I think one point still stands, however. If you're looking for a Career (I.e. need to support family, kids, on a regular basis) doing anything speculative will probably end up being harder (or perhaps more stressful) than working at a firm and making a solid ~70-100k a year. To duplicate that you'd need to make ~$6k a month from the Android marker. Obviously this isn't undoable, there are very talented people working very hard and doing this. But if I had to take my bet solely on what would be more stable income wise, I'd have to say working at a firm might be better.
Now the exception: if you work developing multiple apps at once for several local companies you might be able to sustain this. I can imagine a local health care provider, cab coompany, etc would pay big bucks for applications that would make them more efficient or help them deliver better services, especially in mertopolitan areas. However, this is really more entreprenurship than some people like. Owning your own business like this takes time, and you don't spend nearly as much on development as if you work in a typical "9 to 5" software job (although those are becoming increasingly rare, schedules are flexible, and work isn't always at work....). So can you make money as an Android developer? Of course... if you work hard you can do a lot! But, is it as feasible or stable as a typical software dev job? That depends on the type of person you are (static, dynamic, dependent, universally quantified, etc...), your mileage may vary... Kris On May 26, 2011 12:04 PM, "niko20" <[email protected]> wrote: I've been with Android since around April 2009. And I can tell you that the first year *was* painful. Especially the first six months (April to September ish). However, it has matured to totally awesome now. I mean c'mon, OpenGL ES 2.0, NDK C++ support including STL, this list of great things you can do now is long, and it keeps growing. I think the android team has responded well to challenges, such as the issues with apps on sdcard, and now the coming 2Gb download for market assets. They continue to improve. I also make good money right now from my apps. If you aren't willing to put in the time, then yes, you aren't going to get much back out. Simple as that. You've been in the industry too long pretty much. Time to let go of some things. 40+ years of experience has made you stale, not "hey now I can predict the future". Nobody can predict the future, we work with what we have *right now*. Sounds to me like you are afraid to invest any time or energy into android. Well, that's your choice. Me, I think it's awesome that I can write apps that run on *my* phone. Before android such a thing was almost impossible for an indie developer to get into. -nik On May 25, 5:26 pm, Ali Chousein <[email protected]> wrote: > Dan, you are looking from a very... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
