Why Companies Are Leaving iOS for Android

Brett Cooper sits down with Richard Makerson (CEO, BlueFletch) and Alan Lampa (CTO, BlueFletch) to talk through what actually happens when a company moves its frontline fleet from iOS to Android. 

Richard breaks down why the economics catch up with iOS over time, why device options across Android OEMs matter more than people think, and the WWDC story that nearly got BlueFletch fired from a client project. 

Alan covers the technical side: app lifecycle differences, Android Enterprise security, and the mistakes teams make when they try to port an iOS app one-to-one instead of rethinking the experience.

Reach out to BlueFletch at bluefletch.com if your team is planning an iOS to Android migration.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I'm Brett Cooper and this is the Frontline Mobility Edge, where we discuss the latest in mobile device technologies and how they're shaping the frontline landscape business. Thank you for joining us. Let's get started. Today I'm joined by Alan Lampa, CTO of Blue Fletch, and Richard Mickerson, CEO of Blue Fletch. And we are going to talk about a topic that we've been doing, I think this is probably year 10 of this topic from our first uh project we did around this, which is iOS to Android migrations. So we've had a former podcast where we talked about Windows CE and legacy app to Android migrations. And this one we want to talk about migrating from iOS to Android. A lot of companies in the last 10 years we worked with have leveraged our teams to help with this, mainly around, hey, we need to bring in some experts in Android that also have some iOS experience, how to do it. So we have a couple topics to hop into.

Why iOS Fleets Start Failing

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And I guess as we get into it, the the first one we wanted to cover was in general, just why do companies decide to migrate from iOS to Android? And Richard, I know you've uh talked people down from the ledge a couple of times on this one. What are your key uh key takeaways or guidance for companies as you talk to them about you know why you need to consider a a professional grade piece of hardware?

SPEAKER_03 1:17

I mean, you just flipped the question on me. Um so why do I see companies migrate from iOS to Android? Um two reasons are usually like really, really at the top. Um the reality that iOS isn't a true rugged device, even though you can throw a sled or a bumper on it. Um those economics over time become real. But then also the clunky experience. Um so if I have iOS devices out of my fleet, everything seems great. I'm you know the greatest CIO ever. Um but when I have those high failure rates because iOS isn't meant to be shared, it's not meant to be used, you know, 20, 24 hours a day, and it starts to impact my business, starts to impact the uh the happiness of workers, meaning that they're frustrated, annoyed, um that devices don't last full shift, or now I need to carry this extra battery with me, or it's broken and now I need to send it off and do another one and go back to paper. Um, that business impact um oftentimes outweighs you know the cost difference between an iOS and Android device. Um and then the clunky experience. Now, if your end users are primarily in a single application, like a very big EMR or CMS, um like that like isn't a big problem. But um especially early on, um you know, our customers or you know, folks just wanted to get the devices out there, like just get them out there. Generally everyone knows how to use an iOS device. If they don't, it's really easy to figure out. Johnny Ives designed amazing um hardware, but then you start adding and layering in more solutions over time. And with iOS, you really don't have control over that experience. You have to work with what Apple's giving you. And so that clunky experience, once again, I think the key here is that it hits the bottom line or the the impact to the business harder than um some of those decisions you would have made early on by going with a you know a true rugged or frontline platform.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

On your note on the experience, uh and aside from uh I heard the rumors that Johnny I have helped design the uh the terrible Ferrari, is that true?

SPEAKER_03 4:03

It's an interesting Ferrari. Um it's not like a Ferrari Ferrari, but I think some of the design decisions, especially in the interior, are very interesting. And um when they announced that vehicle, they showed the inside first. So like the tactical field, the steering wheel, um even the the screen and like some of the controls and how uh they led with that first, which is probably um leading with what uh they knew folks were going to get excited about. But then when everyone saw like the whole bill pulled together, they were like, no, we did ask for this and we don't want this.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Uh I I feel like I've heard you say something similar to this around the hardware landscape. The

Real Choice With Android OEMs

SPEAKER_00 4:51

with the old Henry Ford quote, you can have any Ford you want in any color as long as it's black. I feel like the thing about that's sort of how I feel about Apple is you're gonna get what they give you. Whereas with the Android landscape, you have a lot of different OEMs, which I'm assuming have like different features, capabilities, designs. For you, when you think about having different OEMs available to support your enterprise project, what are the biggest takeaways you have from that or the biggest value ads you see there?

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Yeah, we get into one of my later points, but I think there is value, and there's value to be found in having options. And I think that when you have um, you know, Apple only makes iOS, they only make their own hardware, their biggest customers are consumers, not frontline employees. Um, initially it could seem like you have a lot of options. And when you realize that you're, you know, a fraction of their user base, and um you're not really gonna be able to impact change, um it's it's hard to extract a true value out of that. But having multiple vendors who make you know rugged Android devices and to know that you may be able to offer up some change or impact the decision with a particular OEM, like that's valuable. You know, if I'm uh name a big company in manufacturing or logistics or airlines, and and you know, it's a it'll be great if I had this. And you know, your OEM is like, yeah, we'll do that for you. Um there's a lot of value in that value you'll stretch out for your business, but value in that relationship. And so um it's there and it's there to be found. And so for you know, someone like myself and a company like us of problem solvers, you know, we're always hunting for that value to you know make our customers happy, make that end-user experience the best it can be.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Another question on your notes, uh when you and I talked about this before, I think there was a the life cycle in the enterprise versus a life cycle consumer devices. I feel like you and I are probably pretty bad. Our wives get angry at us about going and buying a new new iPhone every year. The typical uh lifespan for a device in enterprise could be five plus years. I I feel like I've seen some warehouses that are running seven-year-old devices. How does that impact the value of iOS versus some of these OEMs?

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a moving target. And so um it impacts, you know, that infrastructure manager, VP's experience of having to manage these devices because I know every year I'm gonna get an iOS update that I have some control over. I can defer it for X amount of months, but I I know it's gonna change. And depending on where we're at in the life cycle, it could change the look and feel. They might retire or bring in new features that I need to be ready for. Um because it's it's it's designed for consumers, right? For you know, everyone from six-year-olds to us to you know our parents. Um it's me it's trying to meet all of those needs all at the same time versus having a dedicated platform that's focused on business outcomes, where I want to deploy this and you know, not make any changes unless um we actually need to roll out this feature. But, you know, there's value in knowing that I don't have to constantly look over my shoulder for this change that's coming that I have no control over. So to have total control over um your OS major version, knowing that I roll this out and everything is working, I can focus on other fire drills or other parts of the business or go deeper into other experiences. Um, just a lot of comfort and confidence that comes from knowing that you have that foundation to work from, uh, that you just don't get and don't have any control with iOS. Like we've talked about it before, working with the big airline here. Um I don't want to say we almost got fired from our project, but they thought we were trying to just, you know, create another statement of work because we wanted more money. You know, we had a developer at WWDC. They got out of a session, realized that a change was coming that was going to negatively impact this project that we were working on. A customer didn't believe us, and it it took about a month of being pretty ridiculously uh annoying before we got them and Apple on the phone, and they ultimately said, Yeah, we're right. And don't care how big you are, you're not bigger than you know, every consumer across the world. You know, this change is coming.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, I imagine if a uh a company with 30,000 Android devices went to Zebra Honeywell and said we need we need to keep keep this API that those two companies are not gonna remove them just because they they feel like it.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Um, this company had 80,000 employees and they're banging on their chest.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, I I remember somebody at one point in time. Somebody at one point in time is like the uh the entire rugged market is what Apple sells every month to consumers. So they don't care about the they don't care about AIDC or they don't care about the enterprise market.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

So much as we do, correct.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, it's definitely

Start With The Ideal Experience

SPEAKER_00 10:39

a thing. Um I think the other thing too, uh and you had noted this when we had chatted about it before, just the shared device experience and what you can do with you know companies like Blue Fletch on a uh on an Android device versus an iOS device, just some of those capabilities. Can you maybe dive into that a little bit, just thinking about the difference between the two platforms?

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah. So the difference, especially when you're thinking about um migrating, you know, um in this iOS world, what does it look like in this Android world? Um you know, shamelessly, my perception is a bit different. I think we have the best um shared device platform in the world. And I think if you're starting thinking about how do you move, it's not how do I lift this iOS experience and pluck it down in Android. You should really throw away all your perceived um notions and just focus on what's the experience you want to have? Start there. Like what's your wish list? What's what's top? I could do this, if we could do this, if this was better, um, you know, folks would be happy, or we have a much more seamless experience, or we'd have so much more visibility into business operations. Um start there. Um, because from there you're always able to walk it back. And so I know early in our career um at at Blue Fledge, and it still happens today, you know, folks are still uh they still put themselves in a box when they don't have to. And you know, I think it it's easier for them to come out of the box when you start to talk about um just next steps like what what's the what's the best place to start? And for us, we don't want to sit here and um convert, migrate everything from iOS in one shot. Like just pick one thing to solve, whether it's the hardest thing, the easiest thing, and then build build from there. Uh, because then you're able to start to build those small wins and get the buy-in and get people to believe that yeah, we can start thinking outside the box and really just think about the problem at hand and not be constrained with um how we were constrained previous previously with iOS.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Can you can you maybe like so that was a second second topic or question I had for you? So imagine just let's be specific. Imagine you're a retailer with a thousand stores and ten thousand iOS devices currently deployed in the field. How would you recommend they go through that process? You mentioned starting with the experience. Think about what is your ideal state. How should they go and think about going from where they are to actually a professional grade Android environment? Like what are the steps involved in that?

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Yeah, uh main take an inventory of uh of those thousand stores, those devices, like what are the applications, what are the use cases? Um, do you have problem stores? Like do you have stores in areas that um for whatever reason seem to have problems, whether it's network, store location, um, store makeup? Um do you have pilot stores? And I think from there, you rank and stack your list of priorities and um come up with a set of pilot stores or locations or users that kind of touch your best users every day, and then like what's a problem set of either user stores or locations and um you know solve a particular problem. Like maybe it's device accountability, maybe it's single sign on on an application that you just need to prove that it's happening. Maybe it's a uh a certain experience, right? Maybe you're actually wanting to introduce um AI for whatever reason to either um level up or create or um accelerate the maturing of store associates and get that buy-in. Uh but you yeah, usually it starts with just inventorying everything that's out there, identifying the use cases, identifying your best locations, average worse, um, and then let's prioritize and you know, how can we get this new technology in a location in our store associates hand as quick as possible so that we can give feedback?

Hardware Selection And POC Criteria

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, how do you recommend? So you get this experience, you get sort of a lay of the land. How do you think about going and actually picking hardware next? So there are, you know, on the Android side, there's a dozen manufacturers you can buy for handhelds and tablets. Like, how do you actually think about you know you have your use case designed, how do you figure out what your actual physical hardware looks like you're gonna go purchase and what you put out in the stores or warehouses or or in or hospitals?

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Yep. Well, if you got the time, the fun thing about it is you have multiple OEMs, zebras and honeywells, data logic, spectrolink. Um you name it like you you have a lot to choose from. So it depends on the use cases. You know, do I need just mobile computers? Do I need mobile computers and tablets? Do we have kiosks, um price checkers? Um am I approaching end of life with um some of my point of sale uh units because now you're having these Android devices that are dockable. Um you have some headless Android devices that could run as desktops as well. And so um it's really just understanding those use cases and like coming up with a priority. But I think the fun part of it is you have options, and so now you have uh some value that comes from those options. Some you know, OEMs bring different value or different um like core value that they have, depending on um uh the device that you want, but then you can also extract, or you have the opportunity to extract some of that value that you just don't have with uh iOS because you have these OEMs that care about uh rugged share devices and frontline workers, and that's what they're dedicated to. And so um, you know, I think that's how you go after it.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

You talked about like testing these. I'm assuming you know there's proof of concept where just you test these different pieces of hardware. Um you mentioned before having one or two applications you go after. How do you decide to go from there? Like what are the what's the exit criteria from proof of concept? Hey, we like these, you know, this tablet and this handheld. Now it's time to go um you know, write some big checks and uh and start piloting in stores and proving out. How do you go from your POC to the next steps?

SPEAKER_03 17:46

It's it's it's a tough one. Um because sometimes it comes down to just relationship and who you're comfortable with. Um having the device is one thing. Um but what else comes with it? So I have my um device, but it will it will it meet my needs to your point four to six years from now? Um meaning this device is priced well, it looks well, but it doesn't have a tensor chill. So when we're ready to roll in AI, am I going to negatively impact the experience on all these devices um going forward? Um you know, what does the support cycle look like? Um although they are rugged, devices still break for a slew of reasons. What is that repair and maintenance uh process? Will I have a hard time getting devices a few years out? Um I think a lot of the OEMs have done a real good job of working with Google on um supporting versions of Android. So um that's less of a huge factor or um consideration. Um, you know, do I need to have a strong hot swappable battery um device or option? And then, you know, how comfortable am I with you know the leadership of you know of the company? Because, you know, who knows what technology or the end-user experience or the consumer experience for this retailer um uh you know delivering for the customers is going to expect in a few years. Do I trust this OEM to continue to innovate and have the tools, but also take my suggestions and um be here to support us four to six years from now. And so um there's a lot of just facets of uh that decision-making process that I can only offer up support and talk about our experience and you know the experience we've seen um in this industry. But um, yeah, this is a decision that you have leadership with that retailer or customer is gonna have to

Scaling Rollout With Zero Touch

SPEAKER_03 20:12

make.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So once you've decided on hardware, you've gotten through POC and you're like, this is what we want, and now we need to get it to all thousand stores. What is the next step? Do you just like ship 10,000 devices out and swap them overnight? Or how do you typically recommend people do that?

SPEAKER_03 20:29

No, it's it's having a really good process and having a really good partner. Um, having a good partner that can stage, kit, and ship, but also work with a company like Blue Fletch and um, you know, with our tooling to make it as seamless as possible. So if the device is shipped to a location or store that it's as easy as opening a box and turning the device on, and that device is ready to be used. You want to minimize um or even eliminate um any touches uh in-user needs as far as um getting a device up and going. And so that's a project in itself and takes some time. Um I think our tooling and some of the tooling of the EMMs, especially when you think about um Android Enterprise Zero Touch, um, makes some of uh these um unboxing experiences uh a bit better. Um, but even in that even in that, it's it's not just ship a device out and a store associate's gonna load all the software. That's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Um although it's just go install, click on all these things, install the software, see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yes, in these 20 barcodes and oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, I've seen I've seen that before that you definitely leverage a a value added reseller to help preload everything for you. Um before before we hop in, I have a bunch of technical questions for Alan. Before I hop into that, when you think about that that scenario of you know a thousand plus stores and 10,000 devices. How long realistically does that take from starting your evaluation, going and migrating your initial sets of apps, migrating all of your apps, proof of concepting, and then piloting? Like what is the what would you say a life expected life cycle for that be? Is it two weeks, five weeks, five years?

SPEAKER_02 22:22

I think it'll depend on there's there's the there's the skill aspect, right? So if you're if you have a pure iOS team and need to rescale, retool, um, you're looking at, you know, months um to get something out, to get something out the door. And uh to Rick's point, right, target, you know, you know, pick one, pick one, get it through the process, um, focus on that, understand what your team's limitations are, um, and adjust accordingly. Um, I think that's that's where that's where that would sit. Um uh at least from a migration standpoint, I think we've seen, uh I don't know if you remember, um like when we did um we had a customer that did, you know, they initially had the iOS phones on sled, so we switched them over to Android.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Um uh uh couple of months at least. I think four to four to six months to get to pilot is what we've typically what I've typically seen. Um and then I feel like a full project is typically about a year to get everything replaced and not not not big bang roll them out like uh like I that was trolling Richard on

App Architecture And Team Skill Shifts

SPEAKER_00 23:45

above. Um Alan, you uh on the technical pieces, I mean there's a bunch of different areas, technical differences between iOS and Android. When you think about the um the buckets, I think we talked about like architecture, skill set, tooling, uh deployment. Can you talk about those? Maybe when you think about architectural differences between iOS and iOS apps um versus Android, what are the the big I guess learnings you would have people go uh start to pick up in that first four to six months?

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Um I guess taking a step back in general, like from Android to iOS, right, you get a lot more flexibility, but you also do get a little bit more complexity, right? But you do have um more control over to Ritz point earlier, what what do you actually want to happen versus on iOS of what can I do in a box, right? Um so from an architecture standpoint, um there's at least the biggest pain points that um or the biggest friction that I've seen is just understanding, you know, Android has different life cycles. Like there's an actual component where um your processor running, and you know, Android can kill it at any time, depending on what's running on your device. So being able to handle, you know, when the screen, even the point where your screen rotates or your app goes to the background, or you can actually run um background applications now um on Android. So those are the things that you know people or developers from going from iOS to Android need to brush up on or get skilled on um just how that whole works. Um uh and then you also have to think about um there's the UI framework differences, obviously, um and language differences from moving from Swift to Kotlin. Um your UI is moving to Compose. There's some similarities there with Swift UI. Um it's not a hard transition, at least internally, even for us, we've had pretty good success with our iOS developers being able to go between iOS and Android fairly quickly. Um the other the other thing that would change for um, I think for iOS developers, when I take snapper, you have to think about you're dealing with multiple OS, right? Um you're dealing with multiple OS, you're dealing with multiple devices. Um the OEMs control what is available from an OS standpoint. Um so as an app developer, you have to understand that, oh, my app has to be able to run on these devices, and you know, I have to go be able to support OSs further back.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I guess the example there would be like we've seen some retailers that are running from Android 9 all the way up to Android 15 at the same time. So your development team has to be able to understand the different uh, I guess, Ian different API surfaces for that Google's publishing for those.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Right. Um and this is where I would go with, you know, at least having a native using native Android. Um Google does a pretty good job of transitioning between OS versions um and that backward compatibility. Um one of the things to from a skill standpoint, you talked about, or I think you were starting to mention around the SDK start, from an enterprise standpoint, you do have your your scope is bigger than just consumer devices. Yeah, that you have your OEMs like Zebra or Honeywell, they have SDKs that you can tie into. Um so so understanding those pieces as well can help your use cases get better, or you'll be able to define more of what you want with those versus just having to rely on sleds. Um what else?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Um You can maybe you can dive into like the the skill set. Richard talked about this, but you know, having iOS developer, you talked about a bit, having iOS developers that do iOS and Android, what are the the big differences from a skill set standpoint that they have to think about or know about between the two platforms?

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Um well there's the language portion, uh Swift to Kotlin, um UI2 Compose. Um I talked about earlier just the lifecycle piece, just understanding understanding that. Um you know, there's things that you can do on Android that you cannot necessarily do on iOS. Um you know, backgrounds pretty hard on um, or maybe not even possible on iOS. Um we have the advantage that like our software runs on Android, our launcher runs on Android, and there are some things that you can put on that. Um whereas you can't really customize that on um on iOS. Um and the one I haven't talked about is you know the build is a little bit is different, right? So we've got Griddle that you'll still need to learn on Android as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

I guess tooling, like when you think about tooling, I know with to do an iOS, you need an iPhone, you need or an iPad, and you need a a Mac, a Mac laptop. Like that to me feels like the biggest difference. Um you know, with Android, you can have a Linux machine, Windows machine. Um I guess what are the other big things for like an environment setup or development setup between iOS and Android?

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Yeah, right developers, but sorry to cut you off, Alan. No, yeah. Not as much of a thing today, but like eight years ago. So to just say like I'm an iOS developer. Like they're allergic to uh development on Android, like a nut allergy or something. Um like they were just not tolerant to wanting to do anything else like but this one thing because they were um you know decent at it. And so I think it really comes down to the developer too being like, okay, just knowing that this is just another language, I'll figure it out, and then I'll have another you know, notch in my tool bill.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

I mean, in fairness though, Apple did figure out you know the developer tooling experience. Um they figured that out like much earlier than Android did.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Um but who's always had the best IDE though?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, I feel like Android Studio has gotten really good. Yeah, in the last couple years. Um in I guess from a deployment standpoint, you mentioned like building APKs, Alan, on the Android side, like that process and getting them on devices and deployed out to devices like POC devices. So what's the the big difference there? When you think about you know, from the standpoint of building on a machine versus you know getting it in a pipeline, getting out the door.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Right. So I mean there's the tooling in on the on the iOS side, right? You still have um it's it's pretty well defined. Um, there's not a lot of options. You've got Apple Business Manager. Um if you're on your developer or if you're doing development and getting through QA, you've got test flight, and so on. Um there's a lot more options on the Android side, um, as far as you can still side load internally. Um, you've got choices from an NDM standpoint as well. Um, you're not just locked down to Apple Business Manager or the Play Store. Um so internal apps. Um there's um you have the enterprise provisioning for for iOS, but you do have a lot more options um on the Android side. Uh the things that you just need to consider um at least going into production on the production side, right? You have the OS update and patch like iOS controls your OS updates basically. Um but especially on on Android, at least you've got you still have your OEMs. Um they're releasing that for you, and you have more control over when you actually upgrade. Like to what you mentioned earlier, we have customers that are still moving from going through that process moving from nine and to 15. Um so that's that's really just where where those differences are.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Um Richard, I have a question for you. I know you're pretty pretty steeped in Android Enterprise. Can you talk about Android Enterprise, what it is, and just things for if if a company is moving from iOS and managing through the standard iOS process versus going to Android Enterprise, what are the big value ads that Google has built around that ecosystem?

SPEAKER_03 33:06

So I think there's two pieces of Android Enterprise that uh oftentimes don't get talked about, unless you're a Google engineer talking to a customer. Um about six or seven years ago, Android democratized managing Android devices. So they created Android Enterprise, um, which gave you a standard set of APIs that you could register for to manage Android devices, and Google would be the device policy controller. So implementing those low-level Android settings, APIs, changes, app installs um on devices. Um but along with that, Android really um upped its game around just security. Because one of the notions um, especially in 2016, 2017, was that Android is open source, it's not as secure. Um, so all the scanning and play protect that goes um into looking at the APKs that are not only in the Play Store, but on your device that you've installed or side-loaded, um, to the things you can't or can't do. Um, to even, although it's annoying some of the um wall garden that they've created around applications, has made like Android really, really safe and secure as a as a as a platform. Um but you know, this was Google or Android's answer to okay, we're uh just as secure as any other uh mobility platform. Um but also too, we're open to how this is managed and creating guardrails around that that um EMMs and customers or whoever wants to manage an Android device should not to follow.

Common Gotchas And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Got it. Um last topic, I know we got a couple minutes here left. The I'm gonna call it the misses or the gotchas. So when we work with companies or talk to companies that are going through this process, are there things that a lot of them will overlook or miss? And so I guess on the maybe we'll start, Richard, with you, on the business and operational side, are there you mentioned the litany of things above, but like what are the the four or five you see people sort of skip over that they should be investing more time and effort into?

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Um I think I talked early on about some functional leadership make this like a personal decision. They're like, my six-year-old can use it, I can use it, my parents can use it. So why can't my delivery drivers or my clinicians or my warehouse workers use it? Well, there are companies that build devices specifically for them, and they ought to be using those devices. Um I think carrier subsidies oftentimes hide the long-term pain of um iOS not being a shareable device. And so then you run into the business impact wall pretty hard. Um, and usually the way you get out of it is to just throw more devices at it, like it's Halloween candy. And you know, coming to the real realization that Apple's always gonna do what's in the best interest for Apple.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

And it's customer, which are consumers, not frontline workers.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

I think you gave the stack stack that the whole um you know rugged market space is what Apple does like every month for consumers. And so I I think when folks really internalize that, they realize that no matter how big am I as a company, um, I'm not gonna be able to change Apple's mod because I'm a fraction of what's possible. And I need to partner up with a really good value at a reseller, but then also understand uh which OEM fits uh my company, our use cases, and has to write device uh mix and investment like that. Um that makes sense for me to invest over time. And I I think those are the the two biggest ones that um that probably hit the hardest, and they hit so hard that uh they usually don't go they're not spoken about publicly too too much.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah, the cool the quiet secrets that are out there. And uh Alan, for you on the the technical side, are there things that you feel like as companies are you know evaluating iOS versus Android that they they miss or when they're doing the migration, like things that they miss are just got you seeing these migration type projects?

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Um from a migration standpoint, there's the just understanding your devices, um, your device capabilities. Um there are fragmentations around versions, play store versions or play services versions, et cetera, that could affect your devices. Um and then there's understanding that you know just moving from this iOS to the Android world, your apps, if you just move them as is or port them directly, they may not behave the way you want it to, just because of the way that lifecycle works on on Android. So you still need to understand and how actually you actually it's not just the language, right? It's you know how does Android OS and the platform behaves that you'll need to understand. Um the I know in our notes we had SSO, right? Um that's another key portion that we're heavily involved in. Um there hasn't been a really good standard SSO for devices, uh for Android devices up until recently, where folks have been moving to or Google's quietly pushing towards the use of Chrome custom tabs.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Um whereas on iOS you just had WebKit, that's it, let's tie the safari. Um uh and then just a few OEM quirks um that that you deal with um depending on which OM you go to.

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So understand those differences as you get into it. All right, so um if I had to take the last 30 minutes and just compress it, I think I'll the the key takeaways I had that Richard, your your starting statement on focus on the experience early on, you know, think about those operational processes, what those are. Don't be tied into a one-for-one migration. Just like don't be stuck in the box. I think that's a big one for me. Um, I think getting the hardware that's right for you, so that running those POCs, testing different hardware platforms, identifying the one that that fits your needs. There are a lot of OEMs on the Android side, so really you know, keeping your eyes open to what you like and don't like there. Um running the projects and deployments, like it is a project. So you're not just doing a ship and swap. It's a a project that needs to run. So having POCs, pilots. And then Alan, from your standpoint, I think a lot of the things you talked about is the you know, there's much different um you know, with the additional OEMs, different Android versions, you're gonna get a lot more capabilities, but you're also gonna have a lot more to go understand and try to learn. So making sure your teams understand those. And then um, you know, I think at the end of the day, like the big takeaway, you know, we've done this multiple times with a large with a lot of large companies. It is something that could be done, plan it appropriately, give yourself the six to twelve months to go do it, and then uh get it out the door. So um thank you guys for joining me and hopping through this topic today. If you're in one of these um migrations, I know Richard and Alan do hop on the phone a lot with a lot of people and give their experiences. So no uh no judgment there. You guys have uh seen all the problems, so definitely feel free to reach out to us at info bluefletch or hit us up on the website. Um and then if you have any other questions outside of that, like the SSO pieces that Richard and Allen are talking about, definitely reach out. So thank you very much and uh appreciate everybody listening alongside. And Richard and Allen, thank you guys very much. Thank you for tuning in to Frontline Mobility Edge. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for more content every month. If you'd like to learn more about Blue Fletch, check out the link in the description or visit at bluefletch.com. See you next time.