That sounds awesome to me, but if they were going to do that the cost of submitting an Android app (or the % take by Google on sale) would have to sky rocket to make it worth it. As someone who rejoices in small developers, I would hate to see that.
I think it's ok to do automated review for round 1, but I would like to see a human field appeals. Over time I would also think that will help find edge cases and cracks in the automation so that it can be further improved.
Edit: Based on other comments here, it sounds like that may be what Google is starting to do
This is actually an extremely interesting technical problem though, isn't it? Given all the computational power Google has, I'm sure they could dedicate one emulator per new submission, and run continuous checks on the app without ever resorting to manually reviewing the apps the way that Apple does. My guess is that the Android team is the most overworked team inside Google, and they're struggling to keep up with their own growth, so they've had to deprioritize some things like the market, and focus on simply getting Honeycomb out of the door. By my theory, the Market should see some real improvements in the coming months. We'll see, I guess.
IMO, the issue is not the tablets themselves but the apps.
The thing Google should focus on, is promoting good apps, they're are currently doing some promoting (e.g. staff picks, top developer), but a developer's choice when it comes to this type of promoting is limited to hope. What they need is something like the Apple's approval system, but not to the extreme of "the app is either approved or denied". The developer can pay a fee to get his app reviewed (UX, performance, ...etc) and when "approved", it gets a symbol (check mark, star, whatever) and put on a category of "promoted" apps. This will probably encourage more developers to put more effort, and more users to trust more the quality of promoted apps.
yes but at what cost? , wouldn't it be better that google will have some sort of approval process like in the apple store. at least there you know where you stand.
This is very smart on Google's part. What Android seems to lack is polished apps (at least on the scale of the iPhone), and wooing specific developers could go a long way to remedying that.
At this point, I'd be surprised if Google resubmitted it. The reason being that I feel that the deep integration with Google Voice that Android phones can offer is a fairly good selling point when one hesitates between Android and iOS. (when it was initially submitted, Android phones were much less popular)
That being said, if the unofficial apps get popular, it might then be in Google's interest to offer their own to control the offers and make sure their service is appealing to even iPhone owners.
A good first step for Google would be to list web apps in the Android Market. I don't expect them to drop everything and focus on web apps but they could at least level the playing field. This should probably also include some way to offer paid web apps. No clue how that would work but it's going to be an issue that has to get resolved.
A single source of vetted apps is fine but Google has already demonstrated that allowing expert users to use alternative app sources doesn't hurt. And I don't see how anybody can argue that required a full review cycle for every minor bug fixes benefits users. I see more and more mobile shops iterating on Android first because there are just fewer hassles.
Also, Apple's refusal to allow developers to do lower-level things like create alternative keyboards means Android users get to use modern input technologies like SwiftKey while iOS users are still pecking away at a 2007 keyboard.
Well, for starters, they could allow developers to either get paid through channels other than Google Checkout or push Google Checkout merchant accounts to more countries. I was pretty enthusiastic about writing apps for Android until I realized that it was impossible for me to get paid for it.
I am surprised this is even allowed by Google and Apple. Tiktok also has something similar called Jump. I thought there is no chance to get an App approved that is basically an alternative web app store. I feel like this could be even more dangerous to Googles business model, than current AI. Imagine someone builds a search engine that has apps integrated like google flight or a calculator. But basically for every query a different app.
AFAIK, there's no comparable service for Android apps. And in the field you don't get competition from the mother ship, like with Apple and Genius, since Google does not seem that interested in controlling the Android market.
I'd much rather see Google invest their time in an Android version of something like the Accelerate API from iOS. It would be a lot more generally useful.
Another interesting thing this could do is get some momentum behind alternative app stores on Android. They exist but they're not popular. But suppose some of the big names who are tired of Google's fees go together, choose one and put all their apps there instead. That could be enough to get people to start using it. At which point, if it was charging e.g. 5% instead of 30%, many other apps would move there too.
It could be the best thing to happen in this space for a while.
I think it's ok to do automated review for round 1, but I would like to see a human field appeals. Over time I would also think that will help find edge cases and cracks in the automation so that it can be further improved.
Edit: Based on other comments here, it sounds like that may be what Google is starting to do
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