Angry Birds developer rips into Google’s Android, but showers Apple iPhone with praises

Angry Bird developer Peter Vesterbacka on Google's Android OS: "Open but not really open, a very Google centric ecosystem, Nobody has been successful selling content on Android. "

[QuodEratDemonstrandm]

This guy's disdain for Android could be the reason Angry Birds is such crap on my Samsung Moment.

[Baka-akaB]

i love my samsung galaxy , but he's not completely wrong.

Look at mobile operators and constructors holding the platform back .

It took many month for samsung galaxy from a few eu operators to be allowed froyo access ... and it's starting all over again with gingerbread .

It's far from being as open as advertised

[randomwiz]

I think the main problem is people confuse open with something else.

Android IS open. I can get the source code right here and do stuff to do it. http://source.android.com/ OPEN for anyone.

That being said, Android is terrible for selling applications. Their main problem being that you can only pay for apps in 13(I believe) countries. That combined with the easy of piracy makes it a terrible platform to sell games. Clearly, ad supported is the way to go with android, and that doesn't mean its a bad model. You can make A LOT of money with ads.

IMO, once EVERY android phone has a decent gpu in it, you'll see less performance problems.

[TheIneffableBob]

Piracy is much easier on iOS (see: Installous) so that isn't the reason.

[PirateThom]

Android is very open, which is the problem. Once a new release comes out, it doesn't get to the phone straight away, each manufacturer and carrier can, and do, change the base software.

I work for a mobile phone company in the UK and we keep "upgrading" the Android updates with our own software before rolling them out which just adds to the wait time.

[dazreah]

Works fine on me HTC Desire.

[LordMarius]

At least they port it to WebOS

[Amplitude]

I dunno about that man. I buy lots of apps on my iPod Touch, but have never bought anything off the android marketplace for my HTC Legend.

I really love that the iPod/iPhone keeps all your apps backed up on the computer and run off the hard drive. Its completely stupid that i cant put all the apps i have on my phone to my memory stick. My phone only has 2GB internal memory. It's like, if i ever lose my apps/phone, then my purchased apps are gone forever. Whereas with iTunes, all my apps are synced to iTunes every time i plug in my iPod. Maybe it's possible to back them up but it's obviously not an automatic process like the iPhone/iPod.

I know that you can push apps to the memory stick with recent updates, but sadly my carrier doesn't allow my phone to be updated to the recent Android update. Which is total BS. Why cant we just manually update our phones? Why do carriers have to push updates to us? Why cant we just download an update and install it like with the iPod and iPhone? If i unlock my phone and put a SIM card from a carrier that supports the update then i can download it, but i can't because im on a Bell Canada network? WTF?

I dont know. Android almost seems less 'open' than the iPhone from my experience with both devices. At least from a users end that's how it seems. I love my phone to death, but theres no doubt that Apple has gotten a way better grasp of downloading and purchasing apps and other content.

[Rodzillaz]

"then my purchased apps are gone forever"
no because most of the info on the phone including contacts and apps and settings are stored on the Google cloud. all ya need to do is login a phone with your Google account and all your apps, settings and contacts will download and show up like magic.

I know this because I had to factory restore my phone (i broke it playing around in su) also unlike the iPhone you don't need a computer to backup or update. like my brother with an iPhone4 he has to hunt down a computer every time. and install iTunes with its bloat and BS

But one thing i must add a good portion of the android fan base are power users and piracy is wayyyyyyyy to easy on an android device even for non computer savvy its as easy as browsing to a file. Google has to find a safe middle ground between open and being able to prevent piracy thats step one

[TheIneffableBob]

Your apps will not be gone forever. They are linked to your Google account. Log in with your Google account on a different phone and you'll be able to redownload everything you've purchased.

The app AppBrain will let you sync all of your installed apps and reinstall all of them on a new phone or your current phone if you decide to factory reset.

[trounbyfire]

I wish this game would just go away. I am tired of hearing about it and other i pad games as if we have to recognize them as part of the big three or our industry.

i can't be the only one!!!

[Baka-akaB]

not really . Tried it , and while addictive and well done ... i can't see anything worth that much fuss .

I can get the minecraft craze , as it's actually quite an original concept , even if i'm not interest .

BUt angry birds , while very well done , is your run of the mill quirky puzzle

[nnotdead]

i never got it either. even if its well done, it doesn't seem that much different than free browser games that i've been playing for years.

[dazreah]

Well after reading the whole thing he does not really rop into Android and shower Apples iphone with praises. The site linked picks a select few things to make it seem that way.

[Omar91]

really people? i mean the game was ok at most.... ITS NOT THAT GOOD OF A GAME!

[Kyur4ThePain]

It's not about the game. It's about the platforms.

[Bolts]

Fragmentation sucks. Android apps are very PC like in that there are little shops selling apps all over the place so it's hard for new Droid users to find good apps. It would be nice if they can partner up with someone like Amazon to be their store front.

[KingKionic]

There are other alternative AppBrain that help you find the best apps for a android .

[TheIneffableBob]

There are a couple of third-party markets, but the very large majority of apps are in the Android Market. There really isn't any "major" app that isn't in the Android Market. It's mostly the games that are exclusive to a carrier's market or a specific phone.

Gameloft doesn't sell any of their games in the Android Market, instead opting to do transactions through their website, but they do that just because they can. If Apple allowed it, I'm sure they'd do the same on that platform.

[itsralf]

Or maybe they just need to make a better game... The creators of Pocket Legends are making a fortune from micro-transactions from both Android and iPhone users because their game plays great on both platforms. I've played Angry Birds on iPhone and Android, and wasn't too impressed with either... Now, Cut the Rope is a pretty epic game on iPhone.

[Calm Down Sunshine]

Who is this jumped up little squirt?

He made some game for a phone?

Doesn't sound to me like he's really in a position to start slating a company as successful as Google.

[MASTER_RAIDEN]

This article is garbage. who titles these things? "rips into google"? WHEN the fuck did that happen? very misleading title from a site thats obviously starved for hits. but anyway...

on the topic of iphone vs android: having owned two types of iphones and currently using a samsung galaxy s, i can say without a doubt that in my time with both manufacturers, Apple RAPES Android 8 days a week.

- though the iphone email system is less than perfect (and a distant second from the blackberry.)at the very least, it works damn well for what it sets out to do. the emails refresh at regular intervals and they never really skip a beat. Androids email system is an absolute disaster. on many phone models and carriers, emails are deleted, but then somehow REAPPEAR hours after deleting them. a problem i struggle with on my galaxy s to this day. im trying out an app called "maildroid" because it is said to take care of such a problem

- all in all android is just fucking terrible in terms of its ability to keep up with tasks. multitasking is native on android, but force closes on apps are MUCH too common. the droid os is just incredibly easy to crash overall. pleeeeaaasse for your own sake, you shouldnt try to refute that point. today i had to force close my facebook app twice.......

- people often times try and throw out a bunch of technical jargon they dont even understand in an attempt to defend android. the fact that its "open source" means nothing to a guy whos facebook app doesnt notify him of ANYTHING...even though notifications are turned on in the apps settings. the only decent thing about android actually highlights its flaws in retrospect: since right out of the box android market is so illegit with certain apps, you can download many different types of keyboards, browsers, email system apps right onto your phone to make it more user friendly. just today i downloaded an app that makes the onscreen keyboard look like an iphones keyboard. with the iphone, your pretty much stuck using safari brower with that ios keyboard that comes stock on the os, uless you jailbreak the phone. on the real though youve got to admit...for the most part the iphone doesnt NEED a different type of keyboard or web browser app because most everything on ios works damn well.

- perhaps android could become something one day, but regardless of all the cool free mario brothers soundboard apps i could get off the market, droids got a lot of growing up to do as an os before it could even think about going toe to toe with the iphone.

[Bolts]

There needs to be some standard regarding what the Droid experience as should be like. Right now it's F-ing choas. I'm not asking for Apple's walled garden but there needs to be some sort of baseline and Google really need to improve it's native apps. I have an iphone 4 and my girl has a Droid-X, and while I love the Droid X there are a lot of rough edges out of the box. The lack of a unified email box is one of them.

[MASTER_RAIDEN]

exactly! it seems to me like android ever being "better" than the iphone is a lost cause. instead of really trying to do things better, the most we can hope for is that android does things "just like" or "almost as good as" the iphone. take a look at your girls facebook app if she hasnt updated it yet since the 15th of dec. no push-notifications. no chat. A LOT of things are missing from facebook for android. now, if you finally go for the update, youll find fb for android now has (almost) everything the iphone version has. no more than it...just almost as much.