Developers: an Android 2011 Retrospective – SlashGear
Things Id like to see from the Android Community (Google, Carriers & Devs)
1. please, please !! spend more money on advertisement and making your products known !! everywhere I look there’s apple products, from movies, to commercials to news programs, apple apple apple !! I’m sick of it. why are there so many products (LG G-Slate) that are completely unknown to the average consumer? wanna know why the iPad sells so well, because people know about it. wanna know why the Kindle fire outsold all other Android tablets combined, because people know about it.
2. make beautifully designed products so they are as appealing as any iDevice. all you ever hear from apple fan boys is how “ugly” Android phones are, they don’t give squat about how underpowered and restricted their iPhones are, all they care about is how beautiful a device it is.
3. FIX THE ANDROID MARKET, its a mess !! why is there no way of knowing when NEW apps hit the market? why is there no “New” tab so I can skip past all the old apps that have been sitting there for months. ALSO fix the search feature of the Market which is a disgrace and never returns the results you’re looking for but instead returns results for apps that have NOTHING to do with what you’re looking for.
4. Devs need to make sure their apps work as advertised and work with all devices. absolutely NO EXCUSE why the newest Android phones can run the most recent apps. !!
5. stop the abuse !! (cough cough Gameloft) people pay for their games and are then asked for more money to “continue” playing–outrageous amounts like up to $200 for Gameloft games.
Developers: an Android 2011 Retrospective – SlashGear
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Categories: Technology Tags: ipad, iphones
App makers scramble to beat Christmas deadline : News-Record.com : Greensboro & the Triad’s most trusted source for local news and analysis
On Christmas morning, millions of people will unwrap new iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches — and immediately start downloading games and other applications for them. It is the biggest day of the year for app sales, which can mean big money for developers.
That is, if they manage to get their apps through Apple’s review process and into the App Store before everyone at Apple goes on vacation.
Each year around Christmas, Apple stops accepting app submissions and updating its store for a while. this year the shutdown starts Thursday and runs for eight days.
In the weeks leading up to the cutoff, developers often pull all-nighters so they can get their work to Apple in time.
”There’s a mad scramble for developers," said Marc Edwards, lead designer at Bjango, an Australian app maker. "In terms of money, it can be a really big deal."
It is hard to begrudge Apple for wanting to give its employees a break. but the App Store freeze at Christmas, and the crunch time leading up to it, underscore Apple’s power in the world of mobile apps and the lengths developers are willing to go to meet its demands.
In short, Apple is a powerful gatekeeper, and for more than a week it is keeping the gate closed.
”If you are a developer and want to sell an app for the iPhone, you have to go through Apple," said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research who tracks the wireless industry.
”That’s not true of Android or most other outlets," he added. "I can’t think of another company that has such a dominant lock on the channel to sell to an audience."
Android, the smartphone software made by Google, has the second-biggest app economy after Apple. And it does not have Apple’s stringent and sometimes inscrutable board of testers and reviewers, who can reject any app that, in their judgment, does not meet the company’s technical or content standards.
Android developers can sell their apps through a variety of third-party outlets like Amazon.com and GetJar, as well as the Google-run Android Marketplace, which is happy to accept new apps any day of the year.
But developers say that although Android phones are now bigger sellers than iPhones, it is still more lucrative to build apps for Apple products.
The stakes are higher than ever this year because AT&T is no longer the only carrier in the United States selling the iPhone, so there are more potential customers. Apple declined to comment on the App Store freeze.
Bryan Duke, a part-time app developer in Las Vegas, has seen firsthand how much of a difference one day can make.
One of his apps is an air hockey game that costs 99 cents and usually averages about 300 downloads a day. but on Christmas Day last year there were 1,834. Apple keeps 30 percent of the revenue.
”It’s typical to see a jump on any major holiday, but Christmas is the biggest one," Duke said. "I’m certainly hoping for a nice big Christmas bump this year."
Flurry, a mobile analytics firm, estimated that from Dec. 23 to 26 last year, 240 million applications were downloaded to Apple mobile devices, or about 20 percent of the total downloads for the month.
The promise of a Christmas bonanza was enough to motivate David Barnard, the founder of App Cubby, a developer in Austin, Texas, to jump into creating a notifications app, just days before the deadline.
Barnard and his small team have built apps like Tweet Speaker, which reads Twitter messages aloud, and Mirror, which turns the iPhone screen into a mirror with the help of the front-facing camera.
”If we can get that snowball rolling and get it right, we can ride the momentum," he said. "We’re going to give it a shot."
John Shahidi, chief executive of RockLive, a mobile application developer in Los Angeles, said his company started working on a soccer game in August, with an eye toward Christmas.
”We needed the extra time as insurance to make sure that we are visible in the App Store and have time for any updates," he said. Inevitably, though, there was a rush at the end. "I can’t tell you the last time I’ve slept eight hours," he said.
Although RockLive’s app, called Heads up, sailed through Apple’s review process and went on sale this month, Shahidi said he was keeping an eye out for any bugs or problems that might require a software update. Fixes also need to be submitted before Thursday to have a chance of clearing Apple’s hurdles in time.
Otherwise, a flawed application could lead to bad user reviews in the App Store, causing sales to suffer.
It is not just the smaller developers that are hoping to cash in on the Christmas rush. Big software makers, which have more flexibility in pricing, develop strategies like putting some applications on sale and pushing out fancy new ones to attract downloads.
Electronics Arts, the giant game company that sells titles like Tetris and The Sims for Apple devices, said it was offering 36 new games and updates for the holidays, including The Sims FreePlay.
Steven Stamstad, vice president for global marketing at the company, said it starts planning 18 to 24 months in advance to make sure it capitalizes on the season.
Stamstad compared the company’s preparations to the way the movie studios planned for summer blockbusters. "we do a considerable amount of planning in terms of development, launches and putting items on sale," he said.
Some developers simply prefer to avoid the nail-biting stress of trying to get into the store before the shutdown, then hoping nothing goes wrong and that their app gets noticed amid the hundreds of other new ones flooding the market.
”In my experience it’s a good thing to avoid launching at Christmas, because a lot of the big companies are launching games," said Oliver Cameron, who is working on an address book application called Everyme. "It’s easy to get drowned out in the store."
Instead, Cameron said he planned to wait until the relative quiet of early January.
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Categories: iPod, iPhone, Xbox 360 Tags: christmas, developers, iphones, iPod
Apple’s iOS crushes Android’s mobile platform reach
“Blah, blah, blah” is the sound of analysts, bloggers and reporters sounding off about how Android handsets outsell iPhone — true Google’s OS is like Pac-Man gobbling smartphone market share. but cell phones are but one category among several vying to become the PC’s platform successor. By that measure, at least in the United States, iOS’ reach exceeds Android’s by more than 59 percent, according to ComScore on “connected media devices” — what I have longed called cloud-connected mobile devices.
ComScore measured the U.S. “unduplicated” install base of Android and iOS devices — 23.8 million and 37.9 million, respectively. Apple claims to have shipped more than 100 million iOS devices — iPads, iPhones and iPod touches — but that’s globally, and not all may still be in use. Assuming ComScore’s methodology is accurate, install base is a good measure.
“These data clearly illustrate the Apple ecosystem extends far beyond the iPhone,” Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile, says in a statement. that finding is hugely important for Apple building out iOS as a broadly appealing platform for consumers (or businesses) to buy into and developers to create applications for.
“Though it’s frequently assumed that the Apple user base is composed of dedicated Apple ‘fanboys,’ there’s not a tremendous amount of overlapping mobile device access among these users,” Donovan adds. Surprisingly, ComScore found that only 4 million people with access to iOS — that’s 10.5 percent — use more than one device running the platform. “This of course has significant implications for the developer community as they consider the market potential in developing applications for different mobile platforms,” Donovan emphasizes.
The significance is two-edged. for developers, ComScore’s findings suggest that the iOS platform has broad consumer appeal — that the market isn’t just a bunch of Mac wonks. However, the data also suggests there is not much device overlap, which negates theories about “halo” sales where iPhone owners buy iPad or visa versa. Based on my trips to local Apple Stores here in San Diego, the little overlap scenario is tough to believe. I’ve observed hundreds of iPhone users buying iPads, for example.
My observations sync with other ComScore data. the analyst firm found that 27.3 percent of iPhone users own iPads. By comparison, 17.5 percent of BlackBerry users and 14.3 percent of Samsung smartphone owners have iPads.
Looking at ComScore’s data differently than presented in its release, there is a strong correlation between smartphone and iPad ownership. for example, 47.3 percent of iPad owners are ages 25-44. Among the same age segment, 49.5 percent also have smartphones. Among 13-24 year olds, 22.8 percent have iPads and 23.3 percent have smartphones.
Despite ComScore’s using its data to dispel any Apple fanboy myths, the strong correlation between smartphones and iPads shows the broader platform potential — if Apple and its developers provide a compelling experience among iOS devices.
In October 2009, I asserted that “Apple cannot win the smartphone wars,” which clearly is evident now with Android’s huge sales surge during 2010. However, as I wrote in August last year: “Apple can still win the mobile platform wars, but it won’t be easy.” As I explained then:
Competition may be just what Apple needs to stay the course and navigate past pirates looking to snatch its mobile platform booty. from a purely platform perspective, iOS is the most appealing choice. Developers get a single ecommerce-capable platform for their applications, and consumers (or businesses) get mobile products developed end-to-end from one company. Applications can run across iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, too — another compelling benefit. However, Google is building the stronger, sustainable ecosystem around a mobile operating system. Google’s only big problem is fragmentation.
If anything, Android fragmentation is worse now than last summer, with different versions for smartphones (2.x) and tablets (3.x). still, Google is activating 350,000 Android handsets per day — that’s 31.5 million per quarter, or nearly twice as many iPhones as Wall Street analysts predict for Apple’s fiscal 2011 second quarter (the company announces earnings tomorrow).
For now, Apple has a clear platform reach lead — in the United States, at least — and that means we’ll be hearing “blah, blah, blah” from the Apple fan club of analysts, bloggers and reporters in praise of iOS for the rest of the week (I only opened with Android fan club “blah, blah, blah” to raise your blood pressure).
Quick question: do you own iPad and iPhone? Please answer in comments and explain why you have two (or, gasp, more) iOS devices.
Apple’s iOS crushes Android’s mobile platform reach
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Categories: Technology Tags: cell phones, iphones, market share
Apple pips Nokia in smartphone wars
APPLE has crushed its rival Nokia to become the world's biggest smartphone seller, just five years after launching the iPhone.
Nokia has lost the global crown it has held for 15 years and is likely to fall to third place behind Samsung after shipments of its expensive mobile phones fell by a third.
Nokia has led the market in smartphone shipments since 1996 but its market share came under attack after Apple launched its phone in 2007.
The Finnish company has struggled to come up with a mass-market device to compete with Apple’s phone and handsets built on Google’s Android platform by the likes of Samsung and HTC.
Nokia, which started life as a paper maker, lost €368 million ($A489 million) in the second quarter as sales fell 7 per cent to €9.3 billion. Mobile phone shipments fell 18 per cent to 88.5 million, from 108.5 million in the previous quarter, while smartphone sales slid 32 per cent to 16.7 million. This pales in comparison with the 20 million iPhones sold by Apple in the same period.
Samsung is yet to report but it looks certain that Nokia will fall behind the South Korean company that has been the biggest beneficiary of the Android operating system.
Stephen Elop, the former Microsoft chief who was brought in to revive Nokia, said: "The challenges we are facing during our strategic transformation manifested in a greater than expected way in the second quarter of 2011."
The second-quarter loss was anticipated but the sharp fall in volumes were greater than expected and could trigger further downgrades.
Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with the research group Gartner, said that Nokia had "scraped the bottom of the barrel" in the second quarter and that new products and the launch of its Windows phone over the next six months should at least stabilise the company, even if recovery is a year away.
"We knew it would get worse before it got better but I wasn’t quite expecting this much worse. It isn’t going to be getting better any time soon and it looks like it will be the second half of next year before we see signs of a turnaround," she said.
The company received a one-off €430 million royalty boost after it settled a patent dispute with Apple.
The contrast with the Californian group, which reported this week that profit had more than doubled because of better than expected iPhone and iPad sales, could not be more stark.
Apple pips Nokia in smartphone wars
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Metrico Wireless Sets the Record Straight on AT&T iPhone Vs. Verizon iPhone Performance
March 07, 2011 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Objective research, conducted as part of Metrico’s Smartphone M.E. program, reveals a few surprises about iPhone performance
CTIA WIRELESS 2011
FREDERICK, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Metrico Wireless inc., a leading provider of mobile device performance information and solutions, just unveiled one of the most comprehensive evaluations yet of the end user experience offered by the Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless versions of the iPhone 4.
“Metrico’s Smartphone M.E. program provides carriers and OEMs with an information resource that establishes an objective and scientifically derived user-experience performance baseline.”
how did they stack up? it depends on how the customer is using the device. for instance, the AT&T iPhone experienced double the mean data download speed of the Verizon iPhone, but the mean load time for an average Web page was about the same on both devices.
In addition, the findings showed that when the iPhone is mobile, the AT&T iPhone successfully completed around 10 percent more data download sessions than the Verizon iPhone. the results were opposite when the iPhones were stationary; the Verizon iPhone was more consistent uploading data when stationary in comparison to the AT&T iPhone, with a 10 percent better success rate.
the iPhone 4 is the latest of more than 80 smartphones evaluated to date as part of Metrico’s unique Smartphone Mobile Experience (M.E.) evaluation program.
“The mobile industry is competing on performance, and anecdotal performance information isn’t good enough to drive management and marketing decisions,” said Richard McNally, VP, Information Products, Metrico Wireless. “Metrico’s Smartphone M.E. program provides carriers and OEMs with an information resource that establishes an objective and scientifically derived user-experience performance baseline.”
a comparative look at the performance of the iPhone on both networks can be found in Metrico’s latest Smartphone M.E. Special Insights Report, “iPhone vs. iPhone: Illuminating the Debate with Data – not Opinion,” at www.metricowireless.com/services-solutions/me-research-library/special-insight-reports/iphone4-vs-iphone4.php.
as part of Metrico’s Smartphone M.E. program, Metrico compared the AT&T iPhone to 22 other AT&T smartphones. when compared to other AT&T smartphones:
- the AT&T iPhone ranks near the top on data download and upload speed, with comparable performance to the Sony Ericsson Xperia, the LG Quantum and the HTC Surround.
- the AT&T iPhone ranks below average in Bluetooth speech quality behind top rated performers like the Blackberry Torch and Blackberry Curve.
- the AT&T iPhone ranks in the middle of the pack on call performance behind top rated performers like the Samsung Captivate and the HTC Aria.
when compared to 17 other Verizon smartphones:
- the Verizon iPhone ranks near the top in noise canceling performance, joining the likes of the Motorola Droid X and the LG Ally.
- the iPhone ranks below average in data download speed relative to other Verizon smartphones like the HTC Incredible.
- the iPhone is comparable to the Verizon average in speech quality, behind top performers like the LG Fathom.
In the special report, Metrico measures data download speed, Web browsing, call performance and voice quality on both live and simulated mobile networks to obtain statistically valid metrics on the real-world performance of both versions of the iPhone. To collect performance evaluation data for the report, Metrico performed over 10,000 Web page downloads, ran more than 2,000 data download/upload tests and made nearly 4,000 voice calls.
How Metrico’s Smartphone M.E. Program Works
Metrico developed the iPhone M.E. Special Insights Report as part of its Smartphone M.E. program, which evaluates the performance of all commercially available smartphones sold by Tier 1 U.S. carriers. the subscription-based service gives mobile industry players – including carriers, OEMs and enterprises – vital comparison data on the call performance, voice quality, and Web and data performance of more than 90 smartphones annually.
This data is easily accessible to M.E. subscribers via Metrico’s proprietary M.E. database – the largest collection of smartphone performance data available today. Mobile operators and manufacturers can use the M.E. data to gain competitive insights, verify post-launch performance or to more effectively promote a brand. Enterprise IT directors can use M.E. reports to determine which devices to purchase and which carrier they should choose to support particular devices.
for more information on the iPhone report and the M.E. program, or to sign up for an M.E. subscription, see www.metricowireless.com/services-solutions/me-research-library/.
Metrico is showcasing its Smartphone M.E. and its Fit4Launch performance evaluation programs at CTIA Wireless 2011 on March 22-24 in Orlando, Fla., in Metrico’s booth #4780.
About Metrico Wireless
Metrico Wireless inc. is pioneering the evaluation of wireless devices pre- and post-launch through analysis of user experience metrics such as audio, data, streaming video and location-based information. With its Fit4Launch and Mobile Experience (M.E.) programs, Metrico uses its patent-pending technologies to help ensure that devices get to market quickly and cost-effectively. In addition, Metrico enables devices to deliver the optimal user experience when users turn them on for the first time and to maintain their expected performance in the months following launch. Metrico’s customers include wireless carriers and handset makers such as AT&T, Motorola, Nokia, Research in Motion and T-Mobile. Additional information on the company may be found at www.metricowireless.com.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110307005471/en/Metrico-Wireless-Sets-Record-Straight-ATT-iPhonetag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110307005471/en/Metrico-Wireless-Sets-Record-Straight-ATT-iPhoneMon, 07 Mar 2011 14:03:19 GMT 00:00″>Metrico Wireless Sets the Record Straight on AT&T iPhone Vs. Verizon iPhone Performance
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Categories: Technology Tags: eastern daylight time, iphones, smartphone
