Musings & Rants

It’s that time again – my mobile phone handset is due to be replaced by something sleeker, flashier and most likely touch-screenier.  It doesn’t take a genius to guess that I’ll be mentioning that phone from Apple…

The Apple phone has been on my shortlist since here and here but I opted instead to stick with Orange and go for the Nokia N95.  It wasn’t a bad decision and I even grew to rate the handset but things have moved on, Android has become much more of an established platform and I’m (once again) torn between the Apple phone and something else.

The something else in this case is likely to be the HTC Hero or maybe the Samsung Galaxy (although for me the Sense UI on the Hero is more in tune with how I want to use the phone) and apart from a few minor Pro’s that the Hero has over the Apple device (better camera and is available on my existing network) both are pretty much level in suitability.  That is apart from the applications…

Killer Apps

I’m a strong believer in killer apps selling the hardware.  In the video games industry consoles have died an early death due to a lack of titles even though they had far superior hardware to their rivals and I fear the same might happen with Android unless they seriously pull their fingers out.

Apple’s app store is great as far as I’m concerned.  For pretty much everything I want to do, there’s an app for it.  Whether it’s using online accounts software, collaborating with colleagues on project management or even looking for a new house, the Apple platform is the one developers bring their titles too first.  Which is part of the problem with Android.

Yes you can have all the bells and whistles when it comes to customising the interface but when a rival handset has a serious advantage in mobile making cloud computing extremely viable, you’ve got to be a bit special to choose anything else.

To make matters worse, I’m not even sure IF Android offers all the applications I want…

Android Market vs Apple Appstore

For some bizarre reason, Android have made it incredibly difficult for anyone without an Android handset to browse the applications.  The market homepage offers a selection of cherry picked apps which as far as I’m concerned are mostly useless and no facility to search, which I find crazy given that Google was founded on search!

Finding new applications is also a breeze with Apple, I can use the handset to search or I can sit at my desk and use the PC (or Mac) and browse the entire collection there.  In fact, I took this for granted until I tried to browse the Android Market and came up with just a few apps, questioning myself whether this was the entire Market catalogue!

So what now?

Firstly for me, Android need to invest seriously in the Market.  Pay developers of the top apps in each Apple Appstore category to create equivalents in Android.  Offer incentives for developers to consider Android in the first place.  I don’t know, anything to increase the number of quality applications available.

Then secondly Android need to overhaul their website and let people browse the store through a web browser.  I’m not sure if there’s a Suite application for the desktop, but if there is, bring Market search to that (but don’t rely on it as there are potential customers like me that don’t have the devices yet!).

Other blogs and forums I’ve read seem to pick fault with how easy it is to purchase paid apps from the Android Market.  I can’t comment on that because I’ve not got to that stage yet, but if it is an issue then that also needs to be sorted.

Apple do many things extremely well and if you’re going to emulate them, at least do it to an equal standard if not better.

I just don’t know how long I can put off becoming an iPhone customer…