Are there any future plans to release an Android version of the Skritter iOS app? I realise that you can use website through the browser, but even on my Samsung GS II, which is a pretty speedy phone, Skritter is so slow on it so as to be almost unusable.

I love Android devices, but the prospect of Skrittering on the go is tempting me to get an iPhone!

There's been plenty of discussion about this in other threads. Right now, the guys say there aren't any plans in the near future... partly because of all the different versions of Android that are out there.

My thinking is that once the iOS app is up and running and going smoothly and they're focusing more on the website again, then they'll work on HTML5 and other ways to make it run smoother all around, which should help on the Android side.

Pretty sure the response is "Maybe much later". Android would be a major project and they've stated that continuing iOS improvements along with website maintenance will take most development time for the foreseeable future.

Ah, I see! Thanks guys!

It's too bad as the Android Market would be the single best advertising platform. Direct marking to the largest market out there, plus users are typically more studious than their Apple counterparts I would bet. Well, at least the more studious tend to use it more. (I'm sure a lot of you will disagree)

@dfoxworthy Let's try not to pollute an otherwise informative thread with baseless conjecture.

It is simply not interesting right now from a developer perspective. Android 4 was meant to put an end to the fragmentation in the Android market, but still only has a 7.1% market share. At its current rate, its market share will not reach 20% until Q1 2013 at the very earliest. There are already some signs of slowdown, however, and Asus and other Android tablet manufacturers' plans to release Intel-based hybrid Windows 8 tablets/notebooks later this year will not help Android keep its momentum. At the same time, Apple's market share is actually slightly increasing (up 1.2% to 31.7% in the U.S. last month).

At least half of Skritter users already have an iPod, iPhone or iPad and that number will inevitably increase with the release of the iOS app. The Skritter team will have little incentive to create an Android app when it is expected that the bulk of its users will be using an iOS device for the reportedly much improved Skritter experience. Only when Android 4 will gain significant market share an Android port will become something to consider.

And by the time 4.0 gets decent market share 5 will be out along with windows phone 8, windows 8 , windows rt(windows 8 for arm tablets) and ios 6.0.

For windows 8, now microsoft has allowed flash , existing skritter will work via desktop mode.
But only on windows 8, not windows rt as no flash.

But windows rt is only going to be a small percentage of users.

though with the tools from microsoft they might be able to make a windows 8 metro app for, win 8 ,win rt and windows phone from the skritter ios code base (it helps convert api calls).

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2011/04/29/leveraging-your-iphone-development-expertise-to-build-windows-phone-7-applications.aspx


Personally my opinion is they should add an offline mode for the web version which would work for all the android and windows versions.
Just the ability to study existing lists but offline.

@icebear I appreciate your insults.

Perhaps you jumped to conclusions by what I meant. What I was getting at was the well known fact 'nerdy, people tend to be more drawn to the open source Android OS. Where as fashion-types are more drawn to closed and streamlined Apple brands. Of course on an individual basis this of course is not the case, the issue would only hold for mass population and trends across those. That is a pretty well established assumption among Fandroids and Apple Fanboys in the blogosphere. I'm sorry if general trends and the assumptions that go with them offend you. Cheers!

@dfoxworthy "That is a pretty well established *assumption* among Fandroids and Apple Fanboys *in the blogosphere*." - Which is exactly what I was saying; it's all just baseless conjecture based college lit 101 arguments from the blowhards in both camps.

What is a fact, supported by data at least for the moment, is that Android users are unwilling to pay as much or as frequently for high quality apps.

I'd think a simple online only app for android would be sufficient. Clearly there are a lot of sensitive Apple users on here who would disagree, but I still think from a business stand-point, having an actual app on the app store with the most users would make sense. I would think an app that just locks the screen in place over the writing tab wouldn't be that hard to program. Personally I feel lucky I ever heard of Skritter, I saw it by chance through Google Buzz, and I have yet to meet a fellow student of Chinese who has heard of it. I'm thinking of it more from a marketing standpoint.

I'd agree that ICS has slow adoption, but that is the nature of Android. Samsung, which is out selling Apple now, released the Note and Galaxy SII which were the best sellers, both of these didn't run on ICS. I only update my SII last month to ICS. While shopping for tablets 2 weeks ago, I only saw one tablet that has ICS yet. Sales for Android hasn't slowed down though. So even though ICS adoption has been lower, Android has increased market share overall. Granted, so has Apple.

Icebear did make one good point though, that is that Apple users tend to splash out more on apps. That's why a lot of apps are more marketing focused on Android.

"on the app store with the most users" (dfoxworthy)
Skritter polled their users before creating the iOs app, and established that the app store with the most *Skritter* users is in fact the Apple one. I think 范博涵 explained why it's not a worthwhile expenditure for Skritter to develop an Android app.

They seem to know what they're doing! Give them credit for the great job they've been doing!

But it seems that this discussion keeps happening, despite Skritter having made their stance on it clear. Why can't we all just give them peace so they can get back to the web version as soon as possible? Surely that would benefit them and their whole user base more than anything else?!

@dfoxworthy - "Icebear did make one good point though, that is that Apple users tend to splash out more on apps. That's why a lot of apps are more marketing focused on Android."

Spending thousands of hours on an Android app strictly for marketing purposes seems inefficient. Spending less time on a half-baked Android app seems like bad marketing.

The fact is the large user base of Android is irrelevant. What matters is the number of users interested in learning or already studying Chinese who also need to study handwriting and most importantly are also in the market for a $10 per month subscription service to do so. Considering that a huge portion of the Android market is a lower end consumer - i.e. those that opted for cheaper smart phones - it isn't obvious to me why one would expect that market to be more important than the iOS one. Android's unending dominance isn't so obvious either.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/02/winning-in-neither-name-nor-spirit/

Anyway, you can argue about it till you are blue in the face. Skritter has stated pretty clearly they'll be working on the iOS apps for some time to come along with much needed online maintenance/upgrades.