Don’t forget that a majority of Samsung’s customers don’t buy Samsung phone for Android, they think they’re getting a free phone!
Right. But if they have no apps to put into it, the word will spread mighty fast.
I read an article recently that a majority of Android users only use a couple of Apps, free apps at that.
Plus you know Samsung, they’ll just keep throwing money at things until something sticks! Xojo could make a lot of money if it supported Tizen before Android, IMHO.
Let me talk about just my market as I don’t have precise numbers for everywhere.
Brazil: 200 million people, near to 40 million smartphones, 91% Android. 70 new phones sold each minute.
The #2 OS is NOW Windows Phone, #3 iOS. (last month if do recall the news).
The top 4 phones are Samsung. NONE FREE, deliberated bought due to the features and cost.
Some of those features are running Android and having the Play Store (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Drive, Soundhound, Gmail, Bank Apps, Food Delivery Apps, games, etc.) We buy phones off-contract here. None carrier can lock you in, you can change the carrier any time at no cost, just insert a new SIM Card. Anyone making money selling apps on Play Store? hardly. Anyone making money under contract to produce content from some company wishing to publish some service on Play Store? Many.
Windows Phone reached #2 due to some features like great camera in some, low cost in another, and Visual Studio support in all. Usually Windows users think it should be a great companion. Later they miss some apps.
New brands are coming, like Xiaomi, the Asian Apple-like phone manufacturer dedicated to Android. They are coming SAYING that they will be the #1 in few years.
Tizen will struggle here for a spot. 
Don’t forget that Samsung makes 300 variations of it’s phones, so while one may not do particular well, Samsung mobiles account for between 30~60% of mobile phones world wide (those number seem to fluctuate on where you read the statistics).
In China (and you can get these phones here in TW too), most Android phones don’t include Google Services, which means that those phones are lacking in APIs (and get zero updates). Yet people don’t care, as long as they get it free and can use whatever the latest social media craze is. These customers are not loyal to the brand, OS or anything in fact, as long as it seems as good as what everyone else has, but the price is acceptable.
I should add that while I have zero interest in Android, if Xojo feels that it’s viable for them then they should pursue it. Especially considering the guy who invented Android has now left Google (after being demoted), so maybe Xojo could give him a call.[quote=154720:@Rick Araujo]Anyone making money selling apps on Play Store? hardly. Anyone making money under contract to produce content from some company wishing to publish some service on Play Store? Many.[/quote]
This is what I hear time and time again from people I know who develop for Android, selling consumer apps in the play store is a waste of time. You can talk about how great the Android market share is, but the devs I know all say they earn less than 10% of iPhone profits on Android, with 2x the amount of work to support it. Selling apps to small businesses is where the money is.
I’ve had Android for some time and I have spent exactly $0 on apps.
Exactly.
Andy Rubin left the Android division but still at Google, now working in the new robotics division.
From what I read recently (when I get a moment I’ll see if I can find the article), it suggested that he was ‘moved’ to the robotics division and then shortly afterwards left Google all together.
I can’t find the exact article, but here’s one that explains he’s leaving Google.
http://9to5google.com/2014/10/30/andy-rubin-leaves-google/
Whatever happens with Tizen, fact remains Android is to the phone world what Windows was to PCs. A de facto standard most new phone makers will be using, what users will be expecting to be able to install their favorite apps.
Frankly, I doubt very much the statistics about a couple apps installed only are more than bogus, malevolent wishful thinking. More reliable figures such as dividing the total number of apps downloaded by the number of devices show an iOS device gets 83 apps. It would be extremely surprising that figures be so drastically different on the Android side. Let alone the “basic” apps like Rick mentioned represent already a bunch : Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Drive, Soundhound, Gmail, Bank Apps, Food Delivery Apps, games, etc. As often, let us not confuse our own options, like Tim buying no app at all, with what the general public does.
As for where the money is for developers, I agree there is not much to do with $ 0.99 apps, but whenever a sucker wants to have a Play Store presence, that is the moment to sharpen teeth. In the corporate world, there are probably huge opportunities for portable data entry, data acquisition, and other familiar enterprise needs.
He leaved, I’ve read now. Seems that he doesn’t like external interferences in his projects. I’ve read that for some time under his management the Android team had even a separated lunchroom to avoid contact with other teams, and as this is not the Google way of things, it was changed. While he was running the robotics division, Google bought 3 robotics companies: Boston Dynamics, Schaft and Meka. Looks like this injected more interferences making him uncomfortable. Them he just decided left the company and to fund his own company to run it as he wanted. I believe, that right now, money to pursue his dream smoothly, is not a problem.
The reality is more like Tim, and Sam described. The Android users are less interessted in buying apps, because they want anything for free. For my last employer, I worked in a research & development department. My colleagues and myself earned a lot of money, but the most of them uses Android phones, and tell me that they are not idiots like me, to buy an iPhone and then have to pay for the apps. What do you think people with less money will do?
Fact is, that Android is running on more mobile devices than iOS or Windows.
I believe, that there is not much money to earn for small business on the whole mobile software market. Some apps can make big money but the most of them only brings some pocket money. So the most small business can only earn money in consulting and programming for others companies, that needed mobile software.
What I find interesting with Android is the possibility to create software for myself and then use this software without the necessarity to pay a yearly fee to Apple, Google or Microsoft. But then the development IDE should be not to expensive for the hobbyists programmers.
[quote=154761:@Michel Bujardet]Frankly, I doubt very much the statistics about a couple apps installed only are more than bogus, malevolent wishful thinking. More reliable figures such as dividing the total number of apps downloaded by the number of devices show an iOS device gets 83 apps.[/quote]I don’t doubt the statistics at all, I only have to look at my own household. My children have literally hundreds of games on their Android tablets (although Minecraft now seems to have made all but one superfluous) but the adults have at most 1 or 2 apps.
Research conducted in the UK by Ofcom earlier this year showed more than half of adult smartphone users have never installed an app (although the percentage who had did increase compared to 2013).
[quote=154761:@Michel Bujardet]In the corporate world, there are probably huge opportunities for portable data entry, data acquisition, and other familiar enterprise needs.[/quote]Which in most instances can be serviced perfectly well by a browser which are more ubiquitous than any OS. HTML5 has some great APIs now.
[quote=154773:@Steve Wilson]My children have literally hundreds of games on their Android tablets (although Minecraft now seems to have made all but one superfluous) but the adults have at most 1 or 2 apps.
[/quote]
Once again, you take for example your own household, and as respectable as it is, it may not be relevant for the billion Android devices sold in 2014.
We have had Web Edition for a while, yet some members reported demand from their customers for iOS or Android native apps. The constant resistance to portable devices reminds me the way die hard Dos apps developers said the same for Windows apps back in the 80’s.
Gosh. Portable devices are here, have already gobbled the largest part of the market (global, not just desktop), and some are still questioning the need to address that market. Talking about short sighted…
[quote=154777:@Michel Bujardet]Once again, you take for example your own household, and as respectable as it is, it may not be relevant for the billion Android devices sold in 2014.[/quote]Actually I also quoted research which was in accordance with my own experience whereas you imagined some “malevolent wishful thinking” but hey…
[quote=154777:@Michel Bujardet]We have had Web Edition for a while, yet some members reported demand from their customers for iOS or Android native apps.[/quote]As I understand it Web Edition sends every event back to the server, I wouldn’t want that on a desktop never mind on a mobile device. Imo Web Edition is a good idea badly implemented.
As for customers who request native apps, it may well be they’re unaware of the capabilities and advantages of web apps.
[quote=154777:@Michel Bujardet]Gosh. Portable devices are here, have already gobbled the largest part of the market (global, not just desktop), and some are still questioning the need to address that market. Talking about short sighted…[/quote]I didn’t question whether it should be addressed but how.
Android devices are about as stable as Mt Vesuvius after a nuke was set off inside it. Granted Android 4.4.X is starting to be stable enough as a client so it is smart to target Chrome as browser for running web apps; but making a native Android desktop app would be like shooting an Emu at full pelt with a pee shooter over 1000 metres while standing in the back of an SUV driving across a plowed field at 100 Km / Hr.
Yes, that’s a pretty laboured metaphor but it’s still simpler than making a stable Android desktop app.
To qualify this, I am talking about using a system like Xojo that produces a compiled product that protects both the developers intellectual property and makes reverse engineering and hacking very difficult. If you don’t care about these things then that’s a different matter.
I.M.H.O.
[quote=216764:@Anthony Houston]Android devices are about as stable as Mt Vesuvius after a nuke was set off inside it. Granted Android 4.4.X is starting to be stable enough as a client so it is smart to target Chrome as browser for running web apps; but making a native Android desktop app would be like shooting an Emu at full pelt with a pee shooter over 1000 metres while standing in the back of an SUV driving across a plowed field at 100 Km / Hr.
Yes, that’s a pretty laboured metaphor but it’s still simpler than making a stable Android desktop app.
To qualify this, I am talking about using a system like Xojo that produces a compiled product that protects both the developers intellectual property and makes reverse engineering and hacking very difficult. If you don’t care about these things then that’s a different matter.
I.M.H.O.[/quote]
You eloquence is admirable, and your respect for wild life commendable. However, I am not sure we are talking about long necked volatiles hunting, but, rather, about the platform that supports over half of computing devices (combined phones, tablets, desktop and laptops).
Away from picturesque descriptions, I prefer to stand with business opportunities. It is pretty obvious that today, when you see the logo of the App Store, you see the Play Store logo next. The hegemony of Android is of the same nature as what Windows used to be : you may not like it, but it is an unavoidable fact of life.
It is all well and good to say that web apps are great, and I agree they can do wonder, but they do not replace a native app. I should know. Even in the Big Apple, WiFi remains sketchy, and a web app would not survive the bad coverage for very long. Only a native app will. At the risk of reviving the old battle between thin and thick clients, why continue an outdated quarrel when in fact portable devices are the perfect illustration of the best of both worlds ?
I did not develop as many apps for Android as I did for Mac and PC. But I have not noticed particular instability in Basic4Android apps. Which development tool have you tried for your emu shooting ?
I don’t so mobile, so take what I say with a big grain of salt…
I keep hearing that CONSUMERS don’t buy Android apps… and that is a reason for Xojo not to go there… But a lot of coding gets done that is not aimed at consumers…
Since android hardware can be a lot cheaper than Apple’s, it occurs to me that Android support could be important for developing in-house apps in some companies for company provided devices.
Don’t know if that is happening, but it makes sense that it might.
- Karen
[quote=216777:@Karen Atkocius] don’t so mobile, so take what I say with a big grain of salt…
I keep hearing that CONSUMERS don’t buy Android apps… and that is a reason for Xojo not to go there… But a lot of coding gets done that is not aimed at consumers…
Since android hardware can be a lot cheaper than Apple’s, it occurs to me that Android support could be important for developing in-house apps in some companies for company provided devices.
Don’t know if that is happening, but it makes sense that it might.[/quote]
I don’t know about actual sales, but the Play Store now has more apps than the App Store :
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/
Look around : all corporate apps come in both iOS and Android (banks, stores, clothes brands, games, kindle, whatever).
Android has huge advantages over iOS : hardware is dirt cheap for equivalent quality, and android apps do not need to be vetted by the monopolistic store to be installed. An apk (installer) can be sent by email to clients without all the ad hoc convoluted process iOS requires. Besides, and that is a big one, it seems Windows users massively prefer Android. Since most corporate development today is under Windows, it would make sense that Android be preferred.
Yet another small detail often overlooked by iOS fans : plug a mouse in an Android tablet, and it works, with even the familiar cursor. In fact, with a keyboard, an Android device becomes kind of a small PC. That can be a big advantage for certain apps.
All that said, Windows tablets are an amazing kind. They run Xojo amazingly well, and making an app touch aware is not very difficult in Xojo. And for corporate use, they are in the same price range as Android ones.
Reminds me of Nokia…