It was an act of spiteful anger that sent me back into the Android Marketplace yesterday. Apple made me do it. After the 3G S announcement yesterday, of course I had to see about the possibility of an
upgrade from my current 3G.
Zoinks! According to Apple/AT&T's online ordering mechanism, I won't qualify for a "standard iPhone upgrade" until 12/12/09. I am guessing that "standard iPhone
upgrade" means being able to get the 3G S at a reasonable price, because until then it will cost me $399 to get a 16GB model and $499 for the 32GB unit. I won't even address the argument that AT&T
deserves to get its money's worth from me on the subsidized 3G I have only had for a year. I have to believe that in the next week,someone in that company will recognize that you want your heaviest
users and your best army of proselytizers working for you and not against you. The #AT&T thread on Twitter went ballistic yesterday, as it should, so it will be interesting to see how much heat the
company is willing to endure. Nuff said.
In the same sort of huff with which you storm out of your house to the local bar, knowing full well you will be back in a few hours, I grabbed the G1
in a twisted attempt to make the temporarily evil iPhone/AT&T conspiracy jealous.
That didn't work any better than storming out of the house angry. Last week T-Mobile pushed out to the G1 the
version 1.5 update to the Android OS. It promises faster Web and video performance, among other things. What it doesn't give you is a cleaner, tidier Marketplace. Maybe it is just me, but the
Android Marketplace feels like the kind of shapeless, cacophonous mosh pit of apps that a true Google geek might love but is sure to turn off ordinary consumers and marketers. Try the Entertainment
category and you will scroll through pages and pages of individual apps for "Top Sexy Ladies" from some company named Perfect Acumen, Inc. These guys are selling apps that contain images and a bio of
models and actresses for $4.99 per app. You often have to scroll through multiple screens just to get beyond the garbage filling some of the categories. Comments sections often get filled with weird
back and forths. One music app seemed to become an occasion for accusations of racism. And enough with the damn "soundboards" of media clips from film and TV. Again, the obvious but very real weakness
of an open market on a small device is that the channel gets so cluttered so quickly with irrelevant apps that it discourages browsing.
To be sure, some of this silliness goes on in Apple's
App Store as well. There is a Hot Weather Girls app for instance (weather updates on pin-up-style bikini images) that attracts rude blasts that the girls are "fugly." And the book section often gets
stuffed with endless iterations of Japanese language manga. Nevertheless, Android continues to suffer from the lack of strong app merchandising anywhere in the system. The absence of screenshots in
the Market on deck is a major oversight. The visuals in the Apple App Store are one of the user's main hedges against crappy downloads. In Android I have to go to the woefully understocked online shop
at Andorid.com to get screens that look smaller online than they do on a phone.
For all of the complaints about discovery in the App Store, there is something to be said for a system where
recognizable brands tend to float to the surface. The theory of an open marketplace where any publisher has a chance to make a hit is nice -- in theory. In practice, the fact that Sims 3, ESPN, AP and
the major movie studios usually are lurking somewhere near the top of most app lists helps to anchor the market in the familiar and the trusted. One of the problems I find in the Android market is a
lot of brand confusion. Icons and apps use major media brands like Facebook and CNN in the title of their apps, when in reality they are just RSS feeds or unaffiliated apps and browser shortcuts
pulling from the major brand. Some of that goes on in the Apple store, but it is rife in the Android Market.
I am not dumping on the Android Market so much as urging some kind of positive
change for a platform that has great promise. I have used the G1 enough to know that I don't give up much in switching between iPhone and Android. This is a very promising alternative smart phone that
has tremendous reach potential if more hardware manufacturers and carriers jump on board. But how fast should these partners join in, if the look and feel of the OS and the content ecosystem is still
pretty rough and beta-like?
Perhaps the new iPhone 3G S will change the game and move the goal posts yet again on everyone, and all of these points will be moot. But I may not be able to tell
you that for a while, you see. Because after spending about $2,000 with AT&T over the past two years (and even with the promise of spending another $2,000 at least in the next two years -- more if my
daughter gets her way), that company doesn't see the economics in throwing this customer an upgrade price break.
Maybe that Android Market is not so fugly after all. Throw back a couple of
drinks and keep the bar lights dim and it may not look so bad after all. Maybe I'm not ready to go home just yet.