In the August issue they reported
announcements from Google’s I/O conference, but the big move was a newfound
focus on developers.
Google did its best to court software
developers at this year’s I/O conference with a much-needed integrated
developer environment API for better games and the ability to more easily
translate apps. Their allegiance will become increasingly important as smartphone
and tablet hardware sees fewer dramatic improvements.
Google’s
I/O conference 2013
“You guys, Android developers, are the
heart of this ecosystem and I think you know that. We have been on this journey
together for over five years now,” said Hugo Barra, vice president of Android
product management, during the opening keynote.
“Google Play has just crossed 48 billion
app installs but, even better than that, over the past four months of this year
we have already paid out more money to Android developers on Google Play than
in all of last year,” he said.
Google
Play has just crossed 48 billion app installs
Importance of software
Google’s focus on developers doesn’t come
as a surprise, given how the smartphone and tablet market is changing.
“Without great apps and content, a mobile
device is just a very expensive telephone. Making developers productive and
engaged is the number-one goal for any platform company and that seems to be
the clear goal at I/O 2013,” said Michael Mullany, CEO at Sencha.
As the hardware and design becomes less of
a differentiator for smartphones and tablets, the service and the apps that
developers create become more important.
“We all know that Android and iOS have
significantly more apps than, for example, Windows. Is that a key factor in
people’s buying decisions? I think it’s a factor and a growing one,” said Mark
Newman, chief research officer at Informa.
Google isn’t the only company chasing
developers. The recent release of an open beta for Unity’s BlackBerry 10 add-on
lets developers use Unity’s cross-platform game-development tools to create
games for the new operating system.
With IDC’s first-quarter numbers showing
Android’s smartphone market share at 75 percent and BlackBerry OS at 2.9
percent, the two platforms are in very different positions, and that is
mirrored in their developer strategies. While BlackBerry is hoping
cross-platform tools will lower the bar for developers, Google launched an
integrated developer environment (IDE) specifically for Android.
Android Studio
Android Studio, which is based on the
IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, drew loud applause from the audience at I/O.
It is a step in the right direction for Google, thanks to features such as the
ability to see how an app looks on different screen sizes. Better Ul editing is
also something Android needs, according to mobile developer Konrad Hubner.
Android
Studio is a step in the right direction for Google
“This is exactly where Apple is so much
better and I hope Google can catch up. So far, I have done Ul editing in XML
and then hoped for the preview to work, but that is quite a pain,” Hubner said.
Mullany agreed: “Fragmentation is a
significant problem for Android developers and the existing tools for creating
Android apps have a pretty mixed reputation. The new Android IDE helps
developers visualize their app experience on multiple device types and should
help them be significantly more productive,” he said.
Another feature announced at I/O that
caught Hubner’s interest was a translation service that lets developers order
translations from the developer console.
“A translation service for developers to
get their apps out in different languages is a cool service offering. Often
translations in apps are really poor,” Hubner said.
At first Google will offer the translation
service as a pilot program to which developers can sign up from the console.
Google has also added application optimization tips, the ability to see the
effectiveness of ads, revenue graphs, beta testing and staged rollouts to the console.
Google also launched a number of APIs,
including ones for more battery-efficient location-based services, geo-fencing
and activity recognition, which are all part of Google’s Play services. There
is also a new family of APIs specifically for games, which let developers build
games with leaderboards and multiplayer support. Cloud saves provide developers
with a storage API to handle game saves and settings, allowing users to move
between devices and continue from where they left off.
But even if Google and its partners
dominate at selling devices, Android still lives in Apple’s shadow when it
comes to app development. According to a recent survey from IDC and
Appcelerator, developers who said they were very interested in developing for
iPhones accounted for 89 percent of respondents, with 86 percent interested in
iPads. Just 77 percent felt the same way about Android smartphones, and 64
percent were very interested in Android tablets.
“Most often we develop both iOS and Android
apps, but iOS is still number-one in our world. That’s what you start with, and
if there is money left you do Android,” said Patrik Book, CEO at AppByrAn.
Google still has some work to do, but
Barra’s message to developers was clear:
“We really want you to thrive,” he said.
