Re:Daring Fireball: Pound the Quality
by vessenes on Wednesday October 28, 2009 @12:42PM
(#908169)
I agree -- I think Grubber is missing the boat on the overall trends. Android OS devices will, guaranteed, outsell total number of iPhones in the not too distant future. Will it be 12 or 24 months? I don't know, but right now Google is knocking the ball out of the park on distribution deals: Apple and AT&T market the iPhone and its OS.
Sprint, T-mobile, Verizon, Barnes & Noble (through the Nook), HTC, etc. etc. all market Android OS and phones right now. Which group do you think will win?
Eventually the developers will come, especially because developing for Android is frankly easier for developers: significantly more open platform, and broader developer skills for Android's app SDK.
Right now, Android's Market app sucks (1.6's update is a bit better). Android Devices will vary more in terms of hardware, although Apple's are starting to differentiate as well. Apple had a pretty good Store app from the get-go, a single platform to develop for, a beautiful UI and almost no competition in the paid app space.
Apple pulled out in front, and they'll probably always have an arguably better product, if Steve keeps up his perfectionist ways with successor products. It might even be that the most you could make as a successful developer would be having a 'hit app' on the Apple Store.
But, the market conditions will almost certainly generate far more value, in aggregate, for Android developers than iPhone developers; it's going to be a more democratized, far broader market for Android devices really soon now.
Sprint, T-mobile, Verizon, Barnes & Noble (through the Nook), HTC, etc. etc. all market Android OS and phones right now. Which group do you think will win?
Eventually the developers will come, especially because developing for Android is frankly easier for developers: significantly more open platform, and broader developer skills for Android's app SDK.
Right now, Android's Market app sucks (1.6's update is a bit better). Android Devices will vary more in terms of hardware, although Apple's are starting to differentiate as well. Apple had a pretty good Store app from the get-go, a single platform to develop for, a beautiful UI and almost no competition in the paid app space.
Apple pulled out in front, and they'll probably always have an arguably better product, if Steve keeps up his perfectionist ways with successor products. It might even be that the most you could make as a successful developer would be having a 'hit app' on the Apple Store.
But, the market conditions will almost certainly generate far more value, in aggregate, for Android developers than iPhone developers; it's going to be a more democratized, far broader market for Android devices really soon now.