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?

It isn't failing, but it's not making as much money as you might expect, given its size and Android's share of the market.

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.

Well, its king of the hill now as a platform, I was shocked at the sales shown in the link, certainly in how its knocked Apple into the shadows so to speak (no, I'm not Apple bashing) but remember its still comparatively new and is having teething problems. One 'problem' is that so many of the free apps are very good and must take away from the paid for apps thus reducing revenue for programmers.

Don't forget that a lot of these free apps are ad funded. Angry Birds on Android made massive amounts through ad revenue, enough to make Rovio decide against future paid-for versions. This might be defining the business model for some of the other developers now.

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.

It really depends on who it is failing and whether you like monopolies.

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'.

I am sure Google can afford to run the app store as a loss leader. I bet the money it makes just about pays for the donuts at its new New York HQ.

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.
Last edited by fletchem : 12-05-2011 at 11:20

Google making money is not really the issue. Google is primarily an advertising company, and it makes money regardless of how the app store does. App stores are not big money makers for the platforms anyway - even Apple only makes a minuscule percentage of its vast profits from app sales.

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.

It is now getting to be the reverse situation with that small 30% percentage of everything a hindrance.
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.

Not really. All the major magazine publishers have just signed up in the last few days, which many of the critics said would never happen. (Which was always a bit silly, given they routinely pass on way more than 30% of their income to offline retailers).

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 will turn into

They create the content so it is a totally different subject.
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.

I didn't know this. I'm not too surprised but it's a problem for some developers and I guess they'll need to address it.

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!

Developers are using advertising for Android to get money for their apps as the paid model isn't as popular on Android - when the Market launched it was free apps only and Android users got used to that. Android is the platform that has the reputation that you can get loads of free apps. Unfortunately, you have to get downloads in massive numbers in order for advertising to pay as much as paid downloads.

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.

Not for too long.
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'.

One annoying thing with Amazon ebook purchases is that lets say your in Spain, you open up your account, hit the 'buy' button and they won't let you buy. They pick up your overseas ISP address and block it? My daughter was in Spain for a long weekend and this happened to her; came home and no problem buying. Some sort of copyright problem?

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.

Not sure Niles, I'll clarify with her and get back to the thread.

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).