Why the Google Android Phone Isn't Taking Off 745
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kdawson
from the know-thine-enemy-and-drive-him-nuts dept.
from the know-thine-enemy-and-drive-him-nuts dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate that while the iPhone commands nearly 14 percent of smartphone sales and BlackBerry about 21 percent, Android has only 3 percent. And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone. Manjoo writes that Google went wrong by giving handset manufacturers and carriers too much control over the design and marketing of Android phones so there is no idealized 'Google phone' — instead, Android devices get names like the T-Mobile G1 or the myTouch 3G, and each is marketed separately and comes with its own distinct capabilities and shortcomings. 'Outside handset manufacturers lack ambition — -none of them even seems to be trying to match the capabilities of the iPhone, let alone to knock us down with features that far surpass those of Apple's device,' writes Manjoo. 'A smart handset manufacturer could build a top-of-the-line Android device that outshines Apple's phone in at least a few areas — better battery life, a much better Web browser, a brighter or bigger screen, faster or more functional controls... something that might help Android inspire gadget lust. But so far, that's not happening.' John Gruber echoes this advice and adds this advice to Android manufacturers: 'If Apple is BMW, you can be Porsche.'"
they could still do it if they wanted (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing, as far as I know, in any of the existing arrangements stopping Google from co-branding a phone with a manufacturer that's blessed as "the Google [whatever]". A Google-branded phone would probably be a stronger player--- moreso than a T-Mobile-branded phone that in the explanatory text tells you about how it runs Google Android.
It's the phones (Score:4, Insightful)
I spent several months at a startup where we were going to make $$profit by writing and selling Android applications. The problem is that the phones are, well, awful. The iPhone has set the standard, and things like the G1 are simply uninspiring by comparison. We would try to raise money, and in a room full of tech-savvy investors, most people have iPhones. We would pass around the G1 so they could see our app. Bottom line, they were not interested in investing money in a product that ran on a phone that was ugly.
Consequently I now write SQL for a living and get paid by the hour.
Android has done some great things. The control the user can have, the security model, the interaction between apps are all well thought out. One of these days it's going to be significant. Probably right after Linux is ready for the desktop.
Citation needed (Score:5, Insightful)
And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone.
I hear people parroting the first part of that statement, invariably without any supporting evidence. Please explain - I'm asking this seriously - why Android is "far friendlier to developers". If the apps aren't being developed, I'd argue that's at least one piece of evidence running counter to that assumption. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) seemed to have a significant number of third-party apps already available at launch, so marketshare can't explain it all away. Besides, as people love saying here, the iPhone's market share is not really all that big compared to some others (no, you can't have it both ways).
So is Android actually friendlier to developers, or is it just the old "it's on Linux and Open Source, so it contains the maximum degree of friendliness possible no matter how much a pain in the butt it is to use"?
Re:they could still do it if they wanted (Score:3, Insightful)
Rough user interface (Score:1, Insightful)
I find the Android ui to be kind of unpolished. It looks like something from several years ago. I know it sounds nitpicky, but it just doesn't have that "I want to use this" vibe.
Plus, how is Android more developer-friendly? The iPhone and Windows Mobile have nice SDKs, big communities, tons of code around, etc.
talk about not understanding the industry! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, just stunning. If the lack of an idealized phone were the problem, WinMo wouldn't have anywhere near the marketshare it has. For Android to take over, one simple thing needs to happen - a wider selection of Android phones on a wider selection of providers, at a wide selection of price points.
Where's the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Where is the market? AT&T has the iPhone, the phone. The one everyone wants to beat.
Sprint has the Pre. It's a pretty decent phone with a few build quality issues. Once Palm gets a brain and starts letting apps come out, it could be pretty good.
Verizon has... who knows. Standard Blackberries?
And then there is little T-Mobile with.. Blackberries.
I don't remember seeing many (any?) ads for the G1. I don't remember anyone talking about it except release day calling it "the google phone" when it's not Googly in any way. Basically, not many people care, because I don't think many people know about it. My boss has one, and it's quite nice. But it has no mindshare.
Why should it? It doesn't have an amazing app store (like the iPhone). It doesn't have sexy hardware (like the iPhone or many imitators). It doesn't have an amazingly cheap price. There is nothing to stand out about it other than running "google OS". And since Android doesn't have a reputation yet, that doesn't sell phones.
Great apps would help, but people won't build those until the thing is more popular. Better hardware would help a little so it doesn't look so blocky (the G2 should help here).
Microsoft has this same problem. When Apple wants the hardware to do something, it builds it. When Microsoft wants it, they push and prod and within a few years it happens. Dell (et all) don't make sexy computers, or at least didn't start until after years of Apple taking the "good looking" market.
Android could be something great, even if it takes the "low end smartphone" market. But it could take years to get there, and companies may not be willing to wait that long. If Google had taken some of the risk and co-developed a phone (a Honda or Acura to Apple's BMW, instead of the Ford Focus we got) Android could be in a better spot.
But the Pre is the weakest right now, in my eyes. They've had months and released almost no apps. You know what they just released in the last week or two? Out of the 4 or 5 apps, two were to help people with Jewish observances. Not exactly "phone moving" applications. Floodgates may not open until Christmas or later, and without some lower-level stuff there might not be good games. Some strong funded development in apps and some marketing could really help Android. More phones certainly would.
The question is, will this be the next DOS/Windows (good enough, builds up to dominance), or OS/2 (better than the common, but never achieves critical mass and becomes irrelevant)?
How about a series of ads showing how easy it is to navigate/use the phone, compared to the nightmare of a UI that Blackberries use? Aim for that market. Aim for consumers (not necessarily businesses) who want a smartphone, but don't want and iPod.
Of course, I wouldn't want to fight against a $99 iPhone. The only reason that thing hasn't destroyed the market is it's tied to AT&T.
Marketing trumps Quality (Score:2, Insightful)
We have known this for ages and we still act as if this is somehow surprising?
Most Apple users believe they are somehow better than everyone else and that they are somehow elite because they own an Apple product. -1 Troll me if you like, but there are many people who truly believe that and one classic twitter posting complaining about the reduction in prices of Apple notebook computers really expresses what everyone else is afraid to admit -- that buying a particular brand of anything somehow says something about who they are. People buying Harley Davidson motorcycles for weekend rides or having their bikes transported on trailers to motorcycle rallies like Sturgis somehow makes them a member of a biker's culture? It's not true. Slapping a popular label on your ass does not make anyone cooler or better, and yet people still persist in believing so and why?
The power of marketing influence is great! But these Jedi mind tricks only work on the weak minded.
Re:Requiring Developers to Collect Sales Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Features... (Score:2, Insightful)
Tethering, VOIP, and Google Voice alone would far outpace the iPhones selection of farts and beer glass pouring apps.
Yeah cuz the others don't have a head start ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so sick of people making number comparisons between similar technologies that were released sometimes YEARS earlier than the others.
I have a G1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Show some evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you don't have to pay Apple money to develop for Android, and you don't have to get Apple's permission to distribute your app to users.
Those are nice factors worth considering but you didn't really answer the question. Is it true that "Android is far friendlier to developers"? I don't actually know the answer and don't pretend to know. I've certainly seen no compelling evidence that Android actually is meaningfully friendlier (whatever that means) or better meets the needs/desires of developers. It might be but the evidence seems to be lacking.
Re:"It's the Network" (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite simple: the cellphone companies give no discounts for buying the phone from another supplier. So, you just paid more for a phone and the only advantage that you may get is being able to break the contract at less cost. Since the cost of breaking the contract is limited, it's not an irrational decision to buy the phone from the carrier.
Futhermore, T-Mobile will unlock one phone every 90 days at no charge.
Little Premature (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's wait until the end of the year to declare Android dead. After all, there are (as far as I know) only three Android phones being sold in the U.S. right now, with far more announced for sale before the end of the year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_android#Forthcoming [wikipedia.org]
Also, the U.S. isn't the only market for mobile phones. There's also Europe and the Far East.
HTC, the seller of 80% of Windows Mobile phones, was the first provider to start selling Android phones.
What's likely to happen is that, since it's free, Android will supplant Windows Mobile, which Microsoft charges for.
Android T Mobile (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading the comments I got the feeling I was reading a 9 months old article, I actually went to check the date on comments a few times.
Might I remind you that Android handsets have been released around the world, not only in the USA.
In France for instance, the HTCMagic (the G2 I believe) had advertisement in the metro and was labeled as a Google Phone (it's the Android name that doesn't pushed get out there, not the Google name). In Australia there are also ads for the same phone in phone shops.
Also, they are about 4 phones available right now running android (HTCDream, Magic, Hero and Samsung Galaxy).
Always going back to the T Mobile G1 is a little backwards looking and sort of like complaining about how the iPhone 1 doesn't have 3G.
The HTC Hero has an entirely revamped UI for instance, so things are also evolving outside the hood as well as under (even if the Hero's hardware admittedly isn't good enough and not future-proof).
So although I agree that Android lacks a killer app and the I want one factor that the iPhone has, saying that Android has problems because T Mobile's network sucks is really USA-centric.
From the different reports we've seen, the Magic has sold a million units since it was released in May. Now we're nowhere near iPhone numbers, but it isn't exactly a failure commercially speaking.
Considering another 15 or so phones running Android should come out before the end of the year (probably quite a few Samsungs, at least one Sony-Ericsson and some more HTCs), Android is gearing up.
I'm not saying it doesn't need a whole lot more marketing, a lot more see how easy it is to do this on Android type ads on TV to explain to non tech-savvy people why it's good, better form factors and gadget lust or some unified branding to avoid having a same phone have 5 different names, but it's nowhere near the catastrophe some seem to see it as. As someone said, it's going to gain momentum slowly, not become the next big thing overnight.
Re:Marketing trumps Quality (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct that buying a brand says nothing about who you are. But the substance of what you buy does indeed say quite a bit about your priorities. You seem to hold a greatly simplified view of the market and the forces that drive it: that all consumers buy only by brand and that none choose on merit. With the exception of you, obviously, the only one able to look past branding and make an educated decision.
But, it appears that brands do indeed matter to you! You make a dismissal of Apple products based merely upon their popularity and trendy branding, with no mention of any objective shortcomings. Has it occurred to you that a certain subset of Apple's customers actually buy their products for superior usability? That a Harley Davidson rider may have comparison shopped and chosen a Harley based on its mechanical qualities?
Brand identity is indeed one major force in the marketplace. But it's far from the only one.
You Have To Be Joking! (Score:1, Insightful)
"One of these days it's going to be significant. Probably right after Linux is ready for the desktop."
Are you actually that clueless?
I find it impossible for someone to actually be posting in a story about cellphones, claiming to actually have worked at a company focused on cellphones, and yet...is pretending to be ignorant that
THE ENTIRE CELLPHONE MARKET is rapidly standardizing on Android.
Every damn cellphone manufacture in the world other than Apple, Palm, and Blackberry are coming out with Android based phones.
Android is so popular with hardware manufactures it is spreading out into media devices, netbooks, sub-netbook devices, etc.
Companies like Motorola have created a 200 person team dedicated to...you guessed it...Android.
Google's Android has effectively wiped Windows Mobile right out of the market and taken its place as the default cellphone OS.
So, yeah, nice story about the startup. Has absolutely nothing to do with the reality that Android isn't just a success. It's an astonishing success to have taken over so quickly.
Re:Marketing trumps Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not going to argue that Apple doesn't market heavily and successfully, but I think there's ample evidence that Apple's success has more to do with just being the latest cool fad. Truckloads of iPods have been selling for something like 8 years now, they've sold over 200 million of the things. Everyone's got one, even my grandparents have a couple. Fads and fashion don't last that long, people are still buying them because they like them, and they like them because they're better than all of alternatives.
Hype isn't completely meaningless, but history is full of zillion dollar marketing campaigns for products that completely flopped. I know you like to think you're better than everyone else by pretending that they're just mindless sheep and you're enlightened somehow, but in reality, people keep buying this stuff because it works for them. The iPhone isn't the perfect device for everybody, but for lots of people, it really is a whole lot better than anything else available. The fact that it looks slick is just a bonus.
Yes but (Score:1, Insightful)
The iPhone and the Blackberry are the two phones that every single other manufacture seeks to emulate. They set the gold standard for cell phone interfaces.
I don't know of a *single* person in my circle of friends who owns one. I dont know a single person who has ever mentioned wanting them, thinking about them, or seen them. In fact, outside of slashdot, I've never really heard about the Android. Pretty popular indeed.
Re:Where's the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should it? It doesn't have an amazing app store (like the iPhone). It doesn't have sexy hardware (like the iPhone or many imitators). It doesn't have an amazingly cheap price. There is nothing to stand out about it other than running "google OS". And since Android doesn't have a reputation yet, that doesn't sell phones.
Great apps would help, but people won't build those until the thing is more popular. Better hardware would help a little so it doesn't look so blocky (the G2 should help here).....
Of course, I wouldn't want to fight against a $99 iPhone....
Err, have you checked the android app store [android.com] lately? Does you iphone have turn-by-turn directions? Can you i-phone be used as a metal-detector? Did you iphone come with copy-and-paste enabled? Can your iphone use google voice? How much do your iphone apps add to the total cost of your phone? I've yet to have to pay for an andriod app, but did dump some money toward andnav2. Is there anything even close to Enkin for iPhone?
There is nothing wrong with the hardware; pictures / advertisements of the Android don't do it any justice. The functionality that the keyboard and trackball on the G1 provides crush any hardware extras the iPhone may have.
At $97 the Android is more than competitively priced. How much did all your iPhone apps end up costing you? Every app I've downloaded for android has been free (most in both senses). Most of all, why would i want to buy a phone that requires me to void my warranty if I ever wanted to develop my own personal apps for it?
Re:Show some evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Android is a platform that give much more, and more meaningful, freedoms to app developers.
Freedom? Yes. Friendliness? Not that I've seen, and you haven't cited a single piece of evidence towards "friendliness", just "freedom".
It's really, really easy to get started with iPhone development. You pay Apple a small fee and get access to piles and piles of sample code, great documentation, a mature API, and you even get 2 support incidents in which you get to interact with a real Apple developer for your money. And now there's an ecosystem of developer forums, third-party libraries, articles, server/ad services, marketing support... it's actually a pretty friendly experience. It's true that Apple gets veto power, but even then the rejection letter is friendly :)
Re:talk about not understanding the industry! (Score:3, Insightful)
So Android should be competing with WinMo instead of the iPhone?
Android should start by taking out WinMo, Symbian, etc. It can't replace OS X mobile on the iPhone because, hey, it's Apple - that's not gonna happen. It needs to replace WinMo in WinMo's marketplace niche. Competing against the iPhone is easy - make a nice interface and don't lock out and unfairly compete against developers like Apple is doing. The hardware from HTC & Samsung that are scheduled to be coming out over the next quarter or so will compete handily with the iPhone's hardware (the iPhone's hardware isn't really that great, except for the type of touchscreen it uses). It's a fairly low-resolution screen, at that, compared to the WVGA phones HTC has been producing for awhile outside of the U.S. market. Cameras with higher resolution & LED flash are also common on smartphones outside of the U.S., as well.
You can't kill the iPhone entirely on quality or price. Apple fans will buy overpriced/underpowered technology simply because it's cool to do so. Getting Android on multiple phones & providers will incentivize developers to make stuff even cooler than the iPhone is doing now, especially when it's the only place for some developers to go after Apple denies their app entry to the store. Apple is the newest entrant to the IBM/Microsoft club (as in 'club you over the head, you get to pay what we want for what we want to provide').
Nobody ever seems to learn this lesson; it's inevitable for Apple to go down the same path; they're already fairly far down it with the iPhone.
Re:they could still do it if they wanted (Score:1, Insightful)
There tends to be four groups of cellphone buyers in the US:
Group 1: Want a low end plan, and want a good phone that is "free". Chuck them a flip phone with the ability to download some ringtones, some games, and maybe some primitive Web browsing, and they are happy. Here, the phone company makes their money from the plan, or the termination of contract fee.
Group 2: Wants an iPhone by name, and no other will do. This isn't saying this is either good or bad, but this is a large market, especially high school and college age students. This group completely replaces the Sidekick market.
Group 3: Executives with their corporate phones. Of course, iPhones offer remote wipe via me.com and encryption, but both Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices offer a lot more functionality. Blackberries can be configured to remote wipe themselves if they don't receive a network signal after a period of time (say someone yanks the SIM card, or cuts the antenna so a remote wipe sequence won't hit the phone.) Both Blackberries and WM devices can be configured to wipe if the PIN is guessed wrongly more than a set number of times. Both devices also offer enforcing of corporate policies.
Group 4: High end phone users. They like their specialized apps, so they will hunt down and import a phone that does their liking, then hit a GSM provider up for an OOC (out of contract) plan. $20 for a SIM card, and they have service.
Unfortunately, until Apple is shorn from AT&T, group 2 is a lost cause. Group 1 sometimes is profitable because they are a constant income stream monthly, but it is a highly competitive market because people shop by price and little else. Group 4 is relatively small, and doesn't impact total sales as much. Group 3 is a market that a number of cellphone providers are competing for.
What needs to be broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes but (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because no one calls them "Android Phones". There are 5 phones on the market in the US right now that run Android, made by 2 different manufacturers. There are a half dozen more phones coming out by the end of the year, made by 3 more manufacturers, and that's soon enough that people have seen advertising and may be considering them for purchase. Can you name more than 2 of the phones? Conversely, would you know they were Android phones if a friend talked about getting one?
Re:Show some evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi there... Part of your comment is a bit misleading... you say:
"You pay Apple a small fee and get access to piles and piles of sample code, great documentation, a mature API"
Well, yeah, I guess you could go that route.
OR - you could sign up for the FREE account, get the SDK, get all that great documentation, get the mature API and get a fantastic emulator to test in.
When, and ONLY when you're ready to test on physical hardware, you can pay Apple just under $100 and get the ability to deploy to hardware and release to the store. But for all your getting started steps, you don't have to spend 1c more than it costs to start with Android.
Freedom != Friendliness (Score:3, Insightful)
What part of "don't have to pay Apple money to develop for Android" and "don't have to get Apple's permission to distribute" did you not understand?
Free (as in beer) is nice but that doesn't prove "friendliness" or the lack of it. Being cheap doesn't cause something to be of good quality or well designed or well documented. It's not hard to find crappy software and being free doesn't make it less crappy.
As for needing permission to distribute, that is potentially annoying I'll grant you though to be fair it's not without some benefit to both developers and users. It has the potential to keep a lot of bad software and (probably) malware out of the platform which is a good thing on balance. Nevertheless I'll agree that it has the potential to be frustrating. Does Apple abuse their position sometimes? Yep - so that is one strike against Apple but not by itself conclusive proof that Android is more friendly to developers.
on the Android platform, replacing core apps with your own version is *encouraged*, and in fact *designed into the platform*.
Again, none of this *necessarily* means "friendlier" to developers. Freedom (as in speech) is only a part of the equation. If the development tools suck or the platform is hard to write for or the documentation sucks, developers won't care whether you can replace the core apps or not. You are talking about how open the platform is which is just one factor in determining how friendly a platform is to developers. Android might be the best thing since sliced bread but you are providing little evidence to prove that assertion.
...but as a developer platform and ecosystem, the only thing Android is missing is higher handset sales.
Really? Are the development tools better and/or more mature? Is the interface easier and/or faster for developers? Is the documentation thorough, easy to read and clearer than the documentation for the iPhone? Is the hardware platform more stable and well understood? Are there more developers actively developing for Android than the iPhone? You assert that it is "better" but you provide almost no evidence to back up your argument. I'm willing to be convinced either way but please make a decent argument.
Re:Forget citation, how about basic engineering. (Score:3, Insightful)
Basic engineering, the more complex something is the more likely it is to fail.
Exactly - sliding things are far more complex. Chips are just silicon, and the whole board in a device goes through a burn-in - it's just simply going to work until something alters it mechanically, since there are no moving parts to fail.
As for it still working as a phone - unlikely since usually devices with sliding keyboards rely on them to function.
Or think of it this way. The iPhone has circuits. The HTC has circuits plus moving parts. By definition it has more complexity - which as you note leads to more failures.
My HTC has survived a trip to a hardwood floor
Unimpressive since all hardwood floors have some give and are softer than metal casings.
The accepted failure of the iphone rate is 10%
The "accepted rate" is by SOME GUY IN A FORUM? And you couldn't even find modern figures at that, you had to go way back to the original launch from years ago in 2007!
I give up, you are obviously a troll. No-one is really that stupid. You can post the final response, I've stopped reading as I'm sure everyone else has. We had a good laugh at your expense though with that whole "electronics are more prone to failure than mechanical devices" thing though. Classic.
Re:What needs to be broken (Score:4, Insightful)
I would absolutely pay $400 for it if my service was $20-30/month.
Re:they could still do it if they wanted (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes it's better to have a small set of features that work well, than a large set of buggy and broken features...
Re:What needs to be broken (Score:5, Insightful)
The current cell phone oligopoly needs to be broken the same way the Bell system was busted. There was a time when you could only buy your land line phone from Bell, there was only one directory (Free -white pages, advertised - yellow pages), and they owned the system from handset to handset. Costs were high, service was slow, and innovation was non-existent.
Except for discovering / inventing information theory, the transistor, the cosmic radiowave background, Unix and the C programming language. Among other trifling, Nobel-prize winning discoveries. [wikipedia.org] /. comment is pretty depressing.
No private company has given more to the world than Bell. Bell Labs defined the Golden Age of American science and engineering. Reading that there was "no innovation" at Bell in a