Category: Google

Google copied my playbook ;)

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny how much a lead Yahoo threw away. First there is the global rise of messaging as a platform – remember Yahoo messenger?

Then there is the need to chase the emerging markets opportunity but rather than do it from Silicon Valley – you place the problem with people from the market.

Now google goes and acquires Pie.co to help them with emerging markets software talent. Great move.

Amazes me at times to see how bad Yahoo is blowing it and how they had so many of the pieces needed to compete.

Oh well…

Whither Android…

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t seen much mainstream coverage of this move. We all know Google battled hard to do a non Oracle Java but seems that didn’t work out. Legally I always thought Google was wrong but of course I am not a fan of Oracle and the way they steward Java.

Read this about the latest on Oracle and Android.

If you thought overall Android performance sucks now, I think it does, it sure won’t get any better with issues like this : Google has of course its own Android UI framework. Swing will now sit on every Android phone, using up resources.

I don’t know if this is the final word on the subject or if Google has other ideas but I sure do appreciate Apple’s native stack designed from the ground up for mobile.

I won’t argue the point that Android is huge but this isn’t a good sign of where it is heading.

If anyone has some good opposing links or counters please chime in using the comments.

I was hoping Tim Bray had covered it but not yet.

Is Apple all about China?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

My brother sent me this link :: http://om.co/2015/03/16/apple-is-all-about-china/

Actually I don’t think they are all about China although they are emphasizing it more and more but somehow I don’t think they will always do that. I think they used the last keynote to highlight how far they have come in China since everyone always talks about how the valley tech companies get hosed in China. And mostly they do. Look at Google, Yahoo, Tesla and many others who have tried and have failed to go big in China. Now look at Apple. Killing it in China.

I think from here on out it will just be the norm for them. I don’t think it will have to be continually highlighted.

However I would add that the focus on China is really just a pivot to Asia in general and that is the right pivot. I find it comical when people say oh the Chinese will love that gold iPhone. Or that gold macbook. Sometimes I think the people saying this crap are the same people pontificating about Asian trends just because they eat at Panda Express a few times a week.

Folks – all of Asia is quite similar to China. I suspect more than a few rich Indonesian, Thai and Singaporean folks will be doing all they can to order a gold Apple watch to go with their gold iPhone and iPads. It just comes with the territory.

So yes – China is huge for Apple. But I know they are working hard to crack India and to make a thorough dent in SEA region as well. My guess is they only get more dominant for the time being.

The app economy

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

As I browsed DF today I can across this :: http://vesperapp.co/blog/native-support-for-ipad-and-landscape/

I think I bought the vesper app when it was on sale for 2.99 and thought to myself that it was a decent price for the app. I didn’t think it was a steal or a huge bargain because I felt like that was about what I would pay for a notes app. I am sure others thought that it was a huge bargain, an app made by some semi-famous folks that was suddenly on sale.

So here we are today looking at a 9.99 price tag now that the app goes horizontal and works on an iPad. I find this slightly comical. Any of us in the app world normally won’t ship an iOS app that doesn’t work on an iPad from day one. At least I wouldn’t.

The app economy is bizarre since the whole notion of pricing has been eroded to the point where Gruber is almost using this move as a line in the sand. Hey indie devs – put your price up so people value the ecosystem more and truly respect the value of our craft.

I hope it works but somehow I doubt it will.

If Gruber and his tribe can’t survive on a reasonably priced app – 10 bucks is not reasonable, then I am not sure who can. Without a doubt vesper gets way more traffic flowing across it than most other apps just due to Gruber talking about it all the time. 

Unlike Marco with overcast, who has open sourced some of his financials, vesper is three guys who ship stuff pretty slowly. It’s nice stuff but I never have seen it as earth shattering or amazing. Just a good solid notes app that I use to supplement my Evernote addiction. Trip stuff, quick meeting notes and my grocery list type of things are in vesper. Everything else is in Evernote.

So if Gruber can’t make it on decently priced apps then who can?

I know lots of indie devs – http://www.mailtoself.com/ – but these guys have a day job. They are doing this to be able to craft stuff outside of work and see how they can dent the universe with apps. 

Then there is – http://www.cleanshavenapps.com/ . I use dispatch all the time and I have beta tested some new stuff they are working on. This team does well but I don’t know how well or what their view is when it comes to this pricing stuff. I do know that they realize it’s more about marketing than anything else now.

I can remember when I did one of my fist startups whike blowing through millions of dollars having to buy real hardware, databases and app servers – just to launch. Now one guy can rent hardware and use his own code with open source stacks to launch an empire.

However the issue still is about how does one get exposure? Some have to buy it thus increasing the need for capital. Some people are famous and use their fame to launch or propel an app. I am guessing with the vesper price move they didn’t get as big as they had hoped cause if they had millions of users even on 2.99 they would be doing okay.

When I chat with any indie dev it’s all about getting the word out, holding on to their users and the hope that if they build something new, their current users might be customers of their new product.

We all know the app gold rush is over. Done.

Users think everything should be free or cheap – it’s sad it got to this but it happened. I don’t know what the answer is since I have only built apps that come as part of a service versus building an app I needed to sell to make a living.

Will be interesting to see how vesper does with the new premium pricing.

New YouTube kids app

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Just search in the Google or Apple Store for it – YouTube kids.
 
 My daughter was up and rolling with it within a minute – she is two.
 
 We found some content to not load – could be a geo issue thing since it’s not globally released and I use my USA based accounts.
 
 The interface is awesome and their are parental controls which allow you to turn off things like search. The sounds effects are fun – I think both my kids will like the effects. I do think my seven year old will easily get past the parental settings control though. They should allow the parents to create a password for them.
 
 I didn’t log in so I guess it works without an account and even has some privacy adjustments. You can turn off search and then there is just the curated and featured content which is nice but I am assuming even with search on one cannot find non kids content? Need to play with it more.
 
 Best part about it though? There is a timer so you can have it auto shutoff. Need to play with that as well.
 
 Slick stuff.
 
 I just wish they would offer a download feature for when we are not online.
 
 
 

Online Video post from A16z blog

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/online-video/

This read is a doozy. Pretty much agree with all of it and it will be interesting to see some of the predictions play out.

— There will be new business models for video beyond traditional advertising. The reality is that without the scale of a YouTube or Facebook, platforms will have to find more creative ways to make money, whether it’s through subscriptions, micropayments, exclusive previews, community benefits, or other methods.

Full agree on this one. Tough to build a big ad business unless you are huge and in regions where monetization is very advanced. YouTube has massive scale but I know lots of other players with big scale and it still isn’t enough for the ad play. I think micro TX are very interesting and models like daily subs with telco billing.

— The age of platforms not taking care of makers may come to an end. YouTube “stars” generate tons of views for YouTube, but those views don’t translate into meaningful earnings for most of them. As the size of the entire pie grows bigger, there needs to be a piece for everyone. In most media businesses, rents typically acrue to the creators. And this is critical to the long-term success of any two-sided marketplace that connects providers and consumers.

This one also interesting and I think YouTube super stars are making bank but you have to be big again to really make it. I am keen to see how vessel does and what other production companies or talent management will do but yet many of them rely on YouTube for their stars.

None of this addresses what happens to the video landscape once new or newly popularized mediums (such as podcasts, animations, mashups) or entirely new platforms — VR, AR, and so on — become more popular and create new forms of content that live in different ways next to video.

Personally I do see the next thing for video. I have ideas but still work with the type of media that is quite traditional and still finds things like downloading a movie to be really pushing it. So a whole new format or medium? I can’t wrap my head around that but I am sure it will happen eventually.

What we do know is that online video is far from done… so it will be interesting to see what even a little competition will do here.

I guess he means things like vessel for example and I am sure others but for the moment I don’t see a lot of innovation but stuff is always evolving. Just not sure I see where the next thing is coming from.

From a developer POV

~ michael_msft

Clearly Ben is on a roll. I don’t agree with all his monologues and tweets but I think this one is pretty good :: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/12/9/mobile-platforms-and-technical-debt

People tend to get too religious about their phones, OS’s and all things associated with them. The fanboy thing starts to take over, Xiaomi as an example, but this stuff boils down to pure business. There are ONLY two mobile ecosystems right now. 2. Apple and Google. The China thing is another topic in that the rules are very different. However Apple seems to be doing better with their model in China than Google is. Enter Xiaomi though to see what can happen when one combines some of the essence of both players to make a go. It’s magic and it is working. However it remains to be seen if this is only going to be big in China. For the record it is only happening in China right now. I think Xiaomi will struggle outside of China.

Let’s talk about the impact more once they make bigger waves outside of China.

Microsoft is trying their hardest. Still doesn’t seem to be working. This still applies :: http://www.nokpis.com/2014/10/26/microsoft-is-only-missing-the-apps/

So Ben gets to the essence of all of this. Apple had a vision and Google had another. Take away the marketing, the religious arguments, the open versus closed jargon and what you are left with is two very similar platforms:

One way to look at this is that iOS and Android have been converging – they arrived with more or less the same capabilities despite starting from opposite ends. Apple has given up control where Google has taken it. And of course Google has had to add lots to Android just as Apple had to add lots to iOS (and they’ve generally ‘inspired’ each other on the way), and just as Apple has added cloud services Google has redesigned the user interface (twice, so far). 

I am not purporting that the environments are the same or that they arrived at the same point using the same methods. It is just that if one looks closely at the model. Google started open and is starting to lock it down now. Apple started very locked down and is slowly opening. Both stances created some benefits and negatives in the early days and now the resultant evolution has created some benefits and negatives. Google is better at the old fragmentation issues and overall quality has improved. Tool wise I think Apple has a better product for developers though. Apple is making it easier to do some things but their software quality has slipped. That cannot be disputed. http://www.nokpis.com/2015/01/06/thanks-marco/

One could also discuss that Apple makes better hardware since they actually sell their own stuff. Google is still not really in the hardware business. However let’s not get into this.

The part I still find that NO ONE writes about is the difference in the view from the folks grinding out apps everyday and shipping them. How do we ship these apps? Via the App Store and the Play Store. This is where the huge differences are but there is also some evolution there. I would safely say, much to my dismay, that Google has evolved way more than Apple. Where Apple has made great strides for opening up iOS, there is literally no progress in the App Store when it comes to search, discovery or the App Store developer view. We still wait too long for app reviews, there are too many reviewer mistakes and too many features are tied to actually releases. We cannot modify pricing without releases or even update things like images or text without releases. So 3 years in with a stable app I still wait like everyone else to change some copy or update an image. Comical.

With Google a developer can update copy, bits, images and pricing at any point. Or just ship a new app whenever we want. Granted Google has issues with not policing apps enough or letting any app release (pirate or copy app) but they actually have improved some. I still think both Apple and Google should converge stances. Google needs approvals or review for first apps and Apple needs to let people update apps without approvals.

Where I think the big divide is though is around emerging markets. Apple is somewhat behind in that everything one must do around purchases is tied to Apple payments which need credit cards. I can’t use gift cards for subscriptions since everyone always mentions gift cards. I focus on India a lot and the big reason Apple is not as big as Android is about device cost but more importantly the payment problem. Google implements telco billing or at least does not stop us from putting in our own telco billing. With Apple I am stuck with Apple. This has to change for Apple to succeed. I personally think this is the biggest headwind Apple has in some regions – it just can’t function without a credit card backing. If Apple had some sort of regional telco billing I think the flood gates would open around the iOS ecosystem.

All that being said I think Ben ends on an interesting note that is also where emerging and non-emerging markets differ. Messaging:

But the underlying philosophies remain very different – for Apple the device is smart and the cloud is dumb storage, while for Google the cloud is smart and the device is dumb glass. Those assumptions and trade-offs remain very strongly entrenched.  Meanwhile, the next phases of smartphones (messaging apps as platforms and watches as a dominant interface?) will test all the assumptions again.

The canary in the coal mine

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Following up from my post yesterday :: http://www.nokpis.com/2015/01/06/thanks-marco/

Some people are acting like none of us can complain about Apple or that there is nothing wrong. So rather than harp on the sensationalist side of things I thought I would highlight where there is real commentary about the state of Apple from a real developer.

Gruber’s take on the Panic post :: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/07/panic-report

Look no further than Panic. I have been using their software for years and they are very open about the state of things.

Read their latest blog post first :: http://www.panic.com/blog/the-2014-panic-report/

If we could offer traditional discounted upgrades via the App Store, this paragraph wouldn’t exist. This is one area where the App Store feels like one of those novelty peanut cans with the snake inside.

This is so spot on. Hard to have the marketing and sales flexibility one desires when things like upgrades are not easily doable.

Coda was removed from the Mac App Store in mid-October, at the same time version 2.5 was released. Since new releases always generate a short-term sales spike and we wanted the numbers to be fairly representative of “typical sales”, we looked at one month on either side  — September and November.

The results were interesting. We sold a couple hundred fewer units of Coda post-App Store removal, but revenue from it went up by about 44%.

I am guessing they are only leaving the Mac App Store due to technical and pricing flexibility but of course not having to share 30% must be nice. All in all there are still too many issues with the Mac App Store – it is definitely not working out the way Apple intended.

The last couple of months of 2014 got classically “exciting” as Transmit iOS was suddenly flagged by the App Review team for a violation — a well-documented situation, both on our blog, and sites like Daring Fireball and MacStories. Thanks almost exclusively to these articles, we very quickly got a very nice call from a contact at Apple, and the situation reversed almost immediately. Everything ended up just fine.

But I can’t comfortably say “the system worked”. It’s still an awful and nerve-wracking feeling to know that, at any minute, we could get thrown into a quagmire of e-mails, phone calls, code removal, and sadness, just by trying to ship something cool.

I have written about the issue with the review process more than a few times. It really is horribly broken. Reviewers don’t read review notes, they make a lot of mistakes and there is too much time in getting through the issue for each cycle. I really don’t understand why Apple can’t apply some code and thinking to the way the process works. Panic is huge and well known so they have it easy. Folks like us, the mere mortals, have to sit and endure shitty reviewing for each appeal and subsequent follow up reviews. This is why I actually like the Play Store better.

Low iOS Revenue

This is the biggest problem we’ve been grappling with all year: we simply don’t make enough money from our iOS apps. We’re building apps that are, if I may say so, world-class and desktop-quality. They are packed with features, they look stunning, we offer excellent support for them, and development is constant. I’m deeply proud of our iOS apps. But… they’re hard to justify working on.

This one is tough, I don’t blame Apple but it is sad that apps can’t make enough money. People just don’t want to pay. What Panic doesn’t talk about is that the situation on Android is far, far worse. Unfortunately it means one has to come up with other models to make money. I am always stunned when I get customer emails from people who use Spuul complaining about using our free product and having to endure ads. They think there should be no ads but they don’t make any connection to the fact that the ads are how we support a free service. Then you tell them they can upgrade to remove all the ads and they reply that they simply don’t want to pay anything. Okay. Not much I can even say to that. This mentality is all over the app ecosystem.

Panic is just a reminder though that Apple cannot succeed with out developers and their fans but increasingly with the draconian and outdated App Store and the slippage in software quality – Apple risks losing some momentum. It won’t be instant or even easily spotted but these are the canaries – like it or not.

The Interview Streaming ShitShow

~ michael_msft ~ 2 Comments

This is the part that will always be an issue when movies move to using the Internet as the primary means of distribution – piracy is amazingly rampant and will take a bite out of earnings, http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/26/technology/the-interview-illegal-download/index.html

 

Will be interesting to see if Sony releases any numbers to see how well going online did.

 

Funny how this is all happening after recently writing this :: http://www.nokpis.com/2014/12/23/streaming-pile-of-doo/.

 

I am not expecting The Interview to be a good movie but for supporting my country and telling the North Koreans to fuck off, I feel like it is my duty to rent it. Not pirate it.

 

First thing I did was open the YouTube app on my iPhone and search for it. I found the official copy along with more than a few pirated streams. Seriously Google – is this how you make the media industry feel warm and fuzzy about moving on to YouTube for premium content? Can’t you police the bad copies for a bit? I clicked on the official copy and get a this movie must be purchased error. Yeah – error. And nothing to click on or a way to buy it. Nice.

 

Then I load up the Google Play Movies app on my iPhone and log in but nothing happens. I can’t find anyway to search or buy the movie. Nice.

 

So then I just go to play.google.com on my iPhone and I see the movie. I can rent it using Google Play Wallet. That was easy. Now what? What I didn’t know was now I could open the Google Play Movies app to see it in my playable library. Seriously – is this the best Google has to offer?

 

Now I go back to YouTube app on my iPhone and I see the movie and its playable. Then we decide to watch it on the living room TV so I load up YouTube on the Sony BluRay player and get the whole verification code thing – versus just logging in. The verification code failed three times but finally worked. Then I started watching it and about 10 mins in we get an error and it exits. Awesome. We try again and it starts over – totally forgetting the position I was at. Watch for another 20 minutes and it happens again. We get it running again and boom – starts at the beginning again. I can’t believe it doesn’t remember the position on rented movies. Is it that hard?

 

Once it crashed the 3rd time we decided to wait again. I might try to hook up the cable to the TV and watch it from my iPhone or see if I can get it it to run on Apple TV using YouTube.

 

It is great they moved to releasing online but Google Play and YouTube are really not good premium viewing experiences. Amazing how sucky they are this stuff.