谷歌安卓增长已见顶？

    根据应用程序分析公司Flurry的说法，开发者开发iOS应用程序的时间仅为安卓的一半。而在回报方面，他们从iPhone用户身上取得的收入是安卓用户的足足四倍。Flurry指出，这样的差距举足轻重，“如果开发者社区选择投向一个平台，那么开发者们所打造的软件将能无限提升其用户体验价值，这将给予该平台显著优势。”

    安卓不仅面临着由于开发繁琐，开发者纷纷逃离的问题，而且，伴随RIM旗下黑莓的衰败， iPhone正侵入企业市场。高德纳最近的报告指出，由于需要管理众多设备和不同版本的操作系统，安卓在大企业的应用“严重受限”。

    当然，谷歌大部分收入来自广告。安卓的用处在于它提供了一个现成的平台，来展示这些广告。但正当谷歌在其它平台面临新威胁之时，安卓似乎正在变弱。本周，苹果与其开发者召开会议，在会上推出了自己的针对iPhone的地图应用，以取代谷歌。苹果还将Facebook功能融入iOS 6，这可能会打击谷歌在社交网络方面的努力。

    这并非意味着安卓气数已尽。虽然IDC预测安卓的市场份额将下降，但该公司也承认安卓在未来几年仍将是领先的移动平台。不过，安卓明显面临诸多挑战，会减缓其在过去几年令人印象深刻的增长势头。如果出现这种情况，谷歌从智能手机用户身上赚钱的钱计划可能会碰钉子，该公司将不得不在移动互联网领域另起炉灶。

    译者：项航

    According to app-analytics firm Flurry, developers build two iOS apps for every Android app they create. In return, they make four times as much revenue from iPhone users than from Android users. That discrepancy is crucial because, as Flurry noted, "If the developer community embraces one platform over the other, developers will build the software that infinitely extends the value of the consumer experience, giving a platform a meaningful edge."

    And it's not just developers put off by the complexity of working with Andriod. while the iPhone has made inroads into the enterprise market -- at the expense of Research-in-Motion's (RIMM) Blackberry -- a recent report by Gartner showed Android is "severely limited" in large companies because of the work involved in managing these same variations in devices and OS versions.

    Of course, Google makes most of its money from ads. Android is helpful insofar as it provides a ready-made platform for serving those ads. But Android seems to be peaking just as Google is facing new threats on other platforms. As Apple holds a conference with its own developers this week, it's expected to announce its own mapping app for iPhones, displacing Google. Apple may also integrate Facebook functionality into iOS 6, which could sideline Google's efforts in social networking. (Follow along with Apple's announcements live.)

    None of this means Android is going away. IDC, which predicts a falling market share for Android, still sees it at the leading mobile platform for years to come. But there are enough clear challenges before Android to slow its impressive momentum of the last few years. If that happens, Google's plans to make money from smartphone users could hit a snag, and the company will have to get creative about the mobile web.