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Comment by thevectorist | Hacker News Reader

This is another symptom of why Android development is such a pain. You have to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop just to get to the point where you can get actual work done. If a tool ends up wasting more time than it saves, it isn't a tool, it is an obstacle.

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That is an overstatement. This was true in the beginning for the honeycomb sdk, but as you can easily develop against hardware this isn't an issue anymore.

The Android 2.2 and 2.3 Emulators are atleast on my machine fast enough for development, but i still prefer to develop against hardware just because it feels faster and more real. Multi-Touch is easier...

Even on iOS it's better to develop against actual hardware than the simulator, therefor it's not really that much of an issue.

"Such a pain" as compared to what exactly? This will depend entirely on what it is that youre trying to do. In all my experience, Android is notoriously easy to develope on, being fully open-source the way it is. Try developing for iOS beyond a the basics and I think you'll come to agree.

I dont think its fair to call the emulator an obstacle, it just comes with limitations. After all, emulators are only designed to emulate, they can't replace areal device. A hammer is still a tool, its just not the appropriate tool when you're trying to assemble a clock.

Maybe its just time to upgrade your tools.

Please don't put words into my mouth or make assumptions about me. I am primarily an iOS dev. An app I worked on won an Apple Design Award and multiple other apps are in the Top 5 paid apps for their category in the iTunes store. To say that I develop for iOS at a basic level is laughable at best.

XCode isn't perfect, but I don't need google for blog posts or spend hours writing scripts or messing with configuration files in order to get it into a usable state.

Being open source has nothing to do with how easy a platform is to develop on. All that means is that the platform's source code is available.

The Android application I'm developing is immensely easier because of Android's open-source nature. Not only are things simpler on my physical phone because of cyanogenmod, but the basis for my program is actually Google's Camera app -- I literally copy the code verbatim and make the necessary changes. My project would be many, many more times work if I had to start a camera application from scratch (for what I want to do, using the intent that exports to the native camera widgets that are pluggable into your application is not sufficient, I need full control of the process).

Why does being an iOS developer give your insight into the Android platform credibility?

My appologies, I didn't realize I was putting words in your mouth. I believe it was your post that called Android dev. a pain though, and unless I'm mistaken it was also you who referred to the emulator as an obstacle. Finally, I said all these things in relation to MY experience. As for my assumptions, i simply assumed you were an amatuer Android developer because, despite the fact that Android is known to be used on a wide selection of devices--all of which couldnt possibly be accomodated on one emulator in any effective way--you are still fixating on the fact that the emulator doesnt cater to your expert needs. I suppose I simply assumed that someone like yourself would have moved on from such a basic method of developement, since "to say that [you] develop for iOS at a basic level is laughable at best."

Just watch that your horse desn't fall off that precariously-high ledge and crush us lowly startup operators.

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