Schmidt: "Android Adoption Is About To Explode"

Post by shimi » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 4:28 AM UTC

evgen wrote: post #20

qeorge wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sub…

Post by dminor » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 4:38 AM UTC

CamperBob wrote: post #2

Translation: Our manufacturers are getting desperate, and are about to subsidize and/or give away a metric assload of phones to a lot of people who are too cheap to buy your apps.

Post by dminor » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 4:47 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…

Post by dminor » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 5:01 AM UTC

dminor wrote: post #23

CamperBob wrote: post #2

Translation: Our manufacturers are getting desperate, and are about to subsidize and/or give away a metric assload of phones to a lot of people who are too cheap to buy your apps.

I think your translator is broken -- there's just a bunch of new Android phones all coming out at once, whereas before last month there was only the G1 on T-Mobile. Hence the explosion.

Post by scythe » Fri, Oct 16, 2009, 5:19 AM UTC

dejb wrote: post #28

stcredzero wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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…

> However, this advantage might be significant when it comes to games some of which have a tendency to push whatever hardware they are on. This doesn't line up with the experience in desktop software where the the PC dominates gaming despite having a multitude of difference hardware environments.