2 years ago Android users weren't thieves, and N3V has not shown any indication that their view has changed (or yes, stayed the same) since then. So the only real data point we can go off from is what was said 2 years ago.
peter
Past or Present
- Thread starter Alco_P-A
- Start date
2 years ago Android users weren't thieves, and N3V has not shown any indication that their view has changed (or yes, stayed the same) since then. So the only real data point we can go off from is what was said 2 years ago.
peter
Tony's remark was not about Android users being "thieves" at all, that remark is taken completely out of context. All he says is that unlike iOS users the average Android user does not seem keen on paying for apps. This does not mean that they pirate them instead, they just go for one of the many free versions of anything that are available or just go for nothing at all. Look here for a recent article on this subject on SavvyApps.com.
I am to blame too I guess. In all my years as an Android user I have probably spent about 20 euro's total on apps. There just is no need at all for me to pay for anything. My wife has an Android tablet and an Android phone too, she has never spent a single euro on anything. We play a lot of SimCity, which is free, and use free apps that are pretty good.
Having said that, I did buy the Trainz game for Android. I didn't like it at all. It looked like desktop software with tiny buttons on my immense Galaxy Tab S. Even using an OTG cable with mouse and keyboard attached it was a right old mess. It also didn't correctly save anything I did with it. Sometimes the tracks would just be gone when I loaded my route. All in all it felt totally inadequate and I have not touched it for a year or more. The icon is pretty though, I guess. It looks good on my start screen anyway!
I am to blame too I guess. In all my years as an Android user I have probably spent about 20 euro's total on apps. There just is no need at all for me to pay for anything. My wife has an Android tablet and an Android phone too, she has never spent a single euro on anything. We play a lot of SimCity, which is free, and use free apps that are pretty good.
Having said that, I did buy the Trainz game for Android. I didn't like it at all. It looked like desktop software with tiny buttons on my immense Galaxy Tab S. Even using an OTG cable with mouse and keyboard attached it was a right old mess. It also didn't correctly save anything I did with it. Sometimes the tracks would just be gone when I loaded my route. All in all it felt totally inadequate and I have not touched it for a year or more. The icon is pretty though, I guess. It looks good on my start screen anyway!
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Hi everybody
CFL-Fan, In regard to your posting at #22 of this thread, ref Tony's remarks about Android users, then I believe that he should have added far more clarity to his posting if he meant to state anything other than us Android users being thieves. I recall that at the time his remarks where re-posted on Google plus (or its forerunner at the time) and they did generate much disgust on that social sight even among users who had never had any contact with N3V or its products.
In the above the truth is that Android apps generate revenue for the developer whether they are free to download or not. The app user as you state can run the application without spending any money whatsoever if they are prepared to tolerate the advertising. In that case the developer gets revenue from their share of the advertising rates. Many developers seem to prefer the foregoing situation by never offering addfree versions.
If as N3V seem to believe there is no money in developing apps for the Android platform would Microsoft, Dovetail and others be developing apps for that very platform at this very time. Indeed, Microsoft through the mist and wreckage of their third Mobile platform disaster have stated by way their New chief executive officer Satya Nadella that a substantial amount of that company's resources will now be directed at developing Applications for the IOS and Android platforms. Therefore does anyone believe that Microsoft would be doing that if there was no revenue to be gained from the efforts.
CFL-Fan and John Whelan In reference to the present Trainz app on Android and what should be expected for the future, I too downloaded the application again yesterday to my Sony Z4 tablet and had the same problem as CFL-Fan with all the buttons being tiny and unusable. However, I then downloaded it to the wife's older Lenovo A2 tab and all the buttons where then the correct size and operated well.
The graphics looked “absolute rubbish” but the touchscreen functionality worked very well especially when laying track and sighting buildings etc in surveyor. As this Trainz application is now several years old and does not seem to have been updated in any way, whoever did the touchscreen programming did a wonderful job at that time.
As for what Android users would want from a future version of Trainz, well, I can only speak for myself. However, the mobile version yesterday did take me back to the days of Trainz 10. That was and still is my all time favourite version of the franchise and if something similar was forthcoming for Android with improved graphics over what is on offer at present, that could be a winner.
Android gamers in the main do not want or expect Shadows and great audio etc. What is required is apps that work as soon as the phone is taken out the user's pocket during a working tea break or any few minutes of free time. Quietly building your route in your weekday lunch break would be very relaxing and get people away from their everyday employment concerns. Therefore such a trainz application as described may well have a great attraction for many. I do not Know if that is the appeal of the current trainz IOS version but it could very much be the appeal of any new Android version.
Improving the Graphics would be key. Now, back to work
Bill
CFL-Fan, In regard to your posting at #22 of this thread, ref Tony's remarks about Android users, then I believe that he should have added far more clarity to his posting if he meant to state anything other than us Android users being thieves. I recall that at the time his remarks where re-posted on Google plus (or its forerunner at the time) and they did generate much disgust on that social sight even among users who had never had any contact with N3V or its products.
In the above the truth is that Android apps generate revenue for the developer whether they are free to download or not. The app user as you state can run the application without spending any money whatsoever if they are prepared to tolerate the advertising. In that case the developer gets revenue from their share of the advertising rates. Many developers seem to prefer the foregoing situation by never offering addfree versions.
If as N3V seem to believe there is no money in developing apps for the Android platform would Microsoft, Dovetail and others be developing apps for that very platform at this very time. Indeed, Microsoft through the mist and wreckage of their third Mobile platform disaster have stated by way their New chief executive officer Satya Nadella that a substantial amount of that company's resources will now be directed at developing Applications for the IOS and Android platforms. Therefore does anyone believe that Microsoft would be doing that if there was no revenue to be gained from the efforts.
CFL-Fan and John Whelan In reference to the present Trainz app on Android and what should be expected for the future, I too downloaded the application again yesterday to my Sony Z4 tablet and had the same problem as CFL-Fan with all the buttons being tiny and unusable. However, I then downloaded it to the wife's older Lenovo A2 tab and all the buttons where then the correct size and operated well.
The graphics looked “absolute rubbish” but the touchscreen functionality worked very well especially when laying track and sighting buildings etc in surveyor. As this Trainz application is now several years old and does not seem to have been updated in any way, whoever did the touchscreen programming did a wonderful job at that time.
As for what Android users would want from a future version of Trainz, well, I can only speak for myself. However, the mobile version yesterday did take me back to the days of Trainz 10. That was and still is my all time favourite version of the franchise and if something similar was forthcoming for Android with improved graphics over what is on offer at present, that could be a winner.
Android gamers in the main do not want or expect Shadows and great audio etc. What is required is apps that work as soon as the phone is taken out the user's pocket during a working tea break or any few minutes of free time. Quietly building your route in your weekday lunch break would be very relaxing and get people away from their everyday employment concerns. Therefore such a trainz application as described may well have a great attraction for many. I do not Know if that is the appeal of the current trainz IOS version but it could very much be the appeal of any new Android version.
Improving the Graphics would be key. Now, back to work
Bill
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amigacooke
Well-known member
I'm old fashioned enough to think that if someone is being lambasted for saying something inappropriate, they should actually have said it in the first place.
The efforts by Microsoft should be seen in a different light I think. They have a product range that far exceeds the scope of the Android platform and the apps they develop on it. If anything, they want to stay in touch with their userbase. They are probably even willing to make a loss on the Android endeavour alone. Like you said, they have failed time and time again pushing their own Windows based operating systems. But of course they do want to keep a foot in the mobile market. That is the grounds upon which I develop apps for my company too. Not to make money off of those apps directly, but to be able to entice them to some other products and websites which are profitable for us.
Anyway, I stick by my comments about the remark that was made. If that was the only thing that was said I have no reason to believe that he means Android users are largely thieves. They just do not pay for apps easily. This is a very well known issue for app publishers as outlined in the article I linked to. It would be interesting to see what other proof you can muster up to make me change my mind about the comment in question.
Because the way I see it, past displays of poor PR now makes everyone suspicious about everything that is being said. I am the first to question the way N3V communicates with the outside world and in fact have done so on some occasions in the past. But this time, admittedly based on my own experiences in this field, I just can't see the wrongful intent.
johnwhelan
Well-known member
I think you've just proved two of my points, the first is Android on different devices is rarely the same, and secondly when it comes to graphics you really need hardware to generate the image,this is very different to displaying a video.wholbr;1534969 [FONT=Verdana said:CFL-Fan and John Whelan In reference to the present Trainz app on Android and what should be expected for the future, I too downloaded the application again yesterday to my Sony Z4 tablet and had the same problem as CFL-Fan with all the buttons being tiny and unusable. However, I then downloaded it to the wife's older Lenovo A2 tab and all the buttons where then the correct size and operated well. [/FONT]
The graphics looked “absolute rubbish” but the touchscreen functionality worked very well especially when laying track and sighting buildings etc in surveyor. As this Trainz application is now several years old and does not seem to have been updated in any way, whoever did the touchscreen programming did a wonderful job at that time.
Improving the Graphics would be key. Now, back to work
Bill
Cheerio John
titanicchristo
Member
The issues with the touchscreen and graphics are most likely caused by the 18,000 available android devices. For a developer 18,000 devices means at least half of those devices may have problems due to various screen size, different graphics cards, and different processors. With my android tablet when I had downloaded the app I had found that I couldn't use the touch screen but the graphics were very good, but because you own a different tablet than me you get different results. That doesn't make it any easier to create an app for android devices and most people who then download the app and find it doesn't work will probably leave a bad reviews, and those bad reviews make new users leave before even buying the app. I'm not saying the same couldn't happen on iOS but apple doesn't have as many models running their OS making the chance of that happening very slim.
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Hi everybody.
If we take out of equation high end PC gaming for a paragraph or so, then Microsoft's trading policy at the beginning of 2015 was that the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet would be launched towards the business community and advertised as a direct replacement to windows laptops and PCs where PC sales especially are even now in steep decline. The foregoing sales policy had been initially very successful and it was planned that that a relaunch of Nokia Lumina smartphones would complete the rebuild of Microsoft in the mobile market making windows 10 truly cross platform.
However, the windows 10 Lumlna phones never gained more than a 2% share of the worldwide smartphone market falling to less than 1% in the final Quarter of 2015. In view of the foregoing situation Microsoft ended its involvement in the phone market in March this year sustaining huge losses in the process. However, unfortunately for the Redwood company Google Android and Apple IOS phones in that period went from strength to strength in processing power and are now seen as a direct replacement to tablets causing the first ever decline in sales worldwide.
In the above office personnel all over now solely use IOS and Android smartphones for almost all tasks by way of Apple's Siri assistant or the Google Now assistant to send emails, texts, arrange calendars, and dictate documents all through voice recognition. In the foregoing the Smartphone has become the one sole instrument of work, rest and play by way of its true mobility and versatility.
So where does the above leave Microsoft. The only area the company have real command is in high end PC gaming. The lower and mid-range of the gaming market is now almost solely in the hands of the mobile market with Android devices commanding it is thought two thirds of that market. Those devices do far more than just run videos as anyone can witness by downloading the numerous flight simulators car simulators and sport simulators available on Google Play. If you do not own an Android device then you can still witness the performance of those phones, tablets and games in reviews on the Google owned youtube.
Analysts now believe there are in total 1.4 billion active Android Devices worldwide giving Google a near Trillion Dollar commercial valuation and a stock market share price of eight hundred dollars per share.
So, whatever the problems of writing apps for the Android platform it would seem that developers including Microsoft are falling over themselves to place applications on the System alongside the Apple IOS mobile platform.
The above is why I feel that N3V would do well to bring forward a fresh Trainz app for the Android platform. Not T:ane i would emphasize as no one would claim that mobile devices are up to running that. However, Many of the apps on mobile do produce stunning graphics and performance. Therefore all Android users on this forum are requesting would be that N3V match those, It would also open up more than 50% of the whole gaming market to N3V for revenue to be gained in.
Bill
CFL-FAN, many thanks for your reply to my posting at # 23 of this thread. However I feel I have to respectfully disagree with you on the point of Microsoft being prepared to make a loss on apps they produce for the Android and IOS platform which I feel is crux of this debate which includes the N3V attitude.
If we take out of equation high end PC gaming for a paragraph or so, then Microsoft's trading policy at the beginning of 2015 was that the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet would be launched towards the business community and advertised as a direct replacement to windows laptops and PCs where PC sales especially are even now in steep decline. The foregoing sales policy had been initially very successful and it was planned that that a relaunch of Nokia Lumina smartphones would complete the rebuild of Microsoft in the mobile market making windows 10 truly cross platform.
However, the windows 10 Lumlna phones never gained more than a 2% share of the worldwide smartphone market falling to less than 1% in the final Quarter of 2015. In view of the foregoing situation Microsoft ended its involvement in the phone market in March this year sustaining huge losses in the process. However, unfortunately for the Redwood company Google Android and Apple IOS phones in that period went from strength to strength in processing power and are now seen as a direct replacement to tablets causing the first ever decline in sales worldwide.
In the above office personnel all over now solely use IOS and Android smartphones for almost all tasks by way of Apple's Siri assistant or the Google Now assistant to send emails, texts, arrange calendars, and dictate documents all through voice recognition. In the foregoing the Smartphone has become the one sole instrument of work, rest and play by way of its true mobility and versatility.
So where does the above leave Microsoft. The only area the company have real command is in high end PC gaming. The lower and mid-range of the gaming market is now almost solely in the hands of the mobile market with Android devices commanding it is thought two thirds of that market. Those devices do far more than just run videos as anyone can witness by downloading the numerous flight simulators car simulators and sport simulators available on Google Play. If you do not own an Android device then you can still witness the performance of those phones, tablets and games in reviews on the Google owned youtube.
Analysts now believe there are in total 1.4 billion active Android Devices worldwide giving Google a near Trillion Dollar commercial valuation and a stock market share price of eight hundred dollars per share.
So, whatever the problems of writing apps for the Android platform it would seem that developers including Microsoft are falling over themselves to place applications on the System alongside the Apple IOS mobile platform.
The above is why I feel that N3V would do well to bring forward a fresh Trainz app for the Android platform. Not T:ane i would emphasize as no one would claim that mobile devices are up to running that. However, Many of the apps on mobile do produce stunning graphics and performance. Therefore all Android users on this forum are requesting would be that N3V match those, It would also open up more than 50% of the whole gaming market to N3V for revenue to be gained in.
Bill
johnwhelan
Well-known member
That'll run TS12 or Tane fine if you need a tablet. You might need to set the sliders back a bit, go for the most expensive i7 version with lots of memory.
Cheerio John
I question how much of the content from the DLS runs on android hardware. In my previous testing I've gotten PC content to run on my Galaxy Note 3 and have no lag at all. However, the routes on Android are nothing to write at home about, so having the phone/tablet render Kickstarter county must be a completely different story.
Frankly I believe that there should be some sort port of T:ANE to Android/iOS, since these platforms have such a massive amount of users that would be willing to play these simulators. If you take a look on both iOS and Android, you can find many Train simulators but all give off that indie developer vibe. Sure you can say the current Trainz Android port is terrible,however you cannot deny that it may be one of the most polished looking Train Simulators on both platforms.
Samsung seems to be becoming quite mainstream with the public, and Samsung is known for making smooth hardware that will be able to handle the platform. Both the Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6 seem to be very powerful beasts that can handle more complex games than most developers throw at them. I know this from testing a simple Android game say on a flagship phone such as the Galaxy S7 compared to a smaller company such as Blu, where the performance was much worse than the S7.
If N3V decides to follow through with this, they should make the port of the game but find a third party to continue creating content for it. N3V already seems to be busy with development on T:ANE so keeping a third party maintaining content for it will keep people purchasing content. Of course you could go with a DLS of some sorts but that comes with a price.
Just my two cents.
GDennish
Frankly I believe that there should be some sort port of T:ANE to Android/iOS, since these platforms have such a massive amount of users that would be willing to play these simulators. If you take a look on both iOS and Android, you can find many Train simulators but all give off that indie developer vibe. Sure you can say the current Trainz Android port is terrible,however you cannot deny that it may be one of the most polished looking Train Simulators on both platforms.
Samsung seems to be becoming quite mainstream with the public, and Samsung is known for making smooth hardware that will be able to handle the platform. Both the Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6 seem to be very powerful beasts that can handle more complex games than most developers throw at them. I know this from testing a simple Android game say on a flagship phone such as the Galaxy S7 compared to a smaller company such as Blu, where the performance was much worse than the S7.
If N3V decides to follow through with this, they should make the port of the game but find a third party to continue creating content for it. N3V already seems to be busy with development on T:ANE so keeping a third party maintaining content for it will keep people purchasing content. Of course you could go with a DLS of some sorts but that comes with a price.
Just my two cents.
GDennish
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johnwhelan
Well-known member
It isn't designed to run a simulator. The CPU is much below the intel i3 etc, and an i3 is OKish but not what most content is aimed at. The GPU side of things its not so good. Cf Intel's built-in GPU on its higher end processor shows up on the Tomshardware chart, nowhere near the top but its not too bad so yes it is technically possible to build a tablet or smart phone to run TANE Having said that the S7 isn't that much cheaper than a Microsoft surface pro.
Now are we talking millions of Galaxy S7 users or millions of Android users? It makes a difference. If the market is maybe a thousand and the development cost is a couple of million are customers prepared to pay $2,000 a copy?
If we assume for the moment that TANE is ported to the S7 its memory at 4 gigs is a bit limited compared to the common desktops used for TANE. We've seen TANE on low end machines its better than it was but it isn't good. An Android S7 is not a high end machine so we can expect poor performance. Currently the nice stuff is high in polys and that just dies on a low end machine, so what are you going run? The content creators make nice stuff but most are not very efficient, their basic idea is just throw hardware at the problem and in the desktop environment that works.
For the moment TANE on Android is a fantasy, something to dream about, nothing more. If someone comes out with a GTX 1060 mobile GPU running on Android then maybe you’ll have the hardware available, but not before.
Cheerio John
Hi everybody.
I would agree with John Whelan where he states in his posting at #31 of this thread that porting T:ane to a Android Device is at this point in time somewhat of a dream. I also think that it was significant when John asked the question, “are we talking here millions of Galaxy S7 owners or millions of Android users”.
The foregoing is the very crux of any developer having success on the Android platform. Google's policy with the Play Store has always been that all apps must work with all devices and in all versions. However and by example, an app may run with Android Versions starting at 3.2 right through to the latest 6.0, but if the user of any version device hardware is not up to running an app, result, poor performance and therefore poor reviews. Now, where have we all seen that situation before?
In an effort to counteract the above,Google themselves produce the nexus range of devices in which they normally place mid-range hardware as a guide to developers of the average standards they should be writing to. Google also offer a refund policy by way of a user uninstalling a paid for app within 15 minutes of download (sometimes 30 mins) the purchase price is Immediately refunded giving users a short evaluation period.
Therefore in answer to john Whelans question, I feel that any new or revamped Trainz app for Android has to targeted at the millions of users running mid range hardware on their devices. With all the foregoing in mind I feel that a revamped version of the current Trainz app for android would be the way to go. The hardware on the wife's near three year old Lenovo A2 Tab10 on which i tested that app a few days back is now somewhat dated. However, the Trainz application ran well especially in surveyor laying track etc despite the awful graphics.
In the above, If N3V are to be “enticed” to once again to show interest in the Android platform, working from where they left off may well be a far more attractive proposition to them than starting afresh or trying to port T:ane.
However, those who follow Google have seen evidence of recent that the company do not wish to move up market, in fact their policy is completely the opposite. In conjunction with the Indian government Google have launched a new andriod Smartphone at a purchase price of just five dollars (yes you did read that right five dollars). A review of the phone can be viewed by following this link:- https://youtu.be/aGe9Hr_9YEU
In a posting on Google+, Sergey Brin (who along with Larry Paige where the co founders of Google) stated that he was proud that their organization had brought connectivity to millions on the sub continent who could never have dreamed they would be able to afford to own a phone previously.
I do not feel that the phone will ever run T:ane, but apparently it will run all the old android classics such as Angry Birds, Flappy Birds and Candy Crush etc. Of course what Good old kind hearted Sergey forgot to mention was the fact that based on previous experience this little adventure into territory where no phone company has ever gone before will almost certainly put another ten billion dollars plus into the Google coffers.
Never a dull moment on Google.
Bill
I would agree with John Whelan where he states in his posting at #31 of this thread that porting T:ane to a Android Device is at this point in time somewhat of a dream. I also think that it was significant when John asked the question, “are we talking here millions of Galaxy S7 owners or millions of Android users”.
The foregoing is the very crux of any developer having success on the Android platform. Google's policy with the Play Store has always been that all apps must work with all devices and in all versions. However and by example, an app may run with Android Versions starting at 3.2 right through to the latest 6.0, but if the user of any version device hardware is not up to running an app, result, poor performance and therefore poor reviews. Now, where have we all seen that situation before?
In an effort to counteract the above,Google themselves produce the nexus range of devices in which they normally place mid-range hardware as a guide to developers of the average standards they should be writing to. Google also offer a refund policy by way of a user uninstalling a paid for app within 15 minutes of download (sometimes 30 mins) the purchase price is Immediately refunded giving users a short evaluation period.
Therefore in answer to john Whelans question, I feel that any new or revamped Trainz app for Android has to targeted at the millions of users running mid range hardware on their devices. With all the foregoing in mind I feel that a revamped version of the current Trainz app for android would be the way to go. The hardware on the wife's near three year old Lenovo A2 Tab10 on which i tested that app a few days back is now somewhat dated. However, the Trainz application ran well especially in surveyor laying track etc despite the awful graphics.
In the above, If N3V are to be “enticed” to once again to show interest in the Android platform, working from where they left off may well be a far more attractive proposition to them than starting afresh or trying to port T:ane.
However, those who follow Google have seen evidence of recent that the company do not wish to move up market, in fact their policy is completely the opposite. In conjunction with the Indian government Google have launched a new andriod Smartphone at a purchase price of just five dollars (yes you did read that right five dollars). A review of the phone can be viewed by following this link:- https://youtu.be/aGe9Hr_9YEU
In a posting on Google+, Sergey Brin (who along with Larry Paige where the co founders of Google) stated that he was proud that their organization had brought connectivity to millions on the sub continent who could never have dreamed they would be able to afford to own a phone previously.
I do not feel that the phone will ever run T:ane, but apparently it will run all the old android classics such as Angry Birds, Flappy Birds and Candy Crush etc. Of course what Good old kind hearted Sergey forgot to mention was the fact that based on previous experience this little adventure into territory where no phone company has ever gone before will almost certainly put another ten billion dollars plus into the Google coffers.
Never a dull moment on Google.
Bill
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