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I think the most notable part of this story is the...notability....of it. There are literally tens of thousands of developers on the Android market -- including

I think the most notable part of this story is the...notability....of it. There are literally tens of thousands of developers on the Android market -- including many long time denizens -- but one (purportedly) quits and it gets spread far and wide: I've now seen this linked on a number of blogs, news sites, and social news lists. Why? I would argue that it speaks to an audience's bias. I think the most interesting thing about this company is that their games are, by most respects, quite successful on the Android market. A $3.00 game selling more than 50,000 copies. Another selling 100,000+. Another selling 100,000+. Perhaps they got all of their sales during a sale, but their base metrics seem quite good. I can't speak to their situation or frustration, but will make a couple of remarks for prospective Android devs- a) Cut out the crap: Don't desperately try to reach 100% of the Android base because that just sets you up for a world of pain, which I suspect is their core issue. Cut out low-end handsets, with the basest filter being Gingerbread+ at this point. b) There are actually only a handful of GPUs in use across all of the different devices (Adreno, PowerVR, Tegra2/3, Mali). Understand the GPUs, not the handsets. c) If you can't handle the work, which apparently this company couldn't, subcontract. They apparently had a successful product but they couldn't tolerate the work involved. I guarantee that if they offered it out for profit sharing to a contractor they would have many well-rated prospects.

madrox 15y ago
You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from this dev's experience? That Android is doomed? It does say something about what some mobile devs have come to expect from a development experience. While IOS is never mentioned once in the post, the comparison is implied in every paragraph. While this is far from damning for Android, it's worth keeping in mind as competition for developer mindshare escalates.
- dspillett 15y ago
  > You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from this dev's experience? That Android is doomed? I think the general case has already been made: there have been various complaints about supporting Android (varied hardware platform making testing/support more cumbersome, unreliable hardware/firmware causing problems the developer has to work around (and worse gets blamed for), the number of low quality devices available (which feeds into that previous point), and that is before considering problems some devs have had with the marketplace away from hardware/firmware concerns). A lot of people have written this off as just grumbling and suggesting the people either cope with it or move on. While this story can't be taken as a general case, it is an indication that the problems might be as bad as some say: i.e. bad enough to make the platform not commercially viable to support for some. If this is not a one-off, and the issue can not be addressed quickly, it could mean significant trouble for Android long-term as after-market apps is a significant driver for sales.

madrox 15y ago

You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from this dev's experience? That Android is doomed? It does say something about what some mobile devs have come to expect from a development experience. While IOS is never mentioned once in the post, the comparison is implied in every paragraph. While this is far from damning for Android, it's worth keeping in mind as competition for developer mindshare escalates.

dspillett 15y ago
> You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from this dev's experience? That Android is doomed? I think the general case has already been made: there have been various complaints about supporting Android (varied hardware platform making testing/support more cumbersome, unreliable hardware/firmware causing problems the developer has to work around (and worse gets blamed for), the number of low quality devices available (which feeds into that previous point), and that is before considering problems some devs have had with the marketplace away from hardware/firmware concerns). A lot of people have written this off as just grumbling and suggesting the people either cope with it or move on. While this story can't be taken as a general case, it is an indication that the problems might be as bad as some say: i.e. bad enough to make the platform not commercially viable to support for some. If this is not a one-off, and the issue can not be addressed quickly, it could mean significant trouble for Android long-term as after-market apps is a significant driver for sales.