Do you think the Google Nexus One can catch the iPhone in terms of numbers of aps? What about catching the other smart phones?
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Even though in theory there are less barriers to developing for the Google phone, because you can do it from Windows and using popular tools like Eclipse, developers haven't been nearly as enthusaiastic about that as they have for iPhone development.
In part that's because of the large number of existing iPhone users, the buzz that came with the iPhone being seen as a breakthrough device, the quality of the development tools, and the ease of distributing software via the iPhone app store.
If Google seriously wanted to challenge that, they'd need to be thinking about producing something that was a lot better and probably a lot cheaper than the iPhone. When you're late to the party, being a bit better, or a bit cheaper doesn't cut it.
If they're willing to throw lots of money at the problem, they might be able to overcome the iPhone's lead, but so far I don't see any sign that they intend that.
It's much more of an open question whether Android can overtake Windows Mobile and Symbian. That might depend on the level of support from handset makers and phone carriers. If I were them, I wouldn't be keen on helping Google get a foothold in my market.
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I think google will eventually catch due to the open source of android itself, while apple only provide iPhone SDK for developers to use, you cannot get the core code to the apple os platform.
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M$With regards to other brand of smart phones, I think the Nexus one have a better chance of catching up, since other phones have the same number of apps or have less apps.
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Do you think Google should open up their API?
@tracebooks.... Google's API is open. Unlike the iPhone people can develop for Android from any major platform using free open source tools.
http://developer.android.com/index.html
I think so, for independent software developers of apps to contribute openly.
Thanks for that bit of info, @philipy! Seems like for some things they're closed and others they're open, and I didn't know which it was on this. I think that's very smart on their part.
If google throws enough money at developers I think it might be possible for them to catch up.
But this won't be for some time.
Now think about it ....
Are you really going to put 100+ _thousand_ apps on your phone ?
Or........................ is this just the piece of mind knowing that they are there that is comforting ?
Why not find your most needed applications first before making a purchase of the N1.
Then it really won't matter either way.
A big problem here is also trust, consumers need to be able to trust google with their data and important correspondents. If they can not do this, then its .....
Humble opinion.
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More info...
Discussions in the forum thread below explain pretty well why the reasons why Android apps aren't as good as iPhone ones at the moment, and there are less of them. Most of those reasons aren't going away anytime soon...
http://androidforums.com/android-applications/34328-just-me-android-app-game-quality.html
However it seems some people (a Harvard Business School professor no less) are predicitng that the sales of Android handsets (all models together) wil overtake iPhone sales by 2012.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/913db632-ef69-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html
I'd still be so bold as to disagree with the Harvard prof though. I think iPhone coming to more carriers, new iPhone models coming out, and price drops will keep iPhone in #1 for some years yet.
I'm expecting a similar story to what happened with iPod/iTunes, and the various supposed iPod-killers.