Android – Attaining Ignition
November 30, 2009
From Om Malik (GigaOm) – Android Developers are not happy with sales proceeds from the Marketplace. Must be a slow news day because this is unnecessary sensationalism.
Notice to developers: If you REMOTELY expected to be rich beyond your dreams building Android apps in the last 9 months you are senile.
The future is going to be much, much brighter for offerings that run on Android 1.5, 1.6, 2.0 and 2.1 – the simple fact that Verizon’s Droid now accounts for 25% of Android Web Traffic within a month of launch should tell you how immature the market was until recently.
So Skyhook Wireless – thank you for doing that survey, with that amazing sampling of 30 dreamers developers – the results this year were obvious – the results next year will be very different.
I think it is a matter of time before we get an ‘Independent Android Review Authority’ established to vet out crappy or incompatible offerings from the good stuff. After all there are 10,000+ apps to sift through making it a very App Store like deluge. There’s an opportunity there for harvesting power, hopefully someone will take the baton.
Filed under: Innovation, Professional | Comments (5)
Speaking of the promised future of Android do not change reality. Do I as a developer target the iPhone and make real money today. Or should I stay with Android because it is more “open”, and maybe make some money in an unspecified future?
If you are the second runner, then you MUST run faster then the leader if you are ever to catch up. So far nothing but wishes and happy thoughts indicates that Android will catch up, or even be a viable platform for developers to make a living.
@Fedrik – i think that’s the point the author is making: it will take time. i’d like to see how many apps that are in the android market have been there prior to 6 months. knowing the capabilities of 1.6 and especially 2.0, time will show us a resurgence of newly developed apps built for a stronger OS. i believe that 2.0 will be the de facto android OS.
apologies, Fredrik*
If you want a house built on Mars today – not possible. 50 years later – most likely.
Want to make money on Android today – may be not. A year later – most likely.
Many IT startups, or any startup for that matter, do not see making money in first 3-4 years, but they look to future. It is just a matter of where want to be? By the way, if you made 120001th iPhone app today, what are your odds of making money on that?
Your odds of making money on an iPhone app depends on a lot more factors than the number of apps in the store! It’s impossible to answer your question due to a paucity of constraints.
If you are implying that there is a “lost in the crowd” factor for iPhone apps – I agree, this is becoming more and more of a detriment. But then again, people keep making Arkanoid and Tetris knock-offs and getting lost in the crowd.
Stand-out products like http://www.squareup.com
will always get mind-share. So execution, innovation, marketing remain central values to this game.