Re: Real-time Operating Systems. The upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook uses QNX, a RTOS. However, that doesn't keep from it being a piece of crap for development purposes. [I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jamie's narrative on many fronts. It expressed well the frustration of developing on RIM both technically and organizationally. It was yet another example of the power of an individual blog post that goes viral. And it shows the futility of one committed RIM employee, Tyler Lessard, in the face of a dysfunctional organization. The post and responses could be made in a Michael Crichton novel.]
-- David Wihl, March 3, 2011
The iPhone/iPad space is more about media consumption than development, nevertheless there is a HUGE demand for developers (and a huge pool of aspirants), most of whom already own Mac OS X computers and possess some of the skills (Object-oriented programming, scripting, etc.). The iPad is dominating the tablet market 10:1 and is in great demand for enterprise appliance development. You are no doubt right about Android becoming another pervasive mobile/tablet platform, but I seriously question your prediction of 10:1 dominance. iOS will remain a major force until the next tectonic shift (wearable?, implantable? digestible? devices?).I have some visibility into the Apple world via a family member who is a major iOS developer and training shop. His business is phenomenal, and the target market is far broader than conspicuous consumers.
-- Don Hodges, March 3, 2011
I run an iOS software development company in Canada. I have a significant philosophical bent in favour of Android, but in my entire time consulting with clients and shipping finished work, the ratio of iOS to Android projects is 5:0.Your comment that, as an avid Android user for years, you have never once purchased an application, is more or less the entire reason why this platform is attractive to developers. Apple has successfully created an audience of people who expect to pay for content and features. Apple is paying its independent developers about $1B a year. Those "one critical extra features" you cite in favour of Android are not being shipped with an application ecosystem 1/10th the size.
-- Stephen van Egmond, March 4, 2011
Aren't Android & IOS really libraries running on Linux & FreeBSD? Seem to recall OSX was a Mac library on FreeBSD. These days, the middleware has become the operating system, & no-one mentions the UNIX part.The big question is not how many platforms a ball of spagetti like Android runs on but how consistent the Android implementation is across platforms. Java stacks tend to be extremely inconsistent across platforms & real spagetti hacks, especially with the multimedia & graphics.
It costs a huge amount of money to implement a Java stack that uses the hardware to its full potential & complies with an open standard where many different vendors each sneak in their own idiotic requirements. At least the IOS is very good at maximizing the hardware.
In a previous rant, you said Android users were better looking than iPhone users. At least around Silicon Valley, the iPhone users are about 10x better looking than the Android users. The huge surplus of baby boomer men have to buy their 34 year old girlfriends the most expensive phones available, to compete for their love, & they have to hawk iPhone's to demonstrate higher status.
Writing Android software basically gets you into a circle of lesser status, overweight, pale nerds, while writing IOS software gets your name on the tongue of the 5 blond hotties.
Having said that, I would buy an Android, purely based on cost, & study up on being happy alone. I never had the stomach to buy more gadget than necessary, to demonstrate higher status or have the best hardware integration. The iPhone cost is a killer. After every Apple event, you go in an Apple store expecting some revolutionary functionality, but it's really just luxurious packaging for very little meat.
-- x y, April 3, 2011
Android is at present "A JOKE" I switched from a blackberry to an android, as the former was stolen. I am avid open source promoter and run Linux... however, upon using the android on "samsung galaxy", one of the best android phone, my comment is that Android is far behind "iPhone" or blackberry in terms of creating a real smartphone experience. Take for instance, a. It should not forget that it is a PHONE first !!! Android is more of a web-device than a phone. The Phone app on Android has crashed so many times for me.. And its dialer can learn a lot from the blackberry dialer. b. It is horrendous in battery life. About 10-15% battery is lost every hour on standby. Blackberry Storm/iPhone aren't any better in this regard but they guarantee a charge of 60% charge in about 30-40 mins. This makes fast drain-out bearable.. recharge while I am in a meeting.. Android takes half a day !!! c. Cross application do not work. For example Skype and dialer are not happy together. d. UI is still cumbersome and non-intuitive. Google VOICE works very well one of the strong points. e. After trying my best to use it, am trading it in for an unlocked iPhone. f. My verdict.. .. someone needs to get behind “developing Android using real money”. Droid/Samsung use it but do not build it. Apples strength is not only its hardware but software, a system. Cannot be beaten and shall win ultimately. Only serious threat is Blackberry. Android remains a joke for serious business users. g. I have seen Ubuntu being a wonderful operating system now but it took quite some time to get there and with some serious developers like Novell/Redhat/Canonical. Hope someone picks up Androids cause other than google. h. Its very difficult to make sure that an app does not “destroy” the OS. So apple’s model of testing the application for stability system is not wrong.
-- Navendu Sinha, April 10, 2011
One thing worth noting is that your comments on the pricing are generally rather US-centric; the US telecoms market is very different from those in most of the rest of the world. In most European countries, for instance, iPhones are available on all networks, and at pricing comparable to high-end Android devices for the iPhone 4, or mid-range Android devices for the 3GS.It is much-rumoured that Apple will eventually also compete in the low-end smartphone space; a sort of equivalent on an iPod Nano.
-- Robert Synnott, May 8, 2011
"the unlimited-data Android experience can be obtained in the U.S. for $25 per month with no commitment..."Where is this mythological scenario that you speak of? Virgin caps at 5gb for $40 and the Android experience you get at that amount without contract sure isn't Droid X or iPhone 4 level; TMobile (going the way of the dodo) certainly isn't $25mo. All the vendors are pulling away from allowing tethering without additional fees, the big lollipop for Android geek users. So who is it that supplies this cheap all you can eat buffet of data in everything is free Android land?
-- sleep d, May 9, 2011
I don't think it makes sense to compare an OS - Android - to a device - iPhone. It makes sense to compare the iPhone to a Samsung with Android or to an HTC with Android. The Android OS (all versions) user base is indeed growing faster compared to iOS but I doubt that Motorola, HTC, Samsung etc will outsell Apple or make as more profit. They Android OS handset makers are all competing with each other for the same market. Just like in the Windows PC world it will be a race to the bottom of profitability.
"In nearly 2.5 years of using Android daily, the author has never purchased an application. All of the capabilities that he wanted were already bundled with the phone or available as free downloads."That attitude from Android users - and recent changes to the Google license - is what makes me doubt the long term viability of the Android ecosystem. Users flocking to get cheap phones running a free OS who are unwilling to pay for software is not the sort of customer I would want.
-- Khürt Williams, May 10, 2011
I've still yet to find a modern smart phone that had a keyboard anywhere near the quality of the sidekick II. It's a shame that the android system that came to prominence didn't have more in common with the sidekick. That was a truly great device well ahead of its time.
-- David Watson, December 21, 2011
Alternative perspectives are geographical (Japan) and chronological (after Google Play release). Experience level is somewhat over a year with an HTC smartphone running Android 2.3 and four months with a Toshiba AT 200 tablet running Android 3.x. Heavy user of tethering, both USB and WiFi.Mostly satisfied with Android, but HTC seems to have some serious problem with the Japanese market. The four main carriers all offered HTC phones in the past, but I think the only remaining trace is residual inventory. My own experiences with HTC as regards HTC-specific problems were pretty terrible, and my English ability ought to have helped smooth things over... Haven't really had enough interaction with Toshiba to say for sure, but they seem far better than HTC. Most of my friends seem to have Toshiba or Sharp smartphones, but I notice a lot of Sonys on the trains. Some of my friends are iPhone users, and Apple has a heavy presence here. Not sure of the market breakdown.
Most applications have been satisfactory in both languages (Japanese and English), but the voice recognition has been something of a disappointment. I haven't been able to find out why, but all Android smartphones in the Japanese market are apparently blocked from speaker-specific training. I haven't checked as many tablets, but it's certainly the case for my Toshiba, too. Doesn't matter which language is in use. My current guess is that there is some hassle with the voice recognition for Japanese (though everyone I've spoken to agrees that it is better than the iPhone's for Japanese), so rather than fixing it in Japanese, they just disabled that feature. I have trouble believing in the coincidence, but perhaps they all reached that decision independently... Anyway, the generic voice recognition without speaker training is okay, but not really good enough to dump the keyboard...
Google Play was just released recently, and it was initially quite confusing to me until I talked with a few Apple fanbois about how iTunes works. My initial impressions are mixed, but I think that it won't take too much polishing to apply some heavy pressure on Apple's position. Overall it looks to be be a major factor in favor of Android, but still doesn't offset my increasing feeling of evil within the google...
Another deviant perspective, but I feel like noting that I also came out of the PDA world of a Palm device, and I feel my smartphone has mostly replaced that. I still had some old Palm data until a few months ago, and I wish that someone had created some Palm emulators and data conversion utilities for Android. Too late now, I guess.
P.S. (as of 12 June 2012) is that I've added a couple of months of experience with a Huawei smartphone. Improved version of Android 2 that puts it pretty much on a par with the Toshiba tablet, but most of the Huawei improvements are just about what you expect from the Moore's Law push. However, I do think that the battery management of Android has become my #1 annoyance. Almost NO apps are properly tracked for their battery usage. Here's a typical usage report "Android System 50%, Cell standby 26%, Phone idle 22%, and Display 2%". It would be EXTREMELY useful to know which app is really draining the battery.
-- Shannon Jacobs, June 12, 2012
It's been over a year since this article was written and updated. What trends have become apparent? Apple's iPhone is doing well. Samsung is doing well with Android. Everyone else? Not so good. Not HTC, Motorola, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, etc. I have to agree with a poster above. What developer wants customers who expect everything to be free? This leaves only one "winner" in the Android market. Google, due to advertisements. A big selling point in the Apple market is, the developer gets paid by including ads in apps, or directly with customers willing to pay a buck. I can live with that. Many customers (Android or iOS) just want a smart phone that's also a computer. Not a computer that does double duty as a phone. A big, big problem for Android will be price. That sounds crazy on the surface. But look at Apple's trends in the smart phone market. The prior year's phone always gets cheaper. Cheaper every year until it's 'free'. Cheap or 'free' Android phones are designed to be cheap from day one. Sell it, then forget it. A new (cheap) model is coming in six to twelve months anyway. iPhones get cheaper due to years of volume, on a small variety of hardware. Apple depends on software (and OS upgrades) to a greater degree than hardware to sell phones. Developers can count on the user base growing on a stable platform to target for many years. Android? Let's not even discuss the problems with updating the OS on many (most?) Android phones. That negatively impacts developers over the life of an app. My speculation? Apple will continue to own much of the smart phone market for many years to come. And conspicuous consumption? You can find that in the Android market too. However, most sales are to ordinary people. Not those of us who are technically inclined in the PC market. That gives Apple an edge that'll be hard to beat.
-- M. Foley, October 13, 2012