The state of the Android platform: from monetization to China to the Nexus 7
As Google's annual developer conference I/O winds down today, it's clear Google is trying to evolve Android — not only as a platform, but as an experience for both users and developers.
Context & Ripple Effects
A year after Google used its 2011 I/O keynote to tout Android's raw momentum in mobile, this year's conference is being read as a pivot from scale to substance: Inside Mobile Apps frames the show around three open questions — how Android actually makes money for developers, what Google does about China, and whether first-party hardware like the Nexus 7 can anchor the experience. Gizmodo's double pickup shows the state-of-platform assessment traveled well beyond the developer press.
The concrete moves at the show back that framing up. Google announced that Google Play will let developers respond to user reviews, shipped Google+ SDKs for Android and iOS plus mobile-web social plugins, and drew an outside benchmark when Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster street-tested Google voice search at a B+ across 1,600 quiet-room and noisy-street queries. The I/O companion app had already kept outsiders looped in before the keynote even landed.
First-order effects
- Android developers immediately gain two levers: reply rights on Google Play user reviews, which changes store reputation management from one-way complaints into dialogue, and Google+ SDKs that let them wire social features into apps on both Android and iOS.
- The Nexus 7 and the heavily reviewed Nexus Q give Google first-party hardware to demonstrate the 'experience' half of its pitch, while the confirmed Motorola Mobility–Microsoft ITC fight over a possible Xbox 360 import ban keeps patent exposure attached to everything Google acquired.
Second-order effects
- Apple is now being measured on Google's terms rather than its own: Munster's B+ grade for voice search puts a comparable yardstick next to Siri, and the monetization push targets the revenue-per-active-device gap that has been Android's standing criticism against iOS.
- A stated China angle forces a fork for OEMs and app distributors there — either Google shapes a workable Play-based monetization path or local stores keep capturing the value, which would fragment exactly the unified 'experience' Google says it wants.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Android's identity shifts from open OS licensed to anyone toward a curated stack of first-party hardware, store services, and social APIs — with Google's cut of developer revenue, not activation counts, becoming the number the platform is judged by.
- Developer-facing controls like review replies and cross-platform SDKs also tighten Google's role as gatekeeper of the Android relationship, raising the odds that store policies become the battleground regulators and rivals probe next.
The trend: Android's annual I/O narrative is moving from installed-base momentum toward monetization, curation, and first-party experience — the same revenue-per-active-device contest that defines modern platform economics.