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How Android Developers Can Thrive With Google Play

32 points by alexobenauer 14y ago

codeka 14y ago
Am I the only one reading this on a mobile? How do they get away with splitting the article over no less than 12 pages, two or three paragraphs per "page"? I read the first page and gave up because I'm not going to sit there while its loading 12 times!
- chc 14y ago
  I'm reading it on an iPhone and I got the whole thing on one page. Maybe you're using a browser the site doesn't recognize so it's sending you s version optimized for a "least common denominator" mobile browser? I know some old phones and/or plans couldn't handle large file sizes.
  - codeka 14y ago
    Like eljaco, I was using Chrome on Android. When I switch to the built-in Android browser, then I get everything on a single page. That seems like a really fragile way to build a mobile site, and I don't really understand how splitting the article over 13 pages would be better for "least common denominator" mobile browser...
    - ajross 14y ago
      Simply selecting "Request Desktop Site" from the menu in Chrome for Android pulls up the same (quite usable) one-page presentation. This is just a bad "mobile" site in general, and a broken browser detection scheme on top of it.
    - chc 14y ago
      Like I said, there exist mobile browsers that can't load large pages. I used to have one. I think their browser detection could stand to be a lot better, but the least common denominator really does require paging.
- eljaco 14y ago
  Same here. Chrome on Android, seeing 13 pages.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    I almost always get the desktop version of sites on Chrome/Android too. I looked into this in detail and it's just stupid user-agent sniffing; Chrome on Android specifically sends the string "Mobile" to indicate that it's a mobile device. (My UA is currently "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.0.4; Galaxy Nexus Build/IMM76F) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.166 Mobile Safari/535.19".)
nextparadigms 14y ago
"According to Nielsen, Android has more than 48 percent of the smartphone market, versus 32 percent for iOS" TC should mention that this is in US only. Outside US iOS has a much smaller share and I believe Android's share is a little bigger than 48%.
rawreth 14y ago
I'm wondering if this article takes into account the amount of iPod Touch owners.
- koeselitz 14y ago
  Probably not, since this article is about smartphones. Edit: but I see your point (I think) - iPod Touch users are also buyers from the iOS app store. The latest data I can find is on ad requests, which is only tangentially related to adoption, but those numbers [1] suggest that there are a little more than a third as many iPod Touch users as there are iPhone users, and a bit more than half as many iPad users as there are iPhone users. Of course, there are a lot of non-smartphone Android devices out there now, too, so it's difficult to factor that in. [1] http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/06/top-3-connected-devices-in-u-s-made-by-apple-tablet-market-continues-to-balloon-in-q3/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/06/top-3-connected-devices-in-u-s...

32 points by alexobenauer 14y ago

Am I the only one reading this on a mobile? How do they get away with splitting the article over no less than 12 pages, two or three paragraphs per "page"? I read the first page and gave up because I'm not going to sit there while its loading 12 times!

chc 14y ago
I'm reading it on an iPhone and I got the whole thing on one page. Maybe you're using a browser the site doesn't recognize so it's sending you s version optimized for a "least common denominator" mobile browser? I know some old phones and/or plans couldn't handle large file sizes.
- codeka 14y ago
  Like eljaco, I was using Chrome on Android. When I switch to the built-in Android browser, then I get everything on a single page. That seems like a really fragile way to build a mobile site, and I don't really understand how splitting the article over 13 pages would be better for "least common denominator" mobile browser...
  - ajross 14y ago
    Simply selecting "Request Desktop Site" from the menu in Chrome for Android pulls up the same (quite usable) one-page presentation. This is just a bad "mobile" site in general, and a broken browser detection scheme on top of it.
  - chc 14y ago
    Like I said, there exist mobile browsers that can't load large pages. I used to have one. I think their browser detection could stand to be a lot better, but the least common denominator really does require paging.
eljaco 14y ago
Same here. Chrome on Android, seeing 13 pages.
- jrockway 14y ago
  I almost always get the desktop version of sites on Chrome/Android too. I looked into this in detail and it's just stupid user-agent sniffing; Chrome on Android specifically sends the string "Mobile" to indicate that it's a mobile device. (My UA is currently "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.0.4; Galaxy Nexus Build/IMM76F) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.166 Mobile Safari/535.19".)

nextparadigms 14y ago

"According to Nielsen, Android has more than 48 percent of the smartphone market, versus 32 percent for iOS" TC should mention that this is in US only. Outside US iOS has a much smaller share and I believe Android's share is a little bigger than 48%.

rawreth 14y ago

I'm wondering if this article takes into account the amount of iPod Touch owners.

koeselitz 14y ago
Probably not, since this article is about smartphones. Edit: but I see your point (I think) - iPod Touch users are also buyers from the iOS app store. The latest data I can find is on ad requests, which is only tangentially related to adoption, but those numbers [1] suggest that there are a little more than a third as many iPod Touch users as there are iPhone users, and a bit more than half as many iPad users as there are iPhone users. Of course, there are a lot of non-smartphone Android devices out there now, too, so it's difficult to factor that in. [1] http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/06/top-3-connected-devices-in-u-s-made-by-apple-tablet-market-continues-to-balloon-in-q3/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/06/top-3-connected-devices-in-u-s...