????根據市場研究公司Comscore最近的一份調查顯示，美國大概有50%的智能手機用戶使用安卓設備,。消費者熱愛安卓,，但軟件開發(fā)者又是另外一回事了,。

????當然這只是相對而言。實際上開發(fā)者們?yōu)榘沧繕嫿ǖ膽靡膊簧倭?，谷歌的Google Play數字內容商店里現(xiàn)在已有45萬個應用可供下載。相比之下,，蘋果的iOS系統(tǒng)雖然只占了30%的消費市場份額,，但在應用數量上卻略勝一籌。蘋果的應用商店現(xiàn)在已有超過58.5萬個應用，有些軟件制造商也承認他們更喜歡蘋果的平臺，因為蘋果的系統(tǒng)更容易上手,，所以他們選擇只給蘋果家族的幾款設備做軟件。

????因此谷歌現(xiàn)在正在努力向開發(fā)者們示好,。三年前,，谷歌讓原本負責廣告源代碼開發(fā)的比利?拉特里奇領導一個由三名成員組成的開發(fā)者關系團隊?，F(xiàn)在這個小組已經擁有28名員工,，而且人數還在增長,。拉特里奇的工作有點像管理一個企業(yè)孵化器,。他的團隊會向開發(fā)者們提供關于如何構建安卓應用的建議,，還會與他們會面就業(yè)務模式進行討論,。有時候，如果有的開發(fā)者雖然擁有一個好點子,，但是沒有安卓平臺的經驗和技術,，拉特里奇的團隊還會把他們請到加州山景城的谷歌總部來共同研討,。

????像行業(yè)會議這樣的活動歷來是招徠開發(fā)者最好的地方,。在這些會議上,，谷歌以及它的競爭對手們可以進行演說,、與行業(yè)中的許多精英人士見面。拉特里奇說,，谷歌去年參加了75個這樣的活動。雖然拉特里奇的團隊被部署在世界各地,，但要想接觸到那些地理位置偏遠的開發(fā)者們還是很難,。因此他的團隊2012年的優(yōu)先要務就是在網上與開發(fā)者們建立互動，以便不受地理位置的限制,。目前谷歌每個季度會推出11堂網絡訓練課程,，拉特里奇的團隊打算今年把這個數字提高到50堂,。另外他們也打算通過Google+的Hangout群組視頻功能來安排更多的虛擬辦公時間與開發(fā)者進行交流,。

????隨著安卓全球份額的增長，各種各樣安卓設備的出現(xiàn)也讓開發(fā)者們感到頭痛：現(xiàn)在全球已經有1000多種使用安卓操作系統(tǒng)的設備，也就是說,，開發(fā)者們在設計軟件的時候必須考慮到與多種屏幕尺寸的契合問題,。一想到要契合各種各樣的屏幕排列方式，那些規(guī)模和實力較小的開發(fā)者不免會望而卻步,。一家名叫CRVN Interactive的小開發(fā)公司表示，它的客戶經常會要求他們的產品既要能出現(xiàn)在iOS平臺上,，也要能出現(xiàn)在安卓上,。但是一聽說開發(fā)安卓應用要多花費10%到30%的時間,，許多客戶就打消了開發(fā)安卓應用的念頭,，因為更長的時間意味著更高的價格,。高出的成本主要花在針對大量的安卓設備進行編碼和測試上,。就連Yammer和Evernote這樣的大型開發(fā)公司也表示，針對大量安卓設備進行的編碼和調試是個不小的負擔,。而蘋果只有iPhone和iPad這兩款設備，因而不存在這種問題,。拉特里奇表示,，谷歌現(xiàn)在正在效仿電影網站Netflix的測試模式，把五花八門的安卓設備劃分成十個左右的大類,，然后只對每組中的一個代表進行測試,。這樣開發(fā)者就可以為整個廣域安卓生態(tài)系統(tǒng)構建具有兼容性的應用,，而不必老是購買各種測試樣機,。

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????Consumers love Google's Android operating system: Some 50% of U.S. smartphone subscribers now use a device that runs on the Android platform, according to a recent Comscore survey. But software developers? Not so much.

????Make no mistake, developers are building plenty of applications for Android; 450,000 apps are available on Google Play, the company's digital content store. But Apple's (AAPL) iOS operating system, with 30% of consumer market share, has the upper hand in apps. The App Store boasts over 585,000 titles, and some software makers confess they prefer Apple's platform because it is easier to use—and they need to make their wares work for only Apple's small family of devices.

????So Google (GOOG) is working hard to romance the developer world. Three years ago the company tapped Billy Rutledge, a developer first hired to work with the search engine's advertising source code, to lead a three-person developer-relations team. Today that group has 28 employees, and it is growing. Part of Rutledge's job is a bit like running a business incubator: His team offers developers advice on how to build apps and meets with them to discuss business models. In rare cases the team will even court developers that have a big idea but no Android expertise, bringing them to the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., for workshops.

????The staple of keeping developers happy has traditionally been live events such as industry conferences. There, Google and its competitors can give presentations and office hours with a high concentration of members of the industry. Rutledge says Android attended 75 such events last year. Even with his team deployed around the world, Rutledge notes that it's an ongoing challenge to reach developers closer to, say, Siberia than they are to Mountain View. That's led his team to set online interactions unbound by geography as a top priority for 2012. The team plans to roll out fifty online training courses per quarter compared to its current eleven; it's also scheduling more virtual office hours using the Google+ Hangout group video capability.

????Just as its market is increasingly global, Android's broad reach across devices causes one of its pain points with developers: More than 1,000 devices worldwide use the Android operating system, which means software needs to take into account multiple screen sizes and the like. Trying to accommodate all those permutations is a strain on—or a deterrent to—smaller development shops. CRVN Interactive, a boutique app developer, says its clients often ask for their product to appear on both iOS and Android but back away from the Google offering upon hearing such development takes 10-30% longer, meaning a corresponding higher price tag. Much of that price can come from the burden of having to code and test across a slew of devices compared to the iPhone and iPad. Even large app makers such as Yammer and Evernote say it is a burden to code and test their Android offerings for a slew of devices. Rutledge says Google is working with Netflix (NFLX) to emulate the movie site's testing model. Google is attempting to group the wide field of Android devices into 10 or so buckets. Testing a representative of each group, developers can build compatible apps for the broad ecosystem without having to constantly order a new sample device.