(Archived) Android - the Red-Headed Stepchild?

[fumisme 3]

Why does it seem that everything comes to iOS first? Hello? Food? Peek? Moleskine notebook? Penultimate? Why is that??

[jefito 5,589]

Yeah, yeah. It's what the iOS folks, and Mac folks, and Windows all folks say, at one time or another.

[mickeyjuice 7]

Why does it seem that everything comes to iOS first? Hello? Food? Peek? Moleskine notebook? Penultimate? Why is that??

At one time, in the distant past, iOS was the biggest-selling OS. It's not even close to the case these days, but some developers haven't got the memo.

[heather 604]

Actually, (and we've said this in the past, but I can't find the link right now) we generally release things on iOS first because the design -> Apple Approval time can be longer. Once an Android version is out for a client, we can send out updates pretty much instantaneously as there's no barriers there.

So, in order to keep the features *somewhat* in sync, we need to stagger the roadmaps accordingly.

We love all the OS's here.

[fumisme 3]

Actually, (and we've said this in the past, but I can't find the link right now) we generally release things on iOS first because the design -> Apple Approval time can be longer. Once an Android version is out for a client, we can send out updates pretty much instantaneously as there's no barriers there.

So, in order to keep the features *somewhat* in sync, we need to stagger the roadmaps accordingly.

We love all the OS's here.

If I understand you correctly and the Android approval stream is faster, why not release them first? I would think it would be the iOS which took longer to release.

[heather 604]

As I said, precisely *because* it takes longer for iOS builds to be approved, the initial release of an Android client tends to be later.

Once we release the Android client, the updates for Android will come faster than the updates to iOS, therefore it's generally prudent to stagger the initial Android release so that the two versions can stay somewhat in sync. Otherwise we'd have *vastly* different featuresets, instead of minor differences.

[dlu 628]

Why does it seem that everything comes to iOS first? Hello? Food? Peek? Moleskine notebook? Penultimate? Why is that??

So let's remember that Skitch released on Android first. Peek utilized the smart cover of the iPad, Android doesn't have an equivalent smart cover. Penultimate was originally an iPad app, so we as Evernote couldn't have launched it on Android first.

Meanwhile the core Android app has a fancy speech-to-text feature and several improvements to the widget. (Oh look, iOS doesn't have a widget at all!). The Android team has also dutifully kept up with each version of Android to take advantage of improvements on the design paradigms, while the iOS app has gotten some, but not as much design revamping.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

And, according to one post, the CEO said he is happiest with the Android app and that the iOS app sucks ( http://techland.time.com/2012/08/24/think-evernotes-interface-could-be-better-so-does-evernote/ ). Those warm fuzzies for Android are not what you typically say about a product / OS you don't care about.