Ken Yarmosh is a product strategist who helps organizations, businesses, VCs, and technology developers maximize their Internet and mobile investments.
The other day, my Facebook friend FaceTime'd me using FacePlant about Face Cash'ing the money he owed me. #
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Classic Bookshelf for iPadIf you haven’t checked out my latest app — Classic Bookshelf for iPad — give it a look. It debuted this past Friday at #10 on the iPad App Store in its category. It’s priced very competitively and allows you to quickly and easily access the most popular books.
Compare our versions of these books with other options; you’ll find that they are much higher quality and easier on the eyes.
Enjoy!
I was surprised when Apple announced iPhone OS 4.0 (now, iOS 4) five days after the iPad launch. Tons of juicy features were immediately not available on their newest device. In that announcement, it was also evident that Apple was still very much in an experimental phase with the iAd, a release first and iterate later mentality. That philosophy is currently much stronger than it has historically been due to the hotly contested mobile market and Apple wanting to maintain its position.
Now, the iPad has not been out for three months and here comes the iPhone 4, which includes those new iOS 4 features plus double the RAM and Retina Display. According to pundits like MG Siegler, the Retina Display, “completely blows away the screen of the iPad.” In that same piece, he writes:
Here’s why this really matters for Apple: the iPhone 4 likely points to the updates coming to the iPad in the not-too-distant future. Are there any doubts that the Retina Display and twice the RAM will make its way to that device? So why would you buy the iPad now if the device might get these updates in say, January?
As mentioned before, it is the Apple way to push out regular product and software updates but they seem to be adhering to an even more rapid schedule than usual. Clearly they want to be the continued leaders in the wild west of the mobile frontier but it seems they are now doing so at the expense of confusing consumers and frustrating developers.
Think about it, consumers literally will have an inferior operating system (iPhone OS 3.2) and hardware (256 MB RAM) for a device — the iPad — that is less than three months old. While iOS developers are not dealing with the same extent of fragmentation as Google’s Android platform, things are surely getting much more complicated than even just six months ago. For example, read Neven Mrgan’s All the sizes of iOS app icons, which details the up to nine versions of icons that need to be created if you release an app across all iOS devices.
I know that Apple is working fast and furious towards consolidating the iPhone and iPad onto a single operating system (iOS 4.1?), which should happen in the Fall. Generally, Apple’s approach to the market is still more structured than their largest competitor — Google — because they rigorously control the hardware. But they currently seem driven more by innovation and being first than by consistency and a methodical approach to releasing their hardware and software updates.
Personally, I am willing and able to endure these deviations but there are growing rumblings by consumers and developers. Hopefully, the release of the iOS for the iPad will see a partial end to the small amount of fragmentation beginning to show itself. That won’t really happen though until the iPhone and iPad once again share similar hardware specifications and the majority of the older generation devices are retired. See you in 2012.
Android “Gingerbread” Release to Focus on User ExperiencePart of the reason Android apps are not comparable to their iOS counterparts is that the interface and user experience is lacking. Functionally, I see many of them as the same — but visually Android apps are considerably behind and their usability leaves much to be desired.
Google is focusing the bulk of its efforts on the user experience for the upcoming Gingerbread release to counter this. And they want to get the Android experience closer to the iPhone.
While it’s unclear if Gingerbread is going to change that for apps, Google is at least pursuing significant changes to the Android OS itself. Whether it’s Gingerbread or the release after that, hopefully much of this improved user experience will be made available to developers in the SDK.
Swype – Android’s Killer AppI’ve been testing Swype as my primary keyboard input for my Nexus One for the past week or so and it’s now open to all Android users. While I’ve pre-ordered the iPhone 4 and plan to move to it for my primary device (but will still use both), the app I’ll miss the most is Swype. In fact, I’d go so far as to state that Swype is Android’s killer app and I wouldn’t be surprised if Google eventually bought the company.
It’s a pretty simple concept. You start with your finger on the first letter of the word that you want to type, then you keep your finger on the screen while you trace letter to letter. Once you’re at the last letter, release your finger and your word will appear.
Swype is powerful because it’s natural. At lunch recently, I showed it two loyal iPhone customers. After trying it themselves and seeing them immediately “type” faster, they both said they’d consider moving to Android just because of Swype. Oh, and they also weren’t convinced of upgrading to iPhone 4 — but there’s no shortage of interest in it with 600,000 pre-orders on the first day.
The Magic Lottery (for Apps)Here’s another way to think about it: delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.
This excerpt from Seth Godin’s “Hope and the magic lottery “reminded me of something I wrote in my upcoming book App Savvy:
Obviously, attention for your app is a good thing. In fact, your goal will be to see a flurry of excitement when your app is finally approved. The difference is that the core of the excitement for your app should always be generated by customers. Even if your app is reviewed by bloggers and more traditional media outlets, the buzz from those sites will eventually lessen and more likely become nonexistent. Customers that are excited, engaged, and passionate about your app — because of their influence in the development of it — will be the ones who continue to help promote you well after the media is done with their “scoop.”
Anyone who suggests that the “iPhone 4 is nice” but that developers should code for Android first is truly out of touch with the realities of developing for these platforms. Now, let me be clear, I’m rooting for Android because competition is what spurs innovation by giving consumers choice and keeping platform providers honest. I own a Nexus One (currently my primary device) and have developed profitable apps on the Android platform but thinking “Android first” right now is extremely idealistic. Especially with the announcement of the iPhone 4.
Pundits continue to see the flooding of Android devices into the market as the sign that Android has won…or at least as an indication that it will win in the app marketplace. I debunked this idea some time ago but it’s worth re-iterating one point in particular, especially now with Android’s growing influence: the best apps on Android devices are still Google’s apps. Android devices are not purchased because consumers want third-party developer apps. Instead, they want Google Voice integration, a native Gmail client, tethering, or to be on an “open” platform. Just ask Nokia (Symbian) if having a leading market position, with probably the largest diversity of devices, helped or hurt them with the Ovi Store.
Compare the best Android apps to just three apps that were announced yesterday for iPhone 4: Netflix, FarmVille, and Guitar Hero. Each of those are killer apps and they highlight Apple’s commitment to consumers and by winning them, they will let the developers follow the money trail. Yes, Apple focused on the form factor, display, camera, and iMovie…does that do anything for developers or early adopters? Possibly, depending on who you ask. More importantly, however, is that these new apps and features aggressively market to established audiences like Facebook-farming fanatics. They’ll also cause a consumer to think twice about purchasing a Flip and new smartphone or just buying an iPhone 4 that has HD recording and editing capabilities. Apple’s betting big on consumers and with their 150M credit cards on file through iTunes, they’re guessing that they won’t have any problems keeping those $1B checks to developers coming.
Let’s get into the details a bit more though…
Aside from my own experience, other developers report that they make significantly more on the Apple platform compared to Android. This thread last week got significant attention because the developer shared that the same app is making 3x more with Apple than with Android. With the latest numbers showing the worldwide operating system smartphone market share of Apple at 42% and Android at 25%, it’s a small indication of the disparity between the two platforms.
If you spend any amount of time in the Android Market, you’ll quickly realize that the best third-party apps are not paid but ad supported. It’s the Google model and it seems that for the time being Google is willing to subsidize these apps, offering outrageous CPM’s, until they get the distribution they want. Android developers are also generally happy with this approach (and these CPM’s) because fragmentation is not a made up issue. Not offering a paid app means they don’t have to care as much about the deafening number of customer complaints about device / OS compability. Most Android Market reviews are not actual reviews but instead are rants about an app not working properly because of the device / OS combination. Apple’s approach generally has this area under control but that’s even more true because they keep retiring older devices (bye, bye iPhone 3G).
These facts do not negate that Android is an up and coming player. But guess what, so is the iPad and now, iPhone 4. In fact, I recently re-launched one of my most popular iPhone apps as a Universal app onto the iPad and saw sales improve 3-4x immediately. They’ve stabilized at around 2.5-3x with a general upward trend. In particular, I’m still seeing huge opportunity on the iPad and I’m doubling down there and am urging developers and others I talk with to do the same. Idealists and technologists can embrace tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot support and complain about AT&T. But I’m going to hang out with the consumers who are going to line up to purchase the iPhone 4 on June 24th. And then, I’m going to build them some more apps to buy.
What Does Government 2.0 Look Like?I’m hanging out at the Gov 2.0 Expo 2010 today. Over on the O’Reilly Radar blog, Mark Drapeau provided a visual walkthrough detailing what Government 2.0 looks like. Click through to see each area described in detail:
