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Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

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Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#11

Post by arron61 »

dreyfiz wrote: post #9
mcantelon wrote: post #6

It's not that hard to unsterstand. iPhone had a lead on the Android and a lot of people invested heavily in iPhone. Now that Android has caught up in terms of marketshare it will take awhile for these people to catch up on their Android investment. As Android outpaces iPhone in the market, the app situation may end up reversed.

Did you see this part at the end, and if so, does that affect your judgement? > A final thought, regarding Android’s relative weakness as a software platform. iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-…

Windows paid for all these companies to create the games. They funded the development - that's the only reason why.

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#12

Post by mcantelon »

dreyfiz wrote: post #9
mcantelon wrote: post #6

It's not that hard to unsterstand. iPhone had a lead on the Android and a lot of people invested heavily in iPhone. Now that Android has caught up in terms of marketshare it will take awhile for these people to catch up on their Android investment. As Android outpaces iPhone in the market, the app situation may end up reversed.

Did you see this part at the end, and if so, does that affect your judgement? > A final thought, regarding Android’s relative weakness as a software platform. iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-…

Microsoft has a lot of weight in the game market. Not surprising that they convinced some people to get onboard. I doubt very much that, as Gruber seems to be implying, there is something intrinsically flawed about the Android platform that is a barrier to game development.

EDIT: Unity will likely make a big difference to the Android appsphere: http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/android

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#13

Post by Garbage »

dreyfiz wrote: post #9
mcantelon wrote: post #6

It's not that hard to unsterstand. iPhone had a lead on the Android and a lot of people invested heavily in iPhone. Now that Android has caught up in terms of marketshare it will take awhile for these people to catch up on their Android investment. As Android outpaces iPhone in the market, the app situation may end up reversed.

Did you see this part at the end, and if so, does that affect your judgement? > A final thought, regarding Android’s relative weakness as a software platform. iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-…

@Tichy has asked in the below comments,

> where are the killer games for OS X?

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#14

Post by kyleslattery »

Tichy wrote: post #4

Funny, my impression is that all the useful apps tend to be on Android. For example, I use Google Talk a lot, as it saves costs for sending SMS. I keep begging my iPhone 4 friend to use it, but he never even comments. I am not sure if it is not available on iPhone (multitasking problem?), or if he just doesn't care enough. Alternatively Twitter DMs are free, too. What am I missing out on by staying on Android (except…

Looks like Google Talk is available as a web app: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-talk-for-iph...

There are similar tools like Kik (which I actually like better than Google Talk), that are available for all platforms: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-talk-for-iph...

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#15

Post by throwaway111222 »

Kylekramer wrote: post #10

The problem I have with this article is the premise that if an app either started or is just also on iOS, somehow that invalidates its presence on Android. The iPhone had a huge lead in time and customer base. Any mobile app developer who calls themselves a mobile app developer is at least going to think about an iPhone app. Of course nearly every Android app is going to have an iOS equivalent. Saying an app needs to…

He's not better than that. You have to remember, he caters to an Apple audience. Because of this, when he is critical of Apple, his tone is soft and non-threatening so as to not offend his audience. When he is critical of his competitors, he often takes a hard, holier-than-thou tone in his posts to enforce his audience's affinity for Apple. In other words, his blog is highly polarizing by design.

This isn't a bad thing, every product needs their evangelists, but we must not confuse evangelism with journalism (not saying you did that, but I mean in general).

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#16

Post by irons »

Tichy wrote: post #4

Funny, my impression is that all the useful apps tend to be on Android. For example, I use Google Talk a lot, as it saves costs for sending SMS. I keep begging my iPhone 4 friend to use it, but he never even comments. I am not sure if it is not available on iPhone (multitasking problem?), or if he just doesn't care enough. Alternatively Twitter DMs are free, too. What am I missing out on by staying on Android (except…

His point is about the third-party app ecosystem; you're talking about first-party Google products, which he acknowledges and excluded.

There's nothing wrong with targeting multiple major platforms, but a market-leading platform without at least some desirable, exclusive software titles to its name is an historical anomaly.

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#17

Post by brownleej »

Kylekramer wrote: post #10

The problem I have with this article is the premise that if an app either started or is just also on iOS, somehow that invalidates its presence on Android. The iPhone had a huge lead in time and customer base. Any mobile app developer who calls themselves a mobile app developer is at least going to think about an iPhone app. Of course nearly every Android app is going to have an iOS equivalent. Saying an app needs to…

I think Gruber's underlying point is that exclusive apps are one of the things that helps a platform maintain success, because they are a barrier to exit.

You ask, "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" This is a perfectly fair question. I think the response from the Apple camp would be that it is the wrong question. The question they're more interested in is how things are done, not what features are available. This is why they focus so much on design, polish, and experience, and less on providing the widest possible functionality. Along the same lines, notice that Gruber criticizes several Android apps for being knock-offs of iPhone apps, or for having relatively poor quality compared to their iPhone counterparts. I think this shows that his focus is on the how rather than the what, and that his discussion of exclusive apps has less to do with functionality, and more to do with how sticky the platform is. Neither side is necessarily right or wrong, but it's important to recognize that they are asking fundamentally different questions.

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#19

Post by lukeschlather »

The entire article reads a bit like the scene in The Life of Brian where the Jewish rebels enumerate all the things the Romans have done for them, and then say "but aside from that, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

I get where Gruber's coming from, and there seems to be a legitimate point in here about the difference between consoles and ordinary computers. But I'm not really seeing anything listed under the iPhone-exclusive category that is worthwhile. It's clear that it's going to be a profit center for Apple, and it's clear that some people enjoy it, but Gruber's assertion that it's intrinsically better doesn't have a lot of weight to it.

Re: Where Are the Android Killer Apps?

#20

Post by cheald »

Gruber seems to make the assertion that a platform only has worth based on its exclusive "killer apps". He goes wrong there and never really recovers. Android's strength is not its suite apps, it's its flexibility. It runs on an enormous range of hardware, and doesn't require that you buy into a single vendor's toolchain to use it. The core philosophical difference between the two platforms is "Steve Jobs decides what's best for me" versus "I decide what's best for me".

So what are the killer apps? How about things like Launcher Pro, Swype, SwiftKey, and AppBrain? Why don't we talk about Chrome To Phone or the FM Radio listener (via Cyanogen)? Those are all things that just don't - and can't - exist on the iPhone, but the glory of them is that I get to choose them. I can pick my own homescreen app and tweak the heck out of it. I can pick an input method that I want (SwiftKey has made my iPhone-using friends turn green with envy on more than occassion). I can install new apps without ever having to tether to my computer with iTunes. I can send a map or recipe from my computer to my phone and take my work with me seamlessly. These are all "killer features", but they aren't "apps" in the Apple sense of the word - they're features, extensions of the platform, which let me use my device as best I see fit.

If everything Apple does is exactly what you want, Android probably doesn't have any "killer features" worth talking about, but as soon as you want to do something that diverges from the Cupertino Grand Unified Vision, Android starts to become a lot more attractive. Given Gruber's leanings, it's little wonder that he's not enamored with Android. Doesn't mean that's the case for everyone - and the market bears that out quite well.

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