Android wish list
After one month with the MyTouch and Android there are a few things I see as road blocks to being a real competitor to the iphone. Some of these things are definitely being addressed in the upcoming 1.6 and 2.0 os updates.
First off is the market store. It’s strictly bare bones. The search and category breakdown is not developed enough. For instance when you search, you can’t search subcategories. Your search is run across all applications, leading to many false positives. Product pages for apps don’t have screen shots etc. This will change shortly with the 1.6 donut release.
Next on my list is multi-touch. It’s scheduled to be part of the 2.0 release which may or may not be here before Christmas. To really be a worthy competitor to the iphone this is a must have. It’s overdue.
On to a few not so obvious or talked about gripes. There’s no desktop equivalent to itunes. I think an itunes equivalent was a major oversite on behalf of google. Itunes makes managing your media on your phone and desktop simple. This would be even more evident if you purchase music on your device through itunes. After purchasing music there is no automatic synch up from your amazon purchases to an itunes equivalent, becaue it doesnt exist. When I used itunes I tended to purchase through itunes on my desktop and synch to my ipod.I think others largely do the same. Lets say to be fair that 50% of people would be more inclined to purchase through their desktop app. Google could potentially open up sales of mp3′s and apps by 50 %. Ok maybe I’m off and its 25%. Thats still 25% of a growing market.
Ah yes theres more. The performance is sluggish at times. This could be related to a host of issues. Most likely some kernel tuning will be done in future android releases. How about google set up a paid service where they test and certify applications and mark them as google tested and verified. It would add a level of quality control that users would be able to discern.
A real media player. The media player kind of stinks. It doesn’t pickup album covers 95% of the time, and there is no way to add them after the fact. How about a genius playlist feature similar to itunes? Nada. Its pretty primitive.
Of the things I listed the following are definitely being addressed, multi touch, the app store and performance . The media features seem to be a bit of an after thought with android. By focusing on the app store, media features and performance google and partners stand to pick up business from disgruntled iphone users.
