iPhone snobbery in Corporate world

srsly78

You must be kidding right? Android tools are great. Java is a more mainstream language than obj-c.

The apple tools will only run on the mac The android tools are all free and run on any platform.

Your complaints about the market are out of date too, they have improved it a lot. Deployment problems are usually because of the developer not setting permissions right, or setting phone hardware requirements.

(yeah you can run apple tools on a pc, but that's just annoying and not supported)

Waiting for your personal experience on fragmentation. Missing try/catch I bet.

PogMoThoin

srsly78 wrote: »

yeah you can run apple tools on a pc, but that's just annoying and not supported

I'm pretty certain you cannot submit one without a Mac

Atilathehun

manual_man wrote: »

this sh1t is seriously startin to piss me off. The amount of times i'm seein a new app advertised, only available for iphone. What the fcuk is wrong with these people??? how many million android users is there worldwide??? The latest snobby gits to do this are Setanta Sports, watching the match there on telly, my ears prick as the commentator mentions the new Setanta Scores app. Available for?? You fcuking guessed it. iphone only. wànkers

What's an iPhone

Atomic Pineapple

The Android tools are great, not as polished as Xcode but still incredibly powerful and easy to work with, fragmentation is a small problem in that it involves some extra overhead in some cases and the different developer ROM's can cause issues with apps that are more complex like VoIP/SMSoIP apps but similar issues can happen on iOS, has Viber even started working on iOS 5 yet?

elimare

Most of the apps on the iphone store are for the iphone 4 now, which means me and my sad little Iphone 3 can't do much other than play angry birds.

srsly78

elimare wrote: »

Most of the apps on the iphone store are for the iphone 4 now, which means me and my sad little Iphone 3 can't do much other than play angry birds.

The iphone has fragmentation!?!? :eek:

Only the latest stuff with fancy 3d graphics should need iphone 4, same with some new 3d android games. Examples: samurai showdown 2, galaxy on fire.

manual_man

Atilathehun wrote: »

What's an iPhone

...

elimare

srsly78 wrote: »

The iphone has fragmentation!?!? :eek:

Only the latest stuff with fancy 3d graphics should need iphone 4, same with some new 3d android games. Examples: samurai showdown 2, galaxy on fire.

heh. a lot of the stuff won't upgrade cos it's now version 4 - and most of the apps I've tried installing lately (real-time dublin bus, calorie counters, etc) have all come back with a 'wrong iphone version' type message.

ahh well, I'll just have to wait till I can upgrade...

srsly78

That doesn't sound quite right, ask about it on the apple forum.

The Corinthian

I've read through this thread and would both broadly agree and disagree with many of the issues raised. My own view on why Android development is presently slower is as follows:

Weaker Revenue Model. Android users are significantly less likely to pay for an app (conversion rate is about 5% of iPhone rate, from what I've read).

There are a few reasons for this; demographics (Android users are more likely to be younger and with lower incomes), iTunes forces users to register a credit card, the Android Market does not and so many Android users couldn't even pay if they wanted to without going back to register a credit card (the hassle of which will stop many from bothering) and no 'culture' of paying for anything.

As a result, paid apps are not really an option for most developers and this can naturally cause many to shy away from the platform.

Age/Maturity. Android has not been around as long as the iPhone, which was realistically out for two years before the vast bulk of Android devices. Other than meaning that Android was behind on market share and needed to catch up, it also meant that the OS, the (buggy and poorly documented) development tools and market also had to mature from feedback in the wild.

Of the last, it should be noted that Apple had an even bigger lead time with iTunes, which has been around since 2003.

Limited Development Resources. Most mobile app houses are typically quite small. They've previously invested in iOS resources and so looking at covering Android too is a risk, which they have only recently begun to think viable.

But resources cost money and time to put in place and get up to speed. Additionally, which is the best strategy for them? Separate objective-C and Java developers or multi-platform frameworks? If the latter, which one?

So the availability of resources to port apps is a major issue.

Fragmentation. Single biggest mistake made by Google, in it's attempt to woo opcos and manufacturers, was giving them too much rope in this department. This resulted in a dev nightmare whereby, often undocumented, incompatibilities would appear for many devices due to the various permutations of device and operator distributions - not to mention OS versions.

Fortunately, this has improved dramatically, and at this stage is is pretty easy to write a 'one version fits all' Android release for most types of app.

Crapware and Malware. Unfortunately the ease of entry to Android development and publishing is also a weakness. To begin with I can literally write a flaky Hello World app and publish it, and unfortunately the market is full of badly written apps, which have turned off quite a few users. Similarly, the potential for Malware turns off a lot of downloads (especially where you've some idiot dev who has lazily looked for thirty permissions for his simple app).

Conclusion. Google made a number of mistakes at the start which didn't help Android, although it does seem to be making an effort to resolve these. However, the main issue is that Android is still playing catchup - that it has a larger market share is nowhere nearly as important as having a more mature ecosystem.

And in this regard, I still think Android has another year or two to smooth out all the issues.

Atomic Pineapple

The Corinthian wrote: »

....

Excellent write up and pretty much spot on in all cases.

bd250110

The Corinthian wrote: »

....

I would agree with almost everything you have said. The only thing is that iTunes store does not force you to have a credit card, you can register without one, although Apple have hidden that option away and I think it might not be possible via iOS, only through the iTunes store on PC/Mac.

GreenWolfe

IMHO Google haven't done enough to try to get people to pay for apps. For example, Nokia were able to get operator billing going in 46 countries, read here. What's the situation with Android? I'd imagine there are plenty of people with unused prepaid credit they could use to buy apps if they were given the opportunity.

I'm also surprised Google haven't tried to get some kind of Android Market gift card going. Kind of like iTunes cards, it might be handier for people to buy Android Market credit in fixed amounts of €10 each, maybe? Perhaps it could be viable to use the existing PAYG top-up infrastructure to deliver this if they don't want the bother of producing actual plastic cards. I think it could work as long as they make clear it's to be used with the official Google Market client only.

cursai

Draupnir

srsly78 wrote: »

You must be kidding right? Android tools are great. Java is a more mainstream language than obj-c.

The apple tools will only run on the mac The android tools are all free and run on any platform.

Your complaints about the market are out of date too, they have improved it a lot. Deployment problems are usually because of the developer not setting permissions right, or setting phone hardware requirements.

(yeah you can run apple tools on a pc, but that's just annoying and not supported)

Waiting for your personal experience on fragmentation. Missing try/catch I bet.

I'm not kidding at all, Eclipse is a piece of crap not that Xcode 4 is much better but it is better. The idea of using XML based layouts to put together UIs is a flashback to the early noughties and is a disaster to work with.

With the Android SDK, any kind of advanced graphical work involves writing a lot ofcode to do things which should be relatively straight forward such as animation of views, capture of images, simple editing of photos. These are things which are a complete pain to do on one Android device and become exceptionally heartbreaking to do in a consolidated way across multi device resolutions.

Free is not a consideration for me, as a professional developer I am happy to spend money on the best tools. Carpenters don't scrimp and save on their tools and nor do I.

You don't need to pretend you know what most deployment issues are caused by. I am talking about the terrible UI that Google have in place for deploying your apps. Publishing an update involves numerous clicks of a "Save" button each of which is unintuitive and very easy to miss.

I've seen when uploading an apk the progress bar complete to 100% and then start counting backwards, usually only telling you if it succeeds or fails when it reaches 70% going back.

My complaints are hardly out of date, given that I've deployed two apps for international brands in the last 2 months alone.

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions as to why the guy above is suffering crashes on some devices, that kind of thinking usually bites you in the ass as a professional developer.

srsly78

Nothing forces you to use eclipse, some people don't like it. That is personal preference tho. If anything is has TOO many features and can be confusing. You could also use i4j.

Dunno what your problem with deployment is, something with your setup I'd guess. Don't be so quick to blame your tools?

The Corinthian

If it all came down to the IDE or language then WM7 would probably be the most popular mobile platform.

Demand from clients for Android applications is very recent. A year ago it was negligible and it is only in the last few months that the idea of 'porting' applications has become more common. And this is still only 'porting' - the primary target OS is still iOS, partially because of the market footprint, but also because of the returns.

And this is a very important thing to consider for any mobile app; how does it make money? And in this regard, Android remains significantly more difficult to make a living from than the iPhone.

Once this is sorted (and I suspect it will be through a combination of both increasing returns on Android and falling returns on the iPhone) then demand for development will increase for the Android applications. After all, the VC's and other businessmen that commission software don't really care if you like the IDE or language. They just care that you can do it, do it well and that they'll make money from it.

The Corinthian

bd250110 wrote: »

I would agree with almost everything you have said. The only thing is that iTunes store does not force you to have a credit card, you can register without one, although Apple have hidden that option away and I think it might not be possible via iOS, only through the iTunes store on PC/Mac.

My mistake. I was citing an article I'd read some time ago that said this and which was obviously wrong.

Nonetheless, it is not inaccurate to say that iTunes is both a far more mature marketplace and one where a culture of actually paying for things has been around for a long time. Android still largely retains the culture of never paying for anything if you can help it and this has hampered potential returns on Android, and thus commercial incentive to develop for it.

questionquick

How do you know someone has an iphone?

Because they`ll tell you

"Oh, hang on, wait for me i just need to get my Iphone... not my phone.. my Iphone."

Yahew

srsly78 wrote: »

You must be kidding right? Android tools are great. Java is a more mainstream language than obj-c.

The apple tools will only run on the mac The android tools are all free and run on any platform.

Your complaints about the market are out of date too, they have improved it a lot. Deployment problems are usually because of the developer not setting permissions right, or setting phone hardware requirements.

(yeah you can run apple tools on a pc, but that's just annoying and not supported)

Waiting for your personal experience on fragmentation. Missing try/catch I bet.

Objective C is, clearly, as mainstream as Java for mobile OSes. I see no reason why buying a mac would be an issue for a large project.

srsly78 wrote: »

Your force close was due to not catching out of memory exception. Programmer error. Put a try/catch in and solved. It doesn't show on some devices coz they have more memory. Iphone doesn't even multitask so it doesn't have this problem :P

I know this from experience releasing a multi-million dollar android project on multiple handsets.

It's simple to get the same look on an sgs2 vs hero. You do need two different layouts but this is trivial. HTC Sense has absolutely no impact on this (aside from is using up memory, see above).

How to easily target 99% of android handsets: target android 2.2. Don't need to target newer versions unless you need some shiny new feature like Google Wallet that noone uses yet. No android developer complains about fragmentation, only people in the media that heard from a "mate" apparently.

The iPhone does handle multitasking - it's sister OS OS X has the best VM in the business - but it does kill or curtail background apps in a better fashion than Android. However they are still using memory until the OS quits them as the foreground app uses more memory.

The force quit problem is not caused by not handling the out of memory error, because not handling the exception will crash the app. The actual root cause is the system is an out of memory alert, and that error will keep happening unless the OS drops some resources for you, that is unless it cleans up your garbage.

Android is fragmented. Its a VM, not a OS, and you cant really be sure of the underlying technology. Will there even be a hardware accelerated graphics chip for instance? Then there is the OS. Tagetting Android 2.2 is great unless you need some API on OS 4.0. On the iPhone you can assume that you can target the last, and the previous OS - iOS 5 and iOS 4.3 will target most, if not all, iPhones out there. Including the 3GS which is still on sale for new.

As that gap widens so will the fact that Android devs are stuck with years old technology.

( on the other hand screen sizes are less of an issue).

srsly78

Nope. Iphone 3G has old graphics hardware, can't run latest games. Same problem as with old android devices. No difference. Whatever "fragmentation" android has over iphone is greatly exaggerated. (edit: 3gs actually does have opengl 2.0 but probably isn't fast enough for newest stuff)

Google do enforce some things with android (if device wants to have google branding). Android 3.0 onwards require opengl es 2.x graphics.

Draupnir

srsly78 wrote: »

Nothing forces you to use eclipse, some people don't like it. That is personal preference tho. If anything is has TOO many features and can be confusing. You could also use i4j.

Dunno what your problem with deployment is, something with your setup I'd guess. Don't be so quick to blame your tools?

I'm not blaming the tools, I'm saying that in my opinion it is a nightmare to work with at an enterprise level.

I agree with another poster that if that was a primary issue here the WP7 would be by far the most popular platform since VS2010+ is by far the best of all the IDEs available.

srsly78

You do realise eclipse and java are pretty well accepted as industry standard for enterprise development right? They aren't only used for Android development.

VS2010 isn't very good for java development by the way

efb

questionquick wrote: »

How do you know someone has an iphone?

Because they`ll tell you

"Oh, hang on, wait for me i just need to get my Iphone... not my phone.. my Iphone."

so 2007, and its iPhone

johnjack1067

manual_man wrote: »

this sh1t is seriously startin to piss me off. The amount of times i'm seein a new app advertised, only available for iphone. What the fcuk is wrong with these people??? how many million android users is there worldwide??? The latest snobby gits to do this are Setanta Sports, watching the match there on telly, my ears prick as the commentator mentions the new Setanta Scores app. Available for?? You fcuking guessed it. iphone only. wànkers

Just because you cant afford an iPhone .

Yahew

srsly78 wrote: »

Nope. Iphone 3G has old graphics hardware, can't run latest games. Same problem as with old android devices. No difference. Whatever "fragmentation" android has over iphone is greatly exaggerated. (edit: 3gs actually does have opengl 2.0 but probably isn't fast enough for newest stuff)

Google do enforce some things with android (if device wants to have google branding). Android 3.0 onwards require opengl es 2.x graphics.

Maybe but any device may, or may not have the requisite device drivers. Anyway we cant assume 3.0 for Android, can we?

SuprSi

johnjack1067 wrote: »

Just because you cant afford an iPhone .

Fantastic contribution - I take it you read every post in this thread, acknowledged the contributions and genuine frustrations, and thought hard about your response before posting this? :rolleyes:

Rowley Birkin QC

There's an AIB Android app but my mate couldn't find a similar iOS app on his iPhone last weekend.

Professey Chin

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

There's an AIB Android app but my mate couldn't find a similar iOS app on his iPhone last weekend.

iPhone 1 got released yesterday I think
Android 1 is just a site wrapper(to my disappointment )
No idea what the iOS 1 is like

EDIT: Just checked the app store and it looks better. Fcukers :mad:

Draupnir

srsly78 wrote: »

You do realise eclipse and java are pretty well accepted as industry standard for enterprise development right? They aren't only used for Android development.

VS2010 isn't very good for java development by the way

I don't understand why are trying to be smart about this.

I am fully aware of what Eclipse is used for, in enterprise, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a vast amount of flaws and is absolutely behind Xcode and Visual Studio (I'd even rate VS2003 ahead of Eclipse based on my own experience).

In terms of why Android is behind iPhone when it comes to take up by Corporates, it's like The Corinthian said, you can't make money selling apps on the platform and you can't make money by using the Android logo to improve the identity of your brand.

The Corinthian

Draupnir wrote: »

In terms of why Android is behind iPhone when it comes to take up by Corporates, it's like The Corinthian said, you can't make money selling apps on the platform and you can't make money by using the Android logo to improve the identity of your brand.

Actually, with the exception of a very small number of apps out there, I don't think it's really all that possible to make money out of apps regardless of OS.

Even with iOS, it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually sell them and so you've seen an increase (especially with games) in a free4play model, with in-app purchases as the primary revenue model. But in-app purchases has not ushered in any new golden age and due to the revenue split are actually quite limited in how you can use them - with Apple/Google scalping 30%, the numbers simply don't crunch for anything other than a product that has a marginal unit cost of close to zero; it's like the whole PSMS model all over again.

Indeed, the entire mobile app industry eerily reminds me of the dotcom; a lemming-like rush into an market that has yet to find any sustainable, realistic business models.

For example, look at the experience of one developer; finally he hits upon a successful app with a very impressive 300k downloads (100k active) in a month, and a well thought out advertising revenue strategy, yet while his income is now finally breaching the 1k p.m. mark, this is hardly going to pay even a single salary, let alone keep a software house afloat.

This is not to say that there are not companies that generate decent revenue, only that those that do literally make up no more than about one or two percent out there.

This is why I'm pretty certain that the whole iOS versus Android debate is a bit pointless; the whole ecosystem is going to have to change drastically in the next 18 months because it is presently unsustainable - hype will only fuel it so long. And when that happens, the iOS versus Android debate is more than likely going to be a moot one.

srsly78

Yahew wrote: »

Maybe but any device may, or may not have the requisite device drivers. Anyway we cant assume 3.0 for Android, can we?

Yes you can assume. Android 3.0 onwards absolutely require opengl 2.0 on. The earlier versions absolutely required opengl 1.x onwards. Earlier verions has an OPENGL_ES_2_X flag also, which apps are supposed to check for if they want it.

Similarly the first 3 iphones had 1.x, the newer ones had 2.x.

Old phones in being old shocker?

Aside: The funny thing is that both ios and android use the same graphics library. It's WP7 that is the odd one one, and is difficult to port to.

Draupnir

The Corinthian wrote: »

Actually, with the exception of a very small number of apps out there, I don't think it's really all that possible to make money out of apps regardless of OS.

I would agree, if your point is that sale of internally developed apps is not really a long term single revenue stream. The only real way to make money from app development now is by developing apps by third parties.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Even with iOS, it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually sell them and so you've seen an increase (especially with games) in a free4play model, with in-app purchases as the primary revenue model. But in-app purchases has not ushered in any new golden age and due to the revenue split are actually quite limited in how you can use them - with Apple/Google scalping 30%, the numbers simply don't crunch for anything other than a product that has a marginal unit cost of close to zero; it's like the whole PSMS model all over again.

I agree that it is difficult to break out of the market right now, particularly given the saturation of almost every category and the race to zero that has destroyed prices.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Indeed, the entire mobile app industry eerily reminds me of the dotcom; a lemming-like rush into an market that has yet to find any sustainable, realistic business models.

Could not agree more.

The Corinthian wrote: »

For example, look at the experience of one developer; finally he hits upon a successful app with a very impressive 300k downloads (100k active) in a month, and a well thought out advertising revenue strategy, yet while his income is now finally breaching the 1k p.m. mark, this is hardly going to pay even a single salary, let alone keep a software house afloat.

That figure doesn't stack up very well for me when I compare it to our figures. We don't rely on app sales as our main revenue stream, it is a supplementary stream and that model can be successful particularly for smaller businesses.

The Corinthian wrote: »

This is not to say that there are not companies that generate decent revenue, only that those that do literally make up no more than about one or two percent out there.

One or two percent is a bit of a number out of the air no? If you are talking about companies selling internal, original idea apps only then the figure could be right. There are a lot of these types of companies. However, I think companies that are working on both internal apps and 3rd party contracts can be and are very successful in generating revenue.

pickarooney

Our company started selling an iOS app last month due to constant demands from existing and potential clients over the last year. As far as I know, not a single client has expressed an interest in an Android version of the app. Our model is a monthly rental including tech support and access to a suite of online services. We also offer it free to clients who have a more expensive support package for our PC software.

We'll see in a year if it's worth our while but I can guarantee that spending any time or money on an Android version would be throwing it down the toilet.

I should mention that our client base is particularly image-obsessed and completely tech-unsavvy.

robinph

Couldn't care less about which platform makes the most money from selling apps.

I think the issue the OP is more on about is bigger companies that you are already a customer of, and that are not interested in the minuscule income from the likes of selling apps anyway, for them to be releasing their apps on both platforms and not just on the apple ones. Creating a mobile phone app, unless you're flogging a game about throwing birds at pigs, is most likely not going to be making you any money.

It's where can the companies that take more of my money through other channels improve my experience of the services that they provide me with, and to provide both ios and Android versions.

Draupnir

srsly78 wrote: »

Yes you can assume. Android 3.0 onwards absolutely require opengl 2.0 on. The earlier versions absolutely required opengl 1.x onwards. Earlier verions has an OPENGL_ES_2_X flag also, which apps are supposed to check for if they want it.

Similarly the first 3 iphones had 1.x, the newer ones had 2.x.

Old phones in being old shocker?

Aside: The funny thing is that both ios and android use the same graphics library. It's WP7 that is the odd one one, and is difficult to port to.

Why are you limiting the graphics discussion to 3d graphics? The vast majority of smart phone apps will not contain 3d graphics. The iPhone SDK with Core Animation and it's pattern for UI design and development is by far the best system that I've come across between iOS, Android and WP7 for high quality 2d graphics.

It is an absolute nightmare to port a working iOS app that contains things like draggable views, rotating views or animated views to Android at the moment. It works, but it is certainly not an enjoyable experience for the developer and doesn't lend itself to clean code or design patterns either.

Draupnir

robinph wrote: »

Creating a mobile phone app, unless you're flogging a game about throwing birds at pigs, is most likely not going to be making you any money.

That's not true.

To respond to your point about why large companies don't develop apps for both platforms (ignorning WP7), I would strongly suggest that it is because marketing are usually involved in budgeting for these apps and there is no great value add to any brand from the Android association or logo plonked on your marketing materials. Apple logos and iPhone apps currently do add value to brands.

I am not saying that I agree with that notion, it's just how I see it.

The Corinthian

Draupnir wrote: »

I would agree, if your point is that sale of internally developed apps is not really a long term single revenue stream. The only real way to make money from app development now is by developing apps by third parties.

Which it why it reminds me of the dotcom.

Back then the business model was; VC pumps money into a dotcom start-up. Dotcom start-up then goes to a Webdev company, which then charges silly money to build the site/application. Dotcom start-up then maximizes market share, but does not actually make any money and thus burns through the VC. VC's continue throwing good money after bad, without bothering to consider that the numbers do not actually crunch.

And eventually someone did point out that the emperor's willy swinging in the wind, NASDAQ crashed and the rest (along with 90%+ of the start-ups and Webdev firms) was history.

That figure doesn't stack up very well for me when I compare it to our figures. We don't rely on app sales as our main revenue stream, it is a supplementary stream and that model can be successful particularly for smaller businesses.

At present, I think apps can be very useful marketing tools or bring in supplementary revenue streams, but unless your business is building or otherwise consulting on the building of such apps, it's unlikely to be your primary revenue stream.

One or two percent is a bit of a number out of the air no?

It's a figure I've come across in the past, so do feel free to take it with a pinch of salt - but don't ask me to look it up, at least not unless you're willing to pay for my time.

If you are talking about companies selling internal, original idea apps only then the figure could be right. There are a lot of these types of companies. However, I think companies that are working on both internal apps and 3rd party contracts can be and are very successful in generating revenue.

I was specifically talking about companies looking to make a living directly and primarily from their own apps (be it via sales, advertising or in-app purchases).

Building/consulting for third parties or using the app as a supplementary stream or marketing tool for an existing business is another matter.

robinph

The Android logo is way cooler looking than the iOS one. Apart from the actual Apple logo I'd doubt most people would recognise the actual iOS logo for what it actually means, they would just see the picture of a phone and figure it means that it will work with a phone.

Of course the same applies to the Android dude and people not necessarily knowing what he represents, but he is way more noticeable than the letters "iOS" or the non specific picture of a smart phone in marketing materials.

Yahew

The Corinthian wrote: »

Actually, with the exception of a very small number of apps out there, I don't think it's really all that possible to make money out of apps regardless of OS.

Even with iOS, it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually sell them and so you've seen an increase (especially with games) in a free4play model, with in-app purchases as the primary revenue model. But in-app purchases has not ushered in any new golden age and due to the revenue split are actually quite limited in how you can use them - with Apple/Google scalping 30%, the numbers simply don't crunch for anything other than a product that has a marginal unit cost of close to zero; it's like the whole PSMS model all over again.

Indeed, the entire mobile app industry eerily reminds me of the dotcom; a lemming-like rush into an market that has yet to find any sustainable, realistic business models.

For example, look at the experience of one developer; finally he hits upon a successful app with a very impressive 300k downloads (100k active) in a month, and a well thought out advertising revenue strategy, yet while his income is now finally breaching the 1k p.m. mark, this is hardly going to pay even a single salary, let alone keep a software house afloat.

This is not to say that there are not companies that generate decent revenue, only that those that do literally make up no more than about one or two percent out there.

This is why I'm pretty certain that the whole iOS versus Android debate is a bit pointless; the whole ecosystem is going to have to change drastically in the next 18 months because it is presently unsustainable - hype will only fuel it so long. And when that happens, the iOS versus Android debate is more than likely going to be a moot one.

the point of branded apps is to direct people to peoples stores, add more to the experience. The webdev boom didnt stop because people didnt want websites, I bet most companies will have an app at some stage. In terms of revenue, it helps to have a brand.

That said the iOS app store has generated $4B for devs. As long as there is a chance to make money, people will try to make money.

Yahew

The iOS figures are $4B to 550,000 apps. About $7K an app. Probably about $20 per paid app on average. I bet paretos law applies here. With 20% of paid apps taking 80% of revenue. Anyway, its not that noone is making much money, its just that on average people arent.

srsly78

Draupnir wrote: »

Why are you limiting the graphics discussion to 3d graphics? The vast majority of smart phone apps will not contain 3d graphics. The iPhone SDK with Core Animation and it's pattern for UI design and development is by far the best system that I've come across between iOS, Android and WP7 for high quality 2d graphics.

It is an absolute nightmare to port a working iOS app that contains things like draggable views, rotating views or animated views to Android at the moment. It works, but it is certainly not an enjoyable experience for the developer and doesn't lend itself to clean code or design patterns either.

That's your own fault for tying yourself to a proprietary framework (this is the whole problem with Apple). You could have used a common API instead. OpenGL is also used for 2D by the way, both android and iphone frameworks are built on it. You could make exactly the same argument the other way around, about how certain android APIs are not present on the iphone.

Everything is gonna be done in HTML5 soon anyway, so you have wasted lots of time learning those APIs.

<- has made loads of money off mobile development, but not sold a single app

Yahew

srsly78 wrote: »

That's your own fault for tying yourself to a proprietary framework (this is the whole problem with Apple). You could have used a common API instead. OpenGL is also used for 2D by the way, both android and iphone frameworks are built on it. You could make exactly the same argument the other way around, about how certain android APIs are not present on the iphone.

Everything is gonna be done in HTML5 soon anyway, so you have wasted lots of time learning those APIs.

<- has made loads of money off mobile development, but not sold a single app

OpenGL is a 3D framework - it would be astronomically harder to use it to animate a standard UI element on iOS than using Core Animation. Although not impossible, you could use Cocos2D. The other option is OPENGL primitives, which means recreating the UI Element as textures in an OpenGL view.

The point of API per platform is to make that platform easier to develop for. Thats what OS releases, from a developer point of view, are for. HTML5 is designed by commitee.

HTML is going nowhere. We've heard this rubbish for years and years. HTML is a layout language and with some scripting, basically a primitive language like JS. It has limited access to phone internals. It is a limited API. Its UI is non-standard and it looks fake.

For layout - webzines - maybe. In a native shell. Otherwise, no.

In fact I just this week technically architected a conversion of an App from PhoneGap to iOS native, because of crap reviews on the store. We arent really changing the user journey - per the clients request - just making it "more fluid".

( and since we are doing this argument by credentialism I am a consultant with two of London's largest Digital agencies, although I work for myself too).

Draupnir

srsly78 wrote: »

That's your own fault for tying yourself to a proprietary framework (this is the whole problem with Apple). You could have used a common API instead. OpenGL is also used for 2D by the way, both android and iphone frameworks are built on it. You could make exactly the same argument the other way around, about how certain android APIs are not present on the iphone.

I'm not making the point that APIs are not present on Android, I am saying that the Android equivalent is tosh, relatively speaking. UI building and development is tosh, relatively speaking.

How is that relevant to this discussion? I think it is very relevant, since the poor quality 2d tools and frameworks make it extremely painful and practically unachievable to build Android apps that have the same quality of finish as their iPhone version. This impacts on the marketability and brand value of the apps.

Draupnir

Yahew wrote: »

OpenGL is a 3D framework - it would be astronomically harder to use it to animate a standard UI element on iOS than using Core Animation. Although not impossible, you could use Cocos2D. The other option is OPENGL primitives, which means recreating the UI Element as textures in an OpenGL view.

The point of API per platform is to make that platform easier to develop for. Thats what OS releases, from a developer point of view, are for. HTML5 is designed by commitee.

HTML is going nowhere. We've heard this rubbish for years and years. HTML is a layout language and with some scripting, basically a primitive language like JS. It has limited access to phone internals. It is a limited API. Its UI is non-standard and it looks fake.

For layout - webzines - maybe. In a native shell. Otherwise, no.

In fact I just this week technically architected a conversion of an App from PhoneGap to iOS native, because of crap reviews on the store. We arent really changing the user journey - per the clients request - just making it "more fluid".

100% agreed. HTML5 for mobile apps is lipstick on a pig.

The Corinthian

Yahew wrote: »

the point of branded apps is to direct people to peoples stores, add more to the experience. The webdev boom didnt stop because people didnt want websites, I bet most companies will have an app at some stage. In terms of revenue, it helps to have a brand.

I'm not suggesting that the app market is a complete waste of time. I'm suggesting that the app market where the app itself is the primary revenue generator is for the vast majority of cases a complete waste of time.

Neither am I suggesting that we will see the app industry collapse onto itself and go the way of WAP, however as with the dotcom, there will be a painful readjustment in the market when a lot of the VC money dries up, both for apps that are the primary revenue generator and many branded apps in their current form.

Other than new revenue models forming, we will also see a ruthless consolidation of the brochureware app market, likely mirroring what happened to the Web.

That said the iOS app store has generated $4B for devs. As long as there is a chance to make money, people will try to make money.

If you do the math, it's actually a pretty poor return for the number of developers, apps and hundreds of hours that have been spent to produce, market and support these apps.

srsly78 wrote: »

<- has made loads of money off mobile development, but not sold a single app

We used to make similar jokes about some of the start-ups we were developing for back around 1999. Word to the wise; what followed wasn't pretty.

Draupnir wrote: »

100% agreed. HTML5 for mobile apps is lipstick on a pig.

Perhaps, but it's likely that it will eventually become the weapon of choice for brochureware 'branded' apps in the future.

jester77

Draupnir wrote: »

100% agreed. HTML5 for mobile apps is lipstick on a pig.

I wouldn't agree. HTML5 is the best solution for a lot of services. We have ios, android and HTML5 apps where I work. The HTML5 app offers the best of everything, you can deploy it in seconds using your CI server, you can react and fix bugs quickly and there is no relying on third party marketplaces for users to get your app.

Apps have their place but most companies are developing apps when an HTML5 would be a better solution only because apps are the current "buzz" word.

Have a look at the Financial Times HTML5 site to see what is possible!

Draupnir

jester77 wrote: »

Have a look at the Financial Times HTML5 site to see what is possible!

FT chose HTML5 because they don't want to share any revenue or content with Apple, not because HTML5 has any natural advantage as a technology.

jeromeof

Great response, but I would like to point out some mistakes:

The Corinthian wrote: »

iTunes forces users to register a credit card, the Android Market does not and so many Android users couldn't even pay if they wanted to without going back to register a credit card (the hassle of which will stop many from bothering) and no 'culture' of paying for anything.

This is not true, iTunes has a great prepaid market with iTunes cards. My 14 year old son who has an android phone and an iPod touch has complained numerous times that he can go into a shop and buy an itunes card and then buy whatever app he wants for his ipod but for his Android phone he has no way of paying for apps. If google put a bit of effect into some prepaid credit system for the marketplace this would help considerable.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Android has not been around as long as the iPhone

This is actually not true either, since we are talking developer SDK's. Android 1.0 was released in Nov 2007 Read announcement here while the IOS SDK was not released until Mar 2008, see Engadget at SDK event. The problem was nobody cared about Android back then and v1 of Android was really aiming at competing with the Blackberry and Nokia markets (physical keyboards etc). It wasn't until Google saw where the money was and switch the SDK to better focus on developing touch screen UI's with V2.1 and at the same time Verizon put together a huge campaign in the states (Around the Motorola Droid) that people bought Android handsets and developers then finally had a reason to use the SDK.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Fortunately, this has improved dramatically, and at this stage is is pretty easy to write a 'one version fits all' Android release for most types of app.

I don't think this is the case yet either, a huge number of very limited Android phones have flooded the market, they have poor screen resolutions (320x240) (Cheap Samsung Mini/Y etc, ZTE Racer), are using old ROM's e.g. 1.6 (Experia X8) and are typically very slow and have almost no space for Apps (or their data). While some Apps will scale and handle these limitations, lots still have problems and because these handsets are so popular if you were targeting Android you have to built to a very low common denominator to cover as much of the market as possible. The other alternative for developers is to develop 2 version of your Android app (e.g. like Dolphin with a HD version for the higher end Android phones).

Overall I would agree that Android has come along a long way, has some excellent developer/design guidelines now (for ICS going forward) and it will be an interesting battle going forward for the hearts and mind of users and developers. Also, I wouldn't count Microsoft out of yet, Windows 8 is very nice and could assist greatly into the popularity of their mobile platform.

splashthecash

manual_man wrote: »

this sh1t is seriously startin to piss me off. The amount of times i'm seein a new app advertised, only available for iphone. What the fcuk is wrong with these people??? how many million android users is there worldwide??? The latest snobby gits to do this are Setanta Sports, watching the match there on telly, my ears prick as the commentator mentions the new Setanta Scores app. Available for?? You fcuking guessed it. iphone only. wànkers

Solution: Buy an iPhone