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Android is for startups

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Re: Android is for startups

#151

Post by markshepard »

Interestingly the opposite is true in our case. We are a small startup that has apps available both in Apple and Android. But because it is hard to develop and deploy a successful app in iOS than in android, it keeps competition at bay. In Android, lot of half baked apps pollute the store (and the fake ratings and review destroy any sort of app discovery) that it is simply not worth it.

While we have had our share of frusturation with the apple app store process (weird rejections that had to be explained etc), I don't see Android as an alternative to iOS appstore for startups. Once the iOS app is up running, we develop the android (and since we believe android users are used to seeing incomplete apps), we take our time adding functions to the app as well! (Yes I know, it is a cynical view, but we simply match expectation)

Re: Android is for startups

#152

Post by dycow »

robbfitzsimmons wrote: post #131
jcromartie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making for a nice opportunity You are assuming that there is demand for anything but free apps. I know that I personally would kill to pay for top-quality Android apps like I do on iOS, but I don't think I speak for the majority of Android users. Based on everything that I've seen, they just don't want to pay.

Completely agreed (and would also kill to pay); what I meant at the end of my comment that it's that it's a nice opportunity predicated on being a quality app right when the market starts to shift. Which I think is what Will's betting on.

I'm more than happy to pay money for a good product than waste my time suffering though shitty free ones that throw ads at you.

I've always thought Google's greatest achievement was to convince people that they are getting free services..

Re: Android is for startups

#153

Post by kintamanimatt »

xutopia wrote: post #106
ensmotko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If $100 a year would allow me to develop iOS apps on my Linux laptop I'd be fine with that. But $100 a year + paying for overpriced apple hardware doesn't sound appealing.

And that is where the line divides. Android users are like you... they don't want to pay for software and go for cheaper hardware when they can.

I'm a Linux and Android user. My Android phone wasn't any cheaper than an iPhone and I can most certainly afford any Apple hardware I want. I also don't use Linux because I'm cheap, I use Linux because I love it. The hardware was exactly what I wanted too.

I don't develop for iOS because I don't want to own a Mac. I (as a long-time Linux user) find OS X incredibly frustrating.

There's also absolutely no reason to force developers to use a particular brand of hardware or a particular operating system to develop for a particular phone.

Re: Android is for startups

#154

Post by minimax »

aryastark wrote: post #114
ensmotko wrote: post #31

Another thing that bothers me with development for iOS is that you need apple hardware and software. I can't develop an iOS on my Linux machine (I've tried running OSX in virtualbox, but it's slow and not to mention illegal). I really wish Apple would make their platform a little more available. Lowering the $100 yearly fee would be a good start...

> you need apple hardware and software It's worse than that, I'm afraid. You need the absolute latest of both. My perfectly fine Macbook from 2008 should be more than adequate for developing iOS apps. It's a core2 duo with 2GB of RAM. I mean, these aren't exactly the days of Pentium 60 vs. XT 8088. Yet the max OS I can upgrade to is Lion. And that's with going through Snow Leopard first. And who knows how much longer…

I have a 2008 MacBook (5,1) which I upgraded to 8GB RAM and an SSD. It runs Mountain Lion just fine. I use it for all sorts of things including Xcode. No idea what you're talking about here.

Re: Android is for startups

#155

Post by shitlord »

xutopia wrote: post #106
ensmotko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If $100 a year would allow me to develop iOS apps on my Linux laptop I'd be fine with that. But $100 a year + paying for overpriced apple hardware doesn't sound appealing.

And that is where the line divides. Android users are like you... they don't want to pay for software and go for cheaper hardware when they can.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to buy something when you are only developing for it and not actually planning on using it. I sometimes develop software for Windows, and I hate running it, so I won't purchase a copy of it. But that shouldn't prevent me from developing for it.

Re: Android is for startups

#156

Post by emhs »

dycow wrote: post #150
9999 wrote: post #74

The iOS development cycle works the way it does to protect Apple's customers. The people that pay for your application deserve and demand a certain level of quality. They also shouldn't be constantly bothered with updating your hastily developed, poorly tested, 'rapidly iterating' product. As for Android, Google doesn't care. The person with the Android phone is not their customer, they're the product. Google is in t…

I'm an android developer and I agree with this comment. The article as a whole paints a really bad picture of Apple's development process when, in honesty, I wish Google would learn a bit from the things Apple does really well. I really hope people don't think it's okay to ship an app with a typo in the title -- that's just lazy and irresponsible. While I wish the $99 fee was only required to publish an app (as oppos…

Say what you will about quality differences in the tools, but the availability of the tools comes down heavily in Android's favor. Further, getting through the developer-license-acquisition process is hit or miss -- some people have it easy, some have it hard. Despite whatever advantages it has, iOS obstructs the ability to learn from users' needs and iterate quickly. Yes, there are things that could be better in the android ecosystem. But the ease of getting a bugfix to your users matters, and iOS fails on this.

Re: Android is for startups

#157

Post by dangerboysteve »

Check back in 1-2 years and see how much publishing to Play is any easier than Apple's App store. Google is adopting the Apple playbook more and more every day to ensure quality, security and consistency in the android ecosystem. The only difference is that Apple has had a head start by a few years and they have gone through the growing pains and issues that Google's play is starting to encounter.

Re: Android is for startups

#158

Post by johnbender »

benihana wrote: post #39

Another post on the top of Hacker News making the mistake of thinking paying customers give a crap about how easy it is to [write|deploy|test|debug] your app. Even with all the pain associated with the App Store people still write more apps for it than ever. Why? Cause people pay for apps there. They don't on the Play Store.

"the mistake of thinking paying customers give a crap about how easy it is to [write|deploy|test|debug] your app"

In general I agree but if those things have a material effect on how good the app is (e.g. "focused" functionality) then I think the customers would "give a crap".

Re: Android is for startups

#159

Post by selectodude »

dycow wrote: post #150
9999 wrote: post #74

The iOS development cycle works the way it does to protect Apple's customers. The people that pay for your application deserve and demand a certain level of quality. They also shouldn't be constantly bothered with updating your hastily developed, poorly tested, 'rapidly iterating' product. As for Android, Google doesn't care. The person with the Android phone is not their customer, they're the product. Google is in t…

I'm an android developer and I agree with this comment. The article as a whole paints a really bad picture of Apple's development process when, in honesty, I wish Google would learn a bit from the things Apple does really well. I really hope people don't think it's okay to ship an app with a typo in the title -- that's just lazy and irresponsible. While I wish the $99 fee was only required to publish an app (as oppos…

You can develop an app without paying the fee, the only catch is that you need to pay the 99 dollars to test on actual hardware, instead of the iOS Simulator, which is somewhat silly but par for the course when it comes to Apple.

Re: Android is for startups

#160

Post by chasing »

corresation wrote: post #109
benihana wrote: post #39

Another post on the top of Hacker News making the mistake of thinking paying customers give a crap about how easy it is to [write|deploy|test|debug] your app. Even with all the pain associated with the App Store people still write more apps for it than ever. Why? Cause people pay for apps there. They don't on the Play Store.

While I entirely agree with your lead in, your last bit is very "where the puck was" thinking. Two years ago the Play store yielded 1/10th the revenue of the App Store, by common metrics. One year ago it was 1/4. The most recent stat is 1/2 -- still months old. Do you see where this is going? The #1 source of revenue for many games and other media on the App Store is via gifted iTunes cards. This is a mechanism that…

"Two years ago the Play store yielded 1/10th the revenue of the App Store, by common metrics. One year ago it was 1/4. The most recent stat is 1/2 -- still months old. Do you see where this is going?"

Sure: I see that, if I'm releasing an app this year, I should target iOS first because Android is a distant second.

(And can I say that I continue to hate the "puck" quote and, while it was a mildly clever over-generalization when Jobs used it, nowadays it seems mostly to be used as a kind of pompous way to say nothing useful whatsoever. Which is to say: In a few years everyone's going to be freakin' tired of that quote and so continuing whip it out is very "where the puck was.")

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