On Apr 11, 7:22 am, Tom Gibara <[email protected]> wrote:
> gold standard
Back on topic. Coming from the developers forum, let me repost the
original points:
"... in the last week I had few conversations with iPhone developers
so I
could compare the Android developer experience to that of what is
perceived
as our nearest competitor and they are laughing at us (seriously, when
I
mentioned the G1 most of them responded by initially chuckling). The
general
consensus among them was;
- Yes, you pay $99 for the iPhone dev kit, but you get "free" external
testing (i.e. at apple) and commercial quality support with many
queries
being turned around in hours or a couple of days at worst. Compare
that to
some of the support queries on b.android.com for basic problems things
like
a Android failing to connect to wireless lans with hidden SSID
(http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1041) which, after
*five
and a half months* is still marked as "New" and doesn't have a single
response from a Google employee.
- The most common cause of App Store listing rejections are things
that
users would complain about anyway. This includes things like
performance
characteristics, UI anomalies, and inconsistent behaviour. This is the
type
of stuff that is left for users to find out on Android and only comes
to
light when 1* or 2* comments are posted and even then you don't know
if it's
a one off on the users device or possibly something specific to their
region
(http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2372).
- The normal amount of time from submission to app store listing is
around 7
days. Some apps take months to go through the approval process, but
that is
because of intellectual property concerns, concerns over offensive
content,
or is because the app has to be re-reviewed a few times to meet the
apples
performance and behaviour guidelines. Yes it's not as fast as Android,
but
you know that once it's on the market it's of a quality where you're
not
going to get bombarded with user queries about problems straight off.
- Most of the developers actually feel valued by Apple and feel that
Apple
does what it can to make sure they get the tools they need to do their
job
and ensure they're apps. This has been re-enforced by allowing the
developers to beta test the new firmware and develop against it.
Personally, it's made me shell out $99 for an iPhone SDK, dust off my
Nokia
N81, and spend $75 on eBay on a Blackberry so I can explore the
alternatives. "
First the positive: Even with iPhone SDK 3.0 it appears to me I
couldn't do what I got running on Android. Both maps and background
processes still seem to be not supported well over there. So no, the
grass is not greener on the iPhone for me personally as these two
elements are supported only in an half-assed way through map embedding
and a push mechanism. I'd take the Pepsi challenge any day.
Now going on to my rant though. <ON> I will in particular hook into
the being "valued" side of things.
As the other poster mentioned we got suckered in by the big name but I
agree with anybody who says they're disappointed with how Google are
carrying themselves. There isn't even acknowledgment that they don't
have the formula right - am I alone in this? I was really enthused
early on (back when there wasn't an iPhone SDK in sight) but now feel
pretty deflated. I'll spend a couple of days at Google I/O, then we'll
see.
** I hope someone with say at Google will come out to Google I/O and
explain Google's vision for Android in general and their vision for
leveraging apps in a way that benefits all parties involved. And if
there's noone between the engineering team and Eric Schmidt so why not
Eric Schmidt himself? I am sure the devels of other projects getting
an opportunity to get questions answered that go beyond code level
(GWT, Gears, App Engine) would give them a very nice confidence boost
as well. **
If Google I/O turns out just an extended hackathon though with a bunch
of Google engineers (no disrespect) that answer every other question
about Android strategy with "we can't tell you that" (or Teflon
variations thereof) than that's going to be it for me for quite a
while. Why would I want to feel like I might as well have a
conversation with a telemarketer. <OFF>
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