We believe that all children should receive exposure to mobile computing in the classroom in order to enjoy the learning and economic opportunities (short and long-term) associated with use of  modern tablet technology. The devices all run on Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s latest Android operating system. Over the next weeks we will evaluate the impact of touch-based mobile computing on the school and its students.

Below you can see photos of the devices being unpacked and the school staff waiting patiently for Animoca to begin the training session. More info coming soon!

Last Friday we snapped the photograph in this post. We posted the image online and it spread virally to reach unanticipated global fame. Much was said about Animoca and about our excessive QA practices. Even more was said about Android and fragmentation. Today we would like to give you Animoca’s point of view on these issues.

A little background

After the photo generated some buzz on social networks, TechCrunch featured our image in a top-trending article titled This Is What Developing For Android Looks Like. The responses to that article ranged from enthusiastic agreement to the predictably vitriolic. Some opined that the writer, respected tech reporter Kim-Mai Cutler, was denigrating Android to exalt iOS (we disagree).

The TechCrunch article explained how Animoca chooses to perform QA of Android apps across as many devices as possible – it did not suggest you have to do the same, or even that our approach is necessarily the best. That said, keep reading to find out why this method works for us, and why Android fragmentation isn’t always a bad thing.

Do the diversity embrace

Here at Animoca we are Android fans, and not just because Android is our primary platform for game development and distribution. We like Android’s potential, and we appreciate the flexibility and freedom it offers to users and developers alike. Apple famously takes a “one size fits all” approach (and does it well), whereas Google’s platform offers a product range that proclaims reassuringly: “we have something in exactly your size”.

Android fragmentation is a bit like multicultural diversity: it may cause friction from time to time but a community that embraces it ought to be richer and more vibrant. Android users have a truly impressive choice when it comes to smartphones and tablets, and no other mainstream mobile operating system provides the extensive functionality and potential of Android at such a variety of price points. That’s why we embrace the diversity of the Android ecosystem.

What is QA, really?

To Animoca, QA means quality assurance in the most literal sense. It’s not simply compatibility testing. It’s not simply bug-finding. QA at Animoca is about making sure that as many users as possible are able to enjoy the best experience that an app can deliver on a specific device, taking into account the restrictions imposed by hardware and software variations – not to mention the requirements of different app stores (Amazon, T-Store, etc.) and numerous SDKs (AdMob, Tapjoy, etc.).

Someone using an ARM6 processor ought to enjoy our apps as much as someone on an A10 or dual core processor. While the newer, more powerful device will probably have HD graphics and other attractive features, we believe that all Animoca users – including those on low-end devices – should be offered the best possible app experience. To do otherwise hurts the consumer and, by extension, our reputation as a developer and publisher of Android games.

Animoca products must not only work in accordance with generalist compatibility tests; our products must work well. That’s why we test some apps across hundreds of devices.

The low-end is not the bad end

Some developers choose not to support low-end devices, while others explicitly support only some popular models. At Animoca, providing support across different devices whenever possible is part of our mission. In a previous post, we listed the most popular devices used to play our games; a glance through that list will reveal that half of the top 10 models turned out to be low-end devices like the Galaxy Ace or the HTC Wildfire.

Developers who focus their attention on more expensive devices like the Samsung Galaxy SII or HTC Desire are by no means wrong to do so – we use a similar strategy for certain games that require more processing power, like Ultimaze or Forest Defense. But remember that when you exclude the low-end, you also exclude millions of potential customers who own those inexpensive Android devices. It is a decision that must be weighed carefully.

Thankfully, we don’t live in a world where all smartphones cost USD 500 or more. Our opinion (and hope) is that the digital divide in many societies will be bridged by the kind of low-cost personal computing devices that are becoming abundant thanks to the rise of Android. Product diversity also means cost diversity, and that opens up interesting opportunities (we have teased this concept in a recent post; more to follow).

What if consumers only had expensive Android devices to choose from, instead of the entire range? The digital divide would become an impassable abyss. The advantages of owning a smartphone would lie beyond the reach of most consumers.

One of the mottos of Commodore founder and Atari legend Jack Tramiel (who passed away on April 8, 2012) was: “computers for the masses, not the classes”. Android’s low-end not only represents a substantial market, but it also has the potential to deliver affordable personal computing to a vast number of people on the less fortunate side of the digital divide. We like that.

It’s not Google

We can probably all agree that the annoying thing about Android fragmentation is the vast number of different versions of Android in active use. Why aren’t all devices updated to Ice Cream Sandwich, or at least a reasonably modern version of Android?

This problem has little to do with Google and much to do with the constellation of Android device manufacturers and vendors. In order to reduce Android fragmentation, manufacturers must make stronger commitments to deploy operating system updates to their devices more regularly. Providing operating system updates is increasingly essential because Android – like any operating system – is evolving all the time. Instead, today vendors apply Android updates sporadically, if at all. Fortunately, this state of affairs is set to improve substantially as Ice Cream Sandwich continues to roll out.

How global is your market?

We suspect there may be some more Morbus silicii vallis making the rounds and preventing some readers from seeing the wider picture. Animoca’s market is international. North America only represents 27.5% of our global audience (details here). QA’ing for the entire world requires us to test our apps on many more types of devices than developers who are interested in fewer markets and specific geographical zones.

We find that some of the most interesting Android markets are in Asia: South Korea and Japan are quite ahead of the rest of the world, tiny Taiwan produces a disproportionate amount of cutting-edge mobile technology, and China is the single biggest smartphone market. Mention the word “gaming” and you might think of Valley-based companies like EA and Zynga instead of the larger, more profitable and better performing Nexon or Japan’s DeNA or GREE.

Asia has the advanced technology, some of the biggest gaming companies, and the greatest number of mobile users. There’s also the fact that the majority of Android devices are of Asian origin (eg. Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony), which means Asian consumers also enjoy a broader range of products. These are, clearly, very attractive markets for app developers.

So consider South Korea: everyone knows Samsung and LG, but few know of Pantech, which is the second largest handset maker in the country (ahead of LG). It has revenues of USD 2.8 billion and is definitely not a small player. We have a few Pantech Android phones and some of them are really quite good. Deciding to exclude Pantech devices because they are not well known outside of Korea would be like refusing to test for Motorola’s Droid Razr or the Xoom: we would probably regret it later.

Some developers who focus on single or a few markets can afford to limit the QA process to the few devices identified as sufficient in their target markets; Animoca’s global strategy requires us to act more comprehensively. That’s why we do QA for our apps on a multitude of devices. We’re not being wasteful – we are attempting to cater to a variety of different markets across the world.

The tyranny of compatibility

Some posters responding to this issue offered views on compatibility targets, with a few arguing that 90% compatibility is good enough and that what Animoca is doing (QA on hundreds of devices) must be overkill.

Let’s look at some numbers. In our year and a half of existence, Animoca apps have been downloaded 70 million times and we have always striven for high compatibility (achieving well over 99% in some cases). If we had taken the approach that 90% compatibility is good enough, we’d be lacking support for 7 million of those downloads. Several millions of consumers would have had a bad experience as a result of our decision, and our app revenues would probably be short by around 10%.

Ok, you say, 95% may be a more reasonable target. Yes, but 5% of 70 million users is still 3.5 million; would you give up 3.5 million potential customers/downloads if you could avoid it?

To a certain extent it is a question of scale and distribution. Animoca invests in QA because, ultimately, it yields returns on the scale and distribution at which we operate. Some commenters suggested that we can afford to be frivolously extravagant in our QA process because we are funded by Intel Capital and IDG-Accel. However, our QA philosophy predates the funding event in question (November 2011), and our QA practices are intended to protect the investments we have received.

The Varieties of Android Experience

Higher device compatibility means a bigger audience and that translates to higher total income derived from that audience. There have been some reports that Android monetization is inferior to iOS monetization. We have disagreed in the past, and continue to disagree. At Animoca, monetization of Android apps provides yearly revenues in the double-digit millions – something that we are not alone in experiencing. We have to wonder if the low monetization some sources have reported for Android may be partially due to problems of product compatibility.

Today, developers who choose to support only a limited set of devices are automatically limiting the ecosystem in which they do business. That may be the right decision for them but we maintain that our broad approach makes sense for our company and its strategy.

So, after writing at such length, what (you may ask) is Animoca’s opinion on the Android fragmentation issue? The varieties of Android experience are best seen as a mixture of perils and opportunities; from our humble vantage point, the perils appear manageable and the opportunities extraordinary.

Around here we affectionately refer to our QA department as “bucket o’droids” and we think you can probably figure out why. These guys and gals test our apps across so many devices it would make your head spin. Cuby (of Pretty Pet Salon fame) immediately saw the opportunity for some shameless self-promotion and ordered us to set up the conference room for a photoshoot. What a professional!

No doubt you have questions, so here are our answers:

• Yes, all of those devices are found in-house at Animoca – those are just the ones that would fit on our biggest table.
• Yes, the conference room does open directly on to a gorgeous green area complete with trees and a lawn.
• Yes, we really did allude to a classic work of science fiction.

Fridays are fun.

UPDATE: catch the follow-up discussion to this post in our latest magnum opus: The Varieties of Android Experience.

Kudos to Google, here’s to you keeping on trucking!

Dozens of brand new tablet devices are stacked in our conference room while we put the finishing touches on a new and exciting pilot program we’ve been working on. The Android 4.x tablets are headed to a school where students with limited access to technology will be able to join their more privileged counterparts on the other side of the digital divide.  This is an educational pilot organized and funded by Animoca and our partner Outblaze; we’re still finalizing all the details, so stay tuned for more news coming soon!

But now a TechCrunch post by a different writer (Matt Burns) alleging the rise of an “Apple monopoly” in smartphones and tablets has left readers confused on some points, and not because of adoration in the classic Sieglerian style. The article, titled The Decline Of Android Foretells The Rise Of A Total Apple Monopoly, makes some surprising claims – among, it must be noted, some fair points. The first questionable claim is in the title itself, where an Android decline is alleged. There are a few others.

On Android:

Android is faltering at the hands of the iPhone.

On the iPhone:

There isn’t a better universal smartphone on the market. This isn’t open for discussion and the numbers prove it. Smartphones are now outselling less expensive feature phones with the iPhone as the number one seller. That states above all else that consumers overwhelmingly prefer Apple’s take on mobile phones.

On consumers:

They want a phone that works and they’re choosing the iPhone.

On the competition between iOS and Android:

Android is the only hope to stand tall against Apple and it’s currently in a sad state…. Four years after Android launched, consumers overwhelming choosing the competitor within the last three months.

And so forth. We propose an explanation, firmly tongue-in-cheek: Morbus silicii vallis. It is a (fictional) condition found among some technology professionals in the Silicon Valley area, resulting from over-preoccupation with one’s immediate sphere of activity and leading to a geographical attentional deficit. [Offered with apologies to all medical professionals and students of Latin, plus everyone in Silicon Valley]

Hey, we did emphasize that it was tongue-in-cheek. On that note, we’d like to point out that the last part of the web address of the TechCrunch article is “apple-will-one-day-rule-the-world”. It may not be an entirely serious post but it does provide fodder for discussion. Read on for the full treatment.

Android’s trajectory appears to be a rise, not a decline

We borrowed this graph from another TechCrunch article reporting on the number of daily Android activations:

By the end of February 2012 (i.e., after this graph was made) Google was activating 850,000 devices daily, which put it, quite literally, off the chart. No Android decline is in evidence, certainly when it comes to reliable indicators like phone purchases and activations.

The Samsung Android cometh

There are many factors in favour of Apple in the smartphone market. It secured first-mover advantage when it produced the first viable and popular smartphone. It does make high quality products based on simplicity, style and ease of use. And it does have more money than absolutely anyone else. But let’s not overlook the other major smartphone and tablet player: Samsung.

Recent data indicate that Samsung is the world’s top mobile phone seller, having overtaken Nokia this past quarter. On the higher end, Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones, giving it a 30.6 percent share of that market. Apple’s sales of 35.1 million iPhones gave it a 24.1 percent share in the same quarter.

Apple was the number one maker of smartphones for a time, but that is no longer the case. Although it’s true that tablets still struggle to compete against the iPad, Samsung’s lead over Apple in the smartphone market is clear.

The Korean behemoth boasted revenues of USD 41.76 billion against Apple’s 46.33 billion in the same quarter. What this suggests is not unquestionable Apple dominance but a race between Apple and Samsung, with HTC, LG, Microsoft and others lagging behind.

It’s true that Apple is more profitable and has considerably more cash, but Samsung’s treasure hoard of over 26 billion dollars is not exactly puny either. Samsung invests more in R&D, meaning it is pouring more money and effort into innovation than its competitor, and the broader smartphone and tablet product spread offered by the Korean at various price points means that Samsung’s devices appeal to a greater audience.

Samsung shipped more phones than anyone else and sold 26% more smartphones than Apple. And this is only one company out of several making Android devices – see the promising start of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, still available only in the U.S.:

The Kindle Fire, introduced to the market in November 2011, has seen rapid adoption among buyers of tablets. Within the Android tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past two months from 29.4 percent share in December 2011 to 54.4 percent share in February 2012, already establishing itself as the leading Android tablet by a wide margin. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab family followed with a market share of 15.4 percent in February, followed by the Motorola Xoom with 7.0 percent share. The Asus Transformer and Toshiba AT100 rounded out the top five with 6.3 percent and 5.7 percent market share, respectively.

Back to Samsung: it generated USD 15.73 billion in mobile sales by selling more smartphones than Apple. Apple’s mobile revenues were certainly higher, but this is a result of Apple’s greater margins and price points. Samsung offers products ranging through all market segments, from the low to the high end. And it’s doing extremely well, especially at the high end, as this Reuters video summarizes:

apple-beware-samsung-is-on-a-streak?videoId=232906094

A wider view

Living inside the buzzing hive of technology that is Silicon Valley, it can be easy to overlook the progress made elsewhere. And we recognize that – the Valley being American – there will always be a natural tendency there to consider U.S. stats first or even exclusively, as the TechCrunch article in question may have done.

According to recent Nielsen research, even if we look only at the U.S. market, Android seems to be doing well:

Overall, Android continues to lead the smartphone market in the U.S., with 48 percent of smartphone owners saying they owned an Android OS device. Nearly a third (32.1%) of smartphone users have an Apple iPhone, and Blackberry owners represented another 11.6 percent of the smartphone market.

Apple did see a boost in U.S. smartphone purchases in recent months:

Among recent acquirers who got their smartphone within the last three months, 48 percent of those surveyed in February said they chose an Android and 43 percent bought an iPhone.

Even factoring that in, however, Android still retains a commanding lead: more people buy Android phones than Apple phones; Android smartphones were the best sellers in recent months; and overall Android market share is substantially higher than Apple’s. The decline alleged by Techcrunch may be the result of focusing too closely on some specific and/or limited data.

comScore stats released this April also show that Android is doing well in the U.S. market:

According to comScore, Android U.S. market share grew 17 percent from February 2011 to February 2012, while iOS grew 5 percent in the same period. comScore data paint a picture of unequivocal Android dominance, with Google’s platform holding 50.1 percent of total smartphone market share, and Apple behind by a rather large 20 percentage points. Android’s gains in the most recent 3 months were more than double those of iOS.

The following graphic on U.S. smartphone data from Nielsen perfectly illustrates how Apple’s gains in the U.S. need not necessarily come at the expense of Android:

U.S. stats are, of course, just one part of the picture. Android’s dominance only increases when you look to other markets around the world. The TechCrunch article mentioned China and Apple’s promising future in that country. While it is true that Apple smartphones and tablets are perceived as desirable status indicators there, we should remember that Apple iOS severely lags behind Google Android in China and that Apple products are very expensive for the average Chinese. As things stand, Android is the platform likely to dominate in China, which activates more smartphones daily than any other country.

It’s not only emerging markets or developing nations that are choosing Android. Korea and Japan are technologically advanced nations years ahead of the rest of the world, where Android dominates and Apple is a weaker force than it is at home in the U.S.

Considering the positive indicators and Android’s prevalence across most of the planet, we think that the Android decline claimed in the TechCrunch article may be an artifact of data selection. It seems to have no basis in reality.

Closing words

The TechCrunch piece does make some very good points, chief of which is the problem of Android fragmentation. On Animoca’s network, we counted well over 600 different Android devices used to play our apps (you can find our research here: Android Devices on Animoca’s Network Part 1 and Part 2).

This enormous number of devices presents consumers with an excellent range of choice, but it also results in a number of problems. You can probably appreciate the difficulty of QA’ing an app for all the different devices: hardware, associated OS tweaks and proprietary integrated software. But we believe  - especially in the light of Samsung’s growing chunk of the pie – that many of these problems will be alleviated as the market consolidates and better compatibility standards are developed and enforced. And the Android user experience today is, on the whole, a good one.

It has to be said: both iOS and Android devices today are pretty amazing. Apple, Google, and various OEMs are producing some fantastic products that provide consumers with a good range of choices, but the data do indicate that Android is the dominant platform. We vigorously disagree with the TechCrunch post that claims we are in the midst of an Android decline or the establishment of an Apple monopoly.

Questions? Corrections? Complaints? Please write us at pr(at)animoca.com or leave a comment below.

First, some information about the user base to put the results into some perspective. The following chart shows how our global audience breaks down.

Asia, Europe, and North America together account for 86.2% of Animoca’s Android audience. In Asia it’s South Korea with the most users, in Europe it’s the U.K., and in North America of course it’s the U.S.A. Europe and North America have nearly identical shares of the pie, but Asia accounts for an extra 4% of the audience.

So, with that in mind, here are the most popular devices used by people who play Animoca games on Android smartphones and tablets, today and August last year.

Top 20 Android Devices used to play Animoca games

As we saw in the earlier part of this update, Samsung dominates the market. It’s a good job this isn’t a Top 10 list or it would have been rather monotonous with one company holding so many spots (today AND half a year ago).

The clear winner in this list, however, is not Samsung. While the Korean titan’s dominance is absolutely impressive, Animoca reserves our frankest admiration for Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which came out of nowhere to usurp the number 2 position formerly held by Samsung.

Also of interest is the persistence of the HTC Desire HD at number 5, the same position it had last August, showing noteworthy tenacity in the face of Samsung and Amazon’s extremely popular offerings.

LG’s models have shifted downwards: different flavours of the Optimus – the highest ranked LG device in both lists – dropped from fourth to eleventh place in the last six months. Motorola, which held 8th place last August with the Droid X model, is now absent from the top 20. Huawei, whose M860 model held 16th place previously, is likewise gone from the Top 20.

Also noteworthy is the appearance of a newcomer to the Top 20: Pantech, with its Vega Racer, holds today’s number 8 spot.

This concludes the two-part post about users on Android’s Animoca network. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to catch up on part 1 if you haven’t already.

We wanted a clearer picture, so we took a snapshot to identify the most popular brands among active users of Animoca products on the Android mobile OS. The snapshot was taken on Monday, April 2, 2012, to cover the preceding 7 days of activity.

In this post we focus on the brands that are used by Android users to play Animoca games. In part 2 we delve deeper into the data to determine which individual devices are the most popular.

With a 55.03% slice of the pie, Samsung is clearly the behemoth of Android: among people who play Animoca apps there are more Samsung users than there are users of every other brand put together. In a very distant second place, HTC is doing fairly well with 10.78%, a commanding lead of more than 5% over the next brand. That makes Samsung and HTC number one and two, respectively.

Next, LG (5.72%) and Sony (5.55%) are running an incredibly tight race that LG leads by a thin 0.17% margin. It seems too close to call, so LG and Sony are tied for third and fourth places.

It’s another close race between Motorola (3.82%) and Pantech (3.58%), where Motorola holds a slight lead of just under a quarter of a percent. It’s not a terribly significant difference in our view but we (tentatively) declare Motorola holder of the fifth place and Pantech holder of the sixth.

All other brands account for the remaining 15.52% of users playing Animoca games. Here’s the above information in a list:

Samsung       55.03%

HTC                10.78%

LG                    5.72%

Sony                5.55%

Motorola         3.82%

Pantech          3.58%

Other             15.52%

Please continue to part 2 of this post, which lists the most popular Android devices used to play Animoca products.

According to Nielsen’s Mobile Media Report (form entry required), 63% of users discover apps by browsing the Apple iOS and Google Android app stores. The stores’ top charts provide the lion’s share of overall app discovery.

Once an app climbs to the first page of one of the top charts its download rate accelerates substantially; at Animoca the download rate for an app triples after it reaches the first page of Top Free lists (i.e., the top 25 ranked apps). Being in the first page of the rankings lists is therefore paramount and apps are marketed aggressively to achieve this target.

Animoca believes there is a simple way in which the top charts can be improved to benefit everyone in the app economy: provide an option to hide from rankings lists those apps already installed by the user.

Example: a regular iPhone user views one of the various Free top charts. 25 results are shown on the first page of the list, but our user already has 6 of the 25 apps shown. If those 6 apps were hidden, allowing apps lower down to be displayed, our user would see an additional 6 relevant apps on the same page of the same list; that’s 24% more.

Furthermore, improved exposure for these apps means that they – and also the apps ranked below them – now have a better chance to reach a position on the first page of the Top Chart and thus be discovered by more users.

This effect can be even more dramatic if we focus above the fold. Although the iPhone displays 25 results on the first page of a top chart, only ranks 1-5 are immediately visible, or above the fold. Some regular users may find that 2 or 3 out of 5 of the apps above the fold are products they have already installed. That’s a loss of 40 to 60% of the best screen real estate!

This is just an example to illustrate the point, and the actual number of apps shown and screen space lost to redundant apps will vary considerably by user, device and platform.

Both the Google and Apple store systems can tell which apps are installed on a specific user account/device, so it should be possible to personalize the rankings lists by hiding the redundant apps. The rankings lists would in effect show  the top lists of apps that are not installed on this user’s device.

The option to hide installed apps from top charts can provide exposure for a greater number of apps. Platform providers and publishers will benefit from the download of more apps and associated revenue, while users will enjoy a better user experience.

In terms of implementation specifics, we suggest the addition of a simple toggle to the current iOS and Android interfaces for the rankings lists – perhaps a small button to “hide/show installed apps” on the top charts or possibly an option in the settings menu.