Journey in Android Development, Android Market - the good, the bad

by snowstorm • 17 years ago

29 19 17 years ago

jsz0• 17 years ago

This fragmentation problem is starting to get pretty ugly. I have an HTC Hero which, IIRC, went on sale via Sprint in October 2009 and I cannot run Google Nav or Google Goggles, or use Bluetooth tethering via PDANet because I'm stuck with 1.5 My 3 year old iPhone 2G runs almost everything in the App Store while my <3 month old Android handset cannot even run Google's newest official applications anymore? This feels like a rerun of the Windows Mobile situation to me.

DenisM3• 17 years ago

It's amazing that Google is heading down this treacherous path, I would expect them to learn from Microsoft's mistake and Apple's success.

netcan4• 17 years ago

How would you avoid it, sell their own line of phones?

I think the value of Android is that it might produce an iphone quality phone at a (real) $200 price at some point by allowing cheap hardware experts to go to work on making hardware cheap.

netcan4• 17 years ago

The saving grace is that installable apps are still somewhat marginal to phones. IE, you could have a decent product out of the box.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

because I'm stuck with 1.5

Well, yeah. The problem is not Android, the problem is that HTC is not keeping their Sense devices up to date. They apparently think that their proprietary theme is worth more than being able to use up-to-date apps. As a result, HTC should not call the Hero "Android", but they do. Caveat emptor.

I am sure that if you find an original iPhone and don't update the software that you won't be able to use modern App Store apps. This is the same scenario.

snowstorm• 17 years ago

HTC doesn't even release a SENSE UI emulator. Neither does Motorola Motoblur.

It's just not reasonable to expect developers to have access to all real devices.

All the device manufactures need to stop customizing Android UI unless they are willing to release a emulator.

netcan4• 17 years ago

It's a pity Windows Mobile isn't better.

nicpottier2• 17 years ago

They also forgot the part where no-one is making any money on it. I know two of the top developers personally, and we ourselves have a pretty successful app in there. But there is nowhere near enough sales to make a living, even for the top selling apps.

It's unclear why the Android market is so much worse in this respect, I suppose having 50x less users is part of it, but I suspect there is something about the Android user which makes them less likely to buy. Downloading and installing cracked versions of the apps (and they are all cracked) is also dead simple.

In summary, great platform for users, terrible, terrible platform to make money on.

djb_hackernews• 17 years ago

But there are other ways to monetize, right? Have you tried anything else?

I think it's also a testament to how easy it is to develop on. Admittedly I've only developed one trivial app for the emulator, but I jumped on the bandwagon way early, and it's only gotten easier. It's a tight little platform and anyone with an idea, an email address, and a couple hundred bucks to send to the Philippines will come out with a useable marketable app.

waterlesscloud• 17 years ago

Order of magnitude, what's a top app make in a month?

nicpottier2• 17 years ago

Thousands.

sukuriant• 17 years ago

Perhaps it could be thought of as the Open Source phone, then. Developers in the OSS community may well prefer to develop for it, because getting your app listed in the market is much, much easier than getting it added to Apple. Also, out of the box, it's vastly more customizable than the iPhone. These two features, to me, make it a definite phone to buy and develop for. When I fully understand how the camera works, I'm intending to develop an app to enhance its functionality :) I wouldn't be doing that for the iPhone!

Journey in Android Development, Android Market - the good, the bad

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