Tag: Google

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News and Resources

Google planning hybrid Android/Chrome OS tablets

razer fund gaming startups

Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition Google is reportedly planning hybrid devices that run both Android and Chrome, game developers boycott Oculus due to its founder’s support for Donald Trump and Google takes its Daydream SDK out of beta. Read on for the full news rundown.

 

Google planning hybrid Android/Chrome OS tablets

Google is reportedly planning hybrid devices that run both Android and Chrome, according to 9to5Google. The Andromeda project bakes Chrome OS features into Android and is reportedly being released on a Nexus-branded tablet and a convertible laptop. Rumours suggests the laptop device will launch in Q3 2017.

 

IBM releases IBM Bluemix Runtime for Swift

IBM has introduced a production-ready Swift runtime on the IBM Cloud. The release allows enterprises to take advantage of the server-side capabilities in Apple’s programming language, for building microservice APIs on its cloud platform. IBM says by unlocking Swift for enterprises it’s “reached another milestone” in its “shared journey with Apple.”

 

Microsoft announces 400m Windows 10 users

Microsoft says Windows 10 now has over 400 million active users. The last update on user growth was in July, when the OS hit 350, just before it ended its free upgrade period. Microsoft’s original goal was to have one billion devices running Windows 10 by 2018, but the company has since backtracked and is not specifying when it will hit the one billion milestone.

 

Oracle announces new products for cloud platform

Oracle unveiled 20 new products and services for its Oracle Cloud Platform at the annual OpenWorld conference last week. New products include the cloud-based Oracle Database 12c Release 2, along with an SaaS offering, which combines third party data with real-time analytics for “adaptive” app development. During the announcements, Oracle’s CTO Larry Ellison said Amazon now has “serious competition going forward.”

 

SoundCloud devs must submit application for API access

SoundCloud has announced changes to its API policy, requiring devs to apply for access. The application form asks devs what categories their app falls under, how it makes money and whether the app plays content from the SoundCloud API. SoundCloud says the changes were made to stop apps from using content without the permission of creators.

 

Mopub modular ad SDK reduces app sizes

Twitter’s MoPub ad network has announced a new SDK that lets devs cut out the ad formats they don’t use. The modular SDK means devs can save up to 60% on disk space for Android apps and up to 35% for iOS apps, without losing any functionality. MoPub says the space savings will be particularly useful for Asia-Pacific devs, where expensive data plans can impact bigger apps.

 

Google takes Daydream VR tools out of beta

Google has released a new VR SDK, allowing devs to build VR experiences for Daydream-ready phones and headsets. The Daydream VR SDK 1.0 supports “integrated asynchronous reprojection, high fidelity spatialized audio and interactions using the Daydream controller.” The release also supports native integration in both Unity and Unreal Engine 4.

 

Facebook rolls-out Profile Expression Kit SDK

Developers can now integrate Facebook’s Profile Expression media into the apps. The Profile Expression Kit lets users turn media – such as Vine videos, Bommerang GIFs and Lollicam stickers – into profile pictures. Facebook says profiles are the second most visited surface on Facebook, allowing Expression Kit apps to generate a lot of exposure.

 

Onsen UI 2.0 now available

The Onsen UI team has released version 2.0 of its UI framework, which helps developers create native mobile apps with HTML5. While Onsen 1.x was based on Angular JS, the new version has no library dependencies, as well as new Material Design components. The team has also released new and improved documentation to make it easier for devs to get to grips with the framework.

 

Developers boycott Oculus over Trump-supporting founder

A number of Oculus developers are boycotting the VR platform due to the political views of its founder, Palmer Luckey. According to a Daily Beast report, Luckey funded a pro-Trump activist group, which posted anti-Hilary Clinton ads. Developer Scruta Games said it will “cancel Oculus support” unless Luckey steps down from his position at Oculus.

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News and Resources

Angular team announces final release of version 2.0

google announces

Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition, Google announces the release of Android Studio 2.2, Oracle confirms rumours of a Java EE 8 delay and Microsoft has been crowned the new king when it comes to open source contributors. Read on for the full news rundown.

Google app ads beat Facebook with 3 billion installs

Google says its ad products are now responsible for more than three billion app install ads. The announcement follows Facebook’s claim in April that its ads have generated over two billion installs. Google says it’s also experiencing a decline in average ad prices, down 9% year-on-year, due to the continuing growth of YouTube ads.

Microsoft has most open source contributors, says GitHub

Microsoft has beat Facebook to become the organisation with the most open source contributors on GitHub. Microsoft racked-up 16,419 contributors, beating Facebook’s 15,682 and Docker’s 14,059. GitHub’s report also found that JavaScript is the most popular language, Font Awesome is the repository with the most open source contributors and Homebrew is the repository with the most users reviewing code.

Java EE 8 not ready until end of 2017

Oracle says the release of Java EE 8 will be delayed until the end of next year. The delay, which was rumoured for some time, was announced at the JavaOne conference last week, where a new roadmap was proposed. Oracle now plans to release Java EE 8 with basic microservice and cloud capabilities, before releasing EE 9 sometime in 2018 with more features.

Affectiva emotional analytics platform now free for indie devs

Start-up Affectiva is allowing any company that earns less than a million dollars a year to use its SDK and API. The Affectiva platform uses “emotional analytics” to analyse user sentiment via chatbots or surveys. The company also announced a partnership with Giphy, which will see Affectiva encode Giphy gifs for sentiment analysis.

Angular team announces final release of version 2.0

The Angular team has announced the final release version of Angular 2.0. The new version of the JavaScript framework features better support for modern browsers, modular functionality that makes it easier to use third-party libraries, and is recommended for use with Microsoft’s TypeScript. Google also says it will provide devs with more guides to learn Angular 2.0 faster.

Android Studio 2.2 released

Android Studio 2.2 is now available to download. The update brings a significant number of new features, including an improved layout editor, an activity recorder that generates Espresso code for automated testing, and an emulator that can simulate data from different sensors. The new IDE also boasts an APK analyser, GPU debugger and much more.

GitHub announces project management tools and support for formal reviews

GitHub has announced the “biggest update yet” to its platform, bringing project management features to the table. The built in Trello-like project management tool lets users move cards with pull requests and switch cards between columns such as “in progress” and “done.” GitHub also now lets devs formally approve all pull requests and leave review summaries.

Kochava releases free version of app analytics tool

Kochava has launched Free App Analytics, a tool to measure and optimise app ad campaigns. The free tool lets devs optimise campaigns across big networks such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and Snapchat. The tool also includes a global index of integrated ad networks. However, features such as scaling are only available in Kochava’s paid Enterprise offering.

Microsoft opens Desktop Bridge for Win32 app conversion

Microsoft’s Destktop Bridge is now ready to use, allowing devs to repackage desktop apps, including Win32 apps, for the Window Store. The Desktop Bridge also converts apps to the Universal Windows Platform, allowing Win32 apps to run on any device running Windows 10. Microsoft says the bridge has already been used by the likes of Evernote, Arduino IDE and doubleTwist to bring full featured apps to Windows Store.

Oracle announces ‘drag and drop’ chatbot platform

Oracle has unveiled a new platform for building and running chatbots. The tool doesn’t require any coding experience – featuring a drag and drop graphical interface – and is positioned an easy-to-use bot builder for enterprises. According to Oracle, its bots will work with all modern messaging platforms, such as Facebook, Slack and Kik.

Google acquires API.AI bot building start-up

Google has bought API.AI, a start-up that provides dev tools for building conversational bots. According to Google, over 60,000 developers are using API.AI’s tools to build conversational experiences for environments such as Slack, Facebook Messenger and Kiki. The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

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News and Resources

News roundup – Google opens Early Access beta testing to more developers

razer fund gaming startups

Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition, Google cancels its modular smartphone project, Apple plans to delete abandoned apps from the App Store and Epic releases a new version of Unreal Engine 4. Read on for the full news rundown.

Google opens Early Access beta testing to more developers

Google has expanded its Early Access beta testing, allowing any developer apply for the program. Previously, Early Access was only available to 29 hand-picked developers, who got to test out their apps with early-adopters (although other devs were given different testing options). Google says the Early Access program generated over 1 million beta installs since launching in May and “demand is only growing.”

Google Search can now look-up content within apps

Google has introduced a new search mode in its Google app that lets users perform in-app searches The “In App” feature currently only works with Gmail, Spotify and YouTube, but will soon feature in-app searching on Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Evernote, Gilde, Todoist and more. Because the search function involves the OS itself, In Apps currently only works on Android.

Apple removing outdated apps from App Store

Apple will begin removing apps from the App Store if they no longer work, are outdated or “don’t follow current guidelines.” The company will also prevent devs from using overly long app names to game app searches, limiting app names to 50 characters or less. Apple will start reviewing apps on September 7 and will remove the ones that crash on launch immediately.

Amazon rumoured to announce Echo UK launch on September 14

Amazon has sent out press invites to what’s rumoured to be the UK launch of its voice-controlled Echo device, which features the Alexa voice assistant. The event is scheduled to take place on September 14 in London, although it doesn’t mention the Echo. According to Engadget, if you ask Alexa what she has planned for the 14th, she replies “a visit to London.”

Google cancels modular Project Ara smartphone

Google has pulled the plug on Project Ara, its modular smartphone concept. Project Ara was designed to let users upgrade and customise their device with camera, speakers, microphones and other modules. According to Reuters, Google may consider licensing Ara to its hardware partners, enabling some of its features to appear on devices in the future.

Google to reveal Daydream VR and Pixel devices on October 4

Google will reportedly reveal its in-house design for a Daydream VR viewer device at an event on October 4. According to Android Police, the company will also show-off two Pixel-branded smartphones (which replace the Nexus brand) and a 4K Chromecast. The event will also provide more details on Google’s Amazon Echo-rival Google Home.

Qualcomm unveils VR all-in-one headset

Qualcomm has unveiled a new reference platform for standalone virtual reality headsets, which it’s calling the Snapdragon VR820. It’s built upon the Snapdragon VR SDK and is designed to help developers create the hardware, software and content needed to create VR experiences. It’s anticipated that it wil be available in Q4 2016.

Baidu launches open source machine learning project

Chinese search engine Baidu has released PaddlePaddle, an open source software platform for the deep learning community. According to Baidu, the platform provides an intuitive interface for data handling and specifying model structure. PaddlePaddle was originally developed for internal use on Baidu’s deep learning apps.

HP announces machine-learning tool for drag and drop app development

HP has announced Haven OnDemand Combinations, a new tool that combines machine learning APIs and a drag and drop interface for mixing and matching them. The tool is built upon HP’s Haven OnDemand could platform, which has 70 AI APIs and more than 180,000 users. HP says the new tool is the quickest way to add intelligence to apps.

Unreal Engine 4.13 released

Epic has released the latest version of Unreal Engine, bringing over 145 improvements to the game development platform. Major new features include shadow map caching for movable lights, a new live recording feature, Voronoi noise for material creation, new mesh decals and new VR features such as project templates and support for mesh and foliage painting with VR controllers.

Google releases pure JavaScript Closure Compiler

Google’s Closure Compiler is now available in pure JavaScript. Closure Compiler is a JavaScript optimizer, transpiler and type checker. This new version isn’t a rewrite in JavaScript, says Google, but rather compiles the Java source to JS to run under Node.

Bloomberg releases BuckleScript optimising compiler

Bloomberg’s tech arm has announced BuckleScript, a new optimising compiler strongly inspired” by TypeScript. According to Bloomberg, BuckleScript offers an “industrial strength” type system and provides strong type inference, to generate more efficient code. Bloomberg adds that the compiler is at least 10x faster than TypeScript.

HTC invests $5 million in VR start-up Steel Wool

VR gaming start-up Steel Wool Studios has closed a $5 million round of funding, coming entirely from HTC. Steel Wool was one of the early developers for HTC and Valve’s Vive headset, creating the action strategy title Quar: Battle for Gate 18. Steel Wool said the funding does not mean their games will be exclusive to the Vive.

Intel acquiring drone start-up Movidius

Intel is buying Movidius, a start-up that makes computer vision processors used in drones and VR devices. Intel says it wants to combine Movidius’ technology with its RealSense depth-sensing camera tech, covering markets such as VR, AR, drones and digital security cameras. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Platforms

Self-driving cars are about platforms, not about cars

Transportation platforms

There is growing consensus that fully autonomous cars will become a reality by 2020. Google self-driving cars have driven over 1.2 million miles. Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, predicted in September 2015 that Tesla cars will have fully autonomous capability in 3 years. Zvi Aviram, CEO of MobileEye, a supplier of self-driving systems to many car makers, expects their technology will support fully autonomous driving by 2019.

Most traditional car makers still see autonomous driving as a feature of the car, rather than a market shift that will open the path to the creation of a completely new winner-takes-all industry. It’s just like PC makers focusing on adding connectivity to their products and missing the transition to the Internet platforms (Google Search, Amazon, Facebook). Or telecom operators focusing on adding always-on fast data connectivity to their networks and missing the transition to the mobile platforms (Google Android, Apple iOS).

Is the same about to happen in the car industry? Are car makers about to miss the transition to transportation platforms in the same way as PC makers missed the transition to Internet platforms and telecom operators missed the transition to mobile platforms?

The future transportation value stack will be very different from the existing automotive industry. It quite remarkable that only two companies, Google and Uber, are present in all layers of the stack that are necessary for creating a dominant transportation-as-a-service platform.

car-platforms-blog-image

The car hardware (the body, the power train, the wheels) increasingly becomes a commodity. Modern cars are good-enough for typical everyday use offering little opportunity for differentiation. Car commoditisation will only accelerate with the transition to electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are much simpler mechanically and easier to make, which opens the gates for new players, including such electronics and Internet services players like Apple, Google, LeTV and even Acer. It’s also notable that Tesla ‘open-sourced” their electric vehicle patents in 2014 pledging not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, uses Tesla’s technology.

Autonomous driving is about guiding the car along the road, following the rules while avoiding obstacles and crashes. It involves lots of sensors, computing power and sophisticated software, but the most important part here is the ‘data’. Self-driving systems are machine learning systems that are trained to evaluate the environment and make fast decisions on how to react.

The ‘data’ represents all the collective experience learned by multiple cars driving in test and real-world conditions. The more cars you have on the road and the more miles these cars have driven in all possible conditions, the more experienced, safe and precise the self-driving system becomes. Google is undisputed leader here having its fleet of test cars driven over 1 million miles. Tesla’s Autopilot feature introduced in October 2015 on Model S cars will allow Tesla to start training its self-driving system in real-life conditions on tens of thousands of cars.

Uber seem to be behind in terms of putting real self-driving cars on the roads. The company poached 40 researchers and engineers from the Carnegie Mellon’s robotics lab in March 2015 and partnered with University of Arizona on optics research for self-driving cars.

Navigation is about figuring out which roads and streets the car should drive on in order to get from point A to point B. Google is again is a clear leader here with Google Maps and Waze. A consortium of German carmakers (Audi, BMW and Daimler) is trying to uphold an alternative acquiring the Here Maps business from Nokia in August 2015 for $3.1 Billion. Uber also works to create a proprietary mapping platform winning independence from Google and Here Maps. The company acquired San Jose-based deCarta in March 2015, absorbed part of Microsoft Bing mapping assets in June 2015 and has partnered with TomTom in November 2015 to use its mapping and traffic data. (Is Microsoft about to miss the huge opportunity in the future automotive and transportation markets?)

Fleet routing this is where it gets much more interesting. Self-driving cars combined with Uber-style on-demand services make individual car ownership less and less attractive. Some people even claim that hardware-as-a-service is the end game for Tesla. The shared usage models will turn car market into something that looks like a public transport platform, where operators will match in real-time the demand for transportation with the location and the capacity of self-driving vehicles. In other words, fleet guidance is about deciding in real-time where every car needs to go. Which car needs go to a specific pick up point? Shall the car drive to where the demand is expected in the coming 15 minutes? What is the optimal time to recharge or refuel? When and where to go to do the service and maintenance? Where to park, and more.

This is a very complex computational problem to solve at the scale required to support fleets of thousands of self-driving cars. Bill Gurley, one of Uber’s early investors, gives a glimpse into how difficult it is in his blog explaining why UberPool is the new Uber’s “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” (BHAG). UberPool helps the company to build capabilities that will be directly relevant for the optimal routing of large autonomous fleets.

I’m sure Google is not standing still here as well. Being a machine learning company, it has the scale and the technical depth to become the leader in this space. Add to that real-time bidding capabilities with extremely complex optimisations that Google has mastered for its online ad business. One can even argue that building such transportation platform is the reason for Google’s interest in self-driving cars.

It’s very difficult to see how traditional car makers will be able to compete with software-centric companies in this space.

Finally, the transportation platform is the most intriguing part of the value stack. Moving people around Uber-style is not the only use for self-driving cars. What else can we do with the fully autonomous fleet of robotic vehicles, given that they don’t not have to look as Uber or Google cars of today? These robotic vehicles can be specialized delivery vehicles (see this Domino’s Pizza car as a hint for how they may look like), small delivery drones like Transwheel or StarShip or even autonomous motorbikes, like Motobot by Yamaha.

The number of possibilities and applications for autonomous transportation is mind boggling. No single company, even as nimble and well-funded as Google or Uber, will be able to address all possible needs and use cases by themselves. The recipe for addressing these yet to be known needs and use cases is in plain sight. It is a platform connecting vehicle manufacturers, vehicle operators, service providers and application developers with users (much like Google did with Android).

The platform will harvest permissionless innovation by startups and developers to discover and deploy new services and applications we cannot even imagine today – in the same way that no one could predict Instagram, Snapchat or WeChat on smartphones. Uber already works with developers extending its service into a platform. Google also has a long history of relying on permissionless innovation by developers to win its competitive battles, from Google Maps to Android. It’s only natural that Google will use the same approach to dominate self-driving cars.

It’s still too early in the game to say which companies will dominate the future transportation market. One thing is a safe bet: The future transportation ecosystem will look very different from the existing automotive industry. It will resemble modern technology ecosystems with their platform business models, permissionless innovation by developers, and domination of software-centric companies.

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Business Platforms

The 3 key Apple Watch features that nobody talks about. Yet.

[If Apple wants to create a new, large product category out of smart watches, they need to create mass-market demand for their new product. What are the 3 most important features that will define the future of the Apple Watch? The ones that enable developers to innovate on top of these devices and create demand for smart watches.]

apple-watch-09

“We believe this product will redefine what people expect from its category. … It is the next chapter in Apple’s story.” With these words, Tim Cook made it very clear that the Apple Watch is more than just an excellent product. As with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad before it, the Apple Watch aims to shape the future of wearables and create a whole new market reality.

As it stands, the Apple Watch v1 is a nicely designed timepiece, an engineering wonder, but competition will be fierce. Since fashion is about self-expression, by definition, there will be no single winner.

If Apple wants to create something bigger than fashion accessories, the Watch needs to be a functional tool. If it’s a tool, [tweetable]Apple must answer a fundamental question: what is a smart watch for?[/tweetable]

https://twitter.com/brianshall/status/509405381857013760
https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/509431691207659520

Will notifications become the killer app for smart watches? Unlikely. Not only is it unclear that we really want more interruptions, but it’s a bit of a dead-end for innovation. There can only be so many improvements in notifications, and only so many companies making those improvements.

If Apple wants to create a new, large product category out of smart watches, they need to become something much more that a timepiece with notifications and sensors. Something that allows people to do things that were not possible before. How Apple can do this? By following the same path that worked so well for iPhone and iPad: Tap into the limitless innovation power of co-creators to discover new use cases and possibilities we cannot imagine today.

The most important features of the Apple Watch going forward are the ones that enable developers to innovate on top of these devices and create demand for Apple’s smart watches. What are these features?

WatchKit

WatchKit

The straightforward way to expand the functionality of the watch is the WatchKit SDK, which allows developers to create “watch apps”. Other smart watch players like Android Wear, Pebble and Razer have made similar capabilities for developers. Developers are already showing strong interest in smartwatches. For example, the developer program of Pebble boasts 20,000+ developers and thousands of apps,.

HealthKit

The Apple Watch has a strong emphasis on embedded sensors for fitness and wellness. On the launch event, the company dedicated an entire section on it. Tim Cook: “This is a very important area for me and a very important area for Apple.”

But a few sensors and apps do not make a platform. The real potential lies in the HealthKit SDK that Apple launched at its WWDC event earlier this year. While its not technically a feature of the watch itself, it is this SDK that can take the device’s functionality and expand it in a whole new way to monitor activity and other wellness data . Could it be that the category that Apple wants to redefine is not the watch, but wellness and healthcare (in the broadest sense of the word)?

Certainly several other companies seem to go after that opportunity. Among them Google (Google Fit), Validic, Samsung (SAMI), Human API and most recently Jawbone (Jawbone UP API).

Identity

Like the Nymi wristband, the Apple Watch has all the technology in it to identify you personally. Apple has already demonstrated how digital identity combined with the Apple Watch can be used to make payments or even open hotel doors. (The clever integration with the new Apple Pay can drive adoption for both.) However, the possibilities are much broader. Biometric identification can be the end of not only passwords, but other kinds of ID as well. Another product category for Apple to redefine and absorb into its iOS universe?

Digital identity is a key control point for many digital leaders, including the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Salesforce. They are all actively working to hold your identity information and build your online persona on their platform. For Apple, the importance of identity is also evident in their deepening integration between devices and in their introduction of fingerprint sensors in all new phones.

Users first

What is a smart watch useful for? Beyond fashion and self-expression, a new kind of health monitoring and identity are prime candidates for the title of killer use case. Apple is going at it with their proven recipe for launching digital ecosystems: users-first. Apple starts by releasing a well-designed device for hardcore fans with a lot of value built in by default. Once there is a critical mass of users, Apple connects them with developers, who create real mass-market demand for the product.

It will take the ingenuity of a community of developers to explore all the possibilities and create a category killer, and Apple knows it very well.

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Business Platforms Tools

State of the Developer Nation: The App Economy Consolidates Before the Next Gold Rush

app economy

Our 7th Developer Economics survey broke all records again, reaching more than 10,000 app developers from 137 different countries. The full report with the survey findings has just been published and is available for free download!

The view of the app economy that they collectively provide is one of consolidation. Developers are focusing their attention on fewer platforms and app revenues are becoming increasingly concentrated amongst the top publishers. Consolidation in the developers tools sector may also be partly responsible for the decline we see in tools usage. This is also reflected by the platforms, with BlackBerry moving their focus away from consumer smartphones and Microsoft killing their recently acquired Asha and Nokia X platforms to double down on Windows Phone. Fortunately there are several indicators that the next gold rush is just getting started.

Platform Wars in the App Economy

On a global level the platform wars are ending with iOS claiming the majority of the high-end device market and Android winning almost everywhere else. This results in [tweetable]Android leading in developer mindshare at 70% with iOS a clear second with 51% of developers targeting the platform[/tweetable]. However, we’ve been tracking this metric since 2010 and there is a new pattern. [tweetable]Windows Phone was the only platform to gain developer mindshare, rising steadily to 28%[/tweetable], despite failing to gain device market share. Although Android and iOS lost developer mindshare, this was not fewer developers prioritising either platform, rather more developers are now choosing sides. The average number of platforms a developer targets has fallen from 2.9 to 2.2 over the last 12 months, with more than 40% only targeting a single platform.

DE2014Q3_Mindshare

BlackBerry 10 is rapidly leaking developer mindshare, down to 11%, having failed to gain traction with consumers. Meanwhile, it’s now becoming increasingly clear that [tweetable]the future of HTML5 lies beyond the browser[/tweetable]. Although HTML5 is used by 42% of developers as a technology for app development, only 15% still target mobile browsers as a distribution platform.

A surprisingly high 47% of iOS developers and 42% of Android developers are using something other than the native language on their platforms. While hybrid apps are the most popular non-native option for building Android and iOS apps, they’re only used by 13% of developers. Hybrid apps are HTML5 apps with a native wrapper, typically created by tools such as Cordova.

DE2014Q3_NativeMyths

App Revenues

The majority of app businesses are not sustainable at current revenue levels. [tweetable]50% of iOS developers and 64% of Android developers are below the “app poverty line” of $500 per app per month[/tweetable]. 24% of developers interested in making money earn nothing at all. A further 23% make less than $100 per app per month. The overall app economy, including all revenue sources not just the app stores, is still growing but the revenues are highly concentrated. At the top end of the revenue scale there are just 1.6% of developers with apps earning more than $500k per month, collectively they earn multiples of the other 98.4% combined.

DE2014Q3_iOS_vs_Android_Revenues

State of the Game Developer Nation

Games dominate app store revenues, yet most games developers struggle. [tweetable]33% of developers make games but 57% of those games make less than $500 per month[/tweetable]. Experience breeds success in the games market. The more games a developer has shipped the more likely they are to be financially successful. However, 70% of games developers have shipped less than 4 titles.

Games is a multi-platform world with the average games developer targeting 3 platforms versus 1.75 platforms for non-games developers. Multi-platform games benefit from cross-platform game development tools with Unity by far the most popular, used by 47% of developers. The next paid tool, Adobe Air, comes a distant second at 15%. Apple and Google’s latest graphics technologies launch a battle for the richest gaming experiences. Third party game development tools like Unity and the Unreal Engine will be key to developers exploiting these capabilities.

DE2014Q3_Game_Dev_Tools

Tools of the App Developer Trade

Third-party tools are a critical part of successful app businesses. There’s a strong correlation between tool use and revenues, the more tools a developer uses, the more money they make. We successfully predicted the rise of the Mega-SDK, where consolidation amongst tools companies allows developers to integrate multiple tool categories from a single vendor. Despite this, tool use is declining, partly due to the rapid influx of new mobile developers. These new developers are typically not aware of the tools that are available and thus reduce the average usage levels. 26% of developers that are interested in making money don’t use any third party tools, up from 14% just 12 months ago.

DE2014Q3_Tool_Popularity

The most popular category of tool is Ad Networks, with 30% of developers using them. However, this is one of the few tool categories that is not associated with higher than average revenues. More experienced and successful developers show a preference for Cloud Computing platforms, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, with 40% of those with 6+ years experience in mobile apps adopting them.

Enterprise Apps – The Next Gold Rush

[tweetable]Enterprise apps are already the safest bet in the app economy and they’re only just getting started[/tweetable]. 67% of mobile app developers primarily target consumers and 11% target professionals directly. The 16% of developers who target enterprises are twice as likely to be earning over $5k per app per month and almost 3 times as likely to earn more than $25k per app per month.

DE2014Q3_Enterprise_vs_Consumer

Penetration of enterprises with mobile devices and solutions is already broad but not yet deep. Currently iOS appears to be winning the battle for enterprise adoption and revenues. Yet many developers are focusing on the wrong platform with 10% more enterprise developers targeting Android than iOS. Although enterprise apps have been a historical strength for them, Microsoft and BlackBerry are seeing very weak adoption for their new platforms amongst enterprise developers due to lack of demand from enterprises.

This battle is in the very early stages. Microsoft is re-focussing on their core competence in productivity software while Apple and Google move rapidly to embrace enterprises. Google’s integration of Samsung’s Knox platform into the Android platform is a major step forward. Meanwhile Apple’s new partnership with IBM gives them a strong proposition in all the major vertical markets. These moves will undoubtedly drive greater adoption of mobile technology in enterprises and create countless opportunities for developers to help re-think the way we work.

For more information, download the full Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation report and check out the war between the European and the Asian app economy.

 

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APIs Tools

Accelerating Web Apps – It’s all about politics

On desktop computers web apps have come to dominate many application categories. They are easier to develop and deploy across multiple platforms and it’s possible to iterate much faster. A very large number of developers would like to be able to apply the same technologies and techniques on mobile devices but very few are able to do so successfully, particularly for mass market consumer apps. One of the most important reasons for this is performance. Resolving this issue is much more about politics than technology.

Are mobile web apps doomed to be slow?

Back in July, Drew Crawford wrote a blog post that got a lot of attention essentially claiming that JavaScript performance on mobile devices was simply too slow for serious apps and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. It showed, amongst other things, that the browser on the iPhone 4S was around four times slower than the slowest browsers capable of running Google docs real-time collaboration or Google Wave back in 2010. He claimed that ARM processors were not going to get faster rapidly enough to make a difference and JavaScript runtime improvements had stalled and were unlikely to make significant progress. Technically both of these points seem to have been proven wrong already. Apple just announced the iPhone 5S, with a processor twice as fast as the iPhone 5, which was in turn twice as fast as the iPhone 4S – so we have four times more raw CPU performance than we had just two years ago, theoretically enough to support 2010 desktop class browser performance. Also, Mozilla are working on asm.js, which uses a subset of JavaScript compiled ahead of time (AOT) and promises to enable apps to run in the browser at just 1.3 times slower than native performance – almost another four times speed increase versus the current five times slower than native performance of modern JIT compilers.

In addition to being at least partly incorrect this is also looking at a very narrow area of browser performance, a point well made in Sencha’s blog post in response. Across all vendors there are key performance areas where each is 10-40 times behind another. In reality, most of the major performance issues that prevent web apps from being competitive with native apps are related to graphics performance. Mobile device users have come to expect slick animated UIs which are only enabled by GPUs on the devices rather than, say, manipulating the DOM with JavaScript. Fortunately HTML5 and CSS3 provide several opportunities for GPU accelerated graphics with e.g. Canvas, CSS animations and WebGL. So, as mobile hardware and browser software continue to improve over the next couple of years competitive web apps should be just around the corner, shouldn’t they?

Platform wars and politics

With the technologies available or on the very near horizon today, plus improvements to mobile browsers across the major platforms, there’s almost no doubt that we could have competitive web app performance. The problem is that to get there requires platform providers and OEMs to adopt the technologies and implement the improvements – it’s not necessarily in their interests to do so.

Apple and Microsoft want users locked-in while Google wants them logged-in. Mozilla wants the open web everywhere but Google funds them. Opera recently gave up on writing their own browser core and use Google’s instead. That’s over-simplifying but fairly accurate. With other browser vendors attempting to prevent the user tracking that Google’s business model depends on (through default Do Not Track settings or third party cookie blocking) the best way to ensure users stay logged-in is to get them all using Chrome. This means they’re fighting a new browser war for control of the desktop web and taking that to the bulk of the mobile market through Android. In the process they are building several browser technologies to differentiate rather than standardise (e.g. they’ll prefer their own Native Client solution to asm.js).

At the same time Apple wants a great browsing experience but wants developers to build native apps rather than cross-platform web apps. As such they adopt most new web standards quickly but are very slow to include any that might enable high performance web apps – e.g. WebGL has been implemented since iOS 4.2 but only enabled for iAd, not in the browser, also Apple has famously not enabled their JIT compiler in the WebViews used by wrapped web apps* (needed to access native APIs) slowing their JavaScript performance by almost four times. Mozilla’s asm.js seems a very unlikely candidate for Apple to adopt anytime soon. Unless their new CEO makes a major change of strategy, Microsoft seem determined to follow the Apple model, although they might need first class web apps enough to accelerate their standards adoption.

A ray of light?

While there may be several classes of app for which mobile browsers are already good enough, for those hoping to develop all apps with web technologies, the news is not all bad. Although it seems unlikely to be possible to deliver a single solution with great performance everywhere, we might not be far from being able to deliver a good level of performance almost everywhere. Although Apple appear to have some strategic performance limitations, they also have some of the fastest hardware on the market. At the other end of the spectrum good Android browsers are reaching low end smartphones and the Firefox OS, also targeted at low cost devices, has an excellent web app environment. The other good news is that while we have real competition in the mobile market, browsers should keep getting better all round. We’re unlikely to see the return to stagnation of the Internet Explorer dominated early 2000’s.

* Apple do have a good security reason for doing this but they haven’t been in a hurry to resolve it either.