Since 2003 I've written BREW, J2ME, Blackberry, a smidgen of iOS, and a metric ton of Android. I now write Android software for a living, first for doubleTwist and now for Tumblr.
"To all the apple fanboys: the emulator code is open source. Go ahead and fix it yourselves.
Apple doesn't provide a multi platform SDK. If I want to develop an app for iPhone I must own an Apple PC. Now, that's messed up!."
Not sure how relevant a question that is. Apple explicitly chose to be on AT&T and no-one else. I'm sure Verizon would have put their phone on the network, just not on terms Apple wanted.
Being exclusive to AT&T was as much Apple's choice as Android's was to be on them all.
Yes I'm sure it impacts adoption rates, but we didn't see a huge rush to the Verizon iPhone. But, as you say, the real test won't come until people's contracts end over the next 2 years.
The conventional wisdom was exactly the same 2 years ago concerning android phones vrs the iPhone. Android has since moved to match the iPhone for market share. The same will probably happen for tablets. It'll just take a few years. I think the android tablets aren't very good right now, but I felt the same way about the android phones when they first came out.
I think I've read this exact article dozens of times since almost since I began writing mobile applications in 2003. The message is always the same 'Web Apps are Coming! They're going to take over! Steve Jobs thought so!'
In reality, we'll probably see something that's half-way between a web-app and a mobile app. In the meantime, can we stop predicting the doom of mobile software and get on with fixing what's broken about it?
Android is always a late bloomer. The G1 sorta, for lack of a better word, sucked. Later incarnations of the devices ironed out a lot of the UX issues plaguing the early Android builds. Don't write off Honeycomb or Moto yet. It's still got a lot of growing to do.
Perhaps that statement came out slightly more hyperbolic than I meant it.
The fact remains that Android's fragmentation is something I deal with on a daily basis. Any time spent fixing issues that crop up on particular phones is time I don't spend adding features to our application. Keeping customers from knowing the joys of fragmentation is one of the things I spend a lot of thought and work at.
As someone who's been working with Android from the beginning, I have to say: About Time.
This is a required step if Google wants the platform to be taken seriously. The only way to keep fragmentation out is to exert a fair amount of control over the OEMs and Carriers who wish to differentiate (or Fragment) Android for their own purposes.
It's going to be a fine balancing act for Rubin. If he pushes the carriers/oems too far, they'll walk. If he doesn't push them hard enough, the platform will disintegrate Java ME style.
Google is using the only leverage they have (early access and the google apps) to make the platform one worth developing for. I, as someone who makes his living doing it right now, am all for this move.
My parents gave me a copy of typing tutor and said "For one hour of video games you need to do 10 minutes of typing." I was a comfortable touch-typest in weeks.
I didn't learn to really hammer out the words until I started dialing into the local collage modem pool to play muds.
I bought an iPad thinking I'd be able to access my Kindle books from it. In fact, I bought more books on the Kindle system specifically because I could read and sync them across the most number of devices. I'm not saying Apple isn't within their rights to make this move, it just really pisses me off. This is the kind of crap I'd expect from Verizon, not Apple.
This article seems light on facts but heavy with opinion. "My sense is Groupon’s popularity and star power has peaked even though sales may continue to grow for awhile..." That's an interesting theory, is there any evidence to support this?
Further, the headline is misleading, as they're talking only about groupon and nothing about how this might impact the tech economy as a whole.
I'd just like to quickly define "Fragmentation" from a developer perspective. "Fragmentation" occurs when I have to write code to support oddities on a specific device. Diversity is good. 'Fragmentation' is bad. I think it's an important distinction that's often missed in the constant Is-Android-Fragmented discussion.