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Daftar Isi
Daftar Isi...................................................................................................................1
Daftar Gambar..........................................................................................................1
App Makers Take Interest in Android .....................................................................2
By JENNA WORTHAM OCT. 24, 2010 ...........................................................2
How Technology Affects Us....................................................................................6

Daftar Gambar
Index of Tables
Illustration 1: This man is doing a presentation about technology..........................5

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App Makers Take Interest in Android

By JENNA WORTHAM OCT. 24, 2010
There was cold beer, hot pizza and
shop talk at a recent informal gathering
of Android programmers in downtown
Manhattan. Inevitably the chatter
turned to money.
One software developer, James Englert,
26, had just released his first
application for Android, Googles
operating system for cellphones. When
asked, he tossed out an estimate for his
take from sales of the app, a simple
program that shows train schedules:
$1 to $2 per day.
The room erupted with laughter.
Thats pretty good money, he
protested over the clamor.
The others could relate to Mr. Englerts
situation because writing Android
software is not yet a ticket to financial
success. Even as Android sales surge
Google says it is now activating
around 200,000 phones a day the
market for Android apps still seems
anemic compared with that for Apple
and its thriving App Store.
Experts and developers say that is in
part because the Android Market, the
dominant store for Android apps, has
some clunky features that can be

annoying to phone owners eager to

make a quick purchase. For starters,
Android uses Google Checkout rather
than an online payment system that
more people are familiar with, like
PayPal. As a result, many Android
developers make their apps available
free and rely on mobile advertisements
to cover the cost.
Its not the best impulse-buy
environment, said Matt Hall, cofounder of a developer outfit called
Larva Labs that makes games for
Android, iPhone and BlackBerry
devices. Its hard to think of an
application that you would sit there and
put your credit card information in for.
But that tide is starting to turn as
Androids popularity continues to swell
and Google takes steps to smooth out
some of the wrinkles. For example, the
Android Market recently began
showing app prices in a users local
currency, rather than that of the
developer.
Were still seeing the 1.0 version of
the ecosystem, said Andy Rubin, vice
president for engineering at Google and
a primary architect behind Android.
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Mr. Rubin said there were 270,000
developers writing software for
Android, and the number of programs
available for download in the Android
Market has swelled to more than
100,000, a threefold increase since
March.

Michael Novak, who handles Android

development at Medialets, a mobile
advertising software company, and
helps organize the monthly New York
Android Software Developers Meetup.
That wasnt even a year ago. Now
everyone knows what it is.

Developers can feel the shift in

momentum. I used to tell people I
wrote software for Android, and theyd
look at me like I had three heads, said

Perhaps the biggest point of friction for

Android is the same thing that led to its
success.

Because Google makes its software available free to a range of phone

manufacturers, there are dozens of different Android-compatible devices on the
market, each with different screen sizes, memory capacities, processor speeds and
graphics capabilities. An app that works beautifully on, say, a Motorola Droid
might suffer from glitches on a phone made by HTC. IPhone developers,
meanwhile, need to worry about only a few devices: iPhones, iPods and iPads.
When Rovio, the Finnish software development company behind the popular
iPhone game Angry Birds, decided to release a version for Android, the company
spent months testing the game on a variety of devices to make sure it was up to
par.
Its so fragmented, said Peter Vesterbacka, a developer at the company. Its a
lot more challenging than developing for one device, like the iPhone.
In the end, he said, it was worth the trouble. The game was downloaded more than
three million times in the first week. But the company, which charges 99 cents for
the iPhone version and has made millions of dollars that way, chose to give away
the Android version and include ads. This is in part because paid apps on the
Android Market are available in only 32 countries, versus 90 for the Apple App
Store, and Rovio was concerned that people who were not able to purchase the
app would just pirate it.
But developers also say that charging for apps simply may not be the path to profit
on Android.
Google is not associated with things you pay for, and Android is an extension of
that, said Mr. Hall of Larva Labs. You dont pay for Google apps, so it bleeds
into the expectations for the third-party apps, too.
Google says it hopes to introduce a transaction feature for Android software that
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will allow purchases within apps, to help developers make more money.
Developers do say that the freedom of Android is a welcome alternative to Apples
tight control. Android developers have more rein to tinker with the phones native
functions, like the address book and the basic interface, something Apple has not
always allowed. And Apple screens all apps before they can reach its store, while
Google imposes no such restriction, relying on Android users to flag malicious or
offensive apps.
With Apple, you can spend months writing software only to be denied, Mr.
Novak said. The biggest reward as a developer is getting your software out there,
and quick. That makes everything else worthwhile.
Also unlike Apple, Google does not charge developers to sell their apps in its
storefront.
Developers are not abandoning iPhone for Android. Instead, they say they are
slowly starting to devote more resources to Android in the hope that those efforts
will pay off.
They also note that it is a lot easier to stand out in a pool of 100,000 apps versus
300,000, the current tally for Apples store.
Apples App Store is getting overcrowded and saturated, said Eric Metois, a
freelance tech consultant who writes apps on the side for the iPhone and Android.
Mr. Metoiss first iPhone app, iChalky, featuring a dancing stick figure, has sold
more than 300,000 copies on the iPhone since it was released in December 2008.
His second attempt, a game called Sparticle, was not as successful.
I poured 500 hours into my second app on the iPhone and sold virtually no
copies, Mr. Metois said. In explaining why he recently released an Android
version of iChalky, he said, There was a chance that on another emerging
platform, iChalky would have a similar amount of success.
Analysts say that if Google wants its mobile software to succeed, it will need to
make sure that developers do not lose patience with Android particularly in
light of new competition, including the slate of Windows 7 phones from Microsoft
and the iPhones inevitable expansion to other carriers in the United States besides
AT&T.
Mr. Rubin said he was not worried about rivals tempering the momentum of
Android because he believed its future would stretch past the cellphone, to tablets
and other devices yet to be conceived.
The promise of Android goes beyond one device, Mr. Rubin said. Were going
to see products running Android that no one has ever envisioned possible.

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Illustration 1: This man

is doing a presentation
about technology

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How Technology Affects Us

Everyone has seen the moody, withdrawn kid with music blasting out of his white earbuds, or the girl rapidly texting on her phone. The youth of
today are constantly immersed in technological advancements that promote nonstop communication and instant gratification, whether through cell
phones, gaming systems, laptops, or MP3 players. But are these technological advancements a good thing? I believe that the growth of technology
has negatively influenced the social interactions of today's youth because it isolates individuals from reality, hinders communication, and
perpetuates the concept of immediate satisfaction.
Technology is a negative influence on us because it separates individuals from reality. The iPod is one example; by putting in your earbuds and
immersing yourself in music while in public, you are disconnecting yourself from the real world. For some people, the main appeal of the iPod is
that it preoccupies you so that you do not have to deal with the uncontrollable factors of everyday life, writes Krystle Song, a University of
California, student on her website Attack of the iZombies.
The ability for people to surround themselves with the familiar by using their iPod is appealing because it rarely provides the listener with
something unexpected or unknown. However, it can be argued that this is a bad thing. By constantly being cut off from personal interactions and
new experiences because of a technological device, a generation with substandard social abilities is being groomed. If we do not have to face
reality by experiencing new things, making personal relationships, and problem solving, then we will never be able to function as adults.
Technology hinders personal communication, which negatively impacts our age-group. Although our culture heralds the Internet as a technological
wonder, there are suggestions that Internet use has a negative influence on individuals and their social skills, writes Bob Affonso in his article, Is
the Internet Affecting the Social Skills of Our Children? Data shows that those who use the Internet frequently spend over 100 minutes less time
with friends and family than non-Internet users, according to Norman H. Nie and D. Sunshine Hillygus in their paper The Impact of Internet Use
on Sociability.
The Internet actually detracts from the communication abilities of society, especially the young. When our communication skills are gradually
lessened, we begin spending less time talking to families, experiencing more daily stress, and feeling more lonely and depressed, writes Affonso.
In our formative teen years, lack of personal communication due to excessive Internet usage can have an overall negative effect on mental and
physical health. Communication skills are critical for everyone, yet use of the Internet is undermining this development.
Technology negatively affects us by perpetuating the mindset of immediate satisfaction. The creation of various portable technological devices has
slowly ingrained the idea of instant gratification. With gadgets like the PS3 or Nintendo DS, which allow users to play games anywhere, or cell
phones that let us keep in touch virtually everywhere and at any time, we grow up learning that whenever we want pleasure or enjoyment, it will

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Some argue that the Internet has a positive effect on social interactions because it allows us to
form friendships online. However, the capacity to meet a virtually unlimited number of people
through chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other services, is actually extremely negative, write
Jean-Francois Coget and Yamauchi Yutaka in their paper, Untangling the Social Impact of the
Internet. There are dangerous people on the Internet who are a threat to young people. The
ability to access anything and everything someone posts without knowing if their intent is
malicious is a downside to the open transfer of information available on the Internet. While Coget
and Yutaka claim that the Internet can foster openness, self-confidence, and a greater sense of
ease and comfort in dealing with others the Internet can even provide opportunities by freeing
those who are too depressed to conduct a social life in the real world, it is extremely unhealthy
to make and sustain all of your social interactions online. We will not be positively impacted by
communicating through a computer screen if we already do not have the self-confidence to
socially interact in reality.
I believe the advancement of technology has negatively impacted our social interactions because
it detaches us from what is happening around us, obstructs communication, and spreads the
concept of instant gratification. Society must be able to utilize technology while not allowing it to
impede social interactions, particularly for those who are easily influenced during our formative
years. Our world must learn to embrace technology without allowing it to negatively impact the
creation of functional adults in society.

Source : http://www.teenink.com/opinion/social_issues_civics/article/166619/How-TechnologyAffects-Us/