Android UI Lead Developer Gives A Shrug For Custom Android Skins By OEMs

Ice Cream Sandwich is undoubtedly Google’s best OS yet. The notable enhancements and improvements seen here over the previous versions are no doubt welcomed and loved by even the most advanced Android users. While the Android 4.0 build is seen on the Galaxy Nexus (and now Nexus S) only, we can expect the new OS to be fired up on new and existing devices from other manufacturers within the next few weeks. However, while we can look forward to ICS being on our favorite OEMs such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung, we also will not be looking forward to the customizations– also known as “skins”– each brand will place on the OS. Whether we like it or not, we will see Sense, (MOTO)BLUR, and TouchWiz which most agree detracts from the overall Android experience. It’s no secret that most of us strongly dislike the different skins each manufacturers place on otherwise stellar devices, but what do the head honchos of Android development think? Well, you’re about to find out. The Daily Beast hosted a Google+ hangout featuring Matias Duarte, the Android UI Lead Developer. Duarte was kind enough to take questions from a lucky few who were invited in the Hangout and was posed a question by Andrew Kameka of Androinca:

“So much work goes into producing the UI and the changes that you make, and then typically what happens is that the OEM’s put their skins on it and put their own touch. Does it bother you that so much work goes into it and in the end, a lot of consumers don’t interact with the UI as you intended it?”

Great question and one that many like us here at Talk Android would have asked as well. Read on for Duarte’s response and follow-up after the break.
Here’s a transcript of Duarte’s response to Kameka:

“Well, it would bother me more if we didn’t have programs like the Nexus program. The idea behind the Nexus device is to do exactly that – to give consumers an option to use the baseline work that we do if they choose…the philosophy of Android, the idea that partners can customize Android if they want to, is really important to making Android successful.
I think as we see more and more of the basic UI, the basic operating system – the home screen, the notifications system – kind of meet all of the needs that the customers want, you’ll see that OEM’s invest less time trying to fill in the features maybe that were missing there and more time adding completely new features to differentiate each other. Or taking the baseline Android experience and trying to transform it to create something completely different that is more of a niche product like the Kindle Fire.
And I think that’s good; I’m excited for that future. i hope that with Ice Cream Sandwich, we’ve done a lot to deliver that baseline so that OEM’s are going to feel less like they need to fill in the holes that Android left behind and actually focus on adding value…I think with the new Asus Transformer [Prime], you’ll see that the level of customization they’ve provided on top of the base Android is much less than has been provided in the past. In fact, they even allow you to turn off all of their customizations and revert to the stock Honeycomb UI, which I think is a really cool development, too.”

So basically Duarte’s response is straightforward. Android customization is welcome because that’s what the purpose of Android is all about– the choice of having different variations of the OS. However, he makes it clear it would bother him more if they didn’t have more pure Android programs– like Nexus programs. There needs to be a balance between having the original intention of Android and the “enhanced” experience that OEMs provide. Moreover, he praises the fact that ASUS specifically has turned on the ability to turn off the customizations and revert to the stock Android (Honeycomb) UI— which is something I personally believe most (if not all) Android users would welcome with open arms.
In addition, Google’s end goal is to make Android available to as many users as possible. That means keeping in mind Google’s strategy for working with OEM’s to fulfill their pledges to update their devices within the 18 month period, “as well as keep versions released closer to what OEM’s want to build”. Again, the end picture is while Google can’t succeed at having the pure Android build on all devices because it won’t appeal to everyone– Google must rely on the OEMs to “enhance” the Android experience by providing their personal touches in order to reach as many users as possible.
Duarte closed the enlightening discussion by sharing his thoughts influences from both the custom ROM community and OEMs. Keep in mind he doesn’t personally follow the Android custom ROM scene:

“We always look at whatever [manufacturers] launch but we have to kind of keep ourselves very firewalled. We don’t want to show them what we’re doing before it’s ready and they don’t want to show us what they’re working on before it’s ready. It’s really important for the community to kind of have an even playing field. [Ed. note - that will become critical if the Motorola acquisition is approved]
Individual designers, product managers, and engineers maybe follow one particular mod or OEM more than others, so that becomes part of the gestalt of different ideas that are out there.
It’s always exciting to see when somebody does something really cool, really interesting, and really different. One of the designs practices that we have is that when you start a a new design problem, stop and think, “Ok what’s the obvious way to do this?” And then just challenge designers and engineers to say, “Ok, technology aside – assuming that there’s no limit – what would be the coolest way to do this? What would the most compelling, fastest way to do this?” And let’s see what that would look like the way that nobody else has done this before and then let’s see how close we can get to that.”

Simple sum up– take something basic and make it better. That’s the story of Android and how it goes round and round. Google may learn from the custom ROM community & OEMs and vice versa. Very interesting discussion indeed. While the Android UI team isn’t particularly concerned about the growth of custom UI skins, it’s still no-secret that the general Android community would do without. Be sure to check out the full audio of the Hangout below. You’ve heard some thoughts on what the big guys for Android development think, but we’re curious to see your thoughts as well. Share your comments and thoughts in the Comments section below.

Daily Beast Hangout audio

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Consumers love Android, but developers are stuck on Apple

Android is taking the mobile world by storm as more handsets and tablets are Android powered, but as far as where the developers hang their hat, Apple is the place to be. Right now Android is easily the top selling mobile platform, Android powered handsets are outselling Apple iPhones by a ton and the Android Market just hit its 18 billionth download. An analytics firm, called Flurry, says that app developers are still choosing Apple’s iOS over Android almost 3 to 1.
As developers complete their apps, they set up analytics from Flurry so that the company can get a sneak peak at what is on the horizon in the mobile market. According to Flurry, the company deals with more than 55,000 companies across more than 135,000 applications. Flurry did a recent study to see how many projects were started for each quarter and the report showed that in the first quarter 63 percent were iOS and only 37 percent were Android. By the third quarter, developers had started projects with Apple iOS almost 75 percent of the time, while Android based projects feel to 25 percent. The fourth quarter was estimated, but the numbers didn’t change much only adding another 2 percent to Android giving them 27 percent and Apple 73 percent.
Flurry said in a blog post, “Over the year, developer support for Android has declined from more than one-third of all new projects, at the beginning of the year, down to roughly one-quarter by the end. While the market nearly doubled for both platforms, we believe key events changed the proportion of support between these two platforms.” Some of the factors that Flurry believes contributed to the numbers were the iPhone going to Verizon and Sprint and the launch of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S this year.
Flurry has an idea as to why the developers like Apple 3 to 1 over Android. One issue is fragmentation from Google “not curating the Android Market”. The second issue is money, as more developers say they make 3 to 4 times more with iOS apps. The last reason Flurry says effects the developers call on what operating system to use is the act of getting paid. Apple required secured payment before apps can be purchased, ensuring developers get paid, but Google does not require that for mobile app downloads.

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Is Eric Schmidt right? Will app developers prefer Android over iOS in 6 months?

Yesterday at LeWeb in Paris, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt made some typically inflammatory comments about the future of Android and ‘the iPhone’. Specifically he said “Android is ahead of the iPhone now,” to an audience packed with tech entrepreneurs.
After a bit of silence, Schmidt elaborated, saying that Android was ahead due to several factors, including “unit volume, Ice Cream Sandwich, the price is lower, there are more vendors.”
Right out of the gate, Schmidt makes a cardinal error that seems to plague many who insist on comparing Google to Apple. He equates Android, the OS, with the iPhone, a device. But lets let that slide for the moment and assume that he was comparing Android to iOS, the platform that all of the Apple mobile devices run on.

From physical vendors, Schmidt turned his attention to application vendors, or developers. Currently, iOS has an easy lead in application quality and developer support, but Schmidt says that this will be reversed within a few short months.
“Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking. There are so many manufacturers working to deliver Android phones globally,” Schmidt said. “Whether you like Android or not, you will support that platform, and maybe you’ll even deliver it first.”
After an Android user in the audience expressed irritation at the fact that many hot apps showed up on iOS well before Android, Schmidt said “my prediction is that six months from now you’ll say the opposite.”
The knee-jerk reaction is to call the comments ridiculous and blow them off. But lets take a look at what the numbers say.

Android App Growth

It turns out that Schmidt isn’t completely blowing smoke. There is definitely a demand for apps on the Android platform, and in fact, there are signs that the demand for apps on an individual basis (per Android device) has grown over the past few months.
Just earlier this week, Google reported that 10 billion apps had been downloaded from the Android Market, a number that is below Apple’s 18 billion, but on par with its pace of around 1B a month.
The massive growth of the platform’s app downloads likely has a lot to do with the fact that there are 550,000 Android phones activated every day, with a total of 130M devices as of July and 190M in October. During the Q2 earnings call in July, Eric Schmidt said that about 6B apps had been downloaded. That’s where the 1B downloads a month metric comes from.
Obviously more than 190M devices are now on the market, in fact, Schmidt said at LeWeb that the number was ‘about 200 million’. Using those numbers, we can estimate that there is somewhere around 50 apps on average installed per Android device.
This is up somewhat from the 46 per device in July, but only by 8.7%. By comparison, iOS users downloaded 83 apps per device in 2011.

Downloads versus dollars

Of course, all of those downloads don’t necessarily mean dollars. In fact, according to a report from at the beginning of September, the share of paid apps on the Android Market remained at 35% mark. This is backed up by current statistics from AndroidLib, which put it closer to 31%.

By comparison, the percentage of paid apps on the App Store was recently estimated at only 18%, with 82% being free.
Unfortunately, this still leaves would-be Android developers with a narrow window in which to make money. Recent estimates by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster put Android Market sales of paid apps at just 1.3% of overall apps downloaded.

As far as average selling price of Android apps, Munster’s estimated ASP of an Android app is $3.79, while 148Apps puts iOS apps at $2.16. This would seem to be a bit of a win for the Android platform, but also consider that there are (roughly) 300k apps on the Android Market, while there are a little over 500K on the App Store.
The difference in sheer numbers probably accounts for some of the dip in price, while the lower amount of paid apps altogether likely allows for more price compression at the higher end of the pricing spectrum on Android.
To put it simply, there isn’t much of a market for paid apps on the Android Market, but decent apps can charge a decent amount and still get snapped up — much as heftily priced food presented to a starving man.
It is important to remember that $341M is still a lot of money, so there is a living to be made on Android. Unfortunately, it’s just a much smaller percentage of developers that get to make that living.

Tablets and Kindle Fire

Tablets are probably the biggest problem with Schmidt’s proclamations. At this point, the iPad is dominating the tablet market without prejudice, Android tablets are failing to gain a toehold and there are few signs that this will change in the future.
The Kindle Fire is a different beast entirely. Backed by Amazon and its retail prowess it’s already making some sales waves and looks to become the second really successful modern tablet. It appears to be eating up a swath of the market that may have gone to future Android tablets, but not the iPad.
But will developers flock to the Kindle Fire? This could definitely be counted as a net win by Schmidt, as the Fire does use Android. This would be disingenuous, as the version of Android that the Kindle Fire uses is useless to Google in almost every way, but it would be correct.

Unfortunately, Amazon isn’t known for its developer friendly stance. It has come under attack several times in recent memory for the way that it handles developer relations and app promotions on its proprietary Android Market.
Not only that, but the 7″ form-factor is largely unproven and may need some severe customization by developers to actually make it usable. This may deter many developers from porting an application over that is engineered to present a precise experience to the user (we call these good apps from decent developers).
The Kindle Fire is also very much a placeholder device that exists only so that Amazon could have something out for the holiday season. Many developers will likely wait until the sales numbers of the Fire show it to be sticking around, or until the second iteration of the device rolls out next year.
Not to mention the fact that the Kindle Fire is very much a focused media-consumption device, which doesn’t lend itself to being a fertile ground for app purchases. People will likely use it more to consume Amazon content, which is exactly what it was designed to do, and less to play games or use cool apps.

Ice Cream Sandwich

Schmidt quoted Google’s new Ice Cream Sandwich update as one of the reasons that developers would soon be flocking to Android from iOS and other platforms. By all accounts, ICS is easily the best version of Android out there and may truly be the edition that moves it out of the ‘almost there’ column to the ‘you can use it without feeling frustrated’ column.
But does that mean that developers will want to code for it? It depends. It’s definitely easier for those who have coded using web technologies and then wrapped their code in native UI elements.
But for many developers of class A products, that’s not an option. Instead, they will have to rebuild their app utilizing the design conventions of Android and tweaking for its remaining weaknesses, like scrolling and zooming.
There is also the fact that the fractured landscape of Android offers little to like for developers that are coming from the laser-focused world of iOS.
Yes, these things can be overcome, but for what? Some may find their niche on Android and carve out a good portion of the profits available, but most will find that they will be forced to adopt fremium
Instapaper creator, and iOS developer, Marco Arment put it well earlier today “developers only need to ask themselves a simple question when considering whether to put much faith into Schmidt’s statements: What will be different in 6 months?”

Conclusions to draw

So, is the Android Market improving as a viable place to sell apps for money? Sure, a bit. But you’re still facing a market where most people don’t want to pay for most of the apps that they download, even if they are willing to shell out more for the few that they do buy.
And we haven’t even touched on the development issues that still exist in Android. A huge array of devices on various versions of the OS, with odd screen sizes and hardware limitations. A market that seems willing to let itself be overrun with malware and cheap copies of paid apps.
iOS comes out looking like a far better place to sell apps. Once again, this could exclude freemium, but if a developer is not in that market then there needs to be some really serious questions asked about whether or not the product can differentiate itself enough to make it into the top few percent of Android apps that actually make decent money.
In the end, if developers do their homework, there is really nothing that indicates that Android will suddenly become a better place than iOS to do business in the next six months. There may be some developers who find a niche to slice. But as far as it becoming the focus of efforts, the place that an app gets pushed first, there is little to recommend it yet.
That means that Schmidt’s statements appear to carry little weight beyond bluster at this point, unless something about Ice Cream Sandwich just blows the doors off of the market, which seems unlikely.

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ARM Development Studio 5 toolkit launches to public

ARM has released an update to their development toolkit that claims an increase in Java performance by up to four times. Yes, this software is free and DS-5 CE (Community Edition) and some major enhancements from the previous version. The main difference is the including of ARM Streamline Performance Analyzer; this little tool helps developers keep an eye on how efficient their code is as it’s executed, what more could a dev ask for?

This update should spawn many others within the Android Market, as developers may want to perfect their code to this new toolkit’s heightened standards. Taking advantage at optimizing applications to ARM’s processors will supposedly help speed them up too. Take a look at the installation procedure below:




The main difference between the ARM DS-5 and the already released SDK and NDK is simply that the Development Studio is oriented on energy efficiency through proper code execution. And who knows, we may even see some better batter life on our devices when using applications put through DS-5. That would definitely follow suit with ARM’s specific DS-5 motto towards producing “Android apps that stand out from the crowd”. Rapid battery drain problems have been a major issue in so many of the Androids released today.
More information can be found at ARM’s Official Website.
[via SlashGear]

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