Intriguingly, he suggests that the Google App store kind of sucks because Google wants to push developers toward using advertising in apps, feeding their core business.
In his argument Google doesn't really want awesome pay apps, they want awesome ad-supported apps that use AdMob.
Interesting idea, and possibly true. I have so far considered the crappy Market to be a result of Google's internal algorithmic-search-is-better-than-human-editing approach, and their lateness to the game, and their subpar graphics performance for developers, and the comparatively poor UI culture at Google.
Given all these complaints, it's amazing there's a market at all!
If his take is true, then the worst thing the Android team did last year was screw up the patent situation on iAds. Mobile ads truly suck right now, the same sort of UI re-think that Google did in the late 1990s for web ads needs to be done on the mobile platform. So far, I think Apple is leading this charge.
How does the Android app store suck? And how is it amazing that there's an Android market at all--?
Maybe this used to be the case. Speaking as a user of and developer for both iOS and Android devices, I think this argument is a little outdated. It just doesn't bear out in practice. I think this has become a mantra that iOS developers and users tell themselves because they think, wrongly, that Android poses a threat to them. It does not. Not to them.
Anyway, it's usually easier to get an app released for Android, by far, than to release the equivalent app for iOS. Everything from the development language to the approval process conspires to make this so. (If you think you can get an Objective C app to market quicker than an equivalent programmer can get a Java app to market, you're either a genius or you're in for a rude awakening. Add App Store woes on top of that. Arbitrary bannings. And the like. These things matter. They cost you time and energy. And they're much more prevalent on iOS than Android.)
What about the user being able to find, purchase, and download apps? It's painless on Android, and it's painless on iOS.
Number of apps? There you may have a point. Android doesn't have the number of apps that iPhone has - merely tens of thousands rather than a hundred or two. And counting.
Fragmentation. Eh. There's less of this than you might think. Developing for Android is very similar to developing for a PC. You're never 100% sure about the hardware you're running on, and yet, most PC applications manage to run just fine. This is what hardware abstraction is all about. Android does an excellent job of it, and most of the time, you program without worrying about the hardware.
So while I think the author has some interesting observations about Google's larger strategy, the "Android app store is broken" argument doesn't really hold water anymore, at least not for me. If anything, Android apps are a breath of fresh air.
I agree with your comments in general, and I have developed apps on iOS and Android personally; I had a somewhat similar experience to what you describe.
That said, I was actually thinking of a different point, and one that is still a significant pain point for developers (really on both platforms) -- app discovery. It's bad on both platforms, but it's definitely worse on Android.
This is in part because of Google's ethos and choices -- search many a word on the Android market, you'll find what you were looking for, and six copies of the same name item from China which ask for dubious permissions -- and in part, just the nature of the app-sales-on-a-small-mobile-screen beast right now.
Apple has this same problem, as evidenced by the many, many graphs showing the sales hockeystick once you hit 'top ten' status, but my guess is that there is a little more love shared around with different developers than with Google.
Why do I think that? I think that because "Robo Defense" has been a top game on Android since I bought my first G1. Every day, every week, every month.
Rather than someone at Google judiciously marketing and bringing out new app and game developer product on the 'top' section of the store, they are totaling up all sales ever, and giving those people top slots. This is what I mean by the algorithm making things worse, in this case, particularly for app discovery.
Even a simple 'tops this month' with an editor-chosen list on the first day of the month would make a big difference in reach for developers.
In the end, I guess I disagree with you -- I think the Android app store is broken, as is the Apple app store. It's just that Google's is a little bit worse, and doesn't seem to have a credible plan to change the game yet. We'll see!
In his argument Google doesn't really want awesome pay apps, they want awesome ad-supported apps that use AdMob.
Interesting idea, and possibly true. I have so far considered the crappy Market to be a result of Google's internal algorithmic-search-is-better-than-human-editing approach, and their lateness to the game, and their subpar graphics performance for developers, and the comparatively poor UI culture at Google.
Given all these complaints, it's amazing there's a market at all!
If his take is true, then the worst thing the Android team did last year was screw up the patent situation on iAds. Mobile ads truly suck right now, the same sort of UI re-think that Google did in the late 1990s for web ads needs to be done on the mobile platform. So far, I think Apple is leading this charge.