“‘Google does far too little curation of the Android Market, and it shows,’ declared programmer Jon Lech Johansen in a blog post on Sunday. ‘Unlike Apple’s App Store, the Android Market has few high quality apps.’ Johansen is best known for being one of three programmers who cracked the CSS algorithm that protected DVDs from being copied back in 1999,” Claburn reports. “Having also reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay DRM technology, among other hacking feats, he recently co-founded a company called doubleTwist that makes music jukebox and synchronization software similar to iTunes.”
Claburn reports, “Other prominent Google observers like John Battelle, co-chair of the Web 2.0 Expo and author for The Search, echo Johansen’s observations. ‘I’ve heard over and over that Android’s user experience, when it comes to apps, is terrible, and it’s a major reason why folks love Apple,’ he wrote in response to Johansen’s post on Monday.”
“One of the more popular threads on Google’s Android Market forum is a call for parental controls to prevent minors from accessing explicit content through the Android Market,” Claburn reports. “While third-party content filtering software is available for Android phones, many of the complaints raised by Android users appear to have some merit. If Google really wants the Android platform to surpass the iPhone, it can’t afford to rely on the sort of hands-off, automated approach it prefers.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Harry B.” for the heads up.]
The most shocking thing from Johansen’s post is the abundance of copyright infringing apps in the Android store. Chief among them are popular song ringtones:
“Those 144 spam ringtone apps (which are clearly infringing copyright) are currently cluttering the top ranks of the Multimedia category. I was not surprised to find that they were being monetized through Google Ads.”
I guess ripping off copyright has always been part of the freetard bill of rights.
Looks easy Von Schmidt , doesn’t it?
I think Google cares more for the search than user experience. Apple is hardware and software based company. Google has been a search and advertisement based. They will have to do some radical change in their vision to focus on a Apple like quality. I do not see that. They want to farm this out to the hardware guys and add their search arm software android to new hardware as it comes out.
Microsoft all over again. Cheap hardware and consumers that look at price only, unless it is clothing or cars!
“If Google really wants the Android platform to surpass the iPhone, it can’t afford to rely on the sort of hands-off, automated approach it prefers.”
What?! You want actual Customer Servce?!!
@TheMacAdvocate
Complaining of copyright infringement? It would seem DVD John has come full circle.
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Google gives away Android for free. Since Google is not making any money directly from Android users, they are not Google’s actual “customers” (with the exception of Android users who happen to buy a Nexus One phone). Google’s real customers are the advertisers and whoever pays for the user data Google collects.
Therefore, fat chance that Google is going to invest a lot of resources to “police” its app marketplace. Making Android users happy does not directly benefit Google’s bottom line. On the other hand, for Apple, improving user experience is Apple’s primary motivation, because most of Apple’s revenue and profit comes directly from customers buying its integrated hardware/software products.
I’m not saying Google is “evil,” but it’s obvious which company will continue to provide the superior user experience.
@ken1w
“On the other hand, for Apple, improving user experience is Apple’s primary motivation”
Consider that nail hit on the head!
For all the Android Freetards….
You can’t have your cake and eat too!
Android sucks and will eventually get crushed by its own weight. Just like linux for the desktop…I have yet to see anyone successfully herd cats. Where the cats are the Android user base and phone manufacturers. Google certainly will not be able to fix this as its focus is always on search/ads and not herding cats.
I bet Google will get annoyed with the whole process after a while and either withdraw from Android or hand it over to someone else.
Linux is not for everyone and nor can it meet everyone expectations. You Freetards will find that out at some point and jump ship to Apple.
Developers will jump ship too, when they find there is very few FreeTard Android users who will want to pay for apps.
Here`s some more Android fun and games…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20009223-265.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0
Notice all the freetards coming to Google`s defence thinking it`s ok That Android now collects MAC addresses on the fly, WOW!!
Herr Schmidt IS the Steve Jobs of surveillance.
As sjobs said, “If you want porn, get an android.”
The last place a Freetard is going to jump to is an Apple product. Actually pay for quality when you can DIY and torrent it? WTF?
Not going to happen. Google has demonstrated time and again that they are inept when it comes to customer service. They prefer automation, which makes them very good at some things, and flat out awful at others.
Is there any wonder then,that as pointed out in a June 30 MDN article, that Google’s Android Market payouts total a mere 2% of Apple App Store’s $1 billion.
When are Android OS developers going to wise up to the fact that they are trying to sell their products to a bunch of freetards?
The biggest difference between the execution of Apple’s and Google’s app store is that Apple thought about all of these problems before their store went public. Now Google has a big mess on their hands that they are going to have to clean up. I agree with an earlier poster who pointed out the apparent numerous copyright violations you can find on Google’s app store. Big business does not look kindly on violators or businesses that facilitate copyright violators.
Google doesn’t have a focus, except to write another press release touting some new software/non-search development they’ve been working on that will never be finished.
“recently co-founded ” ???
What the hell is this? That was years and years ago… Or is this article from 2001 or something?