Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode" • Hacker News Board

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#11

Post by WalterGR » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 2:24 AM UTC

wglb wrote: post #10

WalterGR wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would expect with all the revelations lately about Microsoft's behavior... What, in particular, are you talking about?

Perhaps he is referring to the sidekick/danger bump in the road wherin MS apparently lost all user data, but recovered it with heroic effort, gaining rather bad PR, and possibly strained vendor relationships.

> Perhaps he is referring to the sidekick/danger bump in the road...

I thought that might be the case.

> ...gaining... strained vendor relationships.

With who, aside from T-mobile / Danger?

If this incident is what the OP is talking about, I don't see how it's relevant for current or prospective Windows Mobile licensees.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#12

Post by neovive » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 2:30 AM UTC

With the new Verizon Android phones coming to market shortly, a key factor will be how many features does Verizon remove from the phone. The new Android phones are extremely powerful and Android provides an excellent platform to leverage the hardware. However, it's doubtful that Verizon will offer the new phones with full support for things such as free Maps/Navigation, free games, chat, etc -- since they charge quite a bit for these services on other phones. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#13

Post by gcheong » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 2:30 AM UTC

I think it would be great to have more competition in the smartphone marketplace. My concern as a developer is that with so many devices coming out can I be reasonably assured that any app I write for android will work on all devices as with the iPhone? I certainly cannot afford to buy 12 different phones. Sure, adroid is supposed to be the common OS but is it going to really work that way in practice?

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#14

Post by jsz0 » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 2:43 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #5

I would expect with all the revelations lately about Microsoft's behavior that a lot of the Windows Mobile licensees to take a look at coming out with an Android phone (since they cannot license Web OS or iPhone OS).

The handset makers are hedging their bets with Android because they know Microsoft is interested in producing their own first party phone. When this happens it's likely Windows Mobile will become Microsoft's only licensed handset OS and will be neglected and forgotten in quick succession. Microsoft's handset would probably run a new, non-licensable, OS. The rumors that Microsoft's phone project is in trouble are non-sense. They could slap a dial-pad on the Zune software and ship a product in 6 months or less. It's definitely going to happen.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#15

Post by qeorge » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 2:55 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #13

I think it would be great to have more competition in the smartphone marketplace. My concern as a developer is that with so many devices coming out can I be reasonably assured that any app I write for android will work on all devices as with the iPhone? I certainly cannot afford to buy 12 different phones. Sure, adroid is supposed to be the common OS but is it going to really work that way in practice?

You raise a good point, and in order for this to work they'll need to ensure a full suite of emulators are available for testing. Android already provides an emulator [1] that can be configured to match the target device, although I can't speak to its quality as I have not used it. Windows Mobile is in a similar position, and its SDK provides emulators for every phone you would want to test on.

Phones differ so much in form factor alone that you really need to be testing individually for any phone in your target market anyway. Its a huge time-sink to be sure, but you won't be flying blind.

[1] http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator...

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#16

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 3:15 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #13

I think it would be great to have more competition in the smartphone marketplace. My concern as a developer is that with so many devices coming out can I be reasonably assured that any app I write for android will work on all devices as with the iPhone? I certainly cannot afford to buy 12 different phones. Sure, adroid is supposed to be the common OS but is it going to really work that way in practice?

...can I be reasonably assured that any app I write for android will work on all devices as with the iPhone?

That's one of the main points of Android.

It's in Apple's DNA to really polish their software on a small number of hardware platforms. This might not be so much of an advantage when it comes to apps handling personal information. However, this advantage might be significant when it comes to games some of which have a tendency to push whatever hardware they are on.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#17

Post by protomyth » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 3:23 AM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #7

protomyth wrote: post #5

I would expect with all the revelations lately about Microsoft's behavior that a lot of the Windows Mobile licensees to take a look at coming out with an Android phone (since they cannot license Web OS or iPhone OS).

> I would expect with all the revelations lately about Microsoft's behavior... What, in particular, are you talking about?

Sorry, posting as I was going out the door. The Sidekick disaster is a problem, but the first party phone referred to by jsz0 is probably a bigger issue. Think "Plays for Sure" vs. Zune.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#18

Post by protomyth » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 3:42 AM UTC

brandonkm wrote: post #6

symesc wrote: post #3

Google's profits were up 27% (as reported today) while Nokia was reporting a loss. I doubt anyone on this site finds this surprising. Google is doing what Google does, which is to say it brings its services to users and users use them. And all of it is subsidized by advertising. Google is playing a different game, and until someone starts challenging them they're going to continue to be adopted as the platform of cho…

> The only exception: Facebook. To provide a little context, Googles revenue in the UK alone was $200 million more than Facebook's highest revenue reports ($500 million). http://investor.google.com/releases/2009Q3_google_earnings.h... On earnings calls, every quarter, the report on revenue growth is centered around various metrics with search advertising. Search advertising continues to be the most profitable form of…

If local search is going to be super valuable then I think and interesting challenger to Google's dominance would be one of the credit card companies. They already know all the merchants and take a very interesting part of Google's business like Craig's List did to the newspapers.

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#19

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 4:09 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #17

WalterGR wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would expect with all the revelations lately about Microsoft's behavior... What, in particular, are you talking about?

Sorry, posting as I was going out the door. The Sidekick disaster is a problem, but the first party phone referred to by jsz0 is probably a bigger issue. Think "Plays for Sure" vs. Zune.

[deleted]

Re: Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

#20

Post by evgen » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 4:20 AM UTC

qeorge wrote: post #15

gcheong wrote: post #13

I think it would be great to have more competition in the smartphone marketplace. My concern as a developer is that with so many devices coming out can I be reasonably assured that any app I write for android will work on all devices as with the iPhone? I certainly cannot afford to buy 12 different phones. Sure, adroid is supposed to be the common OS but is it going to really work that way in practice?

You raise a good point, and in order for this to work they'll need to ensure a full suite of emulators are available for testing. Android already provides an emulator [1] that can be configured to match the target device, although I can't speak to its quality as I have not used it. Windows Mobile is in a similar position, and its SDK provides emulators for every phone you would want to test on. Phones differ so much…

Its not just about being able to test (although I have serious doubts that any suite of emulators will be able to give anything more than a rough guess as to how an app will perform on a wide variety of potential platforms) but also about what features will be available, what APIs will work, and how much code you will have to write to deal with some funky condition on Vendor A's phone that makes it differ in some subtle way from Vendor B and C's phones. Eventually they will probably figure it out, but for the next year or so this game is going to make browser feature detection look like a walk in the park...