Android is doomed to fail unless...

Android, Google’s Linux-based mobile phone operating system, seems to be faltering.

It is not getting to where it is supposed to be, and it is also facing severe competition from Apple’s iOS on one front, and (this is rather surprising) the struggling Research In Motion on the other.

RIM, the company behind the BlackBerry, declared that their app world was more profitable than Android.

There has been a general assumption that all’s going well at Android, but now it’s beginning to look like there are problems that beg the question: Is Android doomed to fail?

Apple is making the largest amount of money in apps in comparison to other device makers.

With its well-built intuitive App Store, the company seems to have mastered the art of making the owners of their devices buy apps time and again.

In fact, if it wasn’t for Apple, the phrase, “there is an app for that”, would not exist.

The company has made it appear as though any possible application idea you may have has been invented.

In 2010, Apple generated a profit of $189 million (Sh15.5 billion), which accounted for one per cent of the income then.

In 2011, the number grew to around $2 billion (Sh166 billion). Then there is the second most profitable app store — the BlackBerry App World.

It is 40 per cent more profitable to build a BlackBerry app than an Android App.

As a mobile developer, it is also more likely that you would make money as a BlackBerry developer than as an Android developer; people prefer paying for Apple and BlackBerry apps but not for Android apps. And there is a reason.

Android doesn’t have a killer app. There isn’t that one app that makes you recognise Android, other than the green robot mascot. This suffocates its prospects of inching forward technologically.

Yes, they have a well done Gmail app, and Google Navigation was its best app. But neither of them really stuck out.

The Gmail app could not compete with the default mail clients available on iOS or BlackBerry.

Secondly, Android still needed to keep developing for other mobile operating systems. This meant that whatever functionality was in the Android version of the app, it had to be on the iOS and BlackBerry version.

Enter Angry Birds, and you instantly know that you are on an iPhone or iPad. Enter BlackBerry Messenger.

Android is always playing second fiddle — it is more likely for an iOS app to be developed than it is for an Android app.