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Android App Quality Pathetically Low Says Developer
Hugh Pickens writes "Christopher Mims writes at MIT Technology Review that Mika Mobile, developer of Battleheart, a big hit on both the iOS and Android platforms, says that 'a polished, high quality product is more likely to be embraced on Android than on iOS because the quality bar on the android market is so pathetically low.' Evidence to that effect comes from the fact that 'on iOS, user reviews for Battleheart average 4.5 stars (4000 total ratings), which is quite good. On Android it's a stunning 4.8, with 1000 ratings,' writes the developer. 'So not only is it reviewed more highly, it's also reviewed more often, with a huge percentage of android users taking the time to rate the app. I think the lack of competition makes quality apps really stand out, and generates a lot of enthusiasm from app-starved android users." Mika Mobile adds that the most frustrating part about developing for Android is dealing with the deluge of support e-mail, most of which is related to download and installation problems which have nothing to do with the app itself, and everything to do with the Android OS and market having innate technical problems. 'Do some googling for "can't download apps from android market" or similar wording, and you'll see that this is a widespread chronic issue for all devices and all OS versions,' writes the developer. 'Based on the amount of e-mails I get every day, download problems effect 1-2% of all buyers, or in more practical terms, somewhere between two and three s**t-loads.'"
In other news:
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Android App Quality Pathetically Low SaysDeveloper
Title Quality Pathetically Low, Says Commenter.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My impression was iPhone users are more likely to pay (if only $1 or $2) for apps, whereas android users are less so - is there any truth to that? People making more money developing their apps surely work harder on them.
It does not seem to be rated that much more highly, and it is certainly not reviewed more often.
So from "quite good" to "stunning" is a 0.3 rating on a 1 to 5 scale? That's quite a non-linear scale.
Before this i had never heard of 'Battleheart'. /. advertising at it's best.
I hate (really HATE) branding myself. I hate folks who say I am a "Liberal" or a "Conservative" ... an "Apple" guy or a "Microsoft" guy ... or a "Ford" or a "Chevy" dude.
I take a stance on a case-by-case basis. I own a Samsung Galaxy S phone and love it. Most of my apps are utilities I use to make life easier (i.e. I am not one who aspires to play games on a tiny-screen footprint device). I really dig the phone (except for the crappy AT&T service).
About two months ago .. I purchased my FIRST-EVER Apple product - An IPAD 2. About one month ago, I bought a Asus Transformer Tablet - which I promptly returned.
The problem is not the device itself - its the lack of apps. APPS is the main driver. Don't own a boat if you don't live close to the water. To make full use of that boat ... you need water ! Not a small pond ... but a lake so you can enjoy your purchase.
That's the problem with the Android Tablet world - not enough quality apps.
Don't take my word for it - do a Google News search for "New Ipad App" and filter it to show the last one week. Just see the amazing number of apps. Yes, not all of them are great ... but its testament to the fact that software companies realize where the highest ROI is.
I would never own an Android tablet until they standardize the hardware platform to ensure that apps work consistently. I agree with the article.
when my iPhone friends play with my phone they are pretty much always impressed.
When your iPhone friends play with a block of wood, they're pretty much always impressed too. Don't give that too much weight.
It is, though, if you look at the distribution. For most decent apps, people pick between 4 stars or 5 stars. A technically functional, resonably thought out app isn't going to get 1 or 2 stars. Occasionally you'll get a 3, but mostly 4 or 5s. Based on this, about half of iPhone users rate it a 5. But 80% of Android users do. The 4.8 gets even more impressive when you throw back in the 1,2,and 3 ratings.
How do we know that Apple users aren't having similar issues but are asking in apple forums how to install stuff or at the genius bar, and those comments aren't deleted from the apple forums ?
Or is this the new math?
Seriously, I'm not sure what the point of this article is. He dismisses higher ratings and then compains of technical issues. Err, okay.
From what I can tell, there's a real fear of the breaking of the Apple monopoly right now. Froyo and Gingerbread and Honeycomb are really on par with Apple's usually excellent mobile quality. Android phones are now moving into dual cores and with Gingerbread can do hardware acceleration. I think we're looking at a lot of people who have invested themselves into iOS and are now complaining that their customers are moving to Android. Now these developers have to learn a new mobile ecosystem and deal with its issues.
Christ, imagine if these people were as whiny about Windows as they are about Android. "OMG, one of my customers is using a slow Pentium 4!" Grow up, whiny devs. Either you move with the market or you fall behind. Someone else will make the next fart simulator or tip calculator. You're not some genius the world needs, you're 100% replaceable. If you can't code for my phone that fine because your competitors can.
The article says he gets 80% of the revenue on Android that he gets on iTunes. On the assumption that the app is the same price on both platforms, and on the assumption that Google takes the same cut (30%) that Apple takes, he sells more iPhone copies than Android copies but nowhere near by a factor of four.
If Google takes a lesser cut he is probably selling more copies on Google.
However, I have just checked the game on iTunes and I see it currently has only 597 ratings for all versions of the game (453 for the current version). So I would think the blog post from which the 4,000 figure comes from has a typo in it.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I purchased a Motorola Xoom (my first Android device) about a month after it came out... Wow was I ever disappointed. It would crash several times an hour just browsing the web (especially on Motorola's own Xoom website), but I chalked that up to "being an early adopter". Then I started downloading apps from the Android market and things got even worse, if the app even loaded without crashing, I felt like I was teleported back to the late 90's from a design / look & feel standpoint. Other than the rare exceptions ( Angry Birds ) every app I downloaded didn't even compare to a similar app on Apple's App Store, it felt like companies/developers were publishing an app for Android just to say they did it, without the intention of it actually being used. Many apps that did have an iOS counterpart (*cough* thinkorswim *cough*) hadn't been updated in almost a year and were pathetic at best.
Needless to say after two weeks of torture I took it back and purchased an iPad2, I've been quite happy with it.
Hopefully in a few years it will be a different story, I would much prefer if Apple had some decent competition.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
When you lower the barriers of entry sufficiently, you reap the rewards. All of the rewards. Not really news.
when my iPhone friends play with my phone they are pretty much always impressed.
When your iPhone friends play with a block of wood, they're pretty much always impressed too. Don't give that too much weight.
Only if it has an Apple logo on it. Otherwise the fanbois will say that Apple could make superior wood blocks.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
When your iPhone friends play with a block of wood, they're pretty much always impressed too. Don't give that too much weight.
What rolls down stairs
alone or in pairs,
and over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack,
And fits on your back?
It's log, log, log
It's log, it's log,
It's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good."
Everyone wants a log
You're gonna love it, log
Come on and get your log
Everyone needs a log
log log log
*whistle*
LOG FROM BLAMMO
Since I've been a denizen of the Linux/BSD world for over 15 years, I find it goes against the grain to pay for software - not because I am a cheapskate, but because I prefer the Free model.
One place where the free software model has tended to fall down over the past couple decades is video games that aren't of the single-screen-puzzle type. Even if a video game's program is released as free software, the 3D artists, level designers, etc. still need to eat, and single-player video games don't offer as much of an opportunity to sell support as business applications. What's the best way to involve artists in the production of free video games?
How is 4.8 vs 4.5 all that much of a difference? If android had just as many reviews, it could easily drop that .3 stars and be just as equally rated as the iphone version.
When apps on Android ARE truly lower quality than their iphone counterparts, it's usually because the developers saw android as a lower priority and only put a half-effort into developing the app. When i see this it seriously annoys the heck out of me. Tap Tap Revenge is a prime example of a pretty solid app on iOS that is a total piece of crap on Android, directly through the fault of the developer.
Also, the news item can't make up its mind what it's about. Are the apps low quality or is the android platform?
You're missing the point - 4.8 and 4.5 are both great scores, and this guy's just managed to tell thousands of people about it online. The story is incidental to the outrageous self promotion.
No. It's "blame apple fanboys for FUD and rhetoric".
I enjoy the fact that I dumped Apple every time I need to manage media or clean out my SMS messages.
I am less interested in the store, or how much money Google is making, or how much money app developers are making.
I am more interested in the actual phone.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Go on the Android Market and check out any widget. Invariably you will see comments along the lines "I installed the widget, but now I can't open it. It sucks."
People can't even be bothered to understand that widgets and apps are different. You open apps but you add widgets to your screen. Is it intuitive? Probably not. But that doesn't change the fact that some people are unwilling or unable to understand anything about the devices they use.
I've been using an Android phone (LG Thrive on AT&T prepay) for three months now, after having used an iOS device (iTouch) for a couple years along with a "dumb" phone. I mainly did this to consolidate devices - I got tired of carrying a phone and an iPod around. My conclusion thus far is: Android is a mixed bag.
Several of the apps Google itself offers are awesome (I love the beta Voice Navigation app! But, notably, the stock music player sucks). The mainstream commercial apps (read: "Angry Birds") are, as you'd expect, on par with their iOS counterparts. However the bulk of the apps do feel somewhat klunky and unpolished compared to similar apps available for Apple devices. Often they don't look as good, and expected features are not there - Google searches on the product will return a lot of "you've said that feature was coming for over two years now!" sorts of posts.
There are niggling issues in terms of integration with one's desktop environment, for those apps where that's relevant; but I don't think that's the developers' fault - I suspect Google doesn't do anything to make that easy because they want you to live in their ecosystem 100% of the time.
That said -
#DeleteChrome
when my iPhone friends play with my phone they are pretty much always impressed.
When your iPhone friends play with a block of wood, they're pretty much always impressed too. Don't give that too much weight.
Only if it has an Apple logo on it. Otherwise the fanbois will say that Apple could make superior wood blocks.
The people I know with iPhones tend to be more technologically challenged than those in my circle with Android phones, IMHO. While it may not be a statistically significant sample, the fact that someone went to the trouble of making this animation leads me to believe I might not be the only one who thinks so.
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
Rethinking Apps for the iPad By Christopher Mims
App Developers Sticking to iPhone By Christopher Mims
can the Creators of the iPhone Make Home Energy Management Sexy? Christopher Mims
No bias towards Apple there. Nope, none at all.
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I am more interested in the actual phone.
Really? Then why did you buy a device where the phone is a secondary function? Seems like it would have made sense to by a device where the phone was the primary function.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It does not seem to be rated that much more highly, and it is certainly not reviewed more often.
From reading the developer's blog post, it's clear he's sold a lot more on iOS than Android. It's not clear from the linked article, but he's saying that Android users are more likely to give a rating for a purchased application. The 1000 Android ratings represent a larger proportion of sales he's had on Android, than the 4000 iOS reviews measured against the total sales he's made on that platform.
I've never met a droid user who bought it because they wanted it
Hi, a Samsung Galaxy S2 (and previously Nexus One) owner here, pleased to meet you. I paid more for both of these phones - for starters, because I couldn't buy them on contract, and also because I had SGS2 shipped from Europe since it's not out in US. I knowingly did so because I wanted specific features only available in an Android phone.
Oh yes, in between Nexus and SGS2, I had an iPhone for a few months. It's good overall, and excellent in some aspects (most notably, battery life), but it doesn't match up to high-level Android phones.