Posted on 09/27/2010 7:52:33 PM PDT by PugetSoundSoldier
Computerworld - A majority of mobile application developers see Google's Android as the smart bet over the long run even as they vote for Apple's iOS in the short term, according to a survey published Monday.
The survey, conducted jointly by Appcelerator and IDC, polled more than 2,300 developers who use Appcelerator's Titanium cross-platform compiler to produce iOS and Android native applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
Of those developers, 59% said that Android had the "best long-term outlook," compared to just 35% who pegged Apple's iOS with that label.
...
To make things even tougher for Apple down the road, the bulk of developers viewed Android as the best operating system to use in other hardware, including the anticipated Google TV and other home appliances. Seventy-two percent answered "Android," just 25% "iOS" when asked to name the "best positioned to power a large number of connected devices in the future."
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
I’d also bet that quite a lot of vb/asp/.net/C# is done by medium to large IT shops where devs don’t have a choice about their deve environment, and these large companies start down the MS path without realizing the full costs. I’ve seen it happen with both MS and Oracle products.
The three company's product lines are very different but there's opportunity for comparison of similar product lines. I'll have to ask you:
Since Microsoft doesn't make computers, and Apple doesn't sell OS-X or its apps outside the context of a Mac system, you can't compare that product line. And Apple doesn't make a game console, so comparisons to the XBox are pointless. But they both made competing music players, so let's see...
How much profit did Microsoft make on the Zune family, vs. Apple on the iPod family?
With regard to Google, I'm not actually sure what product lines are comparable between Apple and Google, because although they have some areas of overlap (e.g. they both make OSes for phones), Apple's product is the whole thing, hardware + software + support, whereas Google's is just the OS.
I'm missing what you're thinking of, product-wise.
Now, alternatively, if you want to just lump the companies' product lines into three big homogeneous piles and compare those (that's a different way to compare, but okay), that's interesting too, and in that comparison I would hope that all three companies are making money -- they're still in business, after all.
But I don't know what their annual reports claim -- I don't follow the details. X dollars profit on Y dollars revenue after Z expenses, resulting in M% margin, that sort of thing. Why don't you tell me.
Objective-C is not Apple-only.
I agree that Android has greater potential, though. Just pointing out that Objective-C is cross-platform, though the open-source GNUstep framework.
Oh, absolutely! But that’s the choice of the shop. The difference is that individual developers who do apps on their own, or get together with a few buddies to make something, can choose what they want to use, based on their own needs and skills.
You don’t get that with iOS development. It’s Apple’s way and tools or nothing.
Do investors look at that level of detail? I think they go “Microsoft and Apple and Google make things on my phone and computer and websites, they’re in the same market”.
And what does this have to do with what developers believe is the more viable long-term mobile OS?
Who else uses Objective C in any significant amount? It’s pretty much Apple.
The point is also that with iOS you don’t have a choice BUT to use Objective C. You can’t use alternates.
Devs want freedom. That’s one of the reasons they’re voting for Android as the long-term viable OS to support.
You've said it precisely, albeit negatively.
Apple makes products for about 10-25% of the market. They make a limited range of products. That's their chosen business market. Not "all".
The majority of people (75-90%) don't buy Apple products. That's not a condemnation of Apple products, that's a statement of the success of their business model.
They make products for the people who want them. Being a high-end/mid-high-end outfit, that's bound to be a minority.
It amazes me how so many people assume that if you're making product to please 75% of the consumers -- most of whom are content with crap as long as it's cheap -- that you're somehow "winning" against a competitor who makes higher-priced high-quality stuff that only 25% of the consumers are willing to pay for.
"More" is not always "better". Sometimes quality beats quantity.
And quality is in the eye of the beholder. Ultimately it comes down to value, and that’s a judgment by the consumer, most of whom choose non-Apple products as having the best value.
You can't really believe that means anything about the products or the companies, right? It's only about price tags.
Most people buy on price, period. They do not make careful comparisons of features and support and longevity and resale value. They buy the cheapest one.
"Most people" -- the majority of the market -- are idiots when it comes to assessing actual value. They believe that "value" equals "low cost".
That's why the bottom half or more of the market is crap -- it's made to compete on price alone.
I can't be telling you something you didn't know, right?
Huawei (China) is coming out with a $100-200 Android smartphone that they coulda sell for a fitty and still prophet! (Available today for under $100 in Obomba’s homeland.) Sell my Apple stock and move to Switzerland? Those damn Swiss have betrayed us, the Obama tax dodgers, though.
No, I firmly believe that most people buy on value - a featureset that is required, a set of "nice to haves" and then price. I've seen it from the design end of things too many times in many CE products in a wide variety of markets.
Value - what you deliver for the price - counts for a lot. Price is a big factor, but features still count with the general public.
Do you develop for CE companies? Have you been involved in those debates about competitive performance versus price discussions? It actually is a HUGE concern for most of the CE brands.
That's why the bottom half or more of the market is crap -- it's made to compete on price alone.
Crap to you; not to those who buy it. Be careful to not stretch your expectations and desires and values to the entire market. This is also a problem most Apple fans have - they think their desires are THE desires of the entire market, when the marketshare of Apple clearly indicates that is wrong.
Huawei and ZTE are both rolling seriously good Android phones for cheap. China’s becoming a big provider - they’re learning from HTC and Samsung!
And Switzerland has rolled, but Hong Kong still hasn’t - and probably never will, given the tradition of independence of HK and China’s unwillingness to let ANY dollars go to other countries as tax...;)
There have been better music players that Apple’s iPod, check the Cnet reviews for proof. And what of it? Apple is holding its own, pisses on everyone else, just like Coca Cola does against whatever’s better in the marketplace. Yugo was at one time better than my buddy’s brand new Caddy, and I ain’t kidding. And where is Yugo today, while you (go) and I own a piece of the mighty GM. BY the way, when are the Obama dividend checks coming?
I suspect that it is in the end the crazy Steve Jobs who drives this company, very much like Larry Ellison drives his, and unlike the clueless Gates, driven today by his cheaply sentimental spouse and senile shyster daddy. (Mosquito nets for poor African savages, oh yeah!) Therefore, we ought to be betting on Steve’s physical health and little else when considering Apple’s future chances in the marketplace.
The more important question is: who has the highest profit margins in wireless? And it is a blow out for Apple: despite only possessing 2.5% of the mobile market share, Apple grabs 39% of the total profits. Incredible.
> Crap to you; not to those who buy it. Be careful to not stretch your expectations and desires and values to the entire market.
I'm calling it as I see it. No, I don't think my desires are the desires of the entire market -- far from it.
I've designed electronics for everything from spacecraft control systems to inexpensive peripherals for PCs and everything in between, and I know what is quality and what is crap. The bottom half of the consumer electronics market is crap.
I'm not saying the bottom half of the consumers are unhappy buying crap -- indeed, they ARE happy buying crap. But they have low expectations and short memories, so when their cheap whatever-they-bought doesn't really do quite what they want after the first month, they adjust their expectations downward some more, and when it dies after a year they buy another because after all it was cheap...
Instead of buying a higher-end product that would still please them after a couple years and would last a couple years longer, and ultimately would deliver much better value.
However, at least half of the consumers out there -- the ones who provide the majority of the holy marketshare -- don't have the intelligence, or don't care, or perhaps haven't got the scratch this month, to actually assess true value and invest in a product that's worth more overall.
And look, I'm not saying they're not happy that way -- they do seem to be. And it's a free country, so they have every right to do what they're doing. No argument.
Just don't confuse that with actual "value".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.