Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanHulton | Hacker News Reader

> Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that. The biggest problem Android app developers have now is the wicked fragmentation on the platform, and that's only going to go UP as more handhelds come out.

When you target iOS, you know the capabilities of pretty much every generation are pretty similar going in, and that's all you have to worry about. With Android, you have to ask - Does this model even HAVE a keyboard?

EDIT: Okay, because I'm being modded down into hell, then why doesn't Android have Netflix? Oh that's right, device fragmentation:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/netflix-on-your-android-dev...

Netflix is on your computer, your Xbox 360, your Wii, your PS3, and on your iPhone, but NOT on Android and the Netflix devs themselves say "fragmentation" is the issue.

Sure, the keyboard was a silly example, but it's not like it's not a problem.

View on HN

Too many people gets the causality wrong in the Netflix story.

The story isn't that Netflix isn't on Android because of fragmentation. The story us that Netflix will cause fragmentation on Android phones.

XBox 360, Wii, PS3 and iPhone all have strong DRM build into the platform.

Android doesn't have strong DRM in the base version, so Netflix will (or can) not support that version.

However, individual Android phones may have Netflix because Android is Open Source, so individual manufacturers may add strong DRM to the platform.

Hence, the user experience will likely become (further) fragmented because of Netflix.

Except the iPhone effectively has no DRM. Load the application into gdb, dump memory, and you've broken it. This is even worse than Android, even: the developers cannot add their own DRM on top, due to both technical and App Store restrictions.

This is simply not true. Certain App Store developers have added web service calls to their applications so they "phone home" and pirated apps could be denied access. Similar to an API key.

There is only one foolproof check to see if your application is pirated, since only the binary itself has to change (and you can't checksum what's distributed to users). Therefore, there's just one simple thing to patch out -- 5 minutes for an experienced pirate.

> Netflix is on your computer

No it's not. Netflix doesn't support my computer, so I can't get it. I wish I could...in fact, I'd probably pay 10x the price they're charging for the service they offer. But since they don't support Ubuntu because of DRM issues, there is no Netflix on my computer.

Your Netflix example isn't appropriate here.

10x the price huh? Buy a copy of Windows install in virtual box and you now have Netflix. See how easy that was?

The point is that NF can be made to easily run on any computer and that you are choosing not to run it. That's a different situation than what is happening with Android.

I am willing to pay a lot to Netflix because I support the idea of what they're doing: bringing streaming video to the PC and away from the TV, and accelerating the general public's desire for better Internet service.

I do not support Microsoft! I am not willing to give any money at all to Microsoft. I disagree with their business practices, think they produce poor-quality software and refuse to use Windows.

I'm not doing this out of being a "fanboy" or anything; I just don't trust them. They have a 15-year history of producing software full of security holes and my government will throw me in jail if I look for those holes. I've heard Windows 7 is a bit better, but how can I know? It's a crime to find out.

Sorry. Not going to run Windows.

>"Sorry. Not going to run Windows."

Then it is not a matter of Netflix "not supporting your computer."

It is a matter of your personal values and choices precluding use of Netflix.

So don't run Windows. Hackintosh. Or is specifically you hating Silverlight? And would it be possible to Mono or Wine Silverlight and avoid windows?

> 10x the price huh? Buy a copy of Windows

Congratulations. You have unraveled the mystery of why it would cost 10x as much.

For 10x the price, he could buy a Mac and run Ubuntu in a VM/Bootcamp option. He would have Netflix on a Unix Box.

(Of course 10x Free is still free, since Ubuntu is free. I'm talking about 10x the hardware price of his rig.)

Do you have practical experience with that, or are you just repeating what you read on the internet?

What? Just last week there was a flurry of stories where Android app developers were complaining about device fragmentation. Studies done that show the breakdown of devices, features, screen sizes, etc.

You know, occasionally you can trust what you read on the internet.

As if the iPhone/iOS-Platform had no fragmentation:

1. different OS versions (The classic won't get 4.x and some users never upgrade) 2. different features on the same version (3G with 4.x has no multitasking) 3. different screen sizes (480x320, 1024x768, 960x640)

To be fair, the 480 vs 960 one isn't nearly as bad as the andriod stuff. It's just pixel doubling. With andriod... I mean, look at the driod. 54 extra lines! what are you going to do there?

In other words, iOS fragmentation is not nearly as bad as Andriods, and furthermore, cannot get as bad as andriod gets, simply because there's only one manufacturer.

Any sane developer would pick iPhone fragmentation over Android fragmentation. I should know, I develop on a platform that's even more fragmented than Android.

Google and Android fans refuse to acknowledge the impact of fragmentation as much as they can, but it's there and it's going to get worse. Look at what the Android developers are saying tough (even here on HN): it's more time consuming and it costs more to develop for Android than for the iPhone.

One does not need experience, only logic. It is logical that the more producers and devices there are, the more difficult and time consuming it is to develop for a software platform. Tricks such as auto-resizing widgets only get you so far.

Please read the testimonials from HN Android developers and you'll be convinced too.

Netflix has nothing to do with product fragmentation. It is just entirely about Netflix refusing to get in the business of creating DRM systems. Android does not have a systemwide DRM scheme. This may be a failing of Android, but it is not fragmentation.

otoh, iOS still doesn't have a decent notification system or multitasking. major capabilities like that might be more important than fragmentation, which effects both platforms and is only a problem for smaller devs. i have done some android work and "wicked" is an exaggeration. i am not aware of anyone who cares if there is a keyboard or not. it's completely abstracted by the OS.

Yeah, I'd really enjoy some better multitasking/background stuff on the iPhone, I'm sure. Then again, I'm certain that there would be apps that would abuse it and drain the heck outta my battery.

Man, it would be nice if there was a system utility that showed how much of the battery each app drained, so you could keep track of the worst offenders. Even if just a good estimate, like % of processor time * amount drained while active.

Android has that.

Joe Public doesn't care about that. Not really.

No. But developers do. That way they can make sure their app is not a battery drain without having to wait for hours. And once this is a priority to developers, Joe Public benefits.

iOS developers have more powerful tools than a task tracker app available to them in the SDK.

No, but Joe Public's technical friend can use it to show him what's eating his battery. Just because a non-technical person doesn't use a feature doesn't mean it's useless.

Yeah it does, but it's not as useful as you'd think. On my phone, the breakdown is always like 40% Display, 30% Idle, 20% for various system things, and the last 10% is stuff I can actually control. My display is set to auto brightness, but it has a short shutoff timer and I shut it off manually most of the time when I stop looking at it. I've tried low brightness settings but that didn't make much difference. Wireless, Bluetooth, and GPS don't make much difference either but I always keep them off.

The one thing that seems to make a huge difference is having the cell signal on when there is no tower in range. The phone gets hot and burns battery juice when it's trying to find a tower. My office has lousy reception, so on days when the signal is bad my battery is nearly dead by the time I'm ready to go home.

It used to be completely dead almost every day unless I recharged during the day, but I bought an extended battery. They should just come with the bigger batteries, even if the phones cost a bit more. It only sticks out a bit, and makes the battery life much more livable.

We've seen products lacking certain "major" features win from more technically advanced competitors before. Because regular consumers don't care about the same things that geeks do. Look at the iPod. Not to mention other reasons that give an edge to a product (e.g. the porn industry backing a certain media format that consequently beats its competition). In my opinion the most important feature is freedom, contrary to the locked platform you get with iOS. Android isn't perfect in that regard, but at least a step in the right direction. Sadly, most people don't care enough about freedom to let it determine their purchasing decisions (although they do like to complain after the fact when they can't port their data to another device).

>Sadly, most people don't care enough about freedom

What most people don't care about is thoughtless spin like this. It's not "free" vs. "draconian lock down", it's a trade off. Android lets you do anything you want, in which case people... do anything they want. Apple puts controls in place on what can be done. That means you can get more things quicker on the Anroid but it also means you can apps that steal your credit card info, etc.

It's a trade off and both sides have advantages and disadvantages. Stop with this disingenuous "it's about freedom!" nonsense.

It's disingenuous until the day Apple decides your phone has reached EOL without your consent, ro the da, you know, you want to use anything that's not iTunes to sync data.

I already use something that isn't iTunes to sync data. I'm using MobileMe but you can also use other cloud services for this.

Sure, it is a trade off and you misunderstand me if you think I'm attacking Apple because of some "be free or die" mentality. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm typing this on a Mac and actually own an iPhone, even if I use a HTC Desire instead. But that doesn't make caring about freedom "thoughtless spin". Using words like that doesn't do justice to a legitimate concern. Getting locked into a platform is a serious pain. I also don't agree with the idea that you can do pretty much whatever you want on Android as it comes pre-installed on your phone, which is how most regular people use their phones (just like the fact that they don't jailbreak their iPhones). That argument seems like the same black and white "free" vs. "draconian lock down" comparison that you disagree with.

Apple knows that mainstream consumers don't care about freedom, just like most citizens don't really care about limitations to their civil rights until it gets to the point where they are groped by the TSA on the airport (i.e. the "if you've got nothing to hide..." mentality). Living in a country like Singapore definitely has its benefits, just as closed computer platforms do. If you're not a power user your data usually doesn't matter that much, anyway, so losing it if you switch to another system doesn't seem like such a big deal when you're deciding about what product to buy. This is exactly the reason why people buy a new version of Microsoft Office every two years. To me, however, my data matters and I get frustrated when I can't synch my iPhone from my GNU/Linux box without jumping through all sorts of hoops. I might not be the typical user, but I still want free platforms to disrupt closed ones (note that disrupt doesn't mean that I don't want them to coexist; choice is good). Just like I want (old versions of) Internet Explorer to die in favor of more open alternatives.

Just to clarify: this is not a black and white position and I don't have anything against Apple, or even Microsoft (in fact, I think Microsoft is more open than Apple these days). My main point was that having more features doesn't make or break a product, but that being said the side-note about freedom was a serious concern that I deeply care about when it comes to investing time and data into a platform.

What I have an issue with is this assumption that Apple is trying to do evil platform lock in. A lot of what they're doing makes their devices much more convenient to use than they could be otherwise. Perhaps that's a happy coincidence, perhaps it isn't. How would you tell if they were doing it to be "evil" or not? It would look about the same.

Of course you could say that they could just make a way for power users to get by all this stuff and that's true, but based on Jobs behavior in the past he seems to be terrified of someone having his stuff crash and blame it on Apple even if it was totally the users fault [1]. They nearly died to Microsoft because of this very thing and history may repeat against Anroid.

[1] You might say that's really silly, but most of Windows reputation for being unstable came from 3rd party software.

If you read the actual Netflix blog post, you'll see that they describe fragmentation as the result of the lack of a DRM scheme in Android OS (aka nothing to to do with hardware), not a cause of why they can't put Netflix on Android.

I don't think fragmentation is the issue with Netflix.

The main issue is that Android (or any Linux) is open, so if DRM crackers could modify Windows without looking at the source, imagine how easy will it be having all the source of all the DRM lib surroundings(you could fake the DRM lib with millions of combinations).

This means anybody being able to crack Netflix without effort in seconds and Netflix loosing millions of dollars. Not going to happen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com