Two Great Examples of Differences between iOS and Android

Today I had two experiences that really highlighted the differences between iOS and Android.  First we needed some screenshots of our Android app for the Amazon Android marketplace.  After a lot of research it appears that the only ways to take screenshots in Android involve either 1) rooting your phone or 2) working with a development environment on your PC while the phone is plugged in to the PC.  Never of these options is pretty.  By contrast on the iPhone you can click two buttons and instantly take a screenshot.  It takes a couple seconds and is super simple.  This is iPhone's UI elegance in all its brilliance.

Later we were testing to see how our high end creative engines would work on an Android tablet.  We think that long term tablets will be a great platform for building creative products like greeting cards, photo books, custom calendars, etc.   Our creative product engine is a high end Flash app.  As might be expected, the app ran great on Android tablets.  Apple doesn't support Flash so we are just totally out of luck on the iPad.  This is where the open nature of Android outshines Apple's closed architecture.

Acer Iconia Tab Review

Background

This is meant to be a real-world overview of the Acer Iconia Tab A500.  The focus is more on usability in the world than trying to cover all the speeds and feeds.

Hardware

It would be hard to start the discussion about the hardware without talking about the price.  I bought the Iconia Tab at Target.  With the special Target was running and my Target Red Card, the price was about $375!  This tablet has a generous screen, front and rear facing cameras, excellent performance, Android Honeycomb, etc. Relative to other tablets, the value feels very high.

I have struggled with the pricing on other tablets.  $500 to $800 is just too much for a tablet in my opinion for two reasons. First, look at the price of laptops.  I just bought an amazing Dell laptop for $450 a couple weeks ago.  Why should a tablet cost more than a laptop, in some cases much more?  It just doesn’t make sense from a value standpoint.  Second, tablets are evolving so quickly that the realistic lifetime of these devices is about 2 years.  Given that, who really wants to spend north of $500 for something that will only be used for 2 years?

My impression of the Iconia Tab from a hardware perspective is very favorable.  It is a nice package overall.  The screen is excellent – feels like just about the right size. I would love it if the tablet was smaller and lighter, but it felt very comparable to other tablets of this screen size.  (Thickness and weight will undoubtedly come down in the coming years.)  Performance was very good.  I used it for You Tube videos, email, photos, web surfing, games, etc. and everything was very snappy.  There was not one time where I felt myself waiting for it to do something (excluding downloading things via the Net).

There have been some reviewers who have complained about the battery life of the Iconia Tab, but it seemed quite reasonable to me.  My use case is to be able to use it all evening long and have plenty of juice to spare.  Several nights in a row the family passed the device back and forth on the couch all evening long.  This was real world testing, switching from videos to shopping to games, etc.  I know it isn’t a scientific test, but I find some of the standardized battery tests to be really silly.  At the end of each night, the tablet was still at 80% battery – very good in my book. The only situation where I could see where you might want longer battery life was if you were going to use the tablet all day long without any access to a power plug.  That isn’t a very common scenario for me, but it might be for others.

My only complaint about the hardware, and it is a minor one, is that I found the device a little slippery.  I worry that I might drop it at some point unless I get a carrying case of some sort.

Android Honeycomb

I started the device up and was notified almost immediately that there was a good-sized system update available.  I installed that update and the device was brought up to Android Honeycomb 3.1, the latest version of the Android O/S for tablets.  It was nice to know I was on the latest version!

Overall ease of use of Honeycomb was quite good but there are some challenges for users familiar to Android 2.x.  My best test of ease of use was that when I handed the device to my 10 year old (OK, he ripped it from hands) he got started in about 5 seconds.  He was immediately watching videos, playing games, etc.  Clearly it is not a hard system to use.

My biggest challenges came from things that were different than Android 2.x on a phone.  Who decided to bury the settings button on Honeycomb?  Seriously, those little things can drive people batty, especially if they have mastered how to use an earlier version of your O/S.  Instead of using physical buttons for options, home, etc. like you do on the phone, the tablet uses softkeys.  That took a little getting used to, but worked fine after a short period.

Apps

The biggest challenge for users is going to be that the market for Honeycomb apps is still very early.  The first thing you notice is that some big apps are either not available or are missing key pieces of functionality.  Netflix doesn’t work on this device – that is a huge disappointment.  Skype works, but there is no video calling yet on the Iconia Tab.

While I don’t know the specifics of why Netflix and Skype haven’t released full blown apps on the Iconia Tab, it is becoming clear to a lot of Android developers that Google needs to do a better job of hiding underlying hardware differences from the developers.  At LifePics we are currently wrestling with an issue where some Android devices take photos larger than what Android can handle with its built-in file uploader.  (More on that in a future post.)  When the app developers have to test on all these specific devices, it slows down the whole app development process enormously.  Google, hopefully you are listening. 

A few other apps would download from the Android Market but wouldn’t install. We mostly found this to be the case with some of the games from smaller publishers.

Some other apps worked flawlessly on the tablet even though they are not optimized for tablets.  I tried our own LifePics photo ordering app which we haven’t optimized for Honeycomb tablets yet, and it worked great, but there are certain features that it leaves you wanting for (e.g., the ability to drill down on a photo and see a larger view of it).  Some of those features aren’t really relevant in a smartphone environment but become key on a tablet.

In other cases there were tablet-optimized apps that worked very well. For example, I really like Touchdown by Nitro Desk for access to Exchange email systems.  They have a tablet version of their app that worked flawlessly on the Iconia Tab.

Overall Thoughts

Acer has done their job with this tablet.  They provide a lot of value for the money and the package feels well buttoned-up from a hardware perspective.

More broadly, it is clear that prices are really starting to drop in Android tablets.  When Android tablets hit $299, these devices will become mainstream.  When they go below $199, families will start to own several devices.  However, the app market is still far too immature on Android Honeycomb.  Google needs to help the big app players get their apps out.  By the time the holiday buying season comes around this year, Google really needs the big guys like Netflix, Skype, etc. to FULLY support Honeycomb if it is going to sell in any volume.  If Google doesn’t do that, Apple will continue their dominance in the tablet market through another holiday season.

Android Fragmentation

So I bought an Acer Iconia tablet this week.  Smoking deal at Target (about $370) - we are finally starting to see the prices fall in the tablet market.  However, I was disappointed to see that Netflix isn't available yet on this tablet. They only support certain Android tablets.  I understand the caution by Netflix, but this fragmentation of Android is a real concern for the ecosystem.  When some apps run only on certain devices, you no longer have one ecosystem but a bunch of smaller, related ecosystems.  Google needs to work to make it easier for app developers to just publish across devices without concern for the underlying hardware issues.

Android Developers Defecting to iOS

I am very surprised by this data showing that Android developers are defecting to iOS.  Will be interesting to see if it continues given how quickly Android is gaining market share in the smartphone device market.  Sometimes developers and marketers in the tech industry build for what they know, and they seem more comfortable with iOS than Android.

Android Orders Up 70% Over Q1

In July orders from our Android photo ordering app are running 70% ahead of Q1. That is some amazing progress in a short time.  We have done two new versions in the last 45 days which has been huge.  Huge kudos to our Android Dev Team!

My Next Presentation on Building a Mobile Strategy

I will be presenting again on mobile strategies, this time at the Mobile Commerce Forum in October. See an overview of my presentation at http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/06/30/how-create-mobile-strategy

Android Market Share

Android market share increases while RIM decreases according to Comscore.  Boy we could have seen that coming.  What is interesting though is how Android continues to pull away from iPhone.

Article on Android App Development

Chris Newton, @chrisnewton5, and I just published an article on Android app development.  We talk to how important it is to have an Android app and how much more flexible the platform is than iPhone.

Radio Interview on Android / Mobile Apps

I did a recent internet radio interview on WS Radio about mobile apps, Android, and mobile marketing.  The interview was geared toward small and medium businesses who are trying to figure out what their strategy should be for the mobile world.  Listen to the interviews at the links below:

http://filesource.abacast.com/wsradio/ecommercerssradioshow/052511/segment1052511.mp3
http://filesource.abacast.com/wsradio/ecommercerssradioshow/052511/segment2052511.mp3

Android and iOS Keep Growing

Nielsen shows that Android and iOS keep growing.  View the Nielsen report.

Presentation from Internet Retailer 2011

On June 17 I presented at Internet Retailer in San Diego on how developing mobile apps on Android is different from developing mobile apps on iOS and Windows Phone 7.  I compare the three platforms in terms of mobile app development, mobile marketplaces, and mobile marketing.  View my Android presentation here.