No More Sideloading for the Blackberry PlayBook →

Casey Johnston, in Ars Technica:

Research in Motion plans to drop the ability to sideload Android apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook, Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations, announced Friday on Twitter. Saunders said that RIM wanted to avoid “duplicat[ing] the chaotic cesspool of Android market.”

RIM, of course, announced that the PlayBook would run Android applications through sideloading less than a year ago. RIM is claiming that this is because of piracy — but piracy has been a problem for Android since it launched. Of course supporting Android in general also has the subtle effect of discouraging developers from supporting the native PlayBook platform, but what’s RIM to do when they’ve barely sold a million PlayBooks? Note that Saunders says that they’re not removing Android compatibility. RIM will continue to draft off of Android’s wake.

Forks, Forks Everywhere →

Christopher Mims in the MIT Technology Review, on how more and more device manufacturers are considering forking Android:

Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless, has a unique window onto this phenomenon, because his company provides geolocation services for these yet-to-be-announced devices.

“I’m spending a lot of time with companies forking Android,” says Morgan. “Nobody wants to just be a manufacturer for Google. You see that with what Amazon has done, where they made it their own, and you also see a whole host of manufacturers taking Android down their own path.”

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet runs a modified version of Android 2.3, “gingerbread.” Because Android’s source code is readily available, companies can do what they want with it. The only thing keeping them tied to Google has been, up to now, the desire to be part of the official lineup of Android devices. Given how fragmented that space is, however, it appears that compatibility with the Android ecosystem is increasingly irrelevant.

Indeed, Morgan says his company is going to be part of a “major” new phone device that will be released at the end of this year. It will be based on Android, but not controlled by Google.

Samsung? Samsung, is that you?

Developing an Android App — and Charging for It →

Ryan Bateman created Papermill, a well-designed Instapaper client for Android. He also wanted to charge for it. And it also required a subscription. None of those things are entirely out of place in the iOS world, but here’s what he found in the world of Android:

While it’s hard to estimate exactly, I believe I’ve spent at least 280 to 320 hours developing Papermill in one way or another over the last 3 months. At a freelance rate of $90–120/hr, my expectation as a freelance Android developer, this would equate to somewhere in the range of $30000. To be reimbursed for my time working on Papermill at freelancer rate, assuming the current rate of installations/week and that I stopped development entirely, would take approximately another 5 years. While this is besides the point of its development, it’s worth noting. Given that the media coverage and user interest has already far exceeded what I expected, I find it hard to believe the sales rate could increase, let alone maintain their current rate.

(via John Moltz)

'Android Economics' →

Horace Dediu:

This shows a positive trend for Google: revenues per smartphone per year is increasing. However, the growth is coming from non-Android devices which means mostly iOS. Revenues per device for Android is probably declining.

A Very Quick Thought on Why Instagram for Android Could Be Bad — for Android

Remember those Old Spice ads with the very handsome man asking you to “Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me”?

That’s what I was reminded of after seeing MG Siegler’s post comparing Instagram shots taken with the iPhone and an Android phone. This was one of those small things that would just add on to the pile of reasons why Android users may want to switch to an iPhone. Siegler followed up with this comment:

The beauty of it being cross platform to me is situations like this. Because Instagram is becoming the ubiquitous camera app, it’s a great point of comparison. (It’s something we would have used Flickr for in the past, but no one seems to use Flickr anymore — at least not in the same way.) As a result, we can see how much better an iPhone camera is than a top Android camera. A lot.

I’d go a bit further. Every Android Instagram user looking at their stream sees their photo. Then they’re likely seeing photos that are way better looking. They may wonder about that. They may even comment on it, asking their friends what phone they used.

The reverse is true for iPhone users. They’re going to see a bunch of shittier pictures show up in their stream, and feel vindicated in their decision to go with the iPhone.

The camera is probably ultimately a small thing in terms of what’s going on in a customer’s head when they’re making a decision about what phone to buy — but it is definitely a consideration for some users. It’s also the first time, as Siegler points out, that we see this kind of comparison. It’s one of the most direct comparison points I can imagine. I can’t think of another cross-platform application that offers the opportunity for this type of comparison.

Even reviews don’t do a great job at this. They offer comparisons occasionally, but people are reading them in an entirely different contextual mode than they’re in when they’re using their devices daily. And if Instagram is anywhere near as popular on Android as it is on the iPhone, people are going to be reminded of just how much shittier the camera on their phones is, several times a day. There’s no filter that can stop that.

Your Android Customers →

The comments — sorry, “engagement” — on the announcement of Temple Run for Android are gold. Check out the most-liked comments.

UPDATE: This tweet from Temple Run developer Natalia Luckyanova is telling.

Tablets Aren't Consoles →

Watts Martin, on the rumors that Google may be subsidizing their tablets to make them more competitive:

But subsidizing the tablets to get to that point is boggling. This isn’t like a game console, where you expect to make all your money on the ongoing purchases. Apple makes most of their money on the hardware, and Google makes nearly all of their money on advertisements. If Google spends $100 to get a Nexus tablet into your hands, they’re going to need to serve you a lot of ads to make that up.

A lot of ads.

If this is their plan, luckily for them they can also use the money they’re making off of Apple devices to subsidize tablets as well.

(via MG Siegler)

Android Tablet Apps 'Suck' →

Sascha Sagan in PCWorld:

The Android platform has all of the top 20 iPad apps except for the game Tiny Wings. The iPad lacks three of the top 20 Android apps: Advanced Task Killer, the Amazon Appstore, and Google+. But I’d assert that for categories other than games, Android tablets’ problem isn’t app availability but app quality.

This is one of the rare occasions I’ll provide a link to a slideshow.

Last Year's Model →

Ki Mae Heussner in Adweek, on how developers are viewing Android:

“What this tells us is that the fragmentation Android is experiencing at both the smartphone and tablet levels is really turning some developers off the platform,” said Mike King, mobile strategist for Appcelerator. “Unless Google begins to curtail that fragmentation, we think that they’re going to continue to lose interest of the developers.”

The erosion of interest in Google’s mobile platform could also be due to monetization models, he continued. While iOS developers can only sell their apps through Apple’s app store, Android developers can take several paths to monetization.

Here’s King on HTML5:

“It was surprising to us because there’s a ton of hype around HTML5,” he said. “[Many see it as] this white knight that’s going to come in and save us from ever having to do client side development again … and developers are clearly seeing through that.”

Angry Birds Space, Now Not Available for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 →

UPDATE: Rovio now says Angry Birds Space is coming to Windows Phone 7. That Nokia’s stock has dipped and gained on this news shows just how important Angry Birds has become to validating your platform.

This isn’t a great sign for Windows Phone 7. Jon Erlichman and Diana ben-Aaron in Bloomberg:

“We’re the No. 1 app in the Windows Phone app store, but it’s a big undertaking to support it, and you have to completely rewrite the application,” Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of the game’s maker, Rovio Entertainment Oy, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Rovio, which yesterday started selling the game for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and handsets running Google Inc.’s Android platform, has no plans to release “Angry Birds Space” on Windows Phone, he said.

Apparently being the best-selling app on the Windows Phone platform doesn’t actually translate into profits. It’s tempting to use Rovio’s publishing strategy as a quick diagnostic for a platform’s health. The original Angry Birds was published on over 15 platforms. That number dropped to seven for Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. And Angry Birds Space, though young, has only been published for four: iOS, Android, OS X and Windows.

What should developers make of this, as well?

“If you look at activations, Apple’s iOS and Android are clearly bigger than any other platform,” he said. “We want to be on all screens, but we have to consider the cost of supplying the smaller platforms. With Windows Phone it’s a lot of work to technically support it.”

Even Struggling Carriers Prefer the iPhone →

Zach Epstein in BoyGeniusReport on Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s defending of his decision to spend $15 billion on making sure they had the iPhone:

“Subsidises are heavy for the iPhone. This is the reason why a high percentage of new customers is important,” Hesse said during the interview. “But iPhone customers have a lower level of churn and they actually use less data on average than a high-end 4G Android device. So from a cost point of view and a customer lifetime value perspective. They’re more profitable than the average smartphone customer.”

Android users consume more data? Interesting. I’m guessing it’s for ad-supported apps.

Another Sandwich Comes to Mind →

John Gruber on JR Raphael’s complaints about how Samsung is dealing with Ice Cream Sandwich:

I understand the frustration if you’re a technically savvy user who owns a Galaxy S II and who wants the pure Google Android 4 experience. The problem is, the vast majority of Galaxy S II users are not technically savvy, have no idea what “Ice Cream Sandwich” is, and, most importantly, would totally freak out if they OK’d an over-the-air software update that completely changed the entire UI of their phone.

Guess HP's Not Serious About webOS After All →

Missed this from a few weeks ago. Joshua Topolsky in The Verge:

We’ve just received word that HP has laid off more than 270 employees from its webOS division as it “no longer needs many of the engineering and other related positions that it required before.”

It looks like Meg Whitman isn’t nuts. Well, maybe.

Android Fragmentation Isn't Just Bad for Native App Developers, It's Bad for Web Developers →

Ryan Paul in Ars Technica:

Web developers who want to support Android users will have to contend with a range of different browser versions that have different levels of support for modern Web standards. The apparent lack of consistency in browser performance and stability from one device to another makes matters worse.

Why a Developer Drops Android →

Mike Mobile:

We spent about 20% of our total man-hours last year dealing with Android in one way or another - porting, platform specific bug fixes, customer service, etc. I would have preferred spending that time on more content for you, but instead I was thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn’t go through. We spent thousands on various test hardware. These are the unsung necessities of offering our apps on Android. Meanwhile, Android sales amounted to around 5% of our revenue for the year, and continues to shrink. Needless to say, this ratio is unsustainable.

Developing for Android at this point seems to require a budget that isn’t sustainable for smaller shops. Even OMGPOP, which is massive compared to Mike Mobile, is struggling with these issues.

(via Daring Fireball)