Archive for category Linux

Android Market Fragmentation

pocketgamerbizPocketGamer.biz has an article on ‘What’s wrong with Android Market’. There are lots of criticisms of the Market many of which I have also expressed here and on MobilePhoneDevelopment.com. However, there’s one new piece of information at the end that I found interesting…

“At least one major carrier is specifying their Android devices to come without the Android store”

This ties in with my previous thoughts that some Android phones might not come with a full set of Google applications.

Presumably a carrier not using the Android Market would implement their own application store. From the carrier standpoint, I can see the sense of this in terms of controlling what’s on their store, app certification, the commission structure, payment mechanisms and ultimately perhaps what the users can install on their Android phone. However, I can see consumer confusion as to why they can’t get particular applications on their phone. There’s also likely to be general developer disillusionment that they can’t easy publish their application to all Android users.

Cross Currency Android Market Sales

androidmarketThere’s an interesting post on the Android groups regarding paying over double for an Android app on the Android Market, due to cross-currency credit card fees. The problem is that when paying for a $0.99 app, the fixed credit card fees become significant.

I wondered how Apple solve this problem. It turns out they use a combination of ways…

  • Aggregating multiple payments within a small timeframe so that several micropayments become one
  • Allowing payment by PayPal
  • Allowing payment via iTunes cards (available via retailers)

It seems the Android Market will need to start accepting other payment types if people are not to be put off buying single applications cross currency. This is one area (probably the only one!) where the BlackBerry App Store minimum $2.99 app price seems to make sense.

Deep Inside Android

I came across some useful slides recently. They are entitled ‘Deep Inside Android‘ from a presentation by Esmertec, an OHA member, at the OpenExpo 2008.

esmertecandroid
The presentation is useful for people who want to learn a bit more about Android Linux internals. The later slides also cover Android programming essentials.