Dear Mark,
Your responses generally sum up as follows: "Don't like it? program it
yourself, or pay someone to do it for you." Many of us thought that
this group was specifically designed to allow for discussion of the
things we like and don't like about Android, whether or not we are
developers or software development magnates: "Android Discuss: The
"water cooler" of Android discussion. Free-wheeling discussion from
ideas about the Android platform to your announcements on other
Android resources."
The fact of the matter is that Google is a business. Successful
businesses require a customer focus (not developer focus). If
customers don't like something about a product, or want something
added to a product, it would be wise for the business to listen.
Telling the customers to go build it themselves or hire their own
subcontractor to build it will not make for a successful business
model.
Many people who have posted here want the product to get better. We
have made an investment as customers, and we want the product to meet
our needs. Google and Android developers can choose to ignore this
feedback at their peril.
--Ed
On May 19, 11:31 pm, "Mark Murphy" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > How are these descisions being made?
>
> To foreshadow some of your other "points", 80% of the core Android team's
> time is directed by management; 20% is for "Innovation Time Off". Note
> that the "Innovation Time Off" (colloquially referred to as "20% time"),
> by all reports, is not tied to product line, insofar as the core Android
> team could spend that time developing things outside of Android, and
> non-Android team members could create Android applications.
>
> > Case in point. Let's take the music player in Android. Now I'll be as
> > diplomatic as possible...it's crap. No argument is possible on this.
>
> I'd give it a few notches above "crap", but it is certainly low on features.
>
> Moreover, you are welcome to:
>
> -- Purchase or download a replacement media player on the Android Market
> or third-party markets
>
> -- Purchase Android devices where the device manufacturer has elected to
> augment or replace the existing media player with one of their own design
> (e.g., I would expect the Archos media player device due out shortly will
> not use Android's default media player app)
>
> -- Contribute money to a team working to add capabilities to the media
> player, with those changes going through the approvals process to get
> included in future Android builds
>
> None of those even require engineering skills.
>
> > The staggering part is I just downloaded Sky Map and am stunned at the
> > complex tech we can all now enjoy...so how on Earth did anybody begin
> > working on such an egocentric and highly irrelevant app for the
> > greater volume of customers prior to somebody actually polishing the
> > UI on the music player or God forbid...adding a graphic equalizer.
>
> You assume that Kevin Serafini and the others who wrote Sky Map are on the
> core Android team. Just because he and others presumably wrote Sky Map
> using 20% time does not mean they are on the core Android team. It could
> be, as Mr. Serafini wrote, that they are simply fans of Android and
> astronomy buffs.
>
> http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/05/sky-map-for-android-mobile-p...
>
> > Take everybody: and I mean everybody on all of the ecentric 20%
> > projects for just four weeks and get all of the core Android funtions
> > looking and functioning better than any of your competitors could ever
> > dream of.
>
> 1. As I have mentioned a few times, those writing Android applications on
> 20% time are not necessarily members of the core Android team.
>
> 2. The 20% time plan is way bigger than Android. A significant number of
> Google product launches were initiated with 20% time projects.
>
> http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/msande472/060517-msande47...
>
> The core of the 20% time seems to be the self-directed nature of those
> projects, and I suspect Google would be reticent to mess with that system
> just to add a graphic equalizer to an Android media player.
>
> 3. The list of things you will demand will never end. For example, maybe
> in the small handful of person-weeks of time your proposal would "free
> up", they do not complete the graphic equalizer. You would probably
> consider that to be a failure and demand even more time.
>
> > I'm certain I could do a better job...and will happily prove it. Try
> > me :)
>
> If you have engineering talent, visit:
>
> http://source.android.com
>
> There are those who follow these lists who think I'm a broken record on
> this point, and they're probably correct. But the solution to getting more
> capabilities in Android is not likely to come in the form of beating up
> the core Android team, or even beating up Android management. Since
> Android is an open source project, we need to figure out how to get more
> people contributing on the open source level. The military likes to toss
> around terms like "force multipliers" for this sort of thing -- open
> source contributions are force multipliers towards the objective of having
> Android "be all it can be".
>
> I long for the day when the core Android team needs to add headcount
> simply because they are reviewing and processing too many contributions.
>
> --
> Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)http://commonsware.com
> _The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development_ Version 2.0 Available!
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