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

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?

[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.

filter crap

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

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!

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: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