Understanding the Android Platform and How it Differs from Apple

This article provides information about Android apps enabled by Toura. Thanks to our unique platform, all of the work you complete to create a iPhone application in the system will go towards building an Android version as well. There are a few key differences between the iPhone and Android platform to consider:

1. The Android Marketplace:

• The Android Marketplace is far less strict and formal about hosting applications compared to the iTunes App Store.
• There is no formal review process for Android applications submitted to the store. This means that applications we submit to the Android Marketplace will be available for sale almost immediately after we submit them to the Marketplace.
• Android paid apps are also priced in U.S. dollars globally. So users are charged USD around the world regardless of their local currency. Apple on the other hand has a variety of local market currencies globally which they use for app payments.
• The store submission requirements also differ from what Apple requires for submitting an application:
• App name. Unlike Apple which allows app names to be as long as a user could want, the Android Marketplace only allows app names to be 30 characters or less. Therefore if your desired app name is longer than 30 characters, we will require you to submit a shortened version for Android submission.
• 325 character app description. This is a much smaller amount of text allowed for describing your application compared to Apple's 4,000 character limit. Subsequently we require that all clients submit to us a separate description to use with their application in the Android Marketplace.
• A 180w x 120h , 24 bit PNG or JPEG is requested by Android in the event they promote your application in the Android Marketplace, along with a 1024w x 500h, 24 bit PNG or JPEG "feature graphic". This is just a larger image which you can design for promotional purposes of your app.

• Finally clients also have the option of creating a promotional video for their application which can be uploaded to youtube, and then linked to their app landing page in the Android Market to display. These videos can be highly informative and engaging to perspective app buyers, and we hope you will take advantage of this opportunity. To view examples of great promotional videos made for apps, please visit the links below:

  • Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/ipad/index.html

  • FLUD http://vimeo.com/13874585

  • Martha Stewart http://www.marthastewart.com/msl-ipad-video

2. No Web-facing store:

• The Android Marketplace does not have a web facing version like the iTunes store. This makes the process of directing users to a location online where they can purchase your application slightly more difficult. Basically, only users who view the specific link tp the Android store on their Android device browser will be able to view the application in the store. They cannot simply open up any web browser on their computer to see the application in the store.

• As a partial solution, we create "application landing pages" for each of the apps you launch. These pages provide links that can direct users to the iPhone, iPad, and Android versions of your applications should you publish to each platform. In the case of Android though, users will still have to few this page and click the Android Marketplace on their device's mobile browser in order to be taken to the Android Marketplace to purchase your app.

• These pages also have a QR barcode on them (which we create) that Android users can use to scan on their mobile device in order to purchase the application in the Android Marketplace. To learn more about how these codes work for finding Android Applications read the link below.

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-product-search-for-...

3. How Android apps enabled by Toura differ from iPhone apps:

• The Android platform dictates that no application can be larger than 25 MB in size. This is just a fraction of Apple's size limitation of 1GB. In order to make sure applications created for the iPhone work on the Android platform, we will submit your application to the Android Marketplace with every type of media asset set to streaming. This includes pictures/photos, audio files, and videos. However, once users download the application to their device and open the application, they will be prompted with two options.
  • The first will be to download all images in the application directly to their SD memory card.
  • The second will be to download all of the video / audio files to the device. (If they don't choose option number 2 as well, these assets will simply stream.
• Image galleries also behave slightly differently compared to the iPhone. These differences are related to how each operating system performs. In the Android application, users must press and hold down on an image in order to launch a separate window which they can then use to pinch and zoom into a particular photo.
• Galleries also display and behave in a slightly different manner. Instead of showing rows of thumbnails, galleries show a main image with a list of thumbnails above the image showing other photos in the gallery. To view the next photo in the gallery, users must click on the thumbnail above. They cannot simply swipe to the left or right to view the next image as they would on the iPhone.