Why developing for Android sucks

#1

Post by echubb » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:04 AM UTC

Why developing for Android sucks
webosroundup.com

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#2

Post by echubb » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:10 AM UTC

Good article (apart from advocating developing for Palm??), bad title. It should be called "Why distributing your Android app sucks." No commentary on actual app development itself. My thoughts on that are that Google should develop an IDE for Android developers - Eclipse is unstable bloatware, the Android emulator sucks and supporting different screen sizes and resolutions is odious to say the least.

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#3

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:21 AM UTC

> Over the Air updates. If you have a Palm phone you will be on the latest version that your carrier has available

I wonder what happens when you use an unlocked phone on a foreign telco. Will it get upgraded using Palm's servers?

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#4

Post by echubb » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:32 AM UTC

Interesting. How vibrant is the dev community for Palm phones?

OTA Updates are another story on Android. Different manufacturers price OS updates differently like Samsung, who price them as feature updates whereas some other Android phone manufacturers price them as cheaper maintenance upgrades. It can be a bit of a lottery as to whether your phone will ever receive an upgrade.

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#5

Post by praptak » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:49 AM UTC

Some of the points are only valid if your revenue model is a paid app. How about a free app + paid service?

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#6

Post by echubb » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 11:58 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #5

Some of the points are only valid if your revenue model is a paid app. How about a free app + paid service?

If piracy is as big a problem on Android as the article claims, the free client/paid subscription model is probably the most viable way to generate revenue. However, Android is not proprietary software-friendly - It's INSANELY easy to decompile APK archives and reverse engineer content.

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#7

Post by yardie » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 12:19 PM UTC

echubb wrote: post #4

Interesting. How vibrant is the dev community for Palm phones? OTA Updates are another story on Android. Different manufacturers price OS updates differently like Samsung, who price them as feature updates whereas some other Android phone manufacturers price them as cheaper maintenance upgrades. It can be a bit of a lottery as to whether your phone will ever receive an upgrade.

I'm part of the WebOS dev community and its small but growing. I've sat on the fence for a while because I wasn't sure where Palm would be a year ago. And while I found the interface to be the best in the smartphone space (sorry iOS) the hardware it was deployed on was deplorable.

They are moving from Mojo (javascript based) to Enyo (C++ based) platform so quite a few developers are also waiting for the new SDK. Most of the apps that are currently written in Mojo will continue to work but I sense that most developers are in the same boat I am. No point in learning a framework that has one foot in the grave when the next one is right around the corner.

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#8

Post by sterwill » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 12:19 PM UTC

echubb wrote: post #2

Good article (apart from advocating developing for Palm??), bad title. It should be called "Why distributing your Android app sucks." No commentary on actual app development itself. My thoughts on that are that Google should develop an IDE for Android developers - Eclipse is unstable bloatware, the Android emulator sucks and supporting different screen sizes and resolutions is odious to say the least.

People often repeat that Eclipse is "unstable." I can use one Eclipse process for weeks, even months on-end with JVMs from Sun and IBM on Linux, and it never crashes or needs a restart (except if installing new plug-ins). The ADK tools don't have the polish of the core features, and I haven't used them as much as other tools, but what's causing instability?

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#9

Post by DanielRibeiro » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 12:28 PM UTC

What about free + admob? Angry Birds is free on Android, but uses Ads to support it. Being the top free game on the platform, this means they probably do a lot of money with it.

Re: Why developing for Android sucks

#10

Post by echubb » Wed, Jan 26, 2011, 12:30 PM UTC

sterwill wrote: post #8

echubb wrote: post #2

Good article (apart from advocating developing for Palm??), bad title. It should be called "Why distributing your Android app sucks." No commentary on actual app development itself. My thoughts on that are that Google should develop an IDE for Android developers - Eclipse is unstable bloatware, the Android emulator sucks and supporting different screen sizes and resolutions is odious to say the least.

People often repeat that Eclipse is "unstable." I can use one Eclipse process for weeks, even months on-end with JVMs from Sun and IBM on Linux, and it never crashes or needs a restart (except if installing new plug-ins). The ADK tools don't have the polish of the core features, and I haven't used them as much as other tools, but what's causing instability?

I've had serious problems with Eclipse's autocomplete/intellisense prediction feature. It often begins listing identifiers and then just hangs indefinitely. I don't know if the fact I'm developing using the Windows build is significant - it is Java after all so it should be platform agnostic.

I seem to have bad luck with IDE's though. I develop using Visual Studio 2008 and that has some horrendous problems, though VS was never known for stability (six service packs for VS6, anyone?)