If I were a developer, I would never release a single thing for Android.
It seems like a waste of time. The end product will be inferior and fragmented (how many hundreds of Android devices are there again?) and there is a lot less profit to be made. The simple thing to do would be to concentrate on the superior platform where there is money to be made and where there are customers who actually appreciate your work and who are willing to pay for a good product.
If I were a developer, I would never release a single thing for Android.
It seems like a waste of time. The end product will be inferior and fragmented (how many hundreds of Android devices are there again?) and there is a lot less profit to be made. The simple thing to do would be to concentrate on the superior platform where there is money to be made and where there are customers who actually appreciate your work and who are willing to pay for a good product.
Then that would make a great reason for you not to depend on app development for your income.
When you add the indications that Android app downloads are now exceeding those on iOS, I think it would be remiss to ignore the Android Market.
It doesn't matter if more people are downloading the latest background. How many people are buying, as in purchasing, as in actually spending money? One game developer recently wrote that Android sales are 1/4 iOS sales, while Android support costs are 4X iOS costs. That's a 16X differential.
Even Google's exec's are on record as being "disappointed" with Market sales, and that they're "lackluster".
Hey! A little off-topic but true story: Had to stop in the local WalMart last night, and there was a geek helping a woman with 2 kids choose between an iPad and an Android tablet. He told her, with a straight face, that Android was better because she could download and build the latest version herself.
Mostly because it's pushed by more carriers intent on selling phones with higher margins and laden with their own crapware shilling their own music and media stores.
You'll note that none of Android's supposed advantages have let it compete successfully in the tablet and MP3 player markets...
My bet is revenue. If MS can get developers making slightly more money than Android developers, Android development could simply stop.
Developers follow revenue. In PCs, however, it just so happened that Windows was the platform with both the highest market share and highest revenue potential. With smartphones, that's not the case. While Android has a larger market share than iOS, iOS is still where the money is for developers.
I realize that this is the AppleInsider, so we all have a special interest in Apple, but what sort of answer would one expect when speaking to developers at an Apple developers conference? The bottom line is that Android is growing substantially faster than IOS and no analyst thinks that is going to stop in the forseable future. It is true that developers have found ways to make money even on OSX, in spite of OSXs low single digit market share (Windows has well over 90%). I am sure that there will be ways for IOS developers to make money even when IOS has dropped to single digit market share, but the opportunities will be limited.
All this spewing about fragmentation, and many devices using old version of Android, simply misses the point, Android is the OS to beat, not IOS. I really liked all my IOS devices (phones and pods) but the best Android devices are now as good or better than IOS devices, and I am apparently not the only consumer to notice this. It is certainly not the media that is pushing Android either. For every positive comment about Android, I see on TV, there are 20 about the Iphone or Ipad, but somehow Android surges ahead anyway. Apple simply cannot compete with all the Android devices with a couple of phones and pads. We have reached the point where the two biggest Android phone makers now each sell more phones than Apple, and the way things are going there will soon be a couple more Android makers who sell more phones than Apple
So what is my point?, if Apple doesn't make a dramatic change to their marketing model IOS will either disappear or become a niche product. What I am afraid of is that users will simply not be willing to run Android on most of their devices while running IOS on a selct few. Somewhat like the VHS vs Beta or HDDVd vs. Bluray, or even Windows vs. OSX, is going
At the end of the day, what matters is profitability. Android's market share has risen significantly, and in the same period, Apple has taken more than half the profits of the smartphone industry. Market share is not going to pay employees' salaries. Market share will not fund R&D on the next product. Market share will not pay taxes to the government. Profits will do all of the above an then some. And right now, Apple is making money.
I believe you will find it's is on a much lower percentage of phones than iOS 5.
And that has to do with what? The most recent iOS available to existing Android phones is Gingerbread. V4, Ice Cream Sandwich, has not yet been offered for existing Android smartphones. It's a Nexus exclusive at the moment.
Nonsense. ICS is fully released. Some are running it now. It will be slow process to get ports to all the platforms(if ever).
Only the Nexus offers it.In the first quarter of 2012 it will begin rolling out to several existing Samsung, Motorola and HTC phones, among others. The closest any existing Android owners will come is a hacked version that the Android community is trying to do. I'm guessing Cyanamod but dunno.
. . . and with the hard work already done, release it in the Android Market too and make some more.
My thinking is that if I invested the time and effort to release a really good app for iOS, there is minimal additional profits to be made by porting it to Android. The added expense and time would not be worth it for me. There would probably be much more people there pirating it, than buying it.
I also believe that money isn't everything, and I have my pride and my ego to tend to, and even if it meant slightly less profit, I would get a lot more satisfaction and less headaches out of the whole thing by not releasing my product for Android.
On my developer's homepage, I would clearly state that - This product is only available for iOS, Android usage has been forbidden and made illegal.
It doesn't matter if more people are downloading the latest background. How many people are buying, as in purchasing, as in actually spending money? One game developer recently wrote that Android sales are 1/4 iOS sales, while Android support costs are 4X iOS costs. That's a 16X differential.
What's your point?
Another Game Developer released a game on Android a few weeks ago under a freemium model. It's been downloaded over 1 million times getting ready to break 2, The developers can roll out updates in Under 24 hours with no problem, and a single binary change can fix issues or update the game across at least 100 devices.
Our Android game has made about 20% of our iOS version.
The biggest problem that we have is the Android platform requires a lot more support than iOS does. From our deployment package the marketplace says it can run on over 350 different devices! This reminds me a lot of Windows development in regards to the number of configurations and situations that must be accounted for, tested, and supported. The configurations/drivers/software is one of the reasons why I think Windows development has fallen out of favor with both gamers and developers. So what we support and what we don't is just a guess at this point and there are configurations and systems that are just not going to be able to be supported until we release it into the wild and we get customer feedback.
Having said that, the fact that in a majority of cases the application runs on these devices that we just didn't have testing data for is saying something to the strength of the platform. However, the fact remains that support for Android is considerably more expensive and time-consuming than iOS.
With 425,000 iOS apps delivering $2.5 billion to developers, it sounds like there's fortunes to be made. But that equals an average of less than $5900 per app. If you're a developer, consider keeping your day job.
The Android Market is even worse, averaging around $2500 per app so far, with even games delivering an average of $5000 per.
The bright spot? The growth in revenue in the Android Market was over 800% between February 2010 and February 2011. Likely much higher than that now with the huge growth in Android smartphones just the past two quarters.
Then there's this little nugget from the same Gene Munster that was the source for this AI story:
"Munster reports that 82% of App Store activity is from free apps, while the 18% of downloads that are paid apps carry an average selling price of $1.44."
Seems Apple owners have a decided preference for free apps too.
With 425,000 iOS apps delivering $2.5 billion to developers, it sounds like there's fortunes to be made. But that equals an average of less than $5900 per app. If you're a developer, consider keeping your day job.
You're assuming that every app is equal and that profits should be shared equally, as if this were some socialist nirvana or something.
The fact is that there are quite a lot of garbage apps that don't deserve to make any money at all.
Only the cream of the crop rises to the top, and that's how it should be.
If somebody doesn't make quality apps, then they shouldn't even bother.
The Achilles heal of the Google open platform is that when you align yourself with a community ( open source ) that prefers free software, it's kind of hard to compel them to help out 3rd party developers who are selling commercial software.
( reread what I wrote there carefully if you think I'm open source bashing, I'm not. )
Of course Google really cares only minimally forthe Android Market itself. They just want the analytics.
The problem I have with Google with respect to software is that they give it away for free. This includes their web-based Google Docs, which is free to use. It devalues software. Google is not an ISV that makes money from software sales, so they can compete rather unfairly with ISVs who are. Smaller software companies can't fall back on profitable ad revenue business don't stand a chance against Google free software.
I realize that this is the AppleInsider, so we all have a special interest in Apple, but what sort of answer would one expect when speaking to developers at an Apple developers conference? The bottom line is that Android is growing substantially faster than IOS and no analyst thinks that is going to stop in the forseable future. It is true that developers have found ways to make money even on OSX, in spite of OSXs low single digit market share (Windows has well over 90%). I am sure that there will be ways for IOS developers to make money even when IOS has dropped to single digit market share, but the opportunities will be limited.
All this spewing about fragmentation, and many devices using old version of Android, simply misses the point, Android is the OS to beat, not IOS. I really liked all my IOS devices (phones and pods) but the best Android devices are now as good or better than IOS devices, and I am apparently not the only consumer to notice this. It is certainly not the media that is pushing Android either. For every positive comment about Android, I see on TV, there are 20 about the Iphone or Ipad, but somehow Android surges ahead anyway. Apple simply cannot compete with all the Android devices with a couple of phones and pads. We have reached the point where the two biggest Android phone makers now each sell more phones than Apple, and the way things are going there will soon be a couple more Android makers who sell more phones than Apple
So what is my point?, if Apple doesn't make a dramatic change to their marketing model IOS will either disappear or become a niche product. What I am afraid of is that users will simply not be willing to run Android on most of their devices while running IOS on a selct few. Somewhat like the VHS vs Beta or HDDVd vs. Bluray, or even Windows vs. OSX, is going
Just to be on the safe side: did you miss the "memo" (pasted all over the world!) a few months back where Apple, with it's measly single-digit marketshare, became the largest and most profitable company in the world. Thus beating even Exxon, non-the-less the Microsofts, Intels, and Googles of said "world".
So I'm gonna tell you only once CaptBilly:
"...you take that box of Cap'n Crunch and watch Captain Kangaroo like a good lad in your own "little world", and leave business to the grown ups... ya hear?"
Comments
It seems like a waste of time. The end product will be inferior and fragmented (how many hundreds of Android devices are there again?) and there is a lot less profit to be made. The simple thing to do would be to concentrate on the superior platform where there is money to be made and where there are customers who actually appreciate your work and who are willing to pay for a good product.
If I were a developer, I would never release a single thing for Android.
It seems like a waste of time. The end product will be inferior and fragmented (how many hundreds of Android devices are there again?) and there is a lot less profit to be made. The simple thing to do would be to concentrate on the superior platform where there is money to be made and where there are customers who actually appreciate your work and who are willing to pay for a good product.
Then that would make a great reason for you not to depend on app development for your income.
Then that would make a great reason for you not to depend on app development for your income.
Why would you say that?
If somebody releases a really good app for iOS only, then there is decent money to be made.
When you add the indications that Android app downloads are now exceeding those on iOS, I think it would be remiss to ignore the Android Market.
It doesn't matter if more people are downloading the latest background. How many people are buying, as in purchasing, as in actually spending money? One game developer recently wrote that Android sales are 1/4 iOS sales, while Android support costs are 4X iOS costs. That's a 16X differential.
Even Google's exec's are on record as being "disappointed" with Market sales, and that they're "lackluster".
Hey! A little off-topic but true story: Had to stop in the local WalMart last night, and there was a geek helping a woman with 2 kids choose between an iPad and an Android tablet. He told her, with a straight face, that Android was better because she could download and build the latest version herself.
She just looked at him like he was from Mars...
...but somehow Android surges ahead anyway.
Mostly because it's pushed by more carriers intent on selling phones with higher margins and laden with their own crapware shilling their own music and media stores.
You'll note that none of Android's supposed advantages have let it compete successfully in the tablet and MP3 player markets...
Will developers follow market share or revenue?
My bet is revenue. If MS can get developers making slightly more money than Android developers, Android development could simply stop.
Developers follow revenue. In PCs, however, it just so happened that Windows was the platform with both the highest market share and highest revenue potential. With smartphones, that's not the case. While Android has a larger market share than iOS, iOS is still where the money is for developers.
Actually a higher percentage of Android phones are on the latest version compared to iPhone owners., 40% for iOS and 44% for Android.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396073,00.asp
http://developer.android.com/resourc...-versions.html
Apparently you never heard that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has been released.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/...ch-source-code
I believe you will find it's is on a much lower percentage of phones than iOS 5.
I realize that this is the AppleInsider, so we all have a special interest in Apple, but what sort of answer would one expect when speaking to developers at an Apple developers conference? The bottom line is that Android is growing substantially faster than IOS and no analyst thinks that is going to stop in the forseable future. It is true that developers have found ways to make money even on OSX, in spite of OSXs low single digit market share (Windows has well over 90%). I am sure that there will be ways for IOS developers to make money even when IOS has dropped to single digit market share, but the opportunities will be limited.
All this spewing about fragmentation, and many devices using old version of Android, simply misses the point, Android is the OS to beat, not IOS. I really liked all my IOS devices (phones and pods) but the best Android devices are now as good or better than IOS devices, and I am apparently not the only consumer to notice this. It is certainly not the media that is pushing Android either. For every positive comment about Android, I see on TV, there are 20 about the Iphone or Ipad, but somehow Android surges ahead anyway. Apple simply cannot compete with all the Android devices with a couple of phones and pads. We have reached the point where the two biggest Android phone makers now each sell more phones than Apple, and the way things are going there will soon be a couple more Android makers who sell more phones than Apple
So what is my point?, if Apple doesn't make a dramatic change to their marketing model IOS will either disappear or become a niche product. What I am afraid of is that users will simply not be willing to run Android on most of their devices while running IOS on a selct few. Somewhat like the VHS vs Beta or HDDVd vs. Bluray, or even Windows vs. OSX, is going
At the end of the day, what matters is profitability. Android's market share has risen significantly, and in the same period, Apple has taken more than half the profits of the smartphone industry. Market share is not going to pay employees' salaries. Market share will not fund R&D on the next product. Market share will not pay taxes to the government. Profits will do all of the above an then some. And right now, Apple is making money.
Why would you say that?
If somebody releases a really good app for iOS only, then there is decent money to be made.
. . . and with the hard work already done, release it in the Android Market too and make some more.
Apparently you never heard that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has been released.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/...ch-source-code
I believe you will find it's is on a much lower percentage of phones than iOS 5.
And that has to do with what? The most recent iOS available to existing Android phones is Gingerbread. V4, Ice Cream Sandwich, has not yet been offered for existing Android smartphones. It's a Nexus exclusive at the moment.
And that has to do with what? The most recent iOS available to existing Android phones is Gingerbread.
Nonsense. ICS source is fully released. Some are running it now. It will be slow process to get ports to all the platforms(if ever).
Nonsense. ICS is fully released. Some are running it now. It will be slow process to get ports to all the platforms(if ever).
Only the Nexus offers it.In the first quarter of 2012 it will begin rolling out to several existing Samsung, Motorola and HTC phones, among others. The closest any existing Android owners will come is a hacked version that the Android community is trying to do. I'm guessing Cyanamod but dunno.
. . . and with the hard work already done, release it in the Android Market too and make some more.
My thinking is that if I invested the time and effort to release a really good app for iOS, there is minimal additional profits to be made by porting it to Android. The added expense and time would not be worth it for me. There would probably be much more people there pirating it, than buying it.
I also believe that money isn't everything, and I have my pride and my ego to tend to, and even if it meant slightly less profit, I would get a lot more satisfaction and less headaches out of the whole thing by not releasing my product for Android.
On my developer's homepage, I would clearly state that - This product is only available for iOS, Android usage has been forbidden and made illegal.
It doesn't matter if more people are downloading the latest background. How many people are buying, as in purchasing, as in actually spending money? One game developer recently wrote that Android sales are 1/4 iOS sales, while Android support costs are 4X iOS costs. That's a 16X differential.
What's your point?
Another Game Developer released a game on Android a few weeks ago under a freemium model. It's been downloaded over 1 million times getting ready to break 2, The developers can roll out updates in Under 24 hours with no problem, and a single binary change can fix issues or update the game across at least 100 devices.
Our Android game has made about 20% of our iOS version.
The biggest problem that we have is the Android platform requires a lot more support than iOS does. From our deployment package the marketplace says it can run on over 350 different devices! This reminds me a lot of Windows development in regards to the number of configurations and situations that must be accounted for, tested, and supported. The configurations/drivers/software is one of the reasons why I think Windows development has fallen out of favor with both gamers and developers. So what we support and what we don't is just a guess at this point and there are configurations and systems that are just not going to be able to be supported until we release it into the wild and we get customer feedback.
Having said that, the fact that in a majority of cases the application runs on these devices that we just didn't have testing data for is saying something to the strength of the platform. However, the fact remains that support for Android is considerably more expensive and time-consuming than iOS.
With 425,000 iOS apps delivering $2.5 billion to developers, it sounds like there's fortunes to be made. But that equals an average of less than $5900 per app. If you're a developer, consider keeping your day job.
The Android Market is even worse, averaging around $2500 per app so far, with even games delivering an average of $5000 per.
The bright spot? The growth in revenue in the Android Market was over 800% between February 2010 and February 2011. Likely much higher than that now with the huge growth in Android smartphones just the past two quarters.
http://www.kontain.com/plat4m/entrie...at-app-bubble/
http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...itable-1025093
Then there's this little nugget from the same Gene Munster that was the source for this AI story:
"Munster reports that 82% of App Store activity is from free apps, while the 18% of downloads that are paid apps carry an average selling price of $1.44."
Seems Apple owners have a decided preference for free apps too.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/11/...ce-increasing/
Add this little article, comparing TapFish revenue on both the iOS and Android platforms, pretty well apples for apples.
http://gigaom.com/2011/08/24/android...his-developer/
Outblaze, a game developer, is seeing some of the same with Android revenue outpacing that from their iOS games.
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011...llion-install/
In a nutshell, good apps that offer value in segments with less competion can see as good or better results than the same effort on iOS.
A little more app market "this n'that".
With 425,000 iOS apps delivering $2.5 billion to developers, it sounds like there's fortunes to be made. But that equals an average of less than $5900 per app. If you're a developer, consider keeping your day job.
You're assuming that every app is equal and that profits should be shared equally, as if this were some socialist nirvana or something.
The fact is that there are quite a lot of garbage apps that don't deserve to make any money at all.
Only the cream of the crop rises to the top, and that's how it should be.
If somebody doesn't make quality apps, then they shouldn't even bother.
Seems Apple owners have a decided preference for free apps too.
The big difference is that a lot more Android users have decided to make free apps out of paid apps, since you can pirate them without a jailbreak.
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/09/08...em-hurts-devs/
The Achilles heal of the Google open platform is that when you align yourself with a community ( open source ) that prefers free software, it's kind of hard to compel them to help out 3rd party developers who are selling commercial software.
( reread what I wrote there carefully if you think I'm open source bashing, I'm not. )
Of course Google really cares only minimally forthe Android Market itself. They just want the analytics.
The problem I have with Google with respect to software is that they give it away for free. This includes their web-based Google Docs, which is free to use. It devalues software. Google is not an ISV that makes money from software sales, so they can compete rather unfairly with ISVs who are. Smaller software companies can't fall back on profitable ad revenue business don't stand a chance against Google free software.
I realize that this is the AppleInsider, so we all have a special interest in Apple, but what sort of answer would one expect when speaking to developers at an Apple developers conference? The bottom line is that Android is growing substantially faster than IOS and no analyst thinks that is going to stop in the forseable future. It is true that developers have found ways to make money even on OSX, in spite of OSXs low single digit market share (Windows has well over 90%). I am sure that there will be ways for IOS developers to make money even when IOS has dropped to single digit market share, but the opportunities will be limited.
All this spewing about fragmentation, and many devices using old version of Android, simply misses the point, Android is the OS to beat, not IOS. I really liked all my IOS devices (phones and pods) but the best Android devices are now as good or better than IOS devices, and I am apparently not the only consumer to notice this. It is certainly not the media that is pushing Android either. For every positive comment about Android, I see on TV, there are 20 about the Iphone or Ipad, but somehow Android surges ahead anyway. Apple simply cannot compete with all the Android devices with a couple of phones and pads. We have reached the point where the two biggest Android phone makers now each sell more phones than Apple, and the way things are going there will soon be a couple more Android makers who sell more phones than Apple
So what is my point?, if Apple doesn't make a dramatic change to their marketing model IOS will either disappear or become a niche product. What I am afraid of is that users will simply not be willing to run Android on most of their devices while running IOS on a selct few. Somewhat like the VHS vs Beta or HDDVd vs. Bluray, or even Windows vs. OSX, is going
Just to be on the safe side: did you miss the "memo" (pasted all over the world!) a few months back where Apple, with it's measly single-digit marketshare, became the largest and most profitable company in the world. Thus beating even Exxon, non-the-less the Microsofts, Intels, and Googles of said "world".
So I'm gonna tell you only once CaptBilly:
"...you take that box of Cap'n Crunch and watch Captain Kangaroo like a good lad in your own "little world", and leave business to the grown ups... ya hear?"