don't pay for apps, but iOS users do, it's an easy choice for someone who wants to pay their mortgage from their app development efforts.

Next time someone says "Why isn't [an iOS app] also available for my Android device?", ask them how many apps on their Android device they've paid for, how many they have which are app supported, and how many are pirated. Then tell them they've just answered their own question.

Two things that I think would be huge would be support for gifting apps and gift cards, because they both make it easy for people to buy apps for friends and they just build the market in general. The fact that they were missing those two items during the most recent Christmas season seems like a huge oversight to me.

This is one area in which Google is completely out of its area of competency: retail. Apple understands retail (both storefront and online) extremely well; Google does not. Things like iTunes Music Store gift cards being purchasable at the checkout lane of a supermarket are second nature to Apple, but foreign to Google. There is far more to being successful in a wide market than "write code". You need the code, but that's just the beginning... and understanding that fact is something that Google simply fails to do.

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

Every thing he asked for is on Android, with possibly the exception of streaming Netflix movies (he didn't actually say that, but I'm assuming that's what he meant.) I would guess that is on the way soon.

Well, it's not like I want to have fun managing my mail in queue in my phone, so yes, I do am talking about streaming. Same goes to Hulu. Netflix said they will be releasing a version for some specific Android models sometime this year, but it wont be available for all devices due to encryption issues. For some it may not be a big deal, but for me Netflix and gaming are huge reasons to own an iPhone.

It's cool to know the other apps from the mentioned networks do are available, though.

Re:Obviously?

[dudpixel]

Aside from a few anomalies, I think its fair to say that if you are a developer who is successful with other software (think from a business sense, as in being able to create and market an entire product), then you will probably have a good chance of success with android.

However there are also a number of people who have struck it lucky. Some relatively simple apps have gone viral, and the creators have cashed in. Not millions of dollars worth, but anything in the thousands to even tens of thousands (USD) is possible if you pick the right time and market.

Phone apps (particularly Android) do have a much lower barrier of entry, and the attraction is that you dont need to publish your app or distribute it. All you need to do is create it and submit it, and in some cases you will need to market it. But if it becomes popular, it will market itself.

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

Maybe the web is full of Apple Fanboi propaganda, but I just cant find any success stories in the Android Market that rival the iOS equivalents.

You mean other than Angry Birds who is making $1,000,000/month on Android (yes via advertising)? Or how about Fring who is making $10,000/day?

My problem with the Angry Birds example is that it's an extreme exception. I think it's the app most people spend most of their day playing, during hours long play seasons, on almost daily basis, it's impossible not to accidentally click the ad banners, and the game is too addictive to let that bother you much, you just close whatever opened and go back to the game.

But there is another issue with the sample, as of the day the 1million a month was announced (Dec 3), they had sold 12 million copies to iOS users, that was in the course of about a year. It may sound we are talking about the same amount per month, but the iPad version of the game is 4.99 and has been in the top spot since the iPad release. If we guess that only 15% of the copies sold were for the iPad, we are already talking about 1.6 million a month vs 1 million a month. That still ignores that Angry Birds for the iPhone has one DLC for sale at an additional 99c (The Mighty Eagle). The percentage of users that paid for this has not been mentioned (that I know.)

To attempt to pull that level of success again means competition, players will have to stop Angry Birds to play your game long enough to make money. With a sale, they can just stop playing Angry Birds for a while, finish your game, then go back to Angry Birds. Eventually, ad based revenue becomes a zero-sum users must split time between apps for you to pull any level of success.

I am only making about $3000/month with my apps. But, considering I am just doing app development as a hobby, that is not bad. And yes, nearly all of my revenue is from advertising. Almost none of my apps are on the Android Market. Most of them are on Mikandi.

THAT sounds interesting, that's the kind of feedback I was looking for when I started this thread here. May I ask what apps we talking about, or at least app types? What kinds of ad you run in your app (ad service and/or form factor)?

Re:Obviously?

[symbolic]

Heavy use comes from accessibility, both in terms of the app itself, AND the means to purchase it. I haven't purchased a single Android app yet for my Tab- it's not that I don't want too, it's that I'm not going to surrender a whole lot of personal info just to pay a few dollars for an app. What I'm suggesting here is that Google could do itself a world of good if it implemented a gift card much like Apple has for iTunes. This seems like a no-brainer, but Google has apparently been ignoring the growing number of people asking for it.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best apps I've found have been free; sometimes with a donation page (and I have donated), but often not. If someone's working with a profit motive, I suspect that they're more likely to screw you by using their app for tracking purposes, advertising, etc.

Re:Obviously?

[adolf]

Root, install adfree, be done.

I haven't played Angry Birds on my Droid in awhile, but last I did, I didn't see any advertising.

Re:Obviously?

[adolf]

Next time someone says "Why isn't [an iOS app] also available for my Android device?", ask them how many apps on their Android device they've paid for, how many they have which are app supported, and how many are pirated. Then tell them they've just answered their own question.

Perhaps interestingly, I've pirated a shitload of apps for my iPod Touch, and almost never use the thing these days, though I have paid for the apps that I've found genuinely useful. On the Droid, I've pirated nothing, but I have spent a fair sum on buying things in the Market. (And please bear in mind that I generally carry both devices with me, and that the Droid handily provides an ad-hoc WiFi network which works just fine with the iPod -- it is at that point, in this context, an iPhone without a speaker and a microphone.)

Google's 24-hour refund policy, and Apple's lack of it, has a lot to do with my buying habits. I've returned a few things to Google's market, but with Apple it's impossible.

FYI.

Re:Obviously?

[4phun]

Yes, apparently it's difficult to make money off software that doesn't get "heavily used". It's a feature.

I don't want 500,000 apps on my phone. I want about 20, and I want them to work really, really well. This has implications for the software industry.

I have 759 out of a possible 3,500 I could load onto Apple. As you say this choice really "has implications for the software industry."

The funniest iTunes reviews are the ones where if an app is bad or really low quality the frustrated user will typically write "If I wanted an Android app I would have bought an Android phone!"

Ouch, the reference to Andorid is a low blow in an App review!

To Apple's credit they try to pull any review that mentions Android.

Re:Obviously?

[4phun]

Angry birds sucked. That is why it was free on android. Android users won't pay as much for crap as Iphone users will.

Angry Birds is such a hit on Apple that there is now a Angry Birds movie. a new Angry Birds TV show and a whole bunch of new Angry Birds variations being release this spring to go along with the theme of the Angry Birds movie.

Fortunately for the creator of the Apple hit Angry Birds, life doesn't revolve around your Android experience.

Re:Obviously?

[4phun]

It is much simpler than that. Tinkers like the slashdot crowd don't pay for apps unless they have too. they go I can do that, and then make some crude knock off 6 to 24 months later if they feel like it.

By catering to the tinkerer crowd google is cutting it's own throat on app sales. Why do you think that most downloaded apps for android include a decent web browser and keyboard software. Those should be basic apps that should have been done right at the beginning.

Apple however caters to the 90% of users who don't have time to waste on doing crappily themselves. While I can code my own apps, as well as fix my car, and rebuild a computer in my sleep. It isn't worth my time to do so.

Now having said that I am still waiting for a wifi only tablet. the iPad is close but I only want a 7" screen. Since google doesn't support the market place without 3G I guess i will have to code my own apps(tinker) as google doesn't care about me as a potential customer.

Anyone can answer your question. Google does not want you using Android anywhere where they can not track what you are doing and have the ability to push the Android user more advertising. With Android it is all about advertising.

Unfortunately for Google I am in the group that hates unwanted advertising, especially if it is served to me digitally on my dime at 3G data rates.

I want FREEDOM FROM ADVERTISING that costs me money or time!

I have a very sophisticated way of blocking advertising from the telephone system, in TV shows, and as much as possible in the Internet connection. I would never spend a dime for anything given away by an advertising company if it would cost me to use it.
There is no way to get away from that cost of paying for advertising data delivered with Android and their free apps heavily loaded with advertising. I can completely avoid advertising with careful Apple app store choices and the iPad.

Life is good.

Re:Obviously?

[AmiMoJo]

Dolphin Browser, xScope browser, the many translation dictionaries available, iGo/Navigon/etc sat-nav, Beautiful Widgets, the many replacement keyboard apps, Angry Birds... Those are just the first that come to mind. They have all had several versions released, so while I obviously don't have sales figures it seems safe to assume that their developers considered them worth continuing.

Look at it another way: Android surpassed Nokia's OS in popularity recently so there is a bigger market for it. The cost of developing apps and getting them on the market is lower too, and you don't even have to use the market to sell them if you don't want to. I bought a JapaneseEnglish dictionary from a web site (penreader.com) without ever touching the market.

I also doubt that most iPhone apps generate any serious revenue for their authors. When there are hundreds of thousands of apps yours has to be pretty exceptional to stand out, and according to Wikipedia (I know...) most apps cost more to develop than they generate in income.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Words With Friends

Re:Obviously?

[peragrin]

Um while that may be true in a broad context if you have a wi-fi only tablet and you want to access the internet then their ads would still have room to come down the pipe.

It is also possible to turn off the 3G and wifi in android.

Re:Obviously?

[tehcyder]

Isn't the simple answer that, as has always been the case, making money off Apple fanboys and fangirls is like shooting fish in a barrel?

Whatever the Apple demographic is, it likes spending money.

Re:Obviously?

[tehcyder]

To Apple's credit they try to pull any review that mentions Android.

I just fucking bet they do.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have probably purchaced about 20 apps on my iPhone, but, since I made the switch to Android, I have paid for one app - Game Dev Story.

Turns out not all Android devices are the same (some of you are saying DUH! but that was a bit of a surprise to me). Half the free apps I have tried do not work on my phone (Angry Birds being an example, and I get a spectacular 2fps on TuxRacer). So, for the apps that are out there, there should be a demo version or an ad-supported version of any app you put out there so that people like me will know the app actually works on our device before I buy.

One thing that I love about the Android is all the grey-area apps (LOVE TubeMate!), and the Free Music apps rock (although, the selection is not nearly as good as iTunes).

However, its not perfect. My biggest complaint is the lack of big-name companies developing for the iPhone, most notably Zynga, PopCap Games, and EA Mobile. And Jewles and Gems are NOT the same thing as Bejewled 2!

Missing
Ebay App
Dish Network App
Netflix
Ragdoll Blast (and surprisingly, I can't find a good clone)
Oregon Trail
1112
Bejewled 2 + Blitz
Katamari
Spore
Farmville
Super Monkey Ball
Farmville
Live Cams
Air Sharing
Sunday Lawn
Death Knight
Words With Friends
Zombie Farm
Plants vs Zombies

Re:Obviously?

[LWATCDR]

TomTom just use Google free navigation. The games are a given but then I have three EA games on my phone. The food guides well you do have yelp, google places, and Urban Spoon.

Re:Obviously?

[jwhitener]

There is an american express app for android.
Air video: I'm not as sure about that one, but threads suggest VLC stream and convert. http://traveldevel.com/vlc-stream-convert
There isn't a good way to compare the amount of games in each app store, but I haven't yet found a popular game that wasn't also Android.
PBS, ABC news, ted mobile, cnn and npr are on android. Sadly, no ABC Player or Netflix yet (although netflix and hulu plus are coming soon).
There are a bunch of specialty camera apps.

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, thats only an answer to myopic dimwits. Those of us who can see past flame wars prefer to actually find answers.

You may as well say that all those smelly, unwashed free software freaks are lazy entitled fucks that expect everything to be handed to them, for free, on a silver platter and that's why they wont spend 99 cents on a copy of Angry Birds.

Re:Obviously?

[Tharsman]

There isn't a good way to compare the amount of games in each app store, but I haven't yet found a popular game that wasn't also Android.

Come on, lets be honest here!!! Most Android users that have touched gaming on this very article have agreed it's a lacking category. I'ts extremely easy to find popular games that are not available for Android (home-made copycats that attempt to imitate and risk lawsuits are not valid examples and only apply for the simplest of games)

Here is a list of games that, for all I know, are not available for Android:

• Broken Sword
• Broken Sword 2
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
• Square Enix's Chaos Rings
• Final Fantasy I (no illegal emulated roms)
• Final Fantasy II (no illegal emulated roms)
• Dead Space
• Infinity Blade
• World of Goo
• SimCity Delux (this one may be there or make it someday since EA tosses a few bones the Android's way)
• Plants Vz Zombies
• Infinity Blade
• Maple Story
• John Carmak's Rage
• Call of Duty: Zombies
• Civilization Revolution
• Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack

The list goes on and on.

Anyways, on the Amex app, I was wrong on that one because i was not able to find any note on it on their website.

I have not tried VLC Stream and Convert but I have used the plain VLC player (Windows and Mac) and Air Video server supports file formats that VLC did not support (usually the audio track being the issue.) There are other solutions like this for iPhone, so I'm sure there must be other solutions for the Android too (and some of the ones for iPhone are in the works to support Android) My affection to this specific one is the support to play a bunch of formats I can't even play on the desktop because I must go codec hunting (even after getting the popular codec collections.)

At least for me, the two main uses (outside of web browsing and, well... calling) for my iPhone and iPad are video games and netflix. From that perspective the Android Market disappoints and Google hiring hundreds or thousands of developers wont change that (unless they make their own game development studio and start pushing amazing games for the device and keeping them Android Exclusive.)

Re:Obviously?

[jwhitener]

I don't play many games, just a handful of the 'silly ones' that iPhone friends point out, like the birds one. In browsing around, I see what you mean now. Many of the hardcore games aren't on android. If that is important to someone, that certainly is a major deal breaker. Myself, I don't like playing anything serious/complex on a tiny screen.

No netlfix is probably a bigger issue for more people. And it sounds like progress will be slow. At least a year away. netflix blog on android

Re:Obviously?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is what apps are missing?
Not counting games I do not really see any big gaps in the app store for Android.

It's the 80/20 problem all over again. Maybe 98% of users only use 5 apps, but it's a different 5 apps for each person. You listed 10 apps there -- I've got an iPhone, and I've only used one of them ever (and that one I have installed still but haven't touched it in the past week). I don't carry an iPhone for network-based music systems (it's already an iPod, duh) or to play social-network (not my thing).

For example, half of my top-5 apps are Japanese. Does Android even come with a Japanese input method yet? I know there's a couple in the Android app store, depending on what Android version you have (!!), but if I was in the business of writing apps, I'd be much less inclined to write one for a platform that depended on users having installed a third-party keyboard on their phone to use it fully.

I think it's pretty clear that success for a mobile OS requires a lot more than simply getting the right 10 big-name apps. The "big gap" is called "stuff I want to do" (for X million values of "I").

Re:Obviously?

[Pollardito]

Google's 24-hour refund policy, and Apple's lack of it, has a lot to do with my buying habits. I've returned a few things to Google's market, but with Apple it's impossible.

The refund period is now 15 minutes though which is sometimes barely enough time to download and try it. I understand that they don't want someone to download an app for one-time use and then take a refund, but I've had apps that failed to download the first try and the second try would have been outside the 15-minute window

Re:Obviously?

[adolf]

15 minutes, eh?

I guess I should start pirating Android apps, as well, then. I hear it's even easier than on IOS, but until your comment I've never had any reason to explore it.

Thanks, I guess.

filter crap

[Anonymous Coward]

How about they make they audit the existing apps and get rid of the crap.

Re:filter crap

[hawguy]

How about they make they audit the existing apps and get rid of the crap.

How about we breathe deeply and take a second to see if the sentence we just typed makes sense?

How about Slashdot figure out how to allow someone to edit comments. I've made the same mistake as the parent myself - I've started typing a sentence, then editing or copy-and-pasting to change the sentence and ending up with something non-sensical that I didn't notice until after I submitted (I'm a terrible proofreader of my own writing, I know what I meant to say so that's what I read).

I've heard that some databases these days are no longer wrote-once and actually allow you to edit content.

If they are worried about people abusing comment ratings, erase positive points upon editing to keep someone from posting a +5 comment and turning it into flamebait with an edit.

Re:filter crap

[Anonymous Coward]

If they audit the apps, how is that any different to what Apple is doing?

Re:filter crap

[need4mospd]

Haha, I totally. Except this one time I never never but soon I will because even a broken clock is write.

Re:filter crap

[kuzb]

What apple is doing isn't necessarily wrong. You need to audit in order to have a healthy ecosystem. You just shouldn't be as draconian as apple is. I mean, basic things like: 1) can't be done to death 2) shouldn't crash 3) shouldn't do evil things should be common sense, but the market is flooded with examples of things which are broken or really bad.

Re:filter crap

[ScrewMaster]

If they audit the apps, how is that any different to what Apple is doing?

In principle, maybe not so much. In practice, considering how Google tends to go about matters, it will probably be a hell of a lot more competently handled.

But the reality is, we really don't need another Arnold Schwarzenegger soundboard or Light Saber app.

Re:filter crap

[hedwards]

I remember a store like that, I think it's by some fruity company, didn't they have some tie in with those Figgy Newton people? I think they also were really big in the mobile music player area as well.

I know, it was Apple where there were numerous at times counter intuitive requirements that developers had to pass in order to get their app in and which could be changed at any time.

Not that it's completely bad in the Appstore, but if that sort of locked down thing is your thing, then you probably aren't going to be wanting an Android device anyways.

Re:filter crap

[Anonymous Coward]

How about they subject apps to rigorous testing regarding:
      - advertised functionality
      - stability and good behaviour
      - security and respect for privacy.

Deny all apps that don't meet the standards

I would happily pay a premium for this so i can avoid an ugly and dreadful windows-like experience on my phone.
Who wants a phone riddled with trojans and crapware?

Sticking to Apple in the meantime. Un-jailbroken. At least they make some kind of effort.

Quanitity over quality

[kellyb9]

Most of the applications that I want already exist. There are a few specialized apps that I may need to wait around for from various service providers (Comcast is one of them), but I don't necessarily think its a great idea to close the gap via spamming the app store.

Re:Quanitity over quality

[hawguy]

Agreed, the Android store doesn't need greater quantity, it needs more polished *quality* apps. Overall I've found that IOS apps seem to be more polished than functionally equivalent Android apps. There are 30,000 apps in the Android app store, which makes it unwieldy already - how many fart apps does the market really need? How about a good web interface into the app store that I can browse from my desktop. Just because I own an Android phone doesn't mean that I want to use it for everything - I'd much rather browse the app store from my desktop where I have more screen real estate.

Re:Quanitity over quality

[hedwards]

I'd say that they need a better method of browsing the store. Also some method of filtering out apps would be nice. I'm OK if I have to opt into it being filtered if need be, but as it is I can't browse for new apps on the bus because I really don't want to have to explain to the passenger next to me why I'm downloading porn.

Additionally, while the top apps tend to be better and the ratings help, the reality is that a lot of good applications can get lost if they aren't popular immediately.

Re:Quanitity over quality

[blair1q]

I think Google's going for that, here.

I don't expect a few hundred devs on the payroll to turn out an additional 200k apps in any timeframe.

But what they will do is turn out a consistent level of quality in porting applications from Google's online systems to the app store.

And in the meantime they may come up with a few hundred new ideas.

oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[initdeep]

because that is really whats missing from the android app store. all those "awesome"iOS apps that a single developer makes 30 copies of and spams the market with.

Re:oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[Locke2005]

I don't need an app to make fart noises; I have a 10-year old child for that!

Re:oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[gmack]

What's missing are apps that aren't wrappers for Google apps that 200 different "programmers" throw together. I often find myself wishing that so many Android apps weren't cloud based since there is nothing more annoying than being underground and discovering my Spanish/English dictionary doesn't work now because I happen to be in a cell dead zone when I need to look something up.

Re:oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you would have said that about grindr.

Re:oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[CaptScarlet22]

Yes, let's not forgot all those puzzle games on the Android market either. And here is a great game that just in...."Guess My Ass". WOW what a game! A must buy!!

Look...I have a Droid X and I have an iPad...Both are great devices. BUT...the iOS App store is lightyears ahead of the Android Market. The App exposer is absolute horrible on the Android market...Honestly it fucking sucks! Half the good shit is completely buried between garbage apps and ad all over your screen apps. I actually hate it..I've only purchased 1 app the whole time I've had my Droid (8 months about??). I've purchased a shit load on my iPad.....

iOS Developers can keep making those fart apps, because there will be 100 good apps to that 1 fart app on the App store. While there will be 1 good app to those 100 garbage apps on the Android market...Which you can't fucking find!!!

No disrecept to those Android developers and Google out there, but you need to step up your game.....

Re:oh yes please can i get some more fart apps

[blair1q]

How about fart apps in your favorite sports team's colors?

Great Idea

[TaoPhoenix]

Left alone, Google risks devs doing synergistic comparison studies and choosing iOS. However, if a big source of funding really amps up some quality apps, Android could kick into a new phase.

However, once again the wording of the topic seems a little odd. Why shouldn't the maker of a platform ... pay for some devs to write for it!? Isn't that covered in 80's biz school textbooks?

Re:Great Idea

[R3d M3rcury]

Why shouldn't the maker of a platform ... pay for some devs to write for it!?

iFund.

App Inventor

[Tekfactory]

Wasn't this why Google developed the App Inventor, but then didn't let people actually sell apps developed with it in the App Store?

Re:App Inventor

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not prohibited from selling App Inventor apps in the App store. You can't make them ad supported, and you can't put any secure DRM on them, but you can sell them. It's simple.

Create a developer account.
Create a keystore

download your packaged Appl inventor app
Unpackage it
edit the manifest to fix some bugs
rebuild the package
sign it
zipalign it
upload it

Just because google doesn't have a one click way to add these apps to the market yet, doesn't mean they are preventing you.

http://simply-android.com/discussion/531/publishing-an-app-inventor-app-on-the-android-market./#Item_22

Re:App Inventor

[slim]

Wasn't this why Google developed the App Inventor, but then didn't let people actually sell apps developed with it in the App Store?

No, App Inventor, like its ancestor Scratch, is an educational tool.

Re:App Inventor

[Tekfactory]

Thank you Anonymous Coward...

Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[IANAAC]

Because I'm unaware I'll honestly ask...

What *kind* of app is available on iOS that isn't available on Android? Games? I see plenty available for Android, maybe not the same ones, but they're available. Same goes for pretty much any other type of app.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[bberens]

I have yet to find an app for Android that converts my Android phone to an iPhone 4, which is really the only app anyone could ever want. :P

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Tharsman]

Netflix? Hulu Plus?

As far as I can see, American Express has not made an Android version of their app.

PBS, ABC Player, ABC News, TED Mobile, CNN app and the NPR app are some I am not sure about, but you can check the android store and let me know if any is there.

As for games, sorry but there are a LOT of games for the iOS that are not available for Android and very few the other way arround. Most of the Android games that are not available for the iOS tend to be copycats of popular iOS games. But lets talk about big names: Dead Space, Infinity Blade, World of Goo, Plants Vz Zombies, Infinity Blade, Rage, Call of Duty: Zombies, and many more. Better question ends being: What games are available for the Android that are not available for the iOS?

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[green1]

I suppose someone could come up with an app that stops you from loading other apps not approved by some arbitrary third party if you want... it could be built to disable the micro-sd slot too... most of the other features available on Android that the iPhone can't do could probably be disabled by an app... Not sure how to get an app to weld the battery compartment shut though... and you'd have to pay about $200-$300 for the app to get the price point about right... That should be close to an Android -> iPhone conversion.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[IANAAC]

What games are available for the Android that are not available for the iOS?

I don't know, hence my question. It was an honest question - not everything needs to be about sarcasm.

But the rest of your answer has me wondering now... PBS, ABC, CNN, NPR or Netflix and Hulu Plus...

I'm guessing that Google could hire a million Android devs and still not get those apps, at least not the sanctioned ones since they're made by their respective brands. I have a hard time seeing a developer not from Hulu or Netflix getting something properly functioning on Android.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[binarylarry]

That's not true, they have fart apps for Android.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Rebelgecko]

I'm not sure if you were just being super sarcastic and my sarcasm detector is a bit off, but Hulu and Netflix have both announced that their apps will be out in the next few months. American Express does in fact have an Android app. It is called American Express For Android. I began at the end of your list and started working my way back, but before I got bored I found TED, CNN, and NPR apps.
You do have a point about games unfortunately. There was a Plants Vs Zombies port/clone that got pulled from the market, although there is supposedly a real version from Popcap that will be out during the summer. Plants Vs. Zombie is really sort of an exception. The quality/amount of android games is somewhat disappointing.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[angus77]

... Infinity Blade, World of Goo, Plants Vz Zombies, Infinity Blade...

Infinity Blade must be some game---you mentioned it twice!

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Tharsman]

I'm not sure if you were just being super sarcastic and my sarcasm detector is a bit off, but Hulu and Netflix have both announced that their apps will be out in the next few months. American Express does in fact have an Android app. It is called American Express For Android. I began at the end of your list and started working my way back, but before I got bored I found TED, CNN, and NPR apps.

Well, the Hulu and Netflix aps are not out. I recal both stating for years they were working on a "coming soon" app for the iPhone so I don't hold my breath on either now. Specially since Netflix made public they are having DRM issues, seems Google has no security scheme in place and each manufacturer has created their own (or none at all.) For contractual agreements with the providers they must secure their streams and Netflix noted they will be forced to start their rollouts for specific models, not for the platform as a whole. Given the content providers are almost all in the same boat, I would not be shocked if Hulu is on the same grounds.

The American Express I tried to look at their website, was not able to find anything on it, despite them making it easy to find note on the iPhone one. I will stand corrected there.

You do have a point about games unfortunately. There was a Plants Vs Zombies port/clone that got pulled from the market, although there is supposedly a real version from Popcap that will be out during the summer. Plants Vs. Zombie is really sort of an exception. The quality/amount of android games is somewhat disappointing.

As a gaming platform, the biggest issue Android has is that it's being treated as well as the Macintosh vs the PC: only very successful titles end up getting ported, and a long time after they have been on the other platform.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Tharsman]

It deserves infinite mentions :P

But I'll remove one mention and add one Broken Sword plus a Broken Sword 2 and a Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Square Enix's Chaos Rings and Final Fantasy I and II. That should make up for my redundancy on Infinity Blade. But seriously... it is one hell of a game.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[blair1q]

I found one that turns the iPhone market into the Android market. Works on pads as well as phones. Somehow the guy who implemented it got canned as CEO of Google for doing it, too...

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Per Wigren]

Good (!) GPS navigation software that works in Europe. More specifically TomTom and Garmin. Android has Sygic Aura, NDrive, Navigon, Wisepilot (and a bunch of rebranded variants), iGO MyWay (though not officially available to the general public), CoPilot, Waze, AndNav and some more. All of them are good at various things but all of them also have various minor and major flaws. I have used the trials on all of them and CoPilot is the best by far, but it doesn't have live traffic data in Sweden :( I want TomTom damnit.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[SETIGuy]

How many times are you going to post this?

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Tharsman]

As many times as the same question is asked (and I see it)?

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[fermion]

Back in the day I used to say this about 64K and PPC Mac applications. The mac has 90% of what I needed. What was missing were games and some vertical software, the later had dedicated PC.

Yet most said they had to have a PC because is had all the software. Most of it, evidently similar to the Google, was made by MS. For general use there was never any need for a PC, except a cheap business machine. But it was a numbers game, so the platform with he big number won.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an app on my droid that converts it to an iPhone 4 though. It's called screencrack, and it reflects what tends to happen if your iPhone should plummet from your hands screen first onto pretty much anything. Mine hasn't done that even with mishaps, and I can install flash if I want to.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[4phun]

That's not true, they have fart apps for Android.

And a zillion Android wallpaper and ringtone apps. You don't need a $200 smartphone and another two year contract for that crap.

That is like programming "Hello World" (with advertising) a million times over and saying look at what we have.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[slim]

Doesn't the built in Google Navigation work in mainland Europe?

It works well in the UK, and I have to say I prefer it to the dedicated TomTom unit I used to use.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[4phun]

Netflix? Hulu Plus?

As far as I can see, American Express has not made an Android version of their app.

PBS, ABC Player, ABC News, TED Mobile, CNN app and the NPR app are some I am not sure about, but you can check the android store and let me know if any is there.

As for games, sorry but there are a LOT of games for the iOS that are not available for Android and very few the other way arround. Most of the Android games that are not available for the iOS tend to be copycats of popular iOS games. But lets talk about big names: Dead Space, Infinity Blade, World of Goo, Plants Vz Zombies, Infinity Blade, Rage, Call of Duty: Zombies, and many more. Better question ends being: What games are available for the Android that are not available for the iOS?

The biggest missing Android game is Civilization Revolution for all of us that have played Civilization for decades.

The iPad version is rather nicely done with good graphics and there is a small screen iPhone version, but no real Sid Meir Civilization version for anything Android, not even an old Civ 1.

It is stuff like that which kills Android as a reasonable choice for gammers who want something to diddle with in their spare time.
The other is I want to kill someone if I see a pop up advertisement anywhere in a game.
Pop up ads are for third world inner city losers who will not pay at least $0.99 for a game!

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Per Wigren]

Not sure about Germany, France, etc but it doesn't work at all in Sweden. It just pops up a dialog saying that navigation isn't supported in this area. There is a hacked version available that removes this restriction and lets me use navigation anyway but it doesn't work very good at all, at least not in central Stockholm where there are lots of one-way streets and quick turns where you have to already be in the correct lane to get a chance to make the next turn.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[penguinchris]

Indeed. Civilization Revolution on the iPhone/Touch is great. I got a free iPod Touch when I bought a macbook pro, and after playing the demo I immediately put down the $5 for CivRev. I think that's the only thing I paid for on there that wasn't 99 cents. I've since given the iPod to a friend, because I got a Nexus One.

Now, even when I was carrying around the iPod for a few months and I had access to good games, I didn't play them that much. I've never been the type to get into situations where I don't have anything to do and can only access a mobile device - I've never lived anywhere with good public transport, and I've usually had access to my own vehicle. However, for a couple months I was letting a friend borrow my car and she'd pick me up from the university at night (grad student). In those cases, I'd be standing around outside for a while and I really appreciated being able to play a quick game.

The ones I really liked (and paid the 99 cents for) were Drop 7, GeoDefense Swarm, and Flight Control. I tried dozens of other games, but none really grabbed my attention. It took months for Drop 7 to become available on android. When it was finally available, it was free for a week or so, but I was out of the country and outside of regular internet access - now it's $2.99! To be fair, I just looked it up in iTunes and it's now $2.99 there too, but it was 99 cents before. Let's be honest: this is not a $2.99 game. It's very simple. They were assholes about getting rid of a copy-cat android version before the official version was available, too.

GeoDefense is a tower defense game, executed perfectly. I'm not normally into those games, but this one was great. The android equivalents are laughable in comparison - there's one OK one (Robo Defense), but it has several major shortcomings and isn't as much fun. Never tempted to play it (besides the fact that the full version with more than one map is $2.99 - if it was as good as GeoDefense I'd pay $2.99, even though GeoDefense was 99 cents).

Flight Control has a very good copy (Air Control) on android. Flight Control is much more polished, but otherwise gameplay is the same.

It's the lack of polish that really makes android feel shitty in comparison, and the fact that the esoteric and cool new puzzle games are always on iOS first, if they ever get to android at all. I see stories about cool new puzzle games fairly frequently, and they're always on iOS only. I can't even think of any because I forget about them, but I would love to have been able to play them (and even pay for them).

There are some decent games on android. I don't ever play them, but I've got a bunch installed and try new ones occasionally because my girlfriend likes them. Besides Air Control, she likes Frozen Bubble (same as the linux game), Glow Puzzle, BitBlocks (the best Tetris clone for android IMO), and a couple others I can't remember (your basic bejeweled clones and stuff like that - some of which are actually quite polished).

There's an excellent port of Scrambled Net, the great KDE game. I don't play it often, but I was addicted to the original KDE version for a while a few years ago so I keep it handy in case the urge strikes :) I've also got Angry Birds, and that is pretty good.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[penguinchris]

Navigation systems never are *that* useful in downtown areas like that... Google certainly isn't in e.g. Manhattan, where I tried to use it once. I ended up just pulling into a side street and studying the map for a minute so I would know where to go instead of trying to follow the navigation (that's how I normally navigate anyway - I rarely need to have a GPS nav system actively running). I mean really, driving in places like that if you're not intimately familiar with the area is going to be a problem no matter how good your navigation system is.

I've also used Google Navigation in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as plenty of smaller cities and towns, and I've driven from California to New York using it. It's definitely useful in most places. But cities like Manhattan and Stockholm (from your description) are worst-case-scenarios for it.

Re:Because I'm unaware, I'll ask...

[Per Wigren]

CoPilot and my standalone Navigon GPS do a decent job actually (CoPilot better than Navigon). I find their maps much clearer than Google Navigation. It's easier to distinct which road is which when there are several ones close to each other. They also tell me the next move if it's closer than 300 meters or so. "Now turn left, then after 200 meters turn right." The biggest problem I had with Google Navigation in Stockholm was that it wanted me to drive in the wrong direction on a one-way street. Surely there was a reason for that "this area is not yet supported" popup. :)

Best way to learn Android development?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a particular book or tutorial one should read to get a jump start on android app programming? Obviously there's a lot of information out there, but I'm looking for a good starting point.

Assume the individual is experienced with both Java and C, but new to mobile phone development.

Re:Best way to learn Android development?

[rcuhljr]

Well since apparently I know nothing about Slashdot and convinced myself that I could post anonymously and not wipe out my moderation, I'm now free to respond to this.

http://developer.android.com/index.html is simply phenomenal. There's helpful guides and code samples; I was able to go from zero mobile development experience and having used Java 7 years ago to developing my own app in a week or two of side project work.

The only time I really strayed from that site was while looking into alternative database frameworks and setting up unit and integration tests. In those situations google usually turned up good results for my searches.

Re:Best way to learn Android development?

[Maltheus]

Yes, their developer site is phenomenal and should be held up as a reference for how to properly document an API. It really does encourage me to write android apps. Now if I only had the time.

Re:Best way to learn Android development?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well since apparently I know nothing about Slashdot and convinced myself that I could post anonymously and not wipe out my moderation

You have to actually log out to get away with it, not just tick "post anonymously".

Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Android is the #1 shipping smartphone platform, a completely open system, with free, publicly available tools. You can do it under Windows or Linux (the later, being also free) - on cheap, commodity PCs you can buy from any vendor.

So maybe we should ask the question of exactly why it is lagging in the app department. Apple never ran out and hired a billion people to write apps - yet they have more.

Is it the language? (C-Like vs. Java)? The "sleekness" and appeal of the OS itself? The mere fact that it's been on the market longer?

I, for one, am an open-source fanatic. I work as a Linux/kernel development engineer, and think Apple is evil.

I also own an iPhone, and write iPhone apps in my spare time. Why? Personally for me, the phone and the OS are beautiful and elegant. I love the platform, and the outcome of my work - and it's easy too to make money with one appstore to have to sell it on (even if the Apple bastards take 30%).

I find Android slow, clunky, and Java-based SDK's (like Eclipse and the Blackberry dev environment) to be the same - where XCode is smoothe and elegant - even if I did have to go buy a Mac in order to develop for it!

So that's the reason why I develop for iPhone. My point though is the following: Answer the question for a majority of iPhone developers, and you'll discover the remedy to the problem - don't just think that hiring a hundred - or a thousand Android app developers will fix the gap!

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Microlith]

I, for one, am an open-source fanatic. I work as a Linux/kernel development engineer, and think Apple is evil.

I also own an iPhone, and write iPhone apps in my spare time.

The irony and hypocrisy here is thick.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Yes, that's the point. The iOS platform is SO nice, that it beats out any of the "intellectual" Android arguments about being "Open" or "Free" - or even it having a larger marketshare. I'm not going to have to walk around with a clunky, crappy, inferior smartphone in my pocket just because of "principals".

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[n2art2]

Yes, but so is the honesty.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Chapter80]

I think the answer to the "why" question is that iPhone had apps first, and had the lead for so long.
The vast vast majority of iPhone apps are crap.

Google should create a Crapp-gen program that cranks out 100 CrApps a second, and they'd be caught up in no time.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Attila Dimedici]

So maybe we should ask the question of exactly why it is lagging in the app department. Apple never ran out and hired a billion people to write apps - yet they have more.

The most likely explanation as to why there are more Iphone apps is because the Iphone has been around longer. This creates a vicious circle that Google is trying to break. There are more apps for the Iphone, so more people who want apps buy the Iphone, so more developers develop for the Iphone. Google is basically hiring developers to overcome the advantage in number of apps that the Iphone has as a result of it being on the market sooner.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, isn't it the open-source mantra that you are supposed to fix open-source stuff to make it better than anything else on the planet? I guess I'm not a geek or current technophile but after having a "smart"-phone for a few months. I have yet to of found a use for it, and I could never justify the $80-100/mo that this thing takes in food. Thats the cost of a low-end mac every year.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[joshki]

It's all in the SDK and the polish that Apple offers and Google doesn't. Android's GUI development tools and stock widgets are absolutely horrid. I'll stick with Android anyway, on the off chance Google will ever get around to fixing it. That's where they need to put their money -- not in developing more apps. Make the platform inviting to develop for, and the developers will come.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Write your apps with the NDK, then, if you don't like Java?

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Let my address that by making two points:

1. Apple does not just let "anything" on the AppStore. If anything, Apple gets more negative press about their censorship, and being too restrictive than how permissive they are.

2. "Fart" apps have an important place in the App ecosystem. Having the best apps in the world aren't what necessarily makes a phone interesting. Having a variety of apps is. You get a game - you play it - you get bored after a while - you delete it and get another game. That's what keeps the platform fresh. Not that you have one (or a couple) games that are soooo good that you'll play them for the next 5 years.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a Fandroid skinned her knee. The OP was making a point about how supporting open and free, out of principal, wasn't making any money (which is one primary motivation for developing software). I suppose your rage blinded you.

Too bad.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Microlith]

I'm not going to have to walk around with a clunky, crappy, inferior smartphone in my pocket just because of "principals".

So either:
- You have no principles or
- Your principles mean nothing, being that they're as solid as wet toilet paper

Not that I'm necessarily talking about Android, I use an N900. But of course, so long as Apple can keep people discarding "principles" instead of sticking with them and pushing for "less evil" solutions, they win.

I still won't touch them, so long as they continue to dictate that open source is not welcome in the mobile space.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Dog-Cow]

So you're unprincipled and you don't know how to choose your homonyms!

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers write more apps for iPhone because iPhone owners spend money on apps. Multiple studies have strongly indicated that the same is not true for Android users. Part of it is that the store is easier to use and find the app you want, but mostly it's because it's so much easier to buy, since it is associated with your iTunes account, which pretty much every iPhone user has.

The average iPhone user has almost 100 apps, about 1/3 are paid. The VAST majority of Android users have never *bought* an app.

It has little to do with iPhone getting there first.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[tepples]

Umm, isn't it the open-source mantra that you are supposed to fix open-source stuff to make it better than anything else on the planet?

As I understand it, Android phones tend to be Tivoized and need cracks to take a community ROM. So once the three-year DMCA exception for rooting phones runs out in 2013, where do U.S. residents expect to be able to install firmware that they have fixed in order to test it?

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

It's written "principles", and if you're not willing to stick to them, you don't really have them.

The whole point of morality is overriding practical issues. If stealing goes against your morality, then you don't even when you could use the money and have something to steal within easy reach.

So you should pick one: either you don't really think Apple is evil, or you shouldn't buy their products.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[alvinrod]

On the other side of the coin, so long as Apple's competitors keep discarding experience instead of building better products, Apple keeps winning. Apple might drive themselves forward in some ways, but I don't think that they'd be as far as they are today if Google wasn't putting a lot of pressure on them. Outside of WebOS (Which didn't do so hot the first time around.) and Windows Phone 7 (Which isn't doing so hot right now.) the only competition Apple has had in the last several years has been from Google with Android.

And Google has done a good job with it. The big problem are the handset manufacturers who muck things up with their custom UIs that aren't as good. After that, the carriers get to have a go at the device and disable features (e.g. side-loading) or install crapware that can't be removed by the user. Even though Android is much more open from a theoretical point of view, for several phones it's not much more open than any iOS device.

From the developers point of view, things are worse on Google's side of the fence. Even after all of this time, there are still several countries where developers are unable to charge for their app, even if they wanted to do so. Until recently there were a lot of problems with people downloading an app (most especially games) and returning it before the 24-hour evaluation period was up. There are also some hardware fragmentation issues (The exist, but they're not as serious as some make them sound.) that require additional testing to sort out.

Apple can keep people discarding principles because no one else has made as elegant of a solution as they have yet. If everything else were equal, the market would gravitate towards the more open solution.

On a side note, I don't think they've ever dictated that open source isn't welcome. They use and contribute a lot of WebKit. Are you referring to the issues with the GPL conflicting with their app store rules?

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't touched android SDK because its Java. If i could run mono c# it would be gold.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Hitler was Evil. Apple is just a company who I wish had more developer-friendly policies.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Threni]

> even if the Apple bastards take 30%

Google takes 30% too.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[dannys42]

I've been a big proponent of the OSS movement since before it was called that. But I don't think Apple is evil. As far as iOS is concerned, I think they do have legitimate reasons for why they keep it a closed environment... but that's another debate.

As someone who's been dabbling with iOS for some time and who's an avid vi/gcc/scons type of developer (no fancy IDEs for me), I can say that I absolutely love Apple's development environment and I've gotten quite accustomed to XCode. I still wish it had VI bindings, but I manage to do quite well just the way it is. In addition, I think Apple has amazing foresight in that they continuously improve their developer tools and address developer issues with every release. If you look at what they're putting into the next release of the developer tools, it's an amazing level of integration between previously disparate tools that I haven't seen in any IDE before. The SDK is also quite powerful. And they do continually try to improve to developer needs.

I also happen to think Objective-C is one of the best object oriented languages out there. But that could but a subjective argument. But less subjective is one of my main arguments against Java in general... code re-use. There's still a lot of old code that either I have lying around, or under a free software license, or that you can purchase. And while the Java people have done quite well in reproducing all of that over the years, there's still just less of it.

But if we're talking about evil, I'd also point out that Google also takes 30% from you when you publish into their marketplace. However, they do something much more evil... they give it right back to the carriers... that's part of their incentive to use the Android platform. I actually have no problems with Apple taking 30% for me because I feel they actually provide a service for this:
  - They handle all the financial transactions
  - They deal with taxes
  - They test the apps

For example, I used an Android app in the store once (one of the demo apps) that went blank and unresponsive for 10+ seconds when I launched it. I sat there wondering if I'd somehow crashed the phone. Apple would never allow an app like that.

I also feel that Google's stance that Android is "open" is a bit of an evil political move. While it's technically true that Android OS is open, the main argument anyone has is between Android on phones vs iPhones. In this case, the OS is open... to the carriers, but it's a closed platform to the end-users.

I happen to like Google for a lot of things they do, but I find a the way they're competing with the iPhone to be a bit underhanded in marketing and quite honestly, half-hearted technically.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

By "Developers" of you mean "companies", who are in it for the money - you may be right. (I really don't know).

For me - it just comes down to my belief that the iPhone platform is much better then Android. Therefore I use it, and develop for it. I do it mostly for fun, and and rewarded by making a little money off of something which is really just a hobby, so it's win-win.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[greymond]

I think things are evil if I find them attractive, easy to work with and provide me with enjoyment too.

OMG Women are iPhone!

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

And what is that wish good for? Why would they care about what you want if you're going to buy their stuff anyway?

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Look, if Apple were impregnating Nuns and using cartilage from their forcefully aborted fetuses to make the cases of the iPhone, yea - I would have an ethical problem with that.

I would much rather work on an open-source-based platform - as would most people, I believe. I would rather work on a "free" platform, as would most people, I believe. I would rather work on whatever hardware I wanted to, as would most people. I would rather not pay Apple $100 a year to develop on their platform.

However - even with all those things going against it - Google still hasn't gotten it right. And you're illustrating my point - that people aren't going to switch over on "principle" (however it's spelt) alone. If they keep telling themselves that, that won't necessarily result in more apps being developed for their platform.

Being a fan of "Open Source" doesn't mean that I'm willing to use a crappy product, or take responsibility for fixing a product, which admittedly, by a large organization like Google (who has a lot more engineers able to do something about it than me), as being nowhere up in "usability" as iOS. I'd like to use it - and I'd like for it to win. I'd love to see them stick their thumb in Apple's eye.

But until then, I'm going to spend my money on, use, and develop for a platform that I really like.

Oh, and by the way. I hate Java - not the language, but the "user experience". Interpreted code runs like crap. I have no "freedom" to do this differently in the Android environment. If you disagree, tell me why the Android OS is so sluggish and cumbersome compared to iOS.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Doomdark]

I find Android slow, clunky, and Java-based SDK's (like Eclipse and the Blackberry dev environment) to be the same - where XCode is smoothe and elegant

Really? I have not used XCode heavily, but from my colleagues who have, they all swear XCode is biggest pile of crap they have ever used. I am pretty ok with Eclipse in general, but Android plug-in has always been shaky whenever I have had to use it (to help others work around issue Android platform causes with normally well functioning java libs). So I can see why it might make life bit more difficult.

I suspect there is lots of inertia both ways; those who start with obj-C, XCode find it much more appealing than those going the other way. But still... my impression has been that XCode and obj-C both feel bit antiquated, all things considered, which is in odd contrast with modern sleek design of the phone and hardware itself.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

If they stopped caring - to the point where their product sucked - I'd stop buying.

Just liked I stopped buying Mac computers after System-7 timeframe when they switched to Power-PC, and Windows-95/98 was out - which wasn't great - but supported more of the stuff I needed to do than MacOS.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot an option
- he actually wants a phone for something more than toying and tweaking.

I've had an Android phone for a year, my contract just expired and I used that to get an iPhone 4 instead.

The problem with Android does not come from Google, they did a decent job engineering the OS (except that maintaining their own kernel was a big error), and it basically works fine
The problem comes from most phone manufacturers (actually, all except HTC I think), which just see Android as a free meal (and a way to increase their margin). They just wrap a bunch of ugly code as glue for their phone (binary blobs and lots of other crap) and ship it. Then the phone companies add their own layer of crap-apps on top of it.

The result you get is a phone that mostly works, but with unexpected slow downs, crappy drivers and weird device behaviors. You're not even guaranteed to get android updates, which increases fragmentation (well you know... it costs money, why support a phone that has ~already~ been sold?)

Of course it's open source, so communities can create their own OS. And you get an OS in constant beta state with half the components working (you wanted bluetooth, camera and radio? wooooooops sorry bro, next update maybe)

Apple, on the opposite, must have at least one completely psychotic quality checker behind each dev's backs. The polish they give to their system is incredible. It just works. Now my phone rings when I phone to someone, the screen does not stay unresponsive for 30s when I want to end a call (crappy proximity sensor, gah...), or freeze unexpectedly for 1s when scrolling or doing basic stuff. I actually ~enjoy~ using it.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[ScrewMaster]

I'm not going to have to walk around with a clunky, crappy, inferior smartphone in my pocket just because of "principals".

You mean "principles", and it's obvious that you haven't many of them. Personally, I don't consider my G2 to be crappy, inferior or clunky. It does exactly what I need, exactly the way I want it to, and neither your opinion or anyone else's will change that fact.

Is the iPhone a "superior" device? Maybe ... but even so, I don't like who I would have to thank for it. So no iPhone for me.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

No, I mean what's the point of wishing they were more developer friendly?

The way I see it, if you want something to happen, you've got two choices. You can contribute towards it yourself, or you can do something to convince third parties to align themselves with your interest.

So, if you really want Apple to be more developer friendly, you should be either taking direct actions towards that goal (probably not possible), or not buying their stuff until they become more developer friendly (while making it clear that it's the reason you're not buying)

Just wishing it doesn't do anything useful. If you don't do it, and nobody else has a reason to do it, you'll just keep wishing forever.

So, for instance, I'm of the same "they should be more developer friendly" persuasion. As a result, I won't purchase an Apple product until they actually become more developer friendly. I don't care what they make and how shiny it is -- I still won't buy it. Because I really do want that developer friendliness.

The N900 is most developer friendly and I did buy it.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[ScrewMaster]

Thats the cost of a low-end mac every year.

Or a pretty damn nice PC.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[ScrewMaster]

Sounds like a Fandroid skinned her knee. The OP was making a point about how supporting open and free, out of principal, wasn't making any money (which is one primary motivation for developing software). I suppose your rage blinded you.

Too bad.

Not really. The OP admits (in his own words) that Apple is "evil", and yet he willing supports them. I give him points for honesty, hypocritical as it might be.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[hedwards]

Inferior? My Nexus One does have its foibles, but they're all pretty minor and none of them causes me any particular trouble. I think the WiFi sometimes requiring a reboot is easily the most annoying, and even that is pretty minimal as I'm not typically wanting WiFi anyways.

Or were you one of those people that absolutely insisted that the iPod was the greatest MP3 player ever, without bothering to check out what the competition was doing?

I think it's really easy to compare a single phone, or in this case a single line with a much more diverse set of phones and claim superiority, it's a lot harder if you're trying to compare against the ones which are superior or at least above average.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[hedwards]

I think at this point we're arguing over whether a 12" or 13" penis is long enough. The reality is that by that point you're probably going to scare the women away and perhaps focusing a bit more on the general utility might be a better use of time than a meaningless dick comparison contest.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[blair1q]

This is the likely answer.

Better documentation for a computing may not convice a CIO, but it convinces the developers.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all in the SDK and the polish that Apple offers and Google doesn't.

I'd prefer to develop in C99 using vim than in a stupid mixture of C, ObjC and C++ using XCode.

Google screwed up, there's plenty of languages and runtimes out there in open source land that would give Android the edge. Java and Dalvik wouldn't even be in the running if I made a list of candidates.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, am an open-source fanatic. I work as a Linux/kernel development engineer, and think Apple is evil.

I also own an iPhone, and write iPhone apps in my spare time.

The irony and hypocrisy here is thick.

Actually, in the REAL world, it's not healthy to see everything in absolutes. You should get more sunlight.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[aristotle-dude]

XCode is smooth and elegant? LOL. Yeah right, it's buggy as hell and has a convoluted work-flow. I'm guessing you don't have much development experience.

Not that Eclipse is any better, it's sucks too, along with Java.

I'm guessing that you have not used a lot of development environments. X-Code is a dream compared to Exclipse. Who the heck thought that a "workspace" was a good idea? Perspectives? Really?!? Compared to Eclipse, X-Code gets out of your way and just lets you develop. What do you find so damn confusing about the write, build and debug workflow? It is not that different from Visual Studio.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's written "principles", and if you're not willing to stick to them, you don't really have them.

The whole point of morality is overriding practical issues. If stealing goes against your morality, then you don't even when you could use the money and have something to steal within easy reach.

So you should pick one: either you don't really think Apple is evil, or you shouldn't buy their products.

The world is a pretty cool place once you get out of college.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea- so true.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[tknd]

I find Android slow, clunky, and Java-based SDK's (like Eclipse and the Blackberry dev environment) to be the same - where XCode is smoothe and elegant - even if I did have to go buy a Mac in order to develop for it!

I'm not sure this is a valid complaint. I didn't find Xcode "smoothe and elegant". Maybe I didn't find enough time to get used to it but it was hardly a wonderful experience.

Eclipse isn't bad at all. It does occasionally crash or chew up memory, other than that it is fine on modern hardware. Some of the features are actually worlds better than other IDEs like the autocomplete and automatic library detection. It actually does get rid of a lot of the Java tedium.

ADT (Android Dev Toolkit) isn't bad either. My only gripe here is that DDMS should be a little more usable and stuff like the emulator SD card should be easier to access/manage.

Most of the complaints from real android devs will likely stem from one of two things: the SDK design or the Android Market. I consider a good chunk of the android SDK either "brain dead" in design or inconsistent.

By "brain dead" I mean many parts of the android SDK seem slapped together and designed to be easy for the android OS devs to implement. Take for example Activity menus. In order to set those things up you have to override at least one method onCreateMenu or something something. In there you'll likely have to define a switch statement to handle a menu id. The menu ids are enumerated by you rather than someone else. All of this just adds drudgery code that shouldn't be your responsibility.

By inconsistent it seems like each dev totally didn't communicate with anyone else on what they were designing. From notifications to menus, to dialogs, to activity design, all of it uses different paradigms. In some instances you feel like you're writing C code, in others you feel like maybe you're writing something that's Java OOP but not quite.

The final complaints stem from the market itself for which Google is doing a very lousy job. It wasn't till recently that more than 2 screen shots were allowed and the description field was increased from some ridiculous character count (maybe 500 characters or so).

The market still sucks for a number of reasons. For example, the only interface available is still the default one on the android device. Where's the advertised "web" browser enabled market?

The android market interface (on devices) itself sucks because it lacks a useful browsing feature. The recommended way to find an app is through "searching" but people don't "search" a store when they want to buy something that they don't know exists. They browse and see what's available through a process called "shopping". There is no good way to "browse" the android market because the categories are too general and there's no way to limit items by parameter/rating/cost/feature. At times I wish Google would let go of its hard-on for search because search isn't the right interface for every use case.

I could go on with the faults, but that's enough for now.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

One of my stereotypical cases for why I hate Java is Eclipse. Like I said, as a language - Java isn't too bad - sort of like C++, without all the crap that makes me hate C++ - or more like a streight-forward Object-Oriented "C". I find - like you said - it takes up a ton of memory, and tends to be unstable. I find it also to be slow - and maybe I'm not always running the most modern hardware. I often find annoying issues - like it not liking the version of Java I am running, and insisting on me updating, then being confused as to which of the bunch of different Java packages I am actually supposed to install. (I still don't know the differences between J2ME, J2EE, and a bunch of other stuff I used to be asked about when I was a BlackBerry Java developer). Anyways, when I get it all installed and running, Eclipse (or any other Java SDK) looks and feels completely different than the native OS I am using - no matter what that Native OS actually is!

Anyway - I'm not trying to argue that one of us is "right" and the other is "wrong" - I'm just trying to sort of answer the question posed by the OP - As someone who likes and embraces Linux, and Open-Source technologies - why am I an iPhone developer, and not an Android developer.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

I know - but this isn't a full-time job, or a calling. It's just something I do for fun. It's a really nice phone, and I have a lot of fun writing little Apps for it which are amazingly slick and cool. And I make a little money at it, so it basically subsidizes itself.

If Android were as nice, I'd much rather work on a more "open" platform, but oh, well, whatcha gonna do? I'm an engineer because I like writing code and seeing things work and having fun with it - not because I receive personal gratification protesting the policies of companies which I don't agree with.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[dudpixel]

Android is the #1 shipping smartphone platform, a completely open system, with free, publicly available tools. You can do it under Windows or Linux (the later, being also free) - on cheap, commodity PCs you can buy from any vendor.

So maybe we should ask the question of exactly why it is lagging in the app department. Apple never ran out and hired a billion people to write apps - yet they have more.

Is it the language? (C-Like vs. Java)? The "sleekness" and appeal of the OS itself? The mere fact that it's been on the market longer?

I, for one, am an open-source fanatic. I work as a Linux/kernel development engineer, and think Apple is evil.

I also own an iPhone, and write iPhone apps in my spare time. Why? Personally for me, the phone and the OS are beautiful and elegant. I love the platform, and the outcome of my work - and it's easy too to make money with one appstore to have to sell it on (even if the Apple bastards take 30%).

I find Android slow, clunky, and Java-based SDK's (like Eclipse and the Blackberry dev environment) to be the same - where XCode is smoothe and elegant - even if I did have to go buy a Mac in order to develop for it!

So that's the reason why I develop for iPhone. My point though is the following: Answer the question for a majority of iPhone developers, and you'll discover the remedy to the problem - don't just think that hiring a hundred - or a thousand Android app developers will fix the gap!

simple. the misinformation like what's contained in your post is why. and for the record, you own a mac, and an iphone, and you develop for the mac, and you use words like "beautiful" and "elegant", and "smooth" to describe them...you sir, are an apple fan. plain and simple. nothing wrong with that...but you should probably know.

seriously, c vs java? if done right you shouldn't be able to notice the speed difference in an app. More people know java than obj-c, and I'm guessing its easier to stick with what you know...but one still has to lure those developers, and mobile app developers probably aren't used to java at this point.

Android isn't slow. If you thought it was slow, then the phone was slow, or you may have only used pre-2.2 builds. Fair enough if that's the case...but Android isn't slow NOW.

the following is already there for iphone (a few years head start). there is a certain amount of inertia while many developers wait to see how android goes before investing large amounts of time and money into it. I think we are seeing the shift but it takes time.

There are also a large number of quality apps on android that are free. That means anyone serious in making money needs to invest more time to make an app that will sell, or otherwise people will just use the free app. Given that choice, or developing the same app for iOS where people are likely to buy it because most good apps are not free...and developers will go after the "easy money" every time.

I think this issue has everything to do with developer perception and nothing to do with the merits of either OS.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[dudpixel]

Yes, that's the point. The iOS platform is SO nice, that it beats out any of the "intellectual" Android arguments about being "Open" or "Free" - or even it having a larger marketshare. I'm not going to have to walk around with a clunky, crappy, inferior smartphone in my pocket just because of "principals".

Ok, you're now sounding more like a fanboy...

I'm pretty sure the majority of Android customers didn't buy an android phone because of "principles". Maybe some of them dislike the iphone, and maybe lots of them like that android lets them "do more", but they're buying them because they're cheaper or perceived as better.

If Android was as bad as you claim, I dont think it would be as successful as it is. The claim from Apple zealots for years has been that it outsells android because it is a better OS/phone. Well now surely the reverse is also true... (actually, that's tongue-in-cheek. I still think marketing and perceived value have a big part to play in what people choose).

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[dudpixel]

Try to sell your app through other means and you'll start to appreciate where your 30% goes.

Marketing and distribution are critical to success too. Everyone knows you cant just come up with a good product and get rich instantly. It takes good business and marketing and a bunch of other things too.

Android (and iOS) give developers are real chance to profit by providing the market and tools. I think its worth something.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[sznupi]

No hardware acceleration of the GUI (that's supposedly coming in the next version...)

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this world, if this is what you decide to put your foot down on principles for, then its worthless because your priorities are whats messed up.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[hawkingradiation]

I considered developing for android, until I found out it was in Java and the fact that you agree to hold harmless and indemnify Google should you infringe on someone's patent rights who happens to be litigious. That's right, you pay the legal costs. From the android licence.

12. Indemnification 12.1 To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Google, its affiliates and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, actions, suits or proceedings, as well as any and all losses, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys fees) arising out of or accruing from (a) your use of the SDK, (b) any application you develop on the SDK that infringes any copyright, trademark, trade secret, trade dress, patent or other intellectual property right of any person or defames any person or violates their rights of publicity or privacy, and (c) any non-compliance by you with this License Agreement.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Wovel]

Not in this context its not, when we are talking about Apps platform, you must first add in all of the iPod touches and iPads and then through out all the crap that can't run most of the new apps.

It is now a very distant second mobile platform.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Apple is evil, so you buy a Mac and support their appstore. Great ethics there!

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

I'm not saying make your life's mission. But IMO people ought to be consistent.

Say, for instance. I don't like cigarette smoke. But since there exists such a thing as a non-smoking restaurant, I don't sit in in a smoky restaurant wishing the air were clean. I looked around, found the one non-smoking restaurant, and regularly went there. It didn't require me to take on a lifelong advocacy project or anything like that.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

The world is a pretty cool place once you get out of college.

Been long out of it, doing fine so far.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[Chapter80]

App store has over 350,000 apps. Are you telling me that there are more than 100,000 that are worth while?
Not a chance.

Simply *randomly* select ten apps, and tell me how many you find interesting - worth spending more than - say - 5 minutes on, or even worth starting a second time! My experience says it's less than 1 in 10.

That's a LOT of crap.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Okay - but if you really liked the food, and the smoke wasn't so bad by the window, and the other 5 restaurants in town were all Arbys', what would you do?

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Maybe, maybe not.

For one, an app that you like, maybe I won't, and vice-versa. But yes, there's probabily a lot of junk out there.

It doesn't have anything to do with the OP, because if this was the case, Google could simply let everything in - "like Apple does". Don't be restrictive - then they'd have the quantity and quality of apps that Apple has.

However, it's obvious from the OP that this isn't the case. There are indeed fewer Android apps, and/or fewer quality Android apps. If it weren't the case, they wouldn't be scrambling to get people to play catch-up with Apple.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Second? No, it's actually third. (Blackberry and Google both beat it in sales). But even so - they have a lot of die-hard developers on-board with 'em. My point is, it's not because they're "free" or "open" or are easy to develop for, or are nice to their developers. If they really address the reason why, and remedy it - then maybe they'll attract those developers.

I am merely outlining what attracts me to the platform.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[4phun]

You forgot an option
- he actually wants a phone for something more than toying and tweaking.

I've had an Android phone for a year, my contract just expired and I used that to get an iPhone 4 instead.

The problem with Android does not come from Google, they did a decent job engineering the OS (except that maintaining their own kernel was a big error), and it basically works fine
The problem comes from most phone manufacturers (actually, all except HTC I think), which just see Android as a free meal (and a way to increase their margin). They just wrap a bunch of ugly code as glue for their phone (binary blobs and lots of other crap) and ship it. Then the phone companies add their own layer of crap-apps on top of it.

The result you get is a phone that mostly works, but with unexpected slow downs, crappy drivers and weird device behaviors. You're not even guaranteed to get android updates, which increases fragmentation (well you know... it costs money, why support a phone that has ~already~ been sold?)

Of course it's open source, so communities can create their own OS. And you get an OS in constant beta state with half the components working (you wanted bluetooth, camera and radio? wooooooops sorry bro, next update maybe)

Apple, on the opposite, must have at least one completely psychotic quality checker behind each dev's backs. The polish they give to their system is incredible. It just works. Now my phone rings when I phone to someone, the screen does not stay unresponsive for 30s when I want to end a call (crappy proximity sensor, gah...), or freeze unexpectedly for 1s when scrolling or doing basic stuff. I actually ~enjoy~ using it.

It is truly sad that Slashdot moderates good points like this down to nothing because it isn't cult like devotion to Android. These are valid points that should be considered by all. Android is a advertiser created OS that Geeks like to play with. Currently it really is a poor choice for the end user who isn't a Geek if they expect to have an Apple experience.

Google really needs to step up and spend a lot of their wealth in fixing the darn ecosystem for everyone who bought into the Android idea. That is the whole point of this story is that real world developers have not delivered and will not until they are guaranteed a lot of money. The approach Google is now taking is that they will fund them for future results if they work exclusively for Google. None of this where dual developers discover it is far easier and a greater pleasure to program for Apple than Google. Elite Google selected prima dona programmers need to remain happily well paid and fixated on developing exclusively for Google. Use that pile of money to buy their loyalty.

From the user standpoint I think that is fair and a hopeful sign that Google will clean this stinking restroom surprise up.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Personally, (and this is completely arguable) - I think it's simple:

1. Android phones are typically cheaper.

2. Android data plans are typically a lot cheaper

3. There are many more manufacturers selling Android-based devices.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[joshki]

If you think Apple's going to fight your legal battles for you, you're smoking crack. That's a completely standard license statement -- if you use a tool to infringe on someone's copyrights, you're responsible, not the maker of the tool.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[hesaigo999ca]

so true, so true...

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[vadim_t]

Bring food from home and eat at work/park/other smoke-free location

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[jwhitener]

Wouldn't the obvious answer be that since the iPhone came out well before Android, mobile developers got used to that environment, and are now resistant to change?

The iPhone in 2007 was a novelty. It was the first smartphone that 'mom and pop' bought. The concept of 'apps' for fun on a phone was new, and many people were buying lots of silly little apps.

Fast forward to 2008, with the release of the g1, with small'ish sales on t-mobile. The mass of 'average joes' who bought smartphones for the first time bought the iPhone, and were still locked by contract.

It isn't until now that HTC, verizon, and others have advertised, promoted, and released many flashy phones, that Android is becoming so popular. But for the masses that originally bought the iPhone, inertia and familiarity keeps them loyal to apple.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

If it were as simple as that, Palm, Symbian and Blackberry would have iPhone and Android beat.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[jwhitener]

Weren't those systems rather primitive in terms of hardware/touch/motion sensors/cameras/gps though? The set of hardware features that the iPhone made common is one of the driving forces behind all the cool new apps.

I remember the first iPhone owners wowing folks by pinching and zooming, or tilting the phone to drive a car game. I can't recall any well advertised product prior to the iPhone having those sorts of "neato" features that made apps much more engaging.

Java is still the number one language in the world. I find it a little hard to imagine that the language and SDK's are the primary reason for the lack of apps. If I had to think of another factor that was related to the staggered release date, it would be device fragmentation. For instance, here is a Netflix developer explaining why there is no Netflix app for Android yet Netflix Blog. The summary: no unified DRM system.

Re:Cart Before Horse, Please!

[bradgoodman]

Primitive in comparison, but the force behind all the cool new apps? I doubt it. iPhone was by far not the first to have GPS, camera or touch. I think Multi-Touch was their only "first".

Think about it seriously - palm ruled the PDA market for about a decade. Blackberry became an institution unto itself with their corporate email connectivity - Crackberries, etc. These guys squeezed down into and created the "smartphone" market by adding their "PDA" functionality into cell phones. Then of course Symbian and Windows Mobile got in there too.

Apple came out of nowhere, kinda. They started with a pretty boring, but well-made MP3 player, and evolved that into the iPhone.

So I guess if your argument is: "Well, but Apple was the first one to really get it all right" - I'd agree with you ;-) - which is why, as my original reply stated - I am an iPhone developer, and not an Android developer. ;-)

I don't buy it!

[Qwavel]

With app stores having hundreds of thousands of apps, and with Google already having tons of loyal and enthusiastic developers, it seems unlikely that they would now decide to start hiring developers to write miscellaneous apps for their app store.

They know that the best way to get good apps into their store is to attract developers with a great platform, good sales figures, good dev tools, a good app store, etc. They are well aware of their weaknesses, including some aspects of their app store and platform fragmentation, and they are working on these issues.

These new app developers that they are hiring are probably going to work on some of the Google specific apps that needs (lots of) work. For example, their finance app still only supports U.S. exchanges (how do you think the rest of the world feels about that), and their Listen app has all sorts of problems and hasn't been updated in a long time. These Google apps have suffered as resources have been shifted to the core platform; now Google needs app developers to bring their own apps up to speed.

The market is at fault

[MindCrusher]

Maybe they would have more apps if the App Market place would work all over the word. Paid apps don't work in some European countries because there is no unified payment system like with Apple's App store. Although the Android user base might be larger than that of iOS Apple still has more paying customers. Google needs to see that the Market needs a serious boost in functionality. If revenue will increase developers will come.

Re:The market is at fault

[Necroman]

Agreed, this has been one of my bigger complaints about Android. There is no unified payment system. But it looks like Google wants to fix this.

For those too lazy to read, Google plans to....
* Add in-app purchases Q1 2011.
* Add Carrier Billing - app purchases charged to your cell phone bill.
* Expand the app validation team.

Carrier billing may help with the unified payment system, but I'm not sure it's ideal. As long as it is dead simple to setup (or setup by default), it should help android get more app sales.

Hopefully,

[msauve]

they do it in a more clueful way. There are Android apps (like email and phone), which are open source and come as part of Android, then there are Google branded apps (like Gmail and Maps), which are closed source and come from Google. I think I've gotten the examples right - even Google can't keep straight which are which. There's a bug reporter for Android apps, but not for Google apps. People were putting bug reports for "branded" apps on the Android apps bug reporter, and it took the Android team over a year to let people know that "they" weren't responsible for those apps. With that kind of disorganization, it's amazing that Android works as well as it does.

From a user's perspective, of course, it's a phone running Android from Google, and all the preinstalled apps are part of Android. But, there's some kind of artificial division between the people doing Android and the people doing Google apps for Android. I'm guessing that's because somewhere there's a developer in the Open Handset Alliance who isn't from Google and who isn't dedicated to customizing Android for a specific manufacturer/phone.

Application Idea

[Archangel Michael]

I have a REALLY good idea for an smartphone app, but I'm not a coder. I have not seen anything close to what I'm thinking of. I'm not about to give my idea to someone. My idea is fairly simple, and shouldn't be too difficult to program. However I could be wrong on everything (probably am). I have ideas, just no coding experience.

Re:Application Idea

[DCFusor]

So, learn to code, or shut up. Wish I had a nickel for every "great idea" someone made me sign an NDA to see -- all were ridiculous, no exceptions, and some were epically stupid. No market research (does anyone want this?). No realization that either it exists already, or has been done already and has failed because they didn't figure out all the consequences (intended or otherwise).
.

The idea that you can make money off an idea is bull. You make money off solving a problem, creating value. Ideas are cheap as can be. Results are another story. I've been giving away ideas my whole life, and selling the work to make them real instead. That works fine. Eye-pee is for morons.

Re:Application Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not about to give my idea to someone.

Why not? You're not going to do anything with it and you're not going to make any money from an idea.

Re:Application Idea

[Archangel Michael]

I "learned" to code 35-40 years ago, and the only thing I learned was that I wasn't very good at it. By "code" I mean Assembly, COBOL, ForTran, BASIC, Pascal. Telling me to shut up is a reason why Android Market Place is filled with "Beautiful Girl ____" and "App Killer ____" and various other apps that suck and crash my phone (1 in 5 crash).

I never said it would be a success. I just thought it MIGHT be. I would find what I have in mind completely useful, and I've looked for something that does anything even remotely close to what I'm thinking of, and have not found anything. I don't find "Beautiful Girls" anything all that "useful" and charging me $3.34 for pictures of girls that are a dime a dozen on images.google.com seems stupid. Yet the fact that there are 1000s of apps with that (or similar) premise seems ridiculous.

Is it easy coming up with good AND ideas? Not as easy as one might think. I even admitted it might not be a "Great" idea, only that I thought it was. Will it make me a Million$? Probably not. If it makes me couple Franklins, I would be happy.

Re:Application Idea

[dudpixel]

I half agree with you.

I'd love to develop an app based on someone else's idea, but I dont feel that it should be a 50-50 split of profit. Coming up with an idea doesn't cost as much time, but it can be just as critical. However, an actual product is better than a thought inside your head.

I do not agree with selling ideas for money. Ideas should never be as protected as what they are today. Yes the idea is critical to success, but how much of the idea had to be adapted by the developer?

Someone might say, it'd be good to have an app that does X. But then the developer has to adapt that idea into what works on a screen etc and what the API is capable of, and in the end you end up with Y. Who takes the credit for the idea? really, it should be both, but the developer has done a LOT more actual work and effort.

Re:Application Idea

[dudpixel]

Idea: 10 minutes?
Implementation: 10 months.

Who should make a couple Franklins?

Re:Application Idea

[Archangel Michael]

Nobody. Obviously.

They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

Not that I have an issue with hot babes, but there are a ton of pseudo-porn apps in the android market. Sometimes many by the same developer. If they want to raise their profile by catching up in quantity and quality, they should set some standards and use the rating system to remove some of the junk that's come to litter the market.

Over the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps which were both garbage - all the reviews said they were garbage and I left my own saying the same thing. When an app gets nothing but negative reviews, it should go.

Re:They should clean house first...

[LWATCDR]

That is the downside to a more open app store. Trust me there are trash apps on iPhone as well.

Re:They should clean house first...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

ver the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps which were both garbage - all the reviews said they were garbage and I left my own saying the same thing. When an app gets nothing but negative reviews, it should go.

As long as people continue to download them (and pay for them) in spite of negative reviews, they're unlikely to get removed - they're making money for both google and the developer.

Re:They should clean house first...

[Facegarden]

Over the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps ..... all the reviews said they were garbage...

Then why did you download them?

If google starts pulling peoples apps because they have bad reviews... well, that's just going to piss off devs to spent time on their apps. If they write a bad app and get bad reviews, maybe they'll try harder and write something better.

As a consumer, I just check the reviews. If they're bad, I don't bother. If I search for something and nothing is available with good reviews, I'll basically chock it up to Android's lower app count and not bother wasting my time with bad apps.

I signed up for Android knowing full well that I can't find every app that iOS might have (its a younger platform, thats how it goes), so I don't frustrate myself by pretending an app with bad reviews is still worth downloading.

The app review system works great. I trust it and if you actually listen to it, you won't be frustrated at all, aside from the low app count overall. So yeah, you won't find everything you need, but that doesn't mean google should pull apps - it means they should get more apps to increase the chances of there being a good one. Which is exactly what they're doing.
-Taylor

Re:They should clean house first...

[green1]

If all the reviews said they were garbage... why were you surprised when you found out they were garbage?

The reviews are there for a reason, they let you know what people think of an app. If nobody likes it, there's usually a reason.

Re:They should clean house first...

[blair1q]

A sorting algorithm that actually works would make them go to the bottom of the list, which is better than banishing them altogether.

Re:They should clean house first...

[angus77]

When an app gets nothing but negative reviews, maybe you should think twice about installing it.

Re:They should clean house first...

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps which were both garbage - all the reviews said they were garbage and I left my own saying the same thing.

Irony. ;)

Re:They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

Because some people are idiots.....turns out that the previous reviews were right on the money

Re:They should clean house first...

[Facegarden]

Because some people are idiots.....turns out that the previous reviews were right on the money

Okay...

I'm not seeing the issue. Many reviews said the app was garbage. You downloaded the app. It was garbage. Do you really think something about that needs to be fixed?

If you searched for Lemmings and a garbage app was displayed in search results above a good app, I'd say there is an issue. If you were browsing popular apps and a garbage app was shown, I'd say there was an issue.

But once you start searching for something and there just *isn't* a good app, does it really matter if you get back results with bad apps or no apps? As long as the bad apps are clearly labeled, I just don't see how removing them would help. But it would discourage developers, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do in that situation. If there aren't good apps in a certain category, scaring away the only people that did cater to that category will get you nowhere. You should increase incentives to app developers (like get payments working in more foreign countries) and also encourage new developers to enter that category, to increase competition.

But banning bad apps won't do anything positive, and will hurt things.
-Taylor

Re:They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

I realise that it's the Android Market, and that Google runs the show, so the myriad of Adsense serving garbage will probably never get removed. I'm just saying that if every Tom, Dick and Harry releases a Hello Adsense app in the market nobody wins.....except Adsense.

11 "Sexy Football" apps by sexy-apps.com - really......
5 additional "Sexy Apps" by a different developer called "Sexy Apps"
642 "Sexy/Hot Girls" apps by developer "Android Apps"

All that from 1 search term....and I didn't even scratch the surface.

I've spent time just browsing apps and trying them out. Most of the time I remove them because the obvious purpose of the app is to serve ads. Some to the extent that the app doesn't function. Don't get me wrong, many free apps are tastefully sprinkled with ads....and I don't mind that. Ads in Angry Birds cover up some of the window and make it difficult to play the game, but not impossible.

Some apps, however, leave the game screen (not paused) and launch a browser window to serve up ads.

If Google wants quantity and quality, they'll need to implement some form of quality control.

Who cares if they have as many/more apps as Apple if 99.999% of them are garbage.

Re:They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

I hold other peoples opinions in very low regard. I'm a "show me don't tell me" kinda guy....I think I picked that up from a Rush song.

Re:They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

"I do not think that word means what you think it means" - Fezzik

Re:They should clean house first...

[Crudely_Indecent]

Much of the garbage in the market is free, monetised by adsense.

Re:They should clean house first...

[Facegarden]

Ah, well *that* is a good argument then. The lemmings one, not so much. A couple apps that are bad - that is a problem. 642 bullshit apps from one dev - there is clearly something lame going on.

For what its worth, I've used Android for years and have never noticed too much spam. But then I'm not searching for "sexy" apps either. Or at least not after the first time I looked and it was all crap.

For the most part, the Android Market is fine if you either just download things other people recommend, or you browse the popular apps. If you're trying to find something out of the blue, then yeah, its crap. Not sure if the iOS app store is any better, but I did have an original iPhone back in the day and I remember that it was nice that you could browse for apps in iTunes.

Android has long needed some kind of desktop companion (even if its browser based), and if there was one, it would probably help with app discovery.

So yeah, app discovery is the issue that I think you're actually struggling with. How do I find the good apps when there is so much crap? Eliminating some of the crap would help, but ultimately, blind searches are not the best way to find good apps. Google is working on that by recommending more apps that are good, and now showing "related apps" in the new market they rolled out a few months ago.

And I do know that people complain about app discovery in iOS too. Its a big problem for developers.

And although this isn't a solution to the problem (since google needs to fix it themselves) gizmodo often posts lists of good apps. If you didn't see it, you might like this, which was just posted today:
http://gizmodo.com/5739420/the-best-android-apps?skyline=true&s=i

-Taylor

Competing Against Microsoft/Apple/Google

[DLG]

A while back it was considered one of Microsoft's evil ways, that they sold an OS and the leading apps on it. It was considered an unfair advantage because they had access to api's and the OS writing team, with a greater level of access than other companies.

In the same way, people get frustrated that Apple has prevented other developers to publish certain apps that are similar to Apple ones. This has changed over time but at least for a while it was a key argument.

Now, Google is going to start competing against the app marketplace in a larger way.

Beyond just an admission that there is a lack of quality apps for Android, or that the economy of apps on Android is not yet mature enough to draw the larger scale development that has begun to focus on Apple (especially with games but also with productivity tools), this is now an 800 lb Gorilla. Can you write your killer app before Google does it and gives it away?

How long before Google starts buying small developers who develop cool multiplatform apps and then squelch their development on Apple?

Re:Competing Against Microsoft/Apple/Google

[Anonymous Coward]

A while back it was considered one of Microsoft's evil ways, that they sold an OS and the leading apps on it.

No it wasn't.

It was considered an unfair advantage because they had access to api's and the OS writing team, with a greater level of access than other companies.

Companies are free to keep their OS's closed and bundle apps with it and use private APIs. They aren't, however, allowed to use private APIs or bundle to gain an advantage when they have monopolized the desktop OS space. I know, I know, you don't understand the difference, don't care to understand the economics of monopolies and just want to attack Apple and defend Microsoft.

Now, Google is going to start competing against the app marketplace in a larger way.

Google has been making apps right along. This isn't any different other than they are trying to make the platform itself more popular by targeting areas where it is lacking. Apple did the same thing several times on OS X when a vendor cancelled the OS X version of some popular app. Apple stepped in, hired developers or bought a small company, dumped resources in and made good software. That's just good business. It helped Apple sell Macs and it will help Google get more Android phones purchased.

How long before Google starts buying small developers who develop cool multiplatform apps and then squelch their development on Apple?

It could happen, but then Apple could do the same with Android developers. It is unlikely though, as neither company wants to get into that situation.

Re:Competing Against Microsoft/Apple/Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Android is open-source. Even if the devices themselves are locked down, developers still have full access to the APIs. Google has no particular advantage in this respect.

As for the giving-it-away thing - it costs almost nothing to replicate software, so isn't freedom its natural state? Why should a million people pay a dollar each for an app that took a month of developer-time to write?

Marketplace Filters

[joeshmoe554]

One of the developments desperately needed by android is a hardware filter for their marketplace. Since android is available on different phone models with different hardware, not all of the applications will work on every phone. I've read a few stories from developers that say they don't want to develop for android because they don't know what the results will be on a user's phone. If there was some sort of control on the marketplace that let a user only see applications that are supported by his/her phone it would remove some of the ambiguity developers face.

Re:Marketplace Filters

[Thud457]

Hell, the Apple appstore could use that, too. Sux to be the one that gets the hand-me-down phone. Try to download some nice shiny app, and get:

bzzzzt, doesn't work on your crappy phone, go buy a new one
bzzzt doesn't work on your IOS version, upgrade, which by the way, you'll need to buy a new phone for

buncha jerks


Hey, the wife thought she was doing me a favor by giving me a cool smartphone. She didn't realize what she was really doing was inflicting iTunes on me.

Re:Marketplace Filters

[Jello B.]

They already have that. Flash doesn't show up in the marketplace if your android version is lower than 2.2 or your processor isn't ARMv7 or above.

Re:Marketplace Filters

[Xest]

Er, this already exists, and always has.

I suspect "developers" using that argument are simply trying to come up with excuses as to why they've been too lazy to adapt to a new platform, or simply aren't very knowledgeable about the platform.

Thousands of developers worldwide seem to be aware of the existence of this feature and use it succesfully already so there's really no excuse for not using it other than incompetence.

How about security

[ShavedOrangutan]

I've stopped installing or even looking at new apps. The novelty of some new widget has been lost because every one wants full access to my phone calls, SD card, camera, network, GPS, etc.. I really don't care how many apps are in the market.

Also, I've stopped updating anything. Every time an app updates, the new version comes with ads. As if selling my data wasn't enough.

Let Google address this issue first

[bogaboga]

Let Google spruce up the Android market, that is still half baked compared to the iOS app store, which remains the 'gold standard'.

I haven't paid for one yet.

[rickb928]

Mod parent up.

I've been using Android since the beginning (ok, maybe a month after the beginning) and I have YET to buy an app.

I'm cheap, I pay a lot for service, and most of the paid apps I've seen are pus. A few are cool, it happens I don't need or want them.

It is not yet worth $1.99 to me to suppress ads, and I've seen one app (just one of thousands, yes) that promised no ads and just moved them to other screens.

I've also lost download history, and really don't trust the Market to remember me through every OTA upgrade, custom ROM, and system wipe. Sorry, color me cynical, but it can't remember the free stuff.

And then there's the problems of both excellent free apps and my somewhat limited needs - I dont need arcarde-quality games, most of the 'cool' apps look like they are designed to capture my 'social data' and market me, and everything high profile like Facebook etc are all free.

I don't know if I will buy an app in the next year, unless the Market finds a way to punish free devs, whicn it might.

My iPhone fanboi friends tell me they pretty much have to buy apps, cause devs have to pay to play. And the two iPhone devs at work point out that yes, it costs to develop for IOS. They and another develop for Android also, and they all used my spare G1 as a mule to demo projects. My live G1 I lent out to tether those into the mobile network. Net cost for the spare G1 to me was $35. Leftover iPhones? More.

Re:I haven't paid for one yet.

[jo_ham]

The "pay to play" is $99 per year.

If you can't support that via app sales, you can always supplement it with in-app advertising. I have seen some with discreet text adverts (no need to use Apple's iAd system if you don;t want to, although that is also an option).

Re:I haven't paid for one yet.

[blair1q]

I bought one, because on a friend's phone it seemed slick and impressive for the couple of things I tried.

But shortly after I bought it I determined that it's very shallow in the content department, and depended more heavily on users adding content than I expected, so it's not going to get any better owing to a lack of critical mass.

Which, it occurs to me, is the sort of thing people are saying about the Android platform itself. Although, anything with 100,000 different apps can't be said to be "shallow", even if a lot of those apps are shallow themselves. So the parallel isn't quite right.

Re:I haven't paid for one yet.

[IceFreak2000]

I've also lost download history, and really don't trust the Market to remember me through every OTA upgrade, custom ROM, and system wipe. Sorry, color me cynical, but it can't remember the free stuff.

The Market does definitely remember any purchases you make; I made the transition from an HTC Magic to an HTC Legend last year, and have flashed both devices with several ROMs in the process.

Whatever I've purchased is always listed on the My Apps tab.

Re:I haven't paid for one yet.

[rickb928]

Since there wasn't any disclaimer that I saw, I don't know to exepct different behavior depending on if you paid for it, or got it free.

Eventually something will get me to buy it, and then I'll find out. Of course, my next phone I might not root either, so some of this is moot. But experience does not give me much solace.

Mod parent up

[TimothyDavis]

I really haven't had much use for the Android marketplace, but I did decide I wanted to check out what Angry Birds was all about. Going into the marketplace and searching for "Angry Birds" returned an absolute mess of results. As a user, I shouldn't have to weed through all of the crap to find a well-known application, especially since Google is first and foremost a search engine company.

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Write an app for it. Seriously, the only reason for having apps that interface to sites is that the sites' native UI sucks.

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

I really haven't had much use for the Android marketplace, but I did decide I wanted to check out what Angry Birds was all about. Going into the marketplace and searching for "Angry Birds" returned an absolute mess of results. As a user, I shouldn't have to weed through all of the crap to find a well-known application, especially since Google is first and foremost a search engine company.

Weird. I just went to the Android Market (on my phone) and typed in Angry Birds - and the top two results are the Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons apps.

Strangely, the web-based Android Market (at android.com) appears to have no search functionality at all. That is messed up. Guess they are trying to steer you to using the Android Market on your phone...

Re:Mod parent up

[gknoy]

The irony of writing a search app for the Android market is staggering.

Re:Mod parent up

[tsotha]

Eh? I typed it in to the search box and it came up as the first result.

Re:Mod parent up

[sincewhen]

Nay sir, Google is first and foremost an advertising company.

Which brings me to a point I don't see anyone else making: Isn't this move a bit desperate/creepy? I mean, I understand that it is about helping Android to succeed. But what then, once they have 80% market share? Will they make their money on app sales? What exactly is Google up to here?

Re:Mod parent up

[4phun]

I really haven't had much use for the Android marketplace, but I did decide I wanted to check out what Angry Birds was all about. Going into the marketplace and searching for "Angry Birds" returned an absolute mess of results. As a user, I shouldn't have to weed through all of the crap to find a well-known application, especially since Google is first and foremost a search engine company.

Hey, write an Android app for finding the correct Android Angry Birds app in the Android MarketPlace.
That would make life nice for the rest of us.

Re:Mod parent up

[AmiMoJo]

I find searching the app store works really well because it is basically the same as doing a Google web search - i.e. it is clever enough to know that two words mean the same thing (railway/railroad) or that there are spelling differences (adapter/adaptor) and ranks apps similarly to how sites are ranked. They don't just pander to the major developers, they return results based on quality and helpfulness.

Just to check I did a search for Angry Birds a moment ago on a Galaxy S with Froyo (2.2) and the UK market. The game was the first result. You could also just got the Angry Birds web site and download it directly.

nokia

[dueydotnet]

I wish Nokia would do something like this. The Ovi Store is enemic and Nokia's been providing some paid programs as "free" (ad supported) to make their store more enticing. Nokia's been trying with their "beta labs" http://betalabs.nokia.com/ but some stuff is only compatible with their latest phones, not for their older phones.

Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[AbRASiON]

Indeed there are some gaps.
Very very long story short, I've recently gone back to my iphone 4 from an Android device. Although the apps were not my primary reason for doing so, I will say I did have some difficulty finding some apps which suited my needs.

Primarily and most importantly for myself, I'm a tightass - infact a lot of nerds are. So I want a free app which will cover my needs. Oddly enough the iphone has several free RDP applications which work quite well, I use one of these at least 2 or 3 times a week and absoloutely need it.
On Android I can not for the life of me find an RDP application which supports multiple entries and lets me save them. The restrictions to the free versions are all too tight.
I don't mind ads on my phone, I don't care if there's a box as I open the app or even if I'm forced to see a static ad image for 1 or 2 seconds before the app opens, I just want a free and good RDP app. No such luck.

Also, the media playback tools are frankly, ugly rubbish. It's such a giant shame as I have a 4.3" Android phone and I prefer it to the iphone 4 picture (yep, size matters) - the resolution is still good enough on the 4.3" screen (double the iphone 3GS pixel densite) it's just the media tools pale in comparison to apple.
I suppose I should've done some research, infact yes I should have but I blindly went in and had this crazy idea that without these idiot apple restrictions, I'd have this amazingly powerful device to play media back with.
I want to be able to copy an divx / avi file (example an episode of top gear) on to the device and just plain play the thing. You know what else? I'd like to be able to play it over my SMB network if I'm at home, I have wireless, why can't I do that?
The file structure for media is ugly and gross, the device itself needs to follow a standard.
Movies should be placed in X location and _!ALL!_ Android applications should check that location (only) as default for media, period. - you should be able to add more folders in the Android OS - not per application. A nice standard so that when you try a new media player, they all know where your 'library' is and can display the data clearly and simply.
There is something similar to this in the system but it's hamfisted and messy. Many applications just ask you to navigate and browse the phone. I love that I can do that, I am still a nerd but I'm an aging nerd, I would like it simple and logical.
Furthermore the codec support, admitedly not googles fault, I know but god damnit I had to convert stupid files on the iphone with itunes and sync via a cable (gross!) but with Android it's not much better. I want to just play back my media, the device needs more codec support (apparently the Galaxy S has licensed quite a few codecs and is better - but we need consistency across the damned platform)
I could elaborate further on the media stuff and be quite specific but I'd be here for ages, I'm sure the point is clear- this is currently..'clumsy' and needs to be cleaned up, simplified and improved. This beautiful little thing has so much potential and falls short.

Podcast solutions:
If you used itunes, besides the horrible sync with PC aspect of it and the nasty UI of itunes, it does 'just work' and the podcast playback tool is leaps and bounds superior.
The consistency in the UI for a start is helpful. The rewind 30 second button? genius, the fact I get to see the podcast description and the podcast 'banner' or graphic? great. (I tried several on the android, like RDP solutions, nothing quite fit my needs right)
I do love my Android device but oddly enough it's more the concept of what it could be and the hardware I love most more than anything.
My iphone 4 has superior battery life, more reliable (at least in regards to market application upgrade and installs) it has a better UI for media playback it just falls short in the fact the screen is stupid small, it's locked down and apples ridiculous design choice of one button holds it back (4 or 5 dedicated butt

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[LoudMusic]

Indeed there are some gaps.
Very very long story short, I've recently gone back to my iphone 4 from an Android device.

*** huge amount of text removed ***

You don't say ...

Wordy person who like to talk about their life experiences on the internet prefers iPhone to Android. Film at 11.

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[AbRASiON]

What an insightful and useful response, thanks for your great input, please keep up the great work.

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[Anonymous Coward]

get pocketcloud for a good, free RDP client:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/wyse-pocketcloud-rdp-vnc/com.wyse.pocketcloudfree

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[Anonymous Coward]

You couldn't find a free RDP client, so you bought an iPhone...to save money?

WTF?

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[AbRASiON]

I already owned a free RDP client on my iPhone, I was trying Android out to see how I like it. It's now my 'second' phone instead of the primary I was hoping it would be.
Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[Arterion]

It's great, but the free version only lets you save one entry, which was the gripe.

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your phone != Android. Android runs on many devices with different capabilities. Some of them do all the stuff that you asked for above. You can probably install a custom ROM on your device to get all the shinies right now if you really want.

Re:Well glad you made the topic, because,...

[LWATCDR]

For Podcasts I suggest you try and then by Beyond Pod. I have mine set to sync every night at 1 am and it does a good job. The one downside is that it's search for podcasts sucks. That isn't as bad it seems because it will sync with Google Reader so use Google Reader to find and select your Podcasts than have Beyond Pod sync with it.
It really is less of a hassle than it seems.
As to media you are correct. Audio is no problem but video is. Beyond Pod does handle video podcasts. I have an HTC phone and HTCs media player is actually not bad at all. That is the one place the Android phone falls down a bit but it isn't really an app problem IMHO it is a media problem. Apple controls and makes money off of media Google doesn't I can get MP3s from Amazon and it works just fine but I can not get video from Amazon yet. Why Google didn't set up a media store I just don't know but to me that was their error.
Most of the apps I see are just fine and there is a lot of them. The games I do feel are lacking but hopefully that will change soon.

Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[tepples]

Google would prefer it if devs shifted the focus from iOS to Android

Then why does Google continue to require 3G support on devices sold in the United States before a device is allowed to use the Android Market application? For all the restrictions of Apple's App Store, at least iPod touch and iPad are allowed in, unlike Archos products which are limited to AppsLib instead of Android Market..

Re:Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[maxume]

I would assume that they want the carriers blamed for low quality devices.

Apple gets the blame for IOS devices no matter what.

Re:Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until very recently, Android was a cell phone OS. It isn't surprising that Google would require ... cellular connectivity to get their seal of approval.

Archos tablets are anything but official. The Motorola Xoom however is an "official" tablet, and a wifi only version has been confirmed.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/08/motorola-xoom-wifi-only-version-confirmed-by-motorola-latin-amer/

I bet it will have market too. You can't expect Google to be excited about every crappily adapted tablet. Be thankful that they allowed that crap to be made at all.

Re:Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[hedwards]

The requirements that Google places on devices that are allowed to connect to the market are pretty lenient. Sure some of them are somewhat arbitrary like requiring a camera, but for the most part they're there in order to ensure that the device can use most of the apps in the market.

It's really not valid to point out that Apple lets the iPod Touch, and iPad into the store, Apple owns the store and manufactures and sells those items. They don't need to set standards on those devices because they can make decisions about how those items are produced. Google OTOH only has the market and control over the trademark to influence the way in which Android devices are designed and marketed.

3G support is a reasonable requirement, at this point no smart phone should be without it, sure if you take a Nexus One to T-Mobile from AT&T or vice versa you lose the use of that aspect, the reality is that most people aren't going to be doing that and it's painful at times giving up the 3G.

Re:Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[tepples]

The Motorola Xoom however is an "official" tablet, and a wifi only version has been confirmed.

Like the Samsung Galaxy Player, this has been confirmed only outside the United States market.

Re:Android PDAs have no Market access in U.S.

[teh kurisu]

3G support is a reasonable requirement, at this point no smart phone should be without it

No smartphone should be without 3G, sure, but the point is that Google is missing out on marketshare on a whole class of devices that aren't smartphones.

iPod Touches are cheaper than the equivalent smartphone, and can be obtained without a contract even in markets like the US where it's nigh on impossible to get a SIM-free smartphone. If Android was available on this class of devices then it would open up a whole new market that at the moment is in Apple's hands. Google needs market share to attract developers to Android and bring revenue back, and right now it's given up an entire market on a technicality (while allowing iOS's market share in that sector a free reign). It's utterly idiotic.

As an indie iPhone Developer...

[hsmith]

I have a popular App out there on the iPhone App Store and I have been toying around with porting it to Android. There are several factors into me not getting fully behind the effort yet (mainly there are only 24 hours in a day) - but if Google would in$entivize me to port the App, I'd be all over it. But so far the drive just isn't there.

I'll get around to it, but more on my schedule. I would imagine if they came out with an incentive program to port the popular and well done Apps, many would jump on it. Hell, even a free Nexus S and I'd be over it.

I am not saying Android is any better or worse than the iPhone, just many don't have the time to maintain multiple code bases.

Re:As an indie iPhone Developer...

[aggiejy]

Agree with this. As an iOS developer also, we have a 3rd party port them for us. The result is subpar compared to our very polished iOS apps, but the functionality is there and we get downloads/sales. However, the result is certainly not the same as developing for Android first. I don't think we're alone in this. A quick browse around the Android Market and you can see the gap in quality. Yet, nearly every important app on the AppStore is also on the Market. The experience and polish just seems to lack for the most part. There are exceptions with Google's own apps which are mostly great. (I use my Nexus S nearly JUST for Google Translate and Google Sky Map.) So perhaps that's Google's goal with this... more of their apps. If so, I don't believe that's going to win against a crowd of passionate and talented iOS developers.

I hate to say it

[thetoadwarrior]

The app market is full of shit unlike Apple's app store. It's harder to find the good stuff and it's easy to get burn by crap. It's full of test apps people made from tutorials, dozens of samey things like fart apps and broken rubbish. They need to find a way a way to replicate Apples filtering without resulting in censorship. This shouldn't be hard for the world's search giant.

Apple has got it right more than anyone else and Google still has a lot of learning to do.

Re:I hate to say it

[Daetrin]

I assure you that with hundreds of thousands of apps, Apple has just as many crap apps as Google. In fact they most likely have far _more_ crap apps than Google. The problem is that Apple does a better job of letting you find the good ones and avoid the bad ones. Perhaps that's what you meant, but if so you should have said that you _see_ a lot of shit in Google's App Store, unlike Apple's App Store.

Re:I hate to say it

[thetoadwarrior]

Yes and no. Search indeed is better for the iPhone but last time I had a look through Google's market for, what I believe was the utilities category, I literally had to sift through tons of the same sort of calendar app which I believe came from the same person. They were slight variations like women in bikini calendar, blonde women calendar, black women calendar, etc. The games category was filled with a ton of pointless credits for some game.

If they'd at least find a way to spot very similar apps (especially those by the same developer) and only show one with an option to expand on that for those that may want the repetition that alone would help a lot.

Nom nom nom

[jimmetry]

The thought of multithreading without blocks and GCD... ack, gross.

Red Hat and Canonical too

[tepples]

The point is to make money FROM Google by working there doing the most uncreative job ever:

copying the work of others.

It's what Google did with Android to begin with

I don't see how this differs from the work of developers of the Linux kernel and applications in a GNU/Linux distribution. Do you also call FSF, Red Hat, and Canonical uncreative?

How about the opposite?

[MrEricSir]

There's an XML-based cross compiler that does Android->Objective C
http://www.xmlvm.org/iphone/

No Market for Archos devices

[tepples]

I often find myself wishing that so many Android apps weren't cloud based

Blame Google, which by and large doesn't (officially) let Archos tablets or other devices without 3G data onto its Market. If there were more Wi-Fi-only device owners buying apps, developers would have more of an incentive to make apps that work offline.

Just Like Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Does no one remember the iFund?

http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/

What PC hardware?

[tepples]

http://developer.android.com/index.html is simply phenomenal.

I looked at this site. It lists the software requirements (Eclipse + JDK + some plug-ins) but not the hardware requirements. I have a cousin who tried Android application development, but it took ten minutes to start the device simulator on his laptop. How new and/or how fast do you recommend that a computer be for Android application development?

Re:What PC hardware?

[angus77]

I haven't used their SDK for over a year, but I found that, while the simulator does take an annoying amount of time to start up, once it is started it runs just fine, even on my EeePC. I didn't use Eclipse, though---I used Emacs.

Better searching is more important

[Daetrin]

From what i understand, the Apple App Store does a pretty good job of promoting the good apps and making it easy to find what you're looking for. The Android App Store on the other hand is a total mess. The promotion system is so-so, the categories are rather broad, and the actual search system is very primitive. If you don't know the exact name of the app you're looking for to use as a search term it can be very hit or miss.

So perhaps what Google needs is better organization and searching for the App Store, rather than new and better apps. Perhaps they could hire some kind of company that specializes in search engines to improve their app store for them?

Re:Better searching is more important

[Anonymous Coward]

From what i understand, the Apple App Store does a pretty good job of promoting the good apps and making it easy to find what you're looking for.

IME, the Apple App Store is useful if:

1. You already know the name of the App you are looking for.
2. You are satisfied with the few dozen apps in a given category spoon-fed to you based on what is popular or what is new.

Basically, if you are an undiscerning customer, its smooth sailing. If you are looking for something specific, but not so specific as a distinct, named app, you are hosed. Take games for example. Or "Arcade" games specifically. You can easily find the most popular games categorized as such. But "Arcade" isn't a terribly useful filter, and includes what could be at least a dozen sub-categories (fighting, driving, shooting etc.). If you actually want to find all of the games within a sub-category, good luck.

So yeah -- the Apple App Store does a good job of promoting a relative handful of apps. They brag about the sheer quantity, but the tediousness and missing features of the App Store mean that you are effectively limited to a few dozen.

Re:Better searching is more important

[steelfood]

The promotion system is so-so...and the actual search system is very primitive.

That's rather surprising, considering it's Google. You know there's a big problem when Google's having trouble with ranking and search.

Re:Better searching is more important

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone other than me think its ironic that google - a search company - makes search on the android app store so crappy? It really is crappy.

And yes, there are a lot of really bad apps.

Not to mention all the sleazy ones that come up in the 'new' section - I know a lot of parents with teenage kids who give their kids iphones instead of android devices because of that issue alone.

I wonder how long until 'exclusives' appear...

[Assmasher]

...a la the PS3 and XBox 360 development houses...?

Can I see?

[tepples]

Can I read your specification online, with mock-ups of menu screens and descriptions of functionality?

Re:Can I see?

[Archangel Michael]

Sure. Why not? You willing to split 25% (me) -75% (you) revenue? If you are a real Android of iPhone developer, I'll be happy to show you something. I'll even help you test it.

You are not limited to one market.

[Rennt]

Fortunately, hosted on google code you can find "Market Enabler" which allows you to purchase from any regional market you like.

But I'm curious, what do you mean "no unified payment system"? Google Checkout is a pleasure to use compared to any other online payment method I've had the misfortune of using.

Re:You are not limited to one market.

[EvilIdler]

I don't think BUYING is the problem.

The Android marketplace is supposed to be available for use as a merchant in a selection of countries, including mine. But that needs a Google Checkout account. I just went to sign up for that (again), and it still gives me a choice of "United Kingdom" or "United States". Not sure what's up with that, but it seems like they still don't allow most of the world to sell on their marketplace.

Re:You are not limited to one market.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI, Google Checkout itself is indeed only available in the US and UK. However, you can still create an Android publisher account from many (but far from all) countries to sell apps. You still get a Google Checkout with that as well, even if not from the US/UK.

Keep in mind though, IPN and advanced reports are not available using this "special" Checkout account, so you're going to have a lot of shit doing your taxes :)

Fix core apps before creating more crap!

[mr.andreas]

As disgruntled Android 2.2 user from a Nokia/BlackBerry/etc. background I say fix the core Android apps (calendar, notes, messaging, etc., etc.) as these SUCK big time as even the most basic versions of these are way better on non-smart-phones even! Now that's saying something about how poor they are! Get the basics right then start worrying about more apps. Quality before quantity.

iPhone app development was supported

[rsborg]

Apple never ran out and hired a billion people to write apps - yet they have more.

Sure, it wasn't Apple directly, they were definitely involved: http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/06/kleiner-perkins-anounces-100-millioin-ifund-for-iphone-applications/

That said, I do agree that Google needs to step up to the plate and curate their Market, if only to prevent Amazon from stealing all the thunder with their own appstore.

What did you have before Android?

[hellfire]

Just because you have everything you want, doesn't mean that there won't be some killer app that you never thought of that will come along later. Also it doesn't mean that someone else doesn't want or need apps that don't exist on Android. Sure there is a lot of App store spam for iOS, but there are also tons of gems.

Getting people involved and excited in development is a good thing for developers and consumers. You get more competition with iOS in both perception and reality, and competition within the Android Market. The last thing I want is for Android developers to sit on their laurels and say "oh well App X is the best right now, I don't need to ever make something else." Why? Because it means nothing else will ever be better. Sure you'll get lots of misses, but you'll end up with some great hits too.

Thanks to iOS, Google released Android to compete. Never underestimate the power of true and proper competition.

240,000!? Applications

[tuppe666]

I am a little at a loss depending on what site you read the sources differ vastly http://www.androlib.com/appstats.aspx for example posts 240,000 applications that's over double that mentioned in the article. I would love some real figures as the conclusion for this article just seems bonkers. Even if the figures are true 100,000 vs 350,000 how many programmers can Google hire to release applications to make up the shortfall, development takes time and effort even for a pretty basic application...and these are developers producing applications for Android now that Google does not pay for. The resources needed are insane. Its interesting that the other conclusion is Google is going for quantity over quality. That is not going to work. We are talking applications...there is a numbers game...but people talk about that damn bird game all the time, or google goggles, 250,000 torch/wallpaper/quote is not going sell android..Google could use application developers in a variety of ways, building development support network, code snippets, game engines, quality first party applications maybe for Google TV/Google Pads, advisers for creating RAD development tools

Google Needs to do these things

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Fix the search in Market. I'm tired of looking for something like "Email widget" and getting everything but what I'm looking for.
2. Fix the Categories and limit an app to only 1. I was looking though the Entertainment category then went to Productivity and the same apps were showing up on both categories. Those 2 categories should not be sharing apps. The developer wanted more exposure and made them both categories, which is annoying.
3. Fix the sorting. I should be able to sort by stars, date, or name, but I have to sort through all the crap to find an app I already know the name. AppBrain at least tries to clean this up but it still suffers from being dependent on the Market.
4. Remove Apps. I'm tired of running into an app of someone linking to a webpage, does nothing, or a rip off of another game.
5. Make apps of your own programs. I'm stilling waiting for a native, editable without downloading, Google Docs app. I'm still waiting for a Gmail widget, or a Calendar widget (which is in LauncherPro)

Interesting...

[ewhac]

I was given a Barnes&Noble Nook Color for Christmas, an Android-based ebook reader that is trivially rootable. After having done so and briefly browsed the Android Market, it seems evident that there's not a lot of focused development on the platform.

Knowing nothing about iPhone/iOS, I can't say with any certainty why this might be the case. At a guess, I'd say it might be due to the wildly differing platforms out there -- different display sizes, different connectivity (3G vs. 4G vs. WiFi, vs. USB), different available mass storage, different UI elements (buttons vs. soft keys), etc. etc. etc. Writing software that copes with this vast array of capabilities isn't easy.

Another possibility is the childish restrictions carriers place on their various handsets. If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you have access to the Apple App store. If you're on an Android, you may have access to the Android Market, or you might instead have access to a walled garden jealously guarded by the carrier. And the version of Android you're running might be laughably out of date (*cough*MOTOBLUR*cough*).

I'm also rather suspicious about their insistence on the use of Java. Google has does yeoman work to make their Java-compatible runtime tolerably quick, but you're never going to get performance-oriented apps out of Java, period. That means no new audio or video codecs unless they arrive from on-high, and games will always lag behind their native counterparts.

I installed Eclipse and the Android 2.1 SDK, and got the "Hello, Android!" app to run, but nothing beyond that yet. Maybe I'll play with it some more.

One thing Google could do immediately is figure out why developer.android.com won't display properly on Android-based browsers. You can't scroll down to view the entire page; you can only see one screen's worth. This is the case on both the built-in browser and on the alpha release of Firefox.

Schwab

Android needs missing functionality

[Anonymous Coward]

My former employer provided me with an iPhone, and I was forced to buy apps right off the bat because they supplied basic functionality that is missing from the iPhone. I had to spend a couple of dollars to buy a speed-dial app because there wasn't one included! On a phone. I can buy a $10 land-line phone from RadioShack that includes speed-dial. But a $400 iPhone? No, that's extra.

So I was forced to buy an app, which made it easier for me to buy the next one, and so on. So I think that speed-dial was intentionally left out so that (1) users would be introduced to buying apps, and (2) developers would be enticed into making apps for which there is an obvious need.

Now, if I bought the iPhone myself, I would have returned it as broken.

App Stores vs Corporate Sales

[njhunter]

Who cares if individual users buy apps from the Apple store (small change and best of luck to Steve). The bigger prize here are the corporations who are only now being weened off of Blackberrys (even if QNX will run the Google apps).

Make an Android for me

[gsgriffin]

I would love to see Google wield its power to develop an Android phone sold through Verizon that DOES NOT require an internet package. Just one. I don't care how fancy it is. It sucks that to buy a smart phone I have to pay another $600/year or get robbed on their cheaper packages. Make one phone that allows me to have apps to take with me and I can get rid of my Win 5 xv6700 that is one of only two 'smart' phones Verizon will let you activate without a data package. Most apps I want don't require the internet.

Maybe spelling?

[angus77]

When I did a search for "angry birds" in the Marketplace, Angry Birds was the first result. Are you sure the game had been released yet when you searched for it?

Re:Maybe spelling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big fingers. He typed 'amgty burfa'.

Forget quantity

[kuzb]

99% of mobile apps are garbage regardless of platform. Quality should be the main focus, not quantity.

Apps are not the problem, Market is

[shutdown -p now]

As a new iPhone 4 user coming from Nexus One, I can say that I didn't really notice anything significant missing. About the only iOS app that I didn't have on Android is Skype - or, rather, it was there, but it was slow and it required WiFi (because of an exclusive agreement they have with Verizon; Verizon version of the same app works on 3G, but, so far as I know, bills you with Verizon rates).

What was an issue on Android was the ability to actually find the apps you want. Unless you search for an exact app name, you'll get lots of repeated spam entries, and occasionally even outright malware (obvious from permissions it requests) in search results. It seemed to be getting worse, too - I was getting far more meaningful results in March last year than I was in December of that same year.

Further aggravating the issue was that Market app itself is very inconvenient, slow, and outright buggy (until the recent major update, it actually regularly crashed, or hanged requiring force close). So was app update functionality, which I think is handled by the same code. Even worse, there is no way to browse apps outside the device, like you can do with iOS apps using iTunes - so you're forced to use the buggy app.

So I think that Google would do better to: 1) fix Market app (it's still slow after the rewrite!), and 2) start reviewing app submissions to the Market. They could still make it all much less invasive than Apple does, by restricting only malware and clear spamming. Furthermore, Android users would still be free to use third-party app stores, or install APKs directly. But the primary app market for the system should be safe to use.

Keep the Devices Fresh

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Google would like to get after manufacturers like Samsung, who keep delaying Android releases? Of the "few" apps available now, an unpleasant number are telling me my three-week-old device is "too old" to run on.

Quality

[LoudMusic]

I hope they focus more on quality than quantity. There's no need to duplicate the 379 flashlight apps that are available on iOS.

(I made up that number, but last I looked there were over 100.)

I already have a phone

[tepples]

It's really not valid to point out that Apple lets the iPod Touch, and iPad into the store, Apple owns the store and manufactures and sells those items

Then why isn't there a Nexus PDA in addition to the Nexus phones?

3G support is a reasonable requirement, at this point no smart phone should be without it

I already have a perfectly good phone and don't want another. I'm happy with Wi-Fi on a handheld computer/PDA. Should people like this have to buy an unlocked phone at retail price and just never put a SIM in it?

Re:I already have a phone

[hedwards]

Why should there be a Nexus PDA? At this point there's very little difference between my Nexus One and my PDA of a few years ago. Except that my phone has better specs and is generally more functional.

As for the 3G requirement, if you're looking for a PDA then you shouldn't be wasting your money on a smartphone, there are other devices which are designed for such use. It's really a silly way of looking at things.

But, then again, I get modded down and you get modded up twice for missing the point.

Re:I already have a phone

[tepples]

Why should there be a Nexus PDA?

Why should there be an iPhone PDA? Yet Apple does it, and iPod touch sells.

At this point there's very little difference between my Nexus One and my PDA of a few years ago. Except that my phone has better specs and is generally more functional.

And probably comes with its own $70/mo or bigger phone bill.

if you're looking for a PDA then you shouldn't be wasting your money on a smartphone, there are other devices which are designed for such use.

I just did a Google search for PDA, and the result I got (listing of top smartphone brands and one carrier) is as if Google were saying "Did you mean smartphone ?". The only PDA brands I could find were Archos 43 (Android 2.2), HP iPAQ (Windows Mobile), and some Palm OS devices. Do they even still make apps for Windows Mobile Classic and Palm OS? What device that you recommend am I missing?

"Play Zelda ... only on Nintendo!" effect

[Anonymous Coward]

These new app developers that they are hiring are probably going to work on some of the Google specific apps that needs (lots of) work [...] to bring their own apps up to speed.

It's about giving Android a certain new "flavor" by making exclusive apps that attract people in spite of the vendor fragmentation: google finally noticed the need to increase the appeal to their platform like (Zelda/Mario/the Wii Fit)'s exclusivity generate sales of the Nintendo hardware.

Just improve the phone first

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need more apps. Just fix some basic missing features like Cisco IPsec VPN without rooting and the ability to sync your contacts WITH their respective groups still attached from your address book. iPhone 2 - Android 0

AirPlay? Try DLNA

[Namarrgon]

Air Play is an Apple-specific protocol. The DLNA spec (based on UPnP AV) does all that and much more. It's also supported by around 8000 devices including Xbox, PS3 and many TVs, all major platforms, and a huge list of software.

I happen to like iMediaShare (free, Android and iPhone). With it, I can stream videos from my server to my phone, music from my phone to my amplifier, photos from Picasa to my friend's TV, or just use my phone as a remote controller for various devices and apps.

I can't imagine going back to a single-vendor protocol that only works on a couple of devices.

Re:AirPlay? Try DLNA

[Tharsman]

Air Play is an Apple-specific protocol. The DLNA spec (based on UPnP AV) does all that and much more. It's also supported by around 8000 devices including Xbox, PS3 and many TVs, all major platforms, and a huge list of software.

Sorry but the two things look like entirely different beasts.

Looking at this video demo of DLNA, it seems it just shares the video that is stored within the phone to the TV, basically turns your device into a media server the client can browse through.

Air Play is not exactly that way, instead it streams the video with the Apple TV acting more like a TV antenna than a media center. You can compare looking at this video.

The two look very different in nature.

From what I read, despite being apple designed, it seems it's rather open, or at least open enough for others to do their own implementations without Apple suing the hell out of them. I got this from the wikipedia:

Several third-party AirPlay clients are available that allow sources other than iTunes to connect to AirPlay-enabled speakers. The list of such clients includes Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil for Mac OS X and Windows, axStream (formerly oAEP) for Windows, JustePort for Windows, and raop_play for Linux. PulseAudio (the sound system now used by default on the majority of desktop Linux distributions), also has support allowing virtually any Linux audio application to use AirPlay devices.

This may also mean some one may be able to make their own implantation for Android devices, but unless whoever makes it does it open source, it would require everyone to reinvent the wheel while iOS developers just call an API.

Re:AirPlay? Try DLNA

[Namarrgon]

Media serving (as the phone in your video is doing) is only one of DLNA's abilities (albeit the most common). UPnP AV allows separate Server, Renderer and Control components, and a Server can push to a remote Renderer just as easily (iMediaShare and others do this, as I said above). Or a Controller can instruct a remote Renderer to stream from a different remote Server, or any other combination.

Another example of DLNA pushing is Microsoft's "Play To" in Windows. I use this to push music from my laptop to my Yamaha amplifier, though it also works to my phone, my Xbox, XBMC, other PCs etc - much the same as your Apple TV, except it's built in to my amp (I can also tell my amp to pull from a PC etc; it works both ways). Other Android apps I'm aware of that do this are UPnPlay and Andromote.

Windows has a UPnP Framework component of its own, of course, but there are various other opensource cross-platform libraries for apps to use. Hardware and software support is far wider than AirPlay.

I want an iOS Android comparison

[wesleyjconnor]

Based on useful apps compared to numbers of apps.

Im running 2.2 on my galaxy s stock and its got every app i could possibly want.

Is this 'gap' just the bullshit guff that the App store is chock full of?

If you don't make crApps

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Angry Birds Turds the free edition that takes control of your phone and shows a full screen add you can't exit out of without pulling the battery.

Priority one should be...

[kaizendojo]

...fixing the HORRENDOUS bluetooth voice dialing. Honestly, it's amazing to me that since moving to Android I haven't been able to place a single voice dial call, yet I barely have to make a correction when using voice recognition to enter text. There's a few thousand 'me toos' on the official bug list at the Android dev forums regarding this so I don't think it's just me. It mars an otherwise wonderful experience moving from WM6.5 - but I rarely got a bum voice dial on my old Omnia using the same headset, even in noisy environments.

With current laws, this isn't just a convenience issue; it's a compliance issue. With an average 1.5 - 1.75 hour commute each way, this has become a dangerous annoyance for me and many others.

If any droid gurus out there know something I don't, please let me in on the secret. I've looked everywhere and the best advice I found is that it is marginally better with a BlueAnt Q1 or Q2. I'd even go that route if I knew for sure it would help.