Droidcon Day 2: Environment aware smartphones are coming soon

Day 2 at Droidcon was a more traditional conference, with presentations and guest speakers.



Environment aware smartphones are coming soon
Qualcomm's Leon Farasati, basically the guy responsible for those awesome Snapdragon processors that make our phones so brilliant, revealed in his talk that mobiles intelligent enough to recognise their environment and situation were very close to being real. This means that your next generation smartphone will know when it's in your handbag or pocket, beside your bed or in your car and alter its settings to reflect its surroundings. Amazing.

Droidcon Day 1: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) apps coming to Android

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.


Apps that make use of peer-to-peer on smartphones are coming soon
Several presentations at Droidcon featured P2P applications and extensions of the Android platform. We're likely to see an explosion of apps that make use of P2P in the games arena especially, but this type of functionality could also be used on the Amazon Kindle app for Android to share comments, bookmarks and features. Wouldn't it be great to be able to share extracts from books and lists of what you're reading with other friends with the Kindle app?

One barrier to P2P on smartphones is the power draining problems of bluetooth, but the next generations of phones will have improved wireless connectivity that will use far less power. One very interesting talk by Nick Hunn explored how this new technology would usher in an age of Android phones that linked to satellite devices that communicate with one another, such as a pedometer, a house alarm  or your car instruments. Your phone would become a data aggregation hub and really start to monitor your every move. Cool. 

Droidcon Day 1: Earning money from apps in Android Market

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.



It's tougher to make money selling apps than you think
Forget the hype, the truth is that it's actually very difficult for developers to make serious money selling apps, unless you're a game. The average iPhone app earns around $6000 over a two year period for its developer. With its bias towards free apps and high barrier to first purchase (Google Checkout), Android is even tougher. Apps featured on the Android Market homepage generally earn around $400 per day.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. Some apps are doing very well and generating serious money for their developers, especially games. Developers are increasingly looking at innovative ways to generate revenue from their apps. Here are two such methods:

Freemium
When Rovio came to publish Angry Birds on the Android platform they decided not to charge for the app, but to include advertising within the game. Angry Birds sells for 99p on iTunes (at time of writing), so we're not talking about a high price point here. The strategy worked, with Angry Birds receiving 1m downloads on Android on day after release. Some estimate that it might now be up to 10m downloads on Android.

Location based ads
Currently, only Google makes money out of Maps. How can developers make money from location apps? CloudMade have created a location-based advertising platform, which replaces Google Maps and will deliver advertising to any application that uses it.

Droidcon Day 1: Fragmentation of Android Market, opportunity or problem?

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.

Fragmentation of Android Market. An opportunity for developers?
There isn't one Android Market anymore. One of the most noticeable things at Droidcon was the amount of new app stores that are opening up on the Android platform. Vodafone Developer Platform and Orange App Store were both using the event to build awareness of their new markets for applications. I tested Samsung Galaxy S on the Orange stand which had no less than three app stores on the device, Android Market, Samsung Apps and Orange App store.

How should I feel about this?


Worried
Fragmenting the app stores will confuse consumers. One Android Market presents a clear message to the public. Apple understands why this is important and tells a consistent story to people about its products. Android unfortunately does not. This will just lead to more confusion.

People don't want to have to hunt around in different stores for different apps. Imagine if Angry Birds was only available in the Orange App Store and non-Orange customers couldn't download it? This is a nightmare senario for Android.

Submission rules. Mobile operators aren't as relaxed as Google about the apps that are uploaded to their stores. Android's famed openness will challenged if app censorship becomes commonplace in third party app stores.


Optimistic
Operator billing for paid apps. Both Vodafone and Orange will provide on-click purchasing of apps in their stores, with the payments appearing in the phone owner's next bill. This is a brilliant feature and something Google should be doing in Android Market. It's fantastic to see a serious barrier to consumers paying for apps being addressed, which will give developers the chance to earn more money from Android.

The operators will pay the tax for you. Again, this removes a serious barrier for large content and media companies from developing apps for Android, who just can't ignore the payment of taxes within different territories.

New opportunities for promotion. There's no question that Vodafone and Orange reach a lot of customers. The chance to have your app featured in their stores will be enticing to app developers.

Growth of Android. If operators are seriously committing to Android in this way, it can only be good for the platform's growth. Mobile operators will want to earn money from their app stores, so will advertise the Android devices that can host their stores. This will lead to increased Android phone sales, which can only be a good thing.

Aggregate the stores
Google could turn all of these new stores into something really powerful if they used Android Market as an app aggregator. Apps from Orange, Vodafone and Samsung stores would be visible within Android Market, but clearly branded as being from the third party partner.  Users would download the app from the third party store. Both sides would get the benefits from promotion and more apps being available.  If users were able to browser through all available Android apps within Android Market this would also solve all of the concerns about fragmentation.

HTC Desire HD Engadget review, oh no

  

I've been waiting for Engadget's review of the HTC Desire HD with dread, fearful of that horrible thought that eats away at all smartphone owners, "my phone is no longer the best, the fastest, the newest or the coolest". Today, it arrived...

But it turns out that I'm okay, the HTC Desire HD isn't the Robocop meets Terminator phone that I thought it was going to be. It sounds like the battery can't handle all of that power. Does that make the HD Roy Batty?

I'm glad in a way, because I totally love my HTC Desire. I always thought it was as close to perfection as a smartphone could be and now it turns out that I was right.

 

Droidcon London

I'm immersing myself in all things Android app at Droidcon over the next two days. The handy schedule on the Droidcon app has helped me put together the following highlights.

Create killer location apps

Excellence in Android app experience

Best of UK mobile business

Android had a dude problem

Turn good ideas into great apps

The economics of apps

I'll blog notes from each presentation.

Let's carousel - Alphonso Lab's Pulse app is a great way to organise your favourite feeds

More apps should help us to organise the content that we like from the web. Pulse is a fantastic app that displays stories from your favourite feeds in an innovative and engaging way. Why download apps for each individual blog or website that you enjoy when one app can take care of it all for you?

I like
The image driven story carousels are a great way to organise a large amount of content on my HTC Desire's small screen.  Swiping to rotate the stories has me immediately engaged and discovering information.

Very simple, but strong user journey. Tapping a story takes me immediately into a detailed, but easy to read content page. The carousel related to the particular website or blog that I'm browsing also remains at the bottom of the screen, encouraging me to discover new stories.

Great social media integration. I'm only ever a touch away from sharing stories with my Twitter followers or Facebook friends.

Works very well offline. The majority of the content on Pulse seems to be cached, so you can happily browse through stories on the tube.

Don't like
Limited amount of recommended content when setting up feeds.

It would be fantastic if Pulse recommended other feeds and stories to you, based on what other users where looking at or sharing.



Download Pulse from Alphonso Labs now

Android Market hits the 100,000 app mark

Engadget are reporting that the Android Market has now reached 100K apps. Whilst this is still miles behind the Apple App Store, it still feels like a another significant milestone for the platform. Now, if only Google would make it easier for users to buy apps.

Ford open up Sync to Android developers

Ford Motor Company recently released the SDK for their AppLink platform for Sync. Most people in the UK won't have heard of Sync, but it allows drivers to link up with their smartphones in car and control them by voice commands. AppLink connects Sync with your phone's apps. By inviting Android developers to create apps specifically for their company, Ford have given us a glimpse into the future of mobile. Where your phone is the bridging device between products and also brands.

Source: Cnet CarTech Blog

How Google can improve Android Market and sell more apps

Android Market is a bohemian dream. I love the chaotic and multi-cultural feel to the Android app store. There's something very cool about not being censored, being able to see Japanese apps that I can't understand and having to work out how to buy apps myself. The early adopter thing was part of my reason for going with this platform in the first place.

However, that freedom comes at a cost. There are elements of Android Market that really annoy me and I think are holding it back. At a time when Android is surging ahead of the competition in terms of phone sales, the app store has some serious flaws that Google needs to address.

1. No one-touch payment
This is a big barrier to selling apps. Google seems to be making it as difficult as possible for consumers to actually buy apps from them. The only option to buy apps is Google Checkout, which requires users to give their credit card details directly to Google in order to be able to make purchases. When will the introduce billing via carriers? No wonder Amazon are starting their own Android app store.

2. Full refund for 24 hours after purchase
This is wonderful for the consumer, but terrible for app developers and content owners. I can understand that Google don't want to police the Android Market. However, forcing developers to refund paid for apps within 24 hours of purchasing is a bad economic model for someone trying to sell apps. Apps with limited lifespans, such as comic book apps that I read once and then forget about, can simply be downloaded by users and then uninstalled at the end of the day, for a free refund.

Why don't Google take a more flexible approach to the refund and allow developers to alter the terms of the refund? Users will of course be more wary of purchasing apps, but then it's up to the developers to establish a good reputation.

3. App discovery
It's very difficult to discover apps within the Android Market. How ridiculous is it that I have to use an app, called AppAware, to find new apps to download. Okay, so iTunes is just as bad, maybe worse, but that's no excuse for not seriously trying to improve user experience within Android Market. There must be a better way of exploring apps other than, popular, featured and new. Google could do worse than take a look at the AppAware approach. Last FM emerged because no one could discover music on iTunes, so I guess similar services will start appearing for apps as well.

4. No moderation
I hate censorship. I don't like the way Apple decides what people can and cannot see on iTunes. However, Apple users do benefit from being protected from exploitation, because Apple cares about the apps that appear in its store. Google's hands off approach to Android Market means that Android phone users can be exploited by phishing apps and other evil applications. Given the recent stories about how unscrupulous developers are collecting personal data from Apple and Android users, Google needs to look at how they can combat these kind of apps, without losing the bohemian appeal of Android.