back to article Wave, Buzz... Android? What Apple teaches Google

For developers looking to avoid the Dementor's Kiss of Apple's all-consuming iOS ecosystem, Google has long played the knight in shining open-source armour. Indeed, latest data from IDC and Appcelerator suggest developers are still betting big on Google, expecting its broad range of social products to mint them money. But given …

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  1. Jad
    Stop

    4 out of 5 developers "Very Interested" to develop for Android

    what a terrible failure that is!

    so Google go out of their way to develop products that might fail, and I see you're quietly ignoring the fact that Apple were written off for doing similarly less than 10 years ago ...

    Google is still the "default" search engine for so many people, people don't "Bing it", "Yahoo! it!" or <any of the other English search engines> it, they "Google it" ...

    Google aren't going to stop trying just like that, not while they are getting money in from other sources.

    1. Franklin

      Re: 4 out of 5 developers "Very Interested" to develop for Android

      It's one thing to be "very interested" in developing for a platform; it's another to actually go out and actually develop for it. I'm very interested in a flight to the International Space Station, but I'm not exactly packing my bags.

      1. Carl Fletcher

        Re: 4 out of 5 developers "Very Interested" to develop for Android

        "It's one thing to be "very interested" in developing for a platform; it's another to actually go out and actually develop for it."

        Which is why this survey is worth even *less*...

  2. David 164

    I think the reason so many are interesting in Google+ is simple, it a new toy for developers to play around with, to developed new products.

    Facebook is becoming a mess interface wise and it only getting worst, and a lot of people I know got an aversion against installing new apps because they fear their an their friends streams will become full up with rubbish.

    The latest numbers say that Google has close to 200 million, that double the figures the Google released, in a little over 2 months.

    Buzz was a complete disaster.

    But many of Wave ideas and features are being incorporated into Hangouts.

  3. Peter Hewitt
    Stop

    Ping?

    I find it poor to slag google's admittedly rubbish attempts at social networking without at least having the grace to mention Apple's own utter disaster of a social network: ping.

    Oh and of course Mobile Me, which was a disaster, although was rescued, but hey ho.

    1. ThomH

      Re: Ping?

      I think this is why Apple have gone to the other extreme and embraced Twitter, building its APIs directly into the current iOS and the next OS X and putting the effort in to make them sit naturally amongst Apple's own.

      Ping is not only a laughable failure, but I don't even understand the logic behind it in the first place. They thought it'd be a good idea to shoehorn yet more functionality into iTunes so that we could sort of tweet, but not to very many people and only about a small subset of things?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Ping?

      Of course they won't mention that. This whole article was financed by Apple...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: Ping?

        That is beyond stupid, Barry.

  4. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Any product failures on Google's side have been because they typically involve the public in their endeavours. So when something does not work, everyone knows.

    Apple gives their new engineers busy work for the first year they are employed with the company just to see if they can keep their yaps shut. So their failures are all being locked doors and subject to non-disclosure agreements. I would bet Apple's goofs are just as big, if not bigger than Google's. They are just better at keeping their red faces hidden. .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The difference is that as a rule Apple throw their failures away instead of releasing them. Google has been releasing crappy betas for over a decade. A bit more discipline would help Google.

  5. 3ShadesofGray

    I just turned off my Samsung Galaxy SII and went back to my iPhone 4. Android reminds me of Linux 6 years ago - not good enough for the hassle, no eco system, why bother...

    After 20 years of IT I have had enough of fragmented, half finished systems. This stuff should be like electricity - it just works. Take me to the Dementor, just take the pain away.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hmmm

      I'm sure you did. I'm willing to bet you never owned a Galaxy SII and might even have just joined El Reg to troll.

      Whatever you think of using Android your post makes no sense whatsoever.

    2. HollyHopDrive

      if ios / iphone 4 is so great.....

      ......why did you get a Samsung galaxy sii.

      Smacks of bs or tolling to me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: if ios / iphone 4 is so great.....

        Still, can't argue that Android is a joke.

      2. 3ShadesofGray

        Re: if ios / iphone 4 is so great.....

        I have the Galaxy SII, the Kindle, would like to get the Kindle Fire, Nokia, PCs and Macs, Ipad v1, Ipod etc... I looked at Android as I was aware that the Apple eco systems is lock in. My phone preference is still probably the Nokia (I like battery life), but the PDA side of a smart phone is why I changed to the iPhone. But it is the little things that make life easer that I am interested it.

        1. Travelling - wife, 2 kids, bunch of gadgets. Just having the same cables makes life easier.

        2. Music - I have dealt with MP3 players, walkmans and Ipods - I would rather have one music library. I still don't like part of the apple eco system, i.e. dealing with families, IOS is single user, ipods and iphones are tied to specific computers etc.. (I am not a iCloud user ) but it is a lot easier than dealing with multiple systems.

        3. Movies - download, convert to m4v and play via apple TV. I can still use VLC, WD Media player or other players, but I find the Apple TV connected to my amplifier a good solution for movies and music. Also Netflix and LoveFilm are only recently available in Europe - trying getting an english menu from iTunes Germany and France, let alone a english movie. The internet is 'not' global when both Amazon and iTunes have to create a different store in every country just so I can buy a book or movie. Then I have to pay extra for US iTunes gift cards, as I don't have a US or UK credit card.

        4. Books - I tend to use the Kindle reader in the iPad, but am also having to deal with iBooks, e.g. purchased some books from Ciscopress they come as ePub - Kindle reader does not allow import. I can covert with calibre, but the quality of the converted book is not as high. I like the 10" screen, and the general purpose nature of the iPad, e.g. IMDB, email, kindle, web browser, newspapers (IHT), The Economist, Wolfram Calculus etc. Primarily the consumption of information....

        5. Photos - my wife loves iPhoto and creating a photo album, printing it, and sending it to family. The whole system just works. Not experienced on alternatives here.

        So for me, look at the system, including the wife and kids, the devices, changing countries for holiday or work regularly... Amazon may be the only real candidate to take on Apple as The Reg wrote several months ago (Orlowski I think, not 100% sure).

        Why do I need 5 email addresses, accounts with everyone, most with the same password (compromise one, compromise all etc...), credit card details scattered around the Net, vendors refusing pre-paid credit cards etc... The internet is NOT global from my view.

        I would love to see a report/analysis of the system, not just the devices. Some proper use cases

  6. FanMan
    Paris Hilton

    Implement this

    "....to implement Facebook's social graph"

    I esteemed myself a master of our fair English tongue until encountering this phrase. My self esteem is dribbling out of me and forming a puddle on the floor.

  7. sisk

    That graph is fishy

    Whereas all iPads are lumped conviently under 'iPad', the Android tablets are split into three categories (Android Tablet, ICS Tablets, and Nook/Kindle Fire). I'd be curious to see where Android Tablets would be if you put all of them together, or how many iPad would loose if you split out the devs only interested in the new one. You could, perhaps, justify splitting out the Nook and Fire (they only function as real tablets when they've been rooted), but why split out ICS tablets? Frankly, the splitting of the Android interest like that suggests a bias in the study to me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That graph is fishy

      Let me explain, Android tablets include ICS tablets, ICS tablets are a subset of Android tablets and so will always be smaller. Nook/Kindle Fire are not Android tablets. There is no bias.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    title optional, so is the graph

    Bare in mind that the data is from Appcelerator.

    While it probably reflects very well as to what Corporate developers would like to develop for.

    The real product and software developers aren't there because they don't use native abstraction libraries, which is another word for slow moving and limited apps.

    I'd also question whether the majority of indie developers would seriously be using Appcelerator as their product ultimately is aiming at their wallets. If I was a Indie mobile app developer I'd probably just make my own.

    Though you can probably also tell just by visiting their homepage and try and spot a non-corp user there.

  9. Dozy
    WTF?

    So what's the problem.....?

    So Google has invested in a wide range of ideas. OK, now - isn't that good? When Zuckerberg launched FB, he had no idea it would become massive. Neither did Apple when they launched the first iphone or ipad. It's called having the courage of conviction (or blind faith, if you will!).

    There is a difference between the philosophies of Apple and Google. The former wants absolute world domination in a single field, the latter is less evangelical in a wider range.

    My view of Google's forays is that they unleash their ideas and work to the public, and let them (especially the developers) make what they can out of it. If they don't like it, that's tough but at least they tried. If developers don't like the product.......well, don't bother with it. Android is exactly such a project. Yes it's not completely "open", but anyone can build it for a given purpose.

    Apple has instilled in developers a child's mentality, where every piece in the jigsaw is done for them except for the last bit.

    Google bashing and Apple fawning is very popular these days. Tech commentaries are rife with outcome and hindsight bias, and simply not worth the pixels they take up! MAtt Asay is simply one of them.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So what's the problem.....?

      "Yes it's not completely "open"" or in other words "No Android isn't open"

  10. P. Lee
    Facepalm

    Lack of financial activity does not indicate failure

    That's just the FLOSS way.

    So we see openSSH, not commercial SSH clients. Does that matter? Probably not to users. FLOSS philosophy is around helping users ("scratching an itch"), not enabling commerce. Apple is about enabling commerce (since they take a cut), the users are just a means to an end. That is why there is no GPL accommodation in the Apple licensing - it doesn't benefit them just to help users.

    Who really cares if iOS users pay for a whole stack of functionality that android just ports from linux userspace? No-one. Has android failed because devs are not getting rich? Of course not.

    Measure each OS' success against its objectives. Using developer income as an indicator for the success of android is about as useful as using "% of software under the GPL" as an indicator of success for Apple's app store. These are different beasts running different races.

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