Android: How it benefits application developers in the near future. I.

Introduction Since the introduction of the iPhone by Apple in 2006, smartphones( mobile phones which operates by an Operating System) sales has been dramatically rising. Over 54 million units were sold worldwide in Q1 2010( Source: Gartner, Inc). This accounts for 17.3% of the global mobile phones market share, increased from 13.6% at the same period in 2009. The increasing share from smartphones does not only benefitting the manufacturers, but also led to a new market: market for applications. Application developers can easily distribute their products by submitting it to the market service for approval, and then everyone using the OS can access, pay online and download it to their device. There are now four main smartphone OS and is distributed as follows

Share of 2010 Q3 smartphone sales to end users by operating system, according to Gartner.[1]

Each OS has its own market service and Software Development Kit (SDK). While Symbian and RIM has a rather large market share, at the moment their market service are relatively poor comparing to those from iOS and Android. However, this still makes programmers confused on deciding which platform to focus on working, while in my opinion, Android is the platform that any developer should choose. In this report, advantages of Android and how it benefits application developers over other smartphones OS, will be discussed, as well as ethical and other issues.

II. Content 1. Advantages of Android over other OS 1.1 Android Structure and how it helps The Android OS is basically an open-source project which gives developers as much freedom as they wanted to write their apps, ranging from user interface to accelerometer-gaming. It is built based on a Linux kernel as the base layer, followed by Android libraries and Dalvik Virtual machine one the next. The Android Libraries enabled the applications to be programmed by Java, and the Dalvik Virtual Machines acts like an individual OS. By this way applications can be ran on the DVM itself, the base OS won't be affected if one crashes. Applications are also independent from others, and the phone is able to perform multiple tasks at once. The iOS from Apple, on the other hand, does not have multitasking. It operates only one app at a time therefore it is practically impossible to write two applications that co-operates with each other. This doesn't only annoying to the user, but also makes the developer had to write a new application to combine the two existing applications into one to do the equivalence work. While the Android gives developers full access to the application framework, the iOS have its own limitations making their range of applications narrower. For example, developers cant change iOS's main user interface. This means there are less opportunity to turn their ideas into functional applications in iOS than Android. The ease to start being a developer is also an advantage of Android. Java is a friendly programming language for starters, while Cocoa, the trademark programming language for Apple is quite a struggle to new programmers. Java has a large number of users because it is popular in web programming. This is a huge source of

potential developers because switching from web to application platform is relatively easy to people who have been familiar with Java.

1.2 Android 's market potential An application developer should choose the platform which have a lot of users to help them widen the number of potential customers. There are now more than 8 million Android users worldwide. This is not a lot comparing to iPhone's 21 million user, but the number of Android devices are increasing fast mostly because of the Open Handsets Alliance, which are partner with Android's owner Google, including HTC, Samsung and many large electronics manufacturer. They released about fifty different Android models in the market, comparing to only two models from Apple as in late 2010. According to Gartner, Inc, the number of Android users will surpass those of iOS by 2014. And that is because of the following reasons: As Android is an open-source project, the cost to implement it on any devices are completely free. This means new manufacturers joining the smartphone market will more likely choose Android as their OS for its competitive price. Moreover, as it is fully open-sourced, it is very easy to modify it to use on devices other than smartphones, for example, tablets and portable media players. There will also be a new market for each kind of devices, which creates more opportunity for developers. On the other hand, the iOS libraries and how it interacts with its hardware are strictly exclusive to Apple. This means developments for iOS can only be done inside Apple's lab, and will never be used on devices coming from other companies.

1.3 Android developers benefits from market service provider Like a supplier trying to sell their products via a famous retailer, the market service benefits also plays an important role on which platform to choose. The official name for the iOS application market is App store, while for Android is the Google market. Both have a similar stucture,offers an application feedback system and a on-device checkout service. But while it is completely free to start being an Android developer, it costs 99$ to buy the Application Development Center

membership from Apple. Developers have to wait for approval of being a developer for App Store, and even then, when they submit their apps, it must be checked before they are released as well. Android developers can directly upload their apps to the Google Market using their Google account.

2. Disadvantages of Android and Ethical Issues 2.1 Disadvantages While the large diversity of devices from many companies might be an advantage for Android, it can also be a disadvantage. Some member of the OHA is now developing their own application market because they cannot benefit from Google's Android market. This may break the unite of the Android's market share, cutting down the number of potential customers for developers. The piracy level is very high on Android. Its open-source nature makes it legal and possible for developers to get to the root, enabling it to run piracy applications, which are made free by users. However, the problem lies within the Google Market. It is currently offering the check-out service in only 13 out of 46 countries using Android, while iOS is currently having the service in more than 90 countries. This leaves user in these left-out countries have no choice but to use piracy software. This might lead to fewer sold apps and get users used to free apps, which is bad for developers. Google, however is not oblivious to these disadvantages. They are offering DRM-patented to application developers to solve the piracy problem, as well as extend the check-out service to other countries. 2.2 Ethical Issues While apps had to wait for approval in the App Store, there is no restrict of those on the Market. This result in a failure in content control, especially pornography. While Apple declared to forbid pornrelated apps on their device, there is still no words from Google. This might be an issue as Android Phones are relatively cheaper than iOS, so parents are more likely to buy it for their kids. III. Conclusion The major advantage Android has over other OS is its opensource nature. This enable developers to have much freedom to create

their apps, as well as being a cost-free OS that will likely be used by new phones manufacturers. With a rising number of market share predicted in the next years, it is becoming a promising field for application developers to distribute their products and benefits from it. While there are still a few disadvantages in the market service, the Android is currently the best platform, in many aspects, for developers to start working on.

This is the result of a survey conducted on application developers. It is clear that the iOS is currently the most favorable platform to work on, but Android isnt very far behind. And these result are likely to change when the number of Android sales is increasing, and Google solve their market service problem. References: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/23/smartphone-iphone-sales-2009gartner/ http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20008720-251.html http://www.webmonkey.com/2008/07/how_to_write_an_iphone_app/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/write-google-android-application/ http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/google-phone1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)