Al, I hope it's not that bad and that over time things will get better and more open. Look at the sorry state of the Android Market. I am not being polemic here when I say that this cannot be so bad on purpose. So there is hope. On the other hand, the issues of Android moving to open source and/or winning on its own merits are much more important than it would be in the Apple world. For Apple the iPhone is a significant revenue stream with immediate needs and benefits. So they drive all things iPhone.
For Google on the other hand Android doesn't give them any immediate benefits. Maybe only that they were able to force-feed Android users a dead payment processor (Not sure how well using one's monopoly position this way plays with not being evil btw.). But no revenue is generated and the intention to prevent the mobile internet to be dominated by a single party (M$, Apple?), that might shut Google out of future revenue streams, is not an immediate threat. It is sad, but when thinking about it only obvious, that the expectation were much too high regarding the pull of Google's brand and deep pockets. To me there just isn't enough alignment of the goals of Android and Google. That might be enough to maintain an already successful solution, but ... It would be great if things get a bit more open sourced, like you mentioned, or another bigger player can find a business model in the Android world and will step up as a leader with immediate needs and benefits. I am just not sure from what direction this should come? SW vendors can't really earn money in an OSS environment and HW vendors can't really compete with Apple shaping both an SW and HW experience for their endusers and get to keep their advances for themselves. And those two Android users out there using the only phone model available are not all that willing to pay for apps on top of paying for the HW and the phone service. Maybe I see things to dark. Against all odds Linux became a success story. Keep us posted on your experiences with the other platforms. I think it will be interesting to see if at least BlackBerry will be able to create an environment were it is possible for ISVs to earn money in a sustainable way. On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote: > > Now before I start on the iPhone comparison I'm going to pre-empt the > normal > "But Android is open source....." response by saying lets be honest and > admit it as it stands Android is not an open source project because the > public "open source" repository is pretty worthless in its' current state. > > The last time I tried to build the master branch it failed missing some > Google internal API classes. The SDKs I've produce from the cupcake branch > seem to be considered by Google employees as pretty useless with comments > like "This is why we want to be clear it is "unofficial," because it is not > actually a working SDK" being thrown around and networking in the emulator > still being broken a week after users started reporting the showstopper > problem (And Romain did hint that Google have a fix, I read > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/msg/41fcefc36bd16d44 as > "there is a version where this is fixed"). And as we all know you can't use > it to build the exact versions of the open source parts of either of the > two > firmware versions that have shipped on the G1. > > To me it seems little more than code dump which is aimed at ensuring Google > can keep saying "But it is open source and not just a Google project" > > Now, in the last week I had few conversations with iPhone developers so I > could compare the Android developer experience to that of what is perceived > as our nearest competitor and they are laughing at us (seriously, when I > mentioned the G1 most of them responded by initially chuckling). The > general > consensus among them was; > > - Yes, you pay $99 for the iPhone dev kit, but you get "free" external > testing (i.e. at apple) and commercial quality support with many queries > being turned around in hours or a couple of days at worst. Compare that to > some of the support queries on b.android.com for basic problems things > like > a Android failing to connect to wireless lans with hidden SSID > (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1041) which, after > *five > and a half months* is still marked as "New" and doesn't have a single > response from a Google employee. > > - The most common cause of App Store listing rejections are things that > users would complain about anyway. This includes things like performance > characteristics, UI anomalies, and inconsistent behaviour. This is the type > of stuff that is left for users to find out on Android and only comes to > light when 1* or 2* comments are posted and even then you don't know if > it's > a one off on the users device or possibly something specific to their > region > (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2372). > > - The normal amount of time from submission to app store listing is around > 7 > days. Some apps take months to go through the approval process, but that is > because of intellectual property concerns, concerns over offensive content, > or is because the app has to be re-reviewed a few times to meet the apples > performance and behaviour guidelines. Yes it's not as fast as Android, but > you know that once it's on the market it's of a quality where you're not > going to get bombarded with user queries about problems straight off. > > - Most of the developers actually feel valued by Apple and feel that Apple > does what it can to make sure they get the tools they need to do their job > and ensure they're apps. This has been re-enforced by allowing the > developers to beta test the new firmware and develop against it. > > Personally, it's made me shell out $99 for an iPhone SDK, dust off my Nokia > N81, and spend $75 on eBay on a Blackberry so I can explore the > alternatives. > > Al. > > --- > > * Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * > > ====== > Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the > company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, > 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. > > The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not > necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's > subsidiaries. > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. 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