True; however the point is various organizations that rely on SL for delivery have successful ported said delivery to Android; most notably Netflix. In their case it was a matter of ensuring DRM rules were in place which earlier versions of Android were somewhat lacking. However, they had it done (in fact users had it done before them). There is nothing stopping MLS from the same approach. Furthermore they have had over a year to do so since netflix proved it was possible. The decision to use HTTP streaming is their decision not some limitation of Android, or any other OS for that matter. I am not sure how much effort it would take considering it was done by users in the past for several video sources on several different OS platforms (won't get into Moonlight here). I find the cost benefit given that to be a bit off especially considering more android users than iOS (US based) now.
The only logical conclusion is that it cost more to develop a large scale app for android. If you develop an app for apple, you have to worry about 6, maybe 7 devices, all running the same OS with similar hardware ("A" processors) With Android, you have hundreds of phones/tablets running different versions of the OS. You have 3 or 4 different companies (Nvidia, TI, Qualcomm) designing the SoCs. You have half a dozen companies designing the hardware around those SoCs.
Except that Netflix is a company whose major business is streaming media, that employs a large number of in-house streaming media programmers, and that can make a strong business case for spending significant resources getting their streaming app--their primary revenue source--up and running on as many devices as humanly possible. Which is why Netflix has spent most of the last year patching its app to run on all of the various Android devices. Bottom line is, any kind of technically sophisticated coding on Android is a pain in the ass. I hope they get there eventually, but saying "Netflix can do it, they should too" is too simplistic.
Oh I hear the cost benefit of developing on iOS versus Android. However, having been involved in android development, I find it hard to believe the cost of android development would not be recovered given the number of droid users. As for the varying SoC - netflix has no need to specify a SoC (this is the way users were able to play it on unapproved devices) even with their DRM restrictions. So I don't see this as a barrier to the app or its cost.
Oh I don't mean to imply MLS has the resources that netflix has on hand. I want to point out it is not necessarily a technical limitation but a decision based on the current technology. It is a valid decision by MLS, I am just disappointing and surprised they could not justify the build-out after a year of an iPhone app.
I seem to recall that only a minority of Android handsets were able to run Netflix when it came out. I have no idea how much this has improved since then. A comparison between Netflix and MLS isn't exactly apples-to-apples, however. Netflix' entire business model these days revolves around video streaming -- they didn't dare not make an Android client. I doubt MLS makes much (if any) money from customers who want MDL only to stream it to a phone. So in MLS' case, an Android client is an expense they probably want to avoid until they can do it cheaply and easily. This is one of those curious statistics that doesn't mean as much as it seems. First off, the Android numbers include a lot of inexpensive, low-powered devices unsuitable for video streams. The Android eco-sphere is highly fragmented, with a large percentage of the devices in use running older versions of the OS and unlikely ever to be updated. And finally, it just doesn't look like the average Android owner uses his phone all that much. Despite Android's clear lead over iOS in market share, iOS blows Android away in usage statistics, including web sites visited and apps downloaded. It could be that MLS looked at the percentage of hits to their website coming from mobile devices. If their stats match the average, they'd find iOS devices visiting twice as often as Android. Given that, an Android client would be low on their priority list. I'm not saying that MLS shouldn't have an Android client, I'm just saying I understand why they don't, yet. They will eventually. ------RM
The sad thing about developing for Android is that, if you want a decent-sized audience for your app, you have to code for the lowest common denominator. The most current version of Android is where developers would like to be, but only a small number of higher-priced phones get it quickly, and most existing phones will never be upgraded (it's a lot of work for the carriers, who would rather sell you a new phone). By the time the current version reaches critical mass, it won't be current any more. Google's tried to convince its partners of the importance of implementing new versions of Android quickly and upgrading existing handsets, but apparently they're not having much luck. ------RM
Mobile Traffic, Q4 2011: iPhone: 31% iPad: 10% Android: 46% http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2012/01/26/android-ios-on-par-in-driving-web-site-traffic-walker-sands
It wasn't based on hardware or software limitations but rather Netflix implementation of DRM in the software (or rather use of DRM). That is why as soon as the app was released for one device, people could crack it to run for most any modern device. Agreed and I addressed that above. However, I will point out that MLS has the stated goal of piggybacking on digital distribution as a primary avenue for growth. You cannot ignore the Android platform to accomplish that goal. Actually incorrect as someone pointed out above this post. On average Android users have higher internet traffic than iOS users. As for fragmentation, it doesn't really matter as less than 5% are on the original version. Over 51% are on the latest version and subsequent patch. Essentially this mean 100% of android tablet users and over 50% of android phone users can run an app designed similar to the Netflix one. The rest of the android universe is on version 2.1 (2.2 and 2.3 are the latest for phones ICS aside). I hope this is not the stat they used!!!!! Android users don't hit their application or their website because it doesn't work well (which is the point). It is not optimized for android tablets, does not move between potrait and landscape, and has no streaming video. If they used that metric they would never develop one.
Well, that's interesting. And different from every study I've seen so far... Still, it's out-of-whack with the Android device market share statistics, which show a much larger lead over iOS than just 41-46%. ------RM
The market share is only a 5% lead for Android in the US. http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/06/npd-iphones-recover-market-share-in-q4-2011-but-android-draws/ So the 15% variance in web traffic would lead to an average usage for android users greater than iOS users.
BTW, I was basing my statement on Android web usage on the most recent survey by NetApplications, a company that analyzes web traffic for clients who own sites. In November 2011, these were their statistics, based on approximately 160 million monthly visitors to their clients' sites: iOS -- 63.16% Android -- 31.72% So something's weird with at least one of these surveys. Curious: Where's the iPod touch in all of this? Was that included in the "iPhone" category? Well, yeah -- Apple had a killer quarter. But what's the installed base? ------RM
Yeah, the numbers are wrong or their methods are flawed. There wouldn't be THAT big a difference in only a few months. The one thing I can think of is that those number might be linked to cellular network "data." In other words, traffic that came from mobile phone networks rather than home/public/work wifi networks. I think I've read somewhere that iPhone users use more cellular data than android users. A lot of those older at&t $30/month unlimited plans are still floating around Yes
actually all the surveys are screwed up. sorta like Nielsen. Point is, there is a large enough consumer base of Android users.
Most phone surveys don't include either iPads or iPod Touch devices, since there isn't a mobile phone plan associated with them. There are probably more WiFi-only iOS devices out there than iPhones--the numbers are hard to measure but just based on sales units including these probably at least doubles the Apple installed base.
I guess it's OK if a BS poster has that attitude. But every year, the first weekend of the season is a technical cluster of epic proportions. It generally takes two or three weeks for the service to take care of all the bugs. In addition, the cost and other information is often a last minute thing too. Even people who signed up last year seldom are able to sign up again for the next year until right before the first game. Sometimes I wonder if MLS really wants MDL to be available.
Can't be worse than last year. Where three weeks before the season they launched a low earlybird price, whilst Canada still wasn't allowed to sign up. So Canadian's had a choice of paying the lower price and praying it become available or wait until it became available and pay full price. I also am very eager to find out what devices will be supported in Canada. My understanding is that Roku was supported in the USA, but not in Canada.
I've subscribed to MDL the past few seasons. I don't expect any news regarding MDL until a few days before the season with bugs being ironed out a few weeks into the season. I'm just hoping they continue to have discounts for signing up early. Likewise, DirectKick will probably take a few weeks into the season to pop up on program guides.
Broadcasting MLS: Interview with the Revolution's Brad Feldman Interesting bit here on how MatchDay Live and Direct Kick selects which team's broadcast to use.
Me neither. All of the games have always been available except those that are national broadcasts (ESPN or Telefutura) or the Rapids since I live in CO. Back when I lived in Oklahoma all of the games except national broadcasts were available since we had no local team. MDL has improved every season IMHO. Hopefully with more devices it this season will be even better.
Did anybody who had choppy video on a PC last year ever get it fixed? I've been trying a number of things the last few weeks--powerline ethernet rather than wireless connection to the router, tweaking settings of my video card, Windows Media, and network adapter--but it's still not good. Maybe a little better & more watchable, but nowhere near as smooth as broadcast video. I can stream at least 720p over my network with no problems (haven't tried 1080), so it's either my internet connection or Silverlight. Because Flash-based streaming like ESPN3 play smoothy, I'm guessing Silverlight. I've upgraded to Silverlight 5, with no noticeable effect. I'm running out of things to try, short of swapping out my Comcast cable modem for a newer one that has a gigabit port.