DroidCon - an insight into the future of Android

We went along to DroidCon 2011, Europe's largest Android conference, to get a feel for the latest trends in the Android community.

Google vs. Apple?

Before discussing the conference it’s worth considering why Android, Google’s mobile phone OS, is getting more attention this year – Android numbers are fast catching up with Apple: figures from Q3 2011 suggest that there are 190 million Android phones worldwide, versus 250 million iOS devices – but bear in mind that Apple’s total sales figure is inflated by iPod sales. Compared with iPhones alone, Android phones are already outselling them. This is significant - but why isn’t Android the primary platform? Is the public’s perception of Android affecting adoption by retailers?

We think this is the most prominent trend in the Android community - improving its image in the eyes of the public.

Android is going upmarket

In the tech world, the Android community are often seen as more enthusiastic about technology than those who champion other platforms; in the Mac versus Windows debate, they'd choose Linux – rough around the edges, but much more open to be tinkered with.

To our surprise, DroidCon seemed to dispell this myth; Android has gone upmarket. The list of sponsors was more FTSE100 than Anarchist’s Cookbook: Cisco, Blackberry, Accenture and SAP all had stands touting their enterprise tablets and services. On the face of it this may seem surprising, but Android is a good platform for delivering mobile services for enterprise.

Whilst both the enterprise and consumer markets prefer low cost devices, there are some key differences between them. Unlike consumers, enterprises prefer a restricted ecosystem, typically with only one company-wide app store. And enterprise service providers, such as Cisco, manufacture their own Android tablets, integrating with their existing infrastructure. This is a major revenue stream, which, without Android, would be unavailable to Cisco bar creating a proprietary operating system, similar to RIM’s Blackberry OS or HP’s admired but short-lived WebOS. Building a proprietary operating system and a new ecosystem from scratch is no longer an option for most hardware manufacturers - even RIM has announced support for Android applications on their Playbook (though when RIM presented their early work at DroidCon, disappointingly it lacked support for some standard Android UI components). In short, Android is a key strategic route for big players to cash in on the enterprise tablet market, especially for hardware manufacturers.

Of course, consumers love tablets as well, and there was a crowd around the HTC stand playing with the latest tablet features, from 3D screens to pen interactions. However, unlike phones, Android tablets sales are still well behind Apple’s industry-leading iPad.  

Finally, it appears design and usability are becoming mainstream priorities in Android app development: the latest Android OS, version 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich, has a revamped and cleaner UI (unlike iOS, which has barely changed appearance since the original iPhone, and as such can feel a little stale), and this year more conference talks than ever championed usability and design. All this is great for users, and soothes the common perception that Android devices are less polished than iPhones.

Where next?

Identifying that Android devices are outselling iPhones is one thing, but this in no way implies that Android is the de facto mobile platform. Some reasons for this are understandable, similar to the reason why nobody develops apps for the market-dominating Nokia: total sales don’t reflect an engaged user base, which embraces the app culture of downloading – and, more importantly, purchasing - apps. Other perceptions such as Android’s unfortunate and misguided portrayal as the ‘cheap iPhone’ are perhaps more important for image conscious brands - and ultimately harder to shift.

But one thing is certain - until companies commission both Android and iPhone apps as a rule, rather than the exception, Android users will lag behind the curve and forever dream of iPhones.

Ready to go Android? We’ll give you lots of tips and tricks in 'Going Android', our upcoming guide.

This blog post was written by Peter

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