Well, just to level with my biases and opinions:

* I was a full-time Java developer from 1997-2004.  I edited java.net
full-time from 2004-2008.  I also wrote or co-wrote two books on
desktop Java in that time: "QuickTime for Java: A Developer's
Notebook" and "Swing Hacks"

* I switched to iPhone OS (later iOS) full time in 2008 and haven't
looked back.  I did a little server-side Java last year to put a
receipt server on Google App Engine for my iPhone navigation app's in-
app purchase support.

* It would have been much easier for me to go from desktop Java to
Android than to learn iOS from scratch.  Mostly, I didn't want to.
I'd been burned by the failure of desktop Java, and especially of Java
Media, whereas Apple has always excelled in both user experience and
media support.

* I think of the last three projects I've worked on and after looking
at the Android docs, I'm convinced they couldn't be done easily, or at
all, on Android.  And there are dollars involved with getting at least
one of them on Android.  Particularly grating: the android.media
package consists largely of toy-level functionality, although
AudioRecorder is somewhat interesting in that it lets you get raw PCM
off the mic. And I was floored to see that android.webkit.WebView does
not have an equivalent to -[UIWebView
stringByEvaluatingJavascriptString:] (you can call from JavaScript
into Android Java but not vice versa?  Arrrgh!)

* The fact that Google is hiring developers to whip up sexy apps is
good for top developers, but could suggest that Android in and of
itself has not been a sufficient lure. That's your Daring Fireball
take: call me when a killer third-party app ships first on Android (in
fact, one of my predictions for 2011 in that thread was that this
won't happen…)

* Call me a fanboy if it makes you feel good, but I've spent most of
today complaining on Twitter about Apple's outrageous new in-app
purchase rules (https://twitter.com/#!/invalidname), and in a talk
last Spring on I-AP (http://iphone2010.crowdvine.com/talks/9946), I
called their subscription API broken, told people not to use it, and
called on Apple to deprecate it. No, they didn't listen to me.

--Chris


On Feb 1, 7:35 am, Chess <[email protected]> wrote:
> So Android is a Java Devs escape from Legacy? I can see that
> viewpoint.
>
> On Feb 1, 7:16 am, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I get what you are saying. :) However:
>
> > 1) Android is not Java.
>
> > 2) Unlike Java, the Android world actually seems to be innovating.
>
> > 3) Just like on iOS, you can escape legacy by choosing C#.
>
> > On Feb 1, 1:05 pm, Chess <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 1, 2:49 am, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > Sounds like a pretty good time to be an Android developer…
>
> > > > Don't worry, I am sure John Gruber will write up a negative spin on it
> > > > soon and make iOS devs feel superior again. :)
>
> > > Yea, because Java devs never feel superior over their choice of Java.
> > > *cough*

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