Android App Store Failing
linkinpark875
Posts: 29,700 Forum Member
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See here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13284156
I agree with this fully. I wonder if it's a wider picture of Androids target Market wanting a cheaper iPhone alternative and free apps?
Maybe the Apple ad is true if you don't an iPhone?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13284156
I agree with this fully. I wonder if it's a wider picture of Androids target Market wanting a cheaper iPhone alternative and free apps?
Maybe the Apple ad is true if you don't an iPhone?
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There was another fairly negative Android story in the last few days, but I'm struggling to find it now. It was essentially about a phone manufacturer wanting to use a third-party location service, rathert than or in addition to Google, to which Google responded by saying if that were the case, the handset would not meet the criteria for Android. I might have got this slightly wrong, but I think that was the general thrust of it.
What you also have to remember is that one of the biggest ad-sales entities on the web is Google. Google maybe losing out on app revenue, but it certainly isn't doing too shabby on ad revenue. Basically, the way I see it is... what Google loses from one revenue stream, it claws back from another - and the "other" one (ad sales) is a regular stream rather than a small percentage of a single, one-off app purchase transaction.
Users may be attracted to free apps and hence *might* move from IOS to Android... maybe one of the reasons that Apple is now getting its feet wet in the ad market.
I'm happy for it to fail big corporations if it means diversity and choice.
Everything is failing in some way if you really want to use the word 'fail'.
What it is trying to get is saturation of the OS - the app store is just a nice perk on the side. Once the majority of people are signed up to something driven by Google - it then really starts to rake in the moolah.
On the security front, I look upon this a bit like survival of the fittest. I don't download any old crap on my PC - I read reviews etc. and make sure it is safe to install. If people do this with their smartphone, they will be just as safe.
The issue is developers making money. Which is a fairly big problem for Android, and is the main reason the vast majority of the best apps and, especially, games, only turn up on Android months or years later, as an afterthought (if at all).
But Android can survive without a hugely successful app store. It's aiming at the lower, commodified, end of the market, after all. And so long as it can continue to gather in customer details for advertising, Google will be happy.
SONY got kicked well into touch with their e-reader app and it may well be that the only book seller left in June will be iTunes.
It's possible Kindle can hang around a bit, only because Amazon has draconian policy too that may just leave a profit for them after paying Apple their 30%.
SO the IOS app store is failing too.
It is almost the exact same IOS situation for movies and music.
Yet on Android many will choose Adobe Flash as their DRM content delivery and sales so here the app stores fails to monopolise.
The iOS App Store seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment.
As others have said, developers make a load of dosh from ads, something the article doesnt even address.
As for the apple ad...view this and your
To survive you have to 'sleep with the devil'. That's business.
The way I see it, the pricing policy is so draconian that those buying elsewhere such as on Android will be subsidising IOS buyers, but with everyone paying one fixed price and markup.
Kindle is the same though.
Not sure about that Alan, Amazon still have @70% of the US market in eBooks IIRC, even grumpy old gits like me have started to use a Kindle (since the children gave me one). So long as Amazon keep the Kindle as it is, basically a book reader and the price low it will sell and sell. If they try and increase its functionality and take on the likes of the iPad and other high end pads then they could well come unstuck.
Did anyone watch last night's 'The Apprentice'? The challenge was to design and launch an app in 24 hours, the winner had something like 10,000 downloads in the first few hours; it does seem that people just download any old app these days.
But I'm quite happy with my ad supported apps. I really don't want to pay for apps and am very happy to have the ocassional ad. MixZing is great for me and I don't mind the ads the same with RockPlayer.
I agree. The Kindle is great at what it does, and tablets are not really the best tools for reading books, what with them being backlit and relatively heavy. I fear that Amazon will start trying to introduce more and more features, when the strength of the Kindle is its ability to perform its core function very well.
And the 'winning' app was absolutely awful!
Angry Birds is always trotted out as an example of an app that's making a ton from advertising, but it's everywhere - it's probably the best-known game in the world right now. Rather than taking this as the norm, head down the most-downloaded charts a bit and ask those ad-driven developers how much they're making, and I'll bet it's a tiny fraction of what Rovio is getting. Even if advertising was included in the revenue from Android Market, I still think it would be less than the total from the iTunes App Store, because they have loads of ad-driven apps too.
iBooks could well be 95% of IOS sales if you do the maths.
Yet I'm very uncertain that Amazon will not charge £13 on IOS and £10 on Android to make things 'parity'.
Methinks Amazon may only have to charge the same amount on their website if it is a 'IOS purchase'.
Is this through the Kindle itself or using the app? Surely the point of the Kindle having wi-fi/3G is to allow you to buy books wherever you are.
Yeah, I'd like to know that. Got a Kindle and it'll be pointless having the 3G if I can't get books when I'm abroad (particularly Spain).