1. Android:
Opportuni-es
&
Challenges
Thai
Tran
Co-­‐founder
&
CEO
Lightbox
thai@lightbox.com
Twi=er:
@thait
www.lightbox.com

2. About
Lightbox
• Mobile
photo
sharing
service
• More
than
half
million
app
downloads
from
Android
Market
• “Android
first”
strategy
– We’ve
explicitly
decided
to
build
for
Android
before
any
other
mobile
plaJorm

3. Android
vs.
iPhone
adop-on
150M+
devices
550k+
acPvaPons
per
day
From
Mary
Meeker’s
Oct
2011
Internet
Trends
presentaPon
Sources:
Gartner,
Morgan
Stanley
Research

4. Android
is
a
global
phenomenon
China
50%
USA
market
share
45%
market
share
Europe
22%
market
share
Sources:
comScore
Sept
2011
US
&
EU5
mobile
report,
Morgan
Keenan
Dec
2010
China
report

5. Android
fragmenta-on
Android
OS
distribuPon
Android
device
distribuPon
Evo
4G
Eclair
(2.1)
11%
14%
Galaxy
S
II
8%
Xperia
Arc
6%
Gingerbread
(2.3)
41%
Froyo
(2.2)
43%
Gingerbread
is
almost
one
year
old,
Lightbox
is
used
on
190+
but
is
installed
on
less
than
half
of
different
Android
devices
Android
devices
Source:
Lightbox
usage
data
for
Oct
2011

6. Android
tablets
not
successful
so
far…
• Less
than
3%
of
Lightbox’s
Honeycomb
(3.0)
usage
comes
from
tablets
• Causes
of
low
adopPon:
Android
OS
distribuPon
– Didn’t
launch
with
compelling
media
features
– Not
many
high
quality
Android
tablet
apps
due
to
poor
developer
tools
&
lack
of
device
seeding
– Android
tablets
priced
in
same
range
as
iPad

7. …but
the
Amazon
Kindle
Fire
is
coming
• Ships
with
Amazon
books,
music,
and
movies
• Priced
at
<
$200
• 16M
Kindles
vs.
29M
iPads
shipped
so
far
– Kindle
Fire
rumored
to
have
250k
pre-­‐orders
in
first
week
• But
US
only
and
they
forked
Android
(2.x)

8. Developing
on
Android
• Android’s
developer
tools
are
less
mature
than
iOS’s
– Have
to
hand
crai
XML
and
write
a
lot
of
boilerplate
code
to
build
Android
user
interfaces
– Standard
widgets
not
as
polished
&
few
UI
frameworks
– Many
poorly
documented
APIs
• Don’t
recommend
using
cross-­‐plaJorm
development
tools
such
as
Titanium
• Avoid
directly
using
hardware
likely
to
vary
between
Android
devices
such
as
the
camera
– Leverage
other
Android
apps
instead
(via
“intents”)

9. Tes-ng
your
Android
app
Buy
Borrow
Beta
test
Your
developers
should
have
Android
apps
can
be
installed
The
Android
Market
has
no
a
handful
of
Android
devices
via
email,
so
you
can
easily
human
approvers,
so
you
of
different
form
factors.
test
in
a
phone
store.
can
distribute
beta
versions
prior
to
launch.

10. Android
Market:
Gatekeeper
to
success
Gekng
featured
on
All
of
the
press
the
Android
Market
=
7X
coverage
of
Lightbox
Bump
from
coverage
in
Bump
from
gekng
featured
on
the
Lightbox
downloads
per
week

11. Tips
for
ge_ng
your
app
featured
• Build
a
high
quality
app
specifically
for
Android
• Add
Android
tablet
support
• Reach
out
to
the
Android
developer
advocates
at
Android
events
and
on
Google+
+Nick
Butcher
(London)
+Richard
Hyndman
(London)
+Sparky
Rhode
(Munich)

12. Android
opportuni-es:
We
need…
• Be=er
Android
libraries
– UI
frameworks:
“jQuery
for
Android”
– High
performance
image
processing
• Be=er
Android
developer
&
tesPng
tools
– Visual
interface
builder
tool
(like
in
iOS)
– Automated
tesPng
across
hundreds
of
devices
• Android
tablet
apps,
especially
games

13. Q&A
thai@lightbox.com
Twi=er:
@thait
www.lightbox.com