> Customers have responded with second-class compensation (favoring advertising).
This is more the result of Android being the budget option.
You make it sound as though developers have some grand scheme against Android. Devs do prioritize iOS, but if you want it to change you (and Google) should understand the reasons for it. ARKit vs ARCore is a great example.
Tango launched on a single phone that no one bought, it required specialized hardware, and it had serious performance issues. Google forged ahead with the hardware requirements for years, in which the market for Tango apps was zero. They gave it limited support and it was clearly not a priority. It was only after Apple launched ARKit all at once for every modern iDevice, in a big presentation to make it clear this would be a major iOS going forward, that Google killed off Tango and screwed over all the devs who had bought in (with a tweet, for the extra insult to injury). They launched ARCore instead, which still didn't run on the majority of Android phones and still didn't track as well as ARKit.
ARCore isn't the only time Google has behaved this way, it happens with nearly all of their efforts. Do you see why developers don't engage with these kinds of practices?
>You make it sound as though developers have some grand scheme against Android.
No, it's simply the same sort of tribalism that drives so much of American culture. The black-and-white, good-vs-evil format warring is nothing new; as always, it's driven by a kernel of legitimate difference and a whole lot of snowballing bias. What needs to happen is for developers to pull their heads out of their asses, realize just how enormous the Android market is, and supply experiences that justify paying for software (especially in a climate where most users don't see anywhere near the value they give in personal data returned in software utility).
>Tango launched on a single phone that no one bought
That doesn't matter. Tango was the cutting edge of mobile XR, which is a space that still won't be mature and profitable for years from now. The point would have been to get a jumpstart on developing port-able technologies and UX norms. Can you imagine how much more solid app development would have been if someone had showed up in 2003 and said, "In 10 years, multi-touch display smartphones will become the norm. Here's a dev kit that approximates what will be possible."? That's Tango. I don't know how you can argue that opportunities weren't missed or pushed back years because of this platform bias. Now the space is even contracting somewhat because Apple marketed ARKit (and forced Google to market ARCore) as a consumer-ready platform, and companies are realizing that it isn't (control isn't figured out, UX isn't figured out, applications aren't figured out; we're JUST getting the basic technology layer above ARKit/Core figured out). If we'd taken Tango seriously, we'd be so much farther ahead.
This goes for so much in the iOS/Android dynamic. It's dumb.
This is more the result of Android being the budget option.
You make it sound as though developers have some grand scheme against Android. Devs do prioritize iOS, but if you want it to change you (and Google) should understand the reasons for it. ARKit vs ARCore is a great example.
Tango launched on a single phone that no one bought, it required specialized hardware, and it had serious performance issues. Google forged ahead with the hardware requirements for years, in which the market for Tango apps was zero. They gave it limited support and it was clearly not a priority. It was only after Apple launched ARKit all at once for every modern iDevice, in a big presentation to make it clear this would be a major iOS going forward, that Google killed off Tango and screwed over all the devs who had bought in (with a tweet, for the extra insult to injury). They launched ARCore instead, which still didn't run on the majority of Android phones and still didn't track as well as ARKit.
ARCore isn't the only time Google has behaved this way, it happens with nearly all of their efforts. Do you see why developers don't engage with these kinds of practices?