Google's Schmidt: Android leads the iPhone

[[)roi(]]

The executive chairman says Android phones outship the iPhone, are cheaper, and now have a better operating system. So why do developers support iOS first?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57338276-264/googles-schmidt-android-leads-the-iphone/

 

[BeVonk!]

Because with Apple's app store and its closed environment your apps will sell and you will get your money. For Android one can get apps anywhere without paying for them (torrents for example). Android is a pirates dream come true.

 

[[)roi(]]

Because with Apple's app store and its closed environment your apps will sell and you will get your money. For Android one can get apps anywhere without paying for them (torrents for example). Android is a pirates dream come true.

Not sure the answer is that easy... Although it possibly carries some merit -- I think the underlying issues are a little wider.

 

[mercurial]

Because with Apple's app store and its closed environment your apps will sell and you will get your money. For Android one can get apps anywhere without paying for them (torrents for example). Android is a pirates dream come true.

You can get iPhone apps for free as well.

 

[[)roi(]]

You can get iPhone apps for free as well.

Explain what you mean by this? You also get Android apps free, so what?

 

[mercurial]

Explain what you mean by this? You also get Android apps free, so what?

I meant pirating. So the argument about only pirating Android apps is void.

 

[[)roi(]]

I meant pirating. So the argument about only pirating Android apps is void.

In that regard you are part correct; especially with Cydia apps like installous.

However where I do disagree is that Apple's attempts to continuously circumvent the JB community is more publicized and successful in comparison to the rooting of an Android device.

Now don't get me wrong I really don't believe this is only reason -- I think it's more complex than that.

 

[ebendl]

Explain what you mean by this? You also get Android apps free, so what?

I'm thinking he means you can pirate iPhone apps as well. Except that you have to jailbreak and that freaks out most people.

 

[[)roi(]]

I'm thinking he means you can pirate iPhone apps as well. Except that you have to jailbreak and that freaks out most people.

Got that from his response.

 

[BeVonk!]

Very few Apple owners jailbreak their devices and almost all are happy to pay a few $ for the apps. The exclusive one-stop-shop app store is threfore a very effective and lucrative sales platform.

With Android is is different. You are not restricted to one store and a much larger % of users will root their devices (not that this is even necessary to take advantage of pirated apps). With Android there is also a much larger emphasis on advertising income ... ie free apps with ads. Many developers are not as keen on this as on selling the app outright. Android users tend to expect more stuff for free and will easily jump onto torrents etc to get what they want. Apple users in general, as I said, are used to and happy to pay ... what developers need.

My experience. I know there are wider issues too, but this one stands out for me.

 

[CranialBlaze]

Very few Apple owners jailbreak their devices and almost all are happy to pay a few $ for the apps. The exclusive one-stop-shop app store is threfore a very effective and lucrative sales platform.

With Android is is different. You are not restricted to one store and a much larger % of users will root their devices (not that this is even necessary to take advantage of pirated apps). With Android there is also a much larger emphasis on advertising income ... ie free apps with ads. Many developers are not as keen on this as on selling the app outright. Android users tend to expect more stuff for free and will easily jump onto torrents etc to get what they want. Apple users in general, as I said, are used to and happy to pay ... what developers need.

My experience. I know there are wider issues too, but this one stands out for me.

That answer itself makes apple a poor choice, the single market leads to a lot of restrictions, the reason you can buy from alternate sources is googles freedom to allow developers to sell in countries they are not allowed too, when i had an iphone i cam across a number of apps i wan not allowed to buy simply because of the country i lived int.

Yes you can get many android apps on torrent sites, but those that are smart enough to do so are also the ones smart enough to know its a bad idea, the chances of malicious code being inserted into an illegal copy are far greater than in the market, yes the markets not 100%, but google does take reported apps seriously, i downloaded one such app and reported it, chances are i was not alone and that very day that it was uploaded it and all the developers other apps were removed.

I have come across 2 apps that i really wanted on AM that i was not able to buy directly and in both cases the developer had the option for users to pay with GC or PP directly on the site.

iPones are a fanboys toy, apps developed for it are buy developers unwilling to realize that there is an actual world outside a mac, they are unable to accept the fact that the world they live in is nothing but a computer generated image designed to run them into batteries. Modt iPhone developers will never develop for anything that's not mac related, its too scary to look up and see the world passing them by.

 

[[)roi(]]

Very few Apple owners jailbreak their devices and almost all are happy to pay a few $ for the apps. The exclusive one-stop-shop app store is threfore a very effective and lucrative sales platform.
...
My experience. I know there are wider issues too, but this one stands out for me.

On many points you've hit the nail on the head, refer for example:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/163495/developers-favor-apple-ios-over-android.html
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/developers-frustrated-by-android-market-payment-issues/
http://www.firstpost.com/tech/andro...but-still-doesnt-match-on-revenue-150222.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/08/google-closes-android-develope.php

 

[[)roi(]]

iPones are a fanboys toy, apps developed for it are buy developers unwilling to realize that there is an actual world outside a mac, they are unable to accept the fact that the world they live in is nothing but a computer generated image designed to run them into batteries. Modt iPhone developers will never develop for anything that's not mac related, its too scary to look up and see the world passing them by.

I was interested in your POV until you reverted to name calling.

Clearly your opinion is nothing more than the rhetoric of an ill informed fanboy.

Fyi most iOS developers come from other platforms, I.e. prior to the IPhone and iPad the apple developer circles were quite small.

As example I code in no less than 12 current languages, and this is also the case for many other multi platform developers (+ currently also cover IOS, Android and Windows Mobile 7).

From a developer's perspective Apple and Microsoft treatment of their developers is superior to Android I.e. everything from the SDK to developer tools to support is generally superb. Google on the other hand has some of the worst dev tools IMO and the support for its developers is less than ideal.
Let alone how badly the revenue model works in its marketplace.

 

[CranialBlaze]

I was interested in your POV until you reverted to name calling.

Clearly your opinion is nothing more than the rhetoric of an ill informed fanboy.

Fyi most iOS developers come from other platforms, I.e. prior to the IPhone and iPad the apple developer circles were quite small.

As example I code in no less than 12 current languages, and this is also the case for many other multi platform developers (+ currently also cover IOS, Android and Windows Mobile 7).

From a developer's perspective Apple and Microsoft treatment of their developers is superior to Android I.e. everything from the SDK to developer tools to support is generally superb. Google on the other hand has some of the worst dev tools IMO and the support for its developers is less than ideal.
Let alone how badly the revenue model works in its marketplace.

Not a fan boy, but i am a fan, and with reason, i have owned every platform out there, i'm on my 27th phone in 9 years. I have dealt with many developers, iphone included and your the first i have met with an open attitude towards the other platforms, all the previous literally act the way i described, fine probably not a completely fair generalization, does not make it any less true.

The othe problem being fine as you say mac has better tools, but i am yet to find one that works on anything other than a mac, which in this country at least is an extremely expensive piece of equipment. In my company we deal with app developers and the ones who develop for iphone firstly refuse to even attempt development for the other platforms, they literally don't care and then they charge ridiculous prices, they charged on of our clients 20k GBP for an app that all it does is display pdf copies of their flash ebooks, the only special feature about this is that the clients need to log in.

Not sure how much you would charge for that, but 20 grand in most currencies is ridiculous for something that simple, even if i cant make it myself, not sure why they never just stuck a login box on their website though. The android version ended somewhere between 1000 and 2000 GBP, cant remember the exact amount, it actually looked and worked better too. I had to test teh droid version while my boss tested the iphone version, he then went and bought an android.

 

[TJ99]

I was interested in your POV until you reverted to name calling.

Clearly your opinion is nothing more than the rhetoric of an ill informed fanboy.

Fyi most iOS developers come from other platforms, I.e. prior to the IPhone and iPad the apple developer circles were quite small.

As example I code in no less than 12 current languages, and this is also the case for many other multi platform developers (+ currently also cover IOS, Android and Windows Mobile 7).

From a developer's perspective Apple and Microsoft treatment of their developers is superior to Android I.e. everything from the SDK to developer tools to support is generally superb. Google on the other hand has some of the worst dev tools IMO and the support for its developers is less than ideal.
Let alone how badly the revenue model works in its marketplace.

That's just it, if you don't like Google's revenue model, you can sell your apps yourself, no-one is forcing you to use the Market. It's been working well for Rock Player for example. Then ask the VLC dev team about the "superior treatment" they received from Apple. Or really any developer making any competitor to Apple software.

Also I read through the thread and yet somehow missed the "name-calling" bit....

 

[CranialBlaze]

Something i also forgot to mention earlier is that a number of apps found on "pirate" sites are actually legally free versions. Sites like amazon and getjar are given permission to distribute premium apps for free, in amazons case the daily free app is not available in all countries because amazon simply has to comply with the laws of that country, countries like south africa.

People in allowed countries take those apps, download them and publish them online, upgrades from that specific version may not be free, but for many of them that exact version is legally free to own and use. I have not looked so i will not know, but to the best of my knowledge no sites are doing that with iphone apps, amazon sure is not. Your welcome to correct me if i am wrong.

 

[[)roi(]]

Not a fan boy, but i am a fan, and with reason, i have owned every platform out there, ... but i am yet to find one that works on anything other than a mac, which in this country at least is an extremely expensive piece of equipment.... Not sure how much you would charge for that, but 20 grand in most currencies is ridiculous for something that simple, even if i cant make it myself, not sure why they never just stuck a login box on their website though.

Nothing wrong with liking a particular platform, but it's best to stay on topic re the fanboy quote.

It's difficult to comment on the cost of the Apps without a spec -- the fact that the app was simple to operate doesn't always mean it a basic app to code; sometimes the best apps are simple in operation, but under the covers there is a lot of coding magic to deliver that simplicity.

Lol for me the Mac happens to be my preferred desktop platform from which I boot up all the VMs I need (e.g. Win XP, Win 7, Win Server 2008, Ubuntu, Fedora, ...) -- why if you must know, I like the Apple build quality and battery life and it's foundation of BSD Unix is very solid in comparison to Windows, and it's not as limited for app choices as Linux.

 

[[)roi(]]

That's just it, if you don't like Google's revenue model, you can sell your apps yourself, no-one is forcing you to use the Market. It's been working well for Rock Player for example. Then ask the VLC dev team about the "superior treatment" they received from Apple. Or really any developer making any competitor to Apple software.

Also I read through the thread and yet somehow missed the "name-calling" bit....

The problem with this approach is that the developer has to pick up all the cost for this independence, let alone talking about the difficulty and costs associated with marketing. For most developers this can be cost restrictive, hence most choose the app stores.

VLC as I understood it chose to remove their app from the store as they believed it violated their licensing terms. Not sure what you mean by "superior treatment" in regards to them. Bwana might be able to add something more to the VLC bit,

 

[[)roi(]]

Something i also forgot to mention earlier is that a number of apps found on "pirate" sites are actually legally free versions. Sites like amazon and getjar are given permission to distribute premium apps for free, in amazons case the daily free app is not available in all countries because amazon simply has to comply with the laws of that country, countries like south africa.

People in allowed countries take those apps, download them and publish them online, upgrades from that specific version may not be free, but for many of them that exact version is legally free to own and use. I have not looked so i will not know, but to the best of my knowledge no sites are doing that with iphone apps, amazon sure is not. Your welcome to correct me if i am wrong.

I'll take your word for it. The problem for me is the lack of good tools from Google, and that the documentation is not as good as Microsoft and Apple.

The other part which is also quite restrictive for a developer is the number of test devices and versions you have to keep to validate that your app works, with Apple and Microsoft's hardware dictating models is easier and less expensive in that sense.

Google SDK needs work as much of the finessing of the apps is left up to the developer, whereas the Apple and Microsoft SDK help a lot to ensure a consistent experience.

In terms of languages, Google and Microsoft's languages are definitely far easier to code in for existing Java, Ruby, C# developers. Apple's objective-c is a bit of a pain to learn, but once you over that hurdle its pretty much the same across the board.

 

[CranialBlaze]

I'll take your word for it. The problem for me is the lack of good tools from Google, and that the documentation is not as good as Microsoft and Apple.

The other part which is also quite restrictive for a developer is the number of test devices and versions you have to keep to validate that your app works, with Apple and Microsoft's hardware dictating models is easier and less expensive in that sense.

Google SDK needs work as much of the finessing of the apps is left up to the developer, whereas the Apple and Microsoft SDK help a lot to ensure a consistent experience.

In terms of languages, Google and Microsoft's languages are definitely far easier to code in for existing Java, Ruby, C# developers. Apple's objective-c is a bit of a pain to learn, but once you over that hurdle its pretty much the same across the board.

I can fully undestrand from a testing standpoint, and that's why with the release of ICS google will be taking a more active and restrictive role from a hardware standpoint, setting minimum requirements for any and all new handsets released with ICS in part to ensure a minimum software upgrade of 3 major releases, no device with insufficient hardware to meet googles requirements will be allowed to use the Android OS. I can only assume this will benefit developers.

Also after discussing ICS with a developer on this forums it's my understanding that the new developer tools and documentation has greatly been improved upon as well as a major simplification and clean up regarding the code, that too should make development faster and easy and hopefully more flexible.

I have personally tried using a recent SDK for simply testing a website in a true mobile view without having to use m phone, was a complete nightmare to even find instructions. Fortunately it was a website and eventually found Opera Mobile Emulator which works nicely.