Subliminal
Member
Well, Gingerbread will be sorting out the theme and design issues. And hopefully providing a good unified design for all devices that want it.
Android vs. iPhone App Markets
- Thread starter Keylime
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Keylime
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There have been a lot of people who have made the comparison that Android will likely become the "Windows" of the mobile space and iOS would become the "Mac OS"...meaning the marketshare would likely be massively dominated by Android, but there would be a smaller but very active subset of people working within the iOS space.ToxicAdam said:
Makes sense to me, as Google seems to have a pretty "Windowsy" model of distribution. Put it on pretty much any hardware you want, while Apple is again going the "Only Apple" method of distribution again. Seems like a pretty cut and dry outcome in terms of overall marketshare unless something crazy happens.
I'm just wondering how the app markets are going to be affected. Despite iOS currently being the place to be for developers, I have to imagine that at some point the Android Market will have far too many users to continue to ignore and it will either become the lead SKU for app development, or minimally be considered an equal to iOS when it comes to platform targeting for new applications.
Seems like Android users just aren't downloading as many apps and are paying for even less. A lot of people are pointing out that the Market itself isn't very well organized and has too much bloat in it, so I wonder if jumping to a more controlled model makes sense for Google, or if they simply just make it easier to find higher quality applications beyond the top 10 lists they've got.
Strangely enough, I don't think the App Store really does all that great a job of helping you find the best apps per say. Aside from their "Featured" section, I don't think the App Store does things that much differently than the Android Market, does it? They both show top apps in the category and overall, show ratings, and include search.
Keylime
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Very true...and considering how many millions of iPads are selling these days in addition to the Touches and iPhones, the number of iOS devices would most likely outpace Android devices unless they start branching out into stand-alone music players and/or tablets as well.numble said:
I'd love to see a breakdown of iPod Touch users vs. iPhone users in regards to applications downloaded and money spent...haven't seen that at all, but considering the marketshare in your graph, they have a ton more weight than I ever gave them credit for.
ZZMitch said:
GTFO with that shit.
As far as the OP goes, what's probably going to happen is that the Android market will eventually pass the iPhone/iTouch market, probably sometime first half of next year, if that long. I'll talk about the Android market because I'm familiar with it. It's going to need an overhaul, and needs one now to improve search and systems in place to weed out the Chinese and Hong Kong spam developers as stated previously in this thread that love to flood the market with useless apps that are unneeded as long as you know how to use Google to find wallpapers.
The other thing that needs to happen is that game developers need to start releasing their games at $.99 and $1.99. Max I'd pay for a game is probably $2.99. I do not have a problem paying for stuff and I have when it's been worth it. But there are too many Facebook knockoff games where the devs are literally charging $4.99 for it. If they'd just drop the price down to $.99 I can guarantee their revenue would increase dramatically. Also, the big players like Popcap need to start putting their big games on there like Plants vs Zombies. And when they do start bringing over those iPhone games, they need to be the same price. They don't need to be $3 more, for no apparent reason.
Also, for social apps, shopping lists, calendars, etc there are already a ton of free apps out there and most of them are very good. Sometimes you have to pay a dollar or two if you want the version without ads and I've done that for some if I felt they really differentiated themselves from something else on the market. Long winded way of saying, for these categories there are already plenty of free apps out there, if devs are going to try to make money in this space they either need to go the ad route or charge $.99 or $1.99 and find out a compelling feature list that improves on what you can get for free. Who is going to pay for something that is inferior to something that is completely free?
numble said:
It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the long term. Keep in mind that there are more cell phone sales in a single year than the entire population of active PCs. Granted a lot of those are cheap dumphones sold in less wealthy markets, but over time that will likely transition over to budget smartphone devices. I'd be surprised if Apple continues to grow marketshare of the iphone and that percentage stays the same.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
What are you basing this prediction on?andycapps said:
People going "lol, Andorid piracy" don't realise how bad piracy on iOS can be. Developer experiences differ, from 24 out of 25 app users are pirates to 3 out of 4, but recent estimates say it's 75%. It's like the Wii or XBox 360 versus the PS3; the former have lots more piracy going on but they still outsell the PS3.
I think that besides the obvious--and very important--factors of the iOS platform's much larger user base and and apps available, and the availability of the iPod Touch (essentially an app selling machine), the remains the fact that high revenue generating apps (or whole categories of apps) either aren't available in the Android App store or have high quality free competitors. For example, TomTom and the whole category of navigator apps generate a lot of revenue and are often in the list of top grossing apps. However on Android there is free high quality navigation app for Google. Can't really blame the Android market on that one.
Your avatar intrigues me.
I think that besides the obvious--and very important--factors of the iOS platform's much larger user base and and apps available, and the availability of the iPod Touch (essentially an app selling machine), the remains the fact that high revenue generating apps (or whole categories of apps) either aren't available in the Android App store or have high quality free competitors. For example, TomTom and the whole category of navigator apps generate a lot of revenue and are often in the list of top grossing apps. However on Android there is free high quality navigation app for Google. Can't really blame the Android market on that one.
Palm had to make that facebook app themselves, so sad :/Subliminal said:
Your avatar intrigues me.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
The fake "web 2.0" term isn't about a look, it's about consumers being the creators and two-way communication on websites.Subliminal said:
What you're discussing was just a design trend from a few years ago that doesn't really have a definition.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
Just a guess, I didn't do any serious number crunching. I know how many units Android moved this last quarter, the previous quarter, and the quarter before that so it seems like it's increasing astronomically. Rate the market is growing seems to be growing. I would think more and more devs will move over and develop apps (like RubxDub thought). But yeah, the timeline was just a guess. I'm sure someone could come up with a better guess. I don't really care about number of apps, I just want good games, STAT. So Popcap and co need to get serious and not just put 1 or 2 games on there.
Keylime
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I have to imagine the iPod Touch is basically Apple's gateway drug to the iPhone. Once someone buys an iPod Touch...they've got to start thinking about how nice it would be to have all the things the iPod Touch does and just include mobile internet and phone capabilities to it instead of having to carry around two separate devices.numble said:
That's pretty much exactly how it played out for me.
I got a free iPod Touch when I bought a computer, and that replaced my Zune because the Zune wouldn't sync with my Macbook...then after using my iPod Touch for a bit, I wondered why I needed to carry it around in addition to my phone if there was a phone out there that did both jobs in a single device...so I got an iPhone.
I'd also be curious to know how many iPod Touches are bought instead of just given away. I know Apple is always giving away free iPod Touches with new computer purchases...and considering that almost 70% of college students these days are going with new Macbooks, I wonder how many of those people go their iPod Touch with it and will eventually get pulled over to the iPhone world as a result of the gateway drug process. :lol
Ken Masters
Banned
I have a droid Incredible, and I'll you right now that 99% of the apps on the marketplace are shit. Just so much crap (100000 keyboard skins, wallpapers, ringtones...) there NEEDS to be a quality control system from Google.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
I don't know, I would have agreed with you up until iPhone 4 with iOS 4. There was a lot of grumbling about the iPhone system before then, but I think a lot of people are happy now, and developer wait time for app approval has gone way down and Apple are also more descriptive with their reasons for rejection.andycapps said:
Apple used to reject shit for minor UI problems, but now they accept apps while telling the developer that they should fix inconsistencies or whatever in an upcoming patch. I think that one change has done a lot to slow all that app store approval drama.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
Purely to have all information at hand I'm posting this: http://www.androlib.com/appstats.aspx
It's not mean as proof for or against his argument, I'm just putting it here for information purposes.
If there is a similar graph for iPhone apps someone could probably extrapolate and come up with a decent approximation.
According the the first graph there was a growth of ~100,000 apps in one year.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
True, I mean, there's a way on each app to flag it as malicious or inappropriate or something. I've thought about doing so and seeing if Google will start banning them. But for me, I pretty much look here or on XDA for what I want and just search for it or do my searching on AppBrain and have it automatically install on my phone.. So for GAF users, I can't see the Market being too "hard" to use. You just have to know what you're looking for. Which is mostly what I've heard about the iPhone store ironically. :lol
I'm sure it's not the easiest thing in the world to build a marketplace that brings the great stuff to the top when you're talking about 100k apps in Android's case and what, 225k in Apple's case? Heck, gaming side complains about PSN and XBL and being hard to find stuff and they're probably well under a couple thousand each. :lol
CharminUltra
Member
Drugs is my guess, and the assumption that the smartphone market will remain static for ever and ever.Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
If Google wants to improve they definitively need some kind of quality control, which they can't do because that would be too much like Apple and Apple is eeeeeviiiil and Google is teh gud.
giga said:
(includes iPad apps)
I found this site for iPhone apps: http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appcount
I don't know how reliable it is but according to it's statistics there are about 15000-20000 apps added a month.
ZZMitch said:
Apologies for my outburst as well then.
No idea about that site, but I'd prefer to trust numbers from the horses mouth. Analytical app sites like those always seem to be off. (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/15/goog-google-posts-q2-2010-results/)josephdebono said:
I had my first go on the android market yesterday after my sister bought one of those new Sony Xperias. Was not impressed at all. The image I took away was that the Android market was some kind of ghetto thrift store compared to the App Store.
Another problem is, I've been on an iPhone since they came out and the AppStore since day 1. I have so much investment in it, it wouldn't ever make sense to move.
That's where Apple will win, and like others have said, the Android market is just too fractured in terms of CPU and memory sizes for the devices, not to mention screen resolutions. Google's open approach is commendable but at the same time has many disadvantages in consistency.
Another problem is, I've been on an iPhone since they came out and the AppStore since day 1. I have so much investment in it, it wouldn't ever make sense to move.
That's where Apple will win, and like others have said, the Android market is just too fractured in terms of CPU and memory sizes for the devices, not to mention screen resolutions. Google's open approach is commendable but at the same time has many disadvantages in consistency.
Keylime
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True in some cases.Nerevar said:
...but I bought the TomTom app on my iPhone back in the day, and that was a $70 purchase or more at the time. With the number of games I've spent money on and that TomTom purchase, I'm pretty much locked into the Apple ecosystem unless I'm willing to accept losing that stuff. Between the iPhone and the iPad, I'm sure I've easily spent close to $400 on apps if not more. Not saying I'm the norm, just reiterating that for some people, switching is much harder than it is for others.
How does purchasing content on Android actually work? Do you setup a credit card with your Google account that they just let you reuse over and over like iTunes, or do you have to put in your credit card info every time or what?
I only get apps I research on the internet first...so whenever I go to the market I know exactly what I need to put in the search. That only makes sense to me.
Then again, app stores aren't that big of ad a deal to me. I've sideload more apps than I do browse the market.
When I had an ipod touch I never used the market. mainly cause it was an mp3 player.
Then again, app stores aren't that big of ad a deal to me. I've sideload more apps than I do browse the market.
When I had an ipod touch I never used the market. mainly cause it was an mp3 player.
CharminUltra
Member
My hair, bird, invalid, etc.AstroLad said:
I bet the devs just love that featurejosephdebono said:
I think the big issues with the Android marketplace is fragmentation (there are a lot of android phones out there that only use 1.5) and the quality to crap ratio.
I don't think there is any way to patch up the current fragmentation of the phones, a lot of 1.5 and lower phones are basically lost forever to the void, and they will probably be abandoned - the more important thing is going forward, having a game plan (which I can say with some confidence I think Google has). When all the phones are on the same page, developers and consumers alike will immediately find more use in the app market.
The bigger issue to me though is the market quality, the market layout isn't so bad (I've played around with store demos) - the problem lies in the crap. It's sort of the major negative of having an open market and I think it's one I can live with. What they need to do though is find some way to better rank apps - so that everyone knows the crap is crap, and everyone knows the good stuff is legit - where the good stuff is the first thing you see, and the crap is the last. I know this kind of happens already, but I can't explain it, it doesn't really seem to have quite succeeded yet.
Mind you, I know everything I just said is everything everyone else has already said - I wish I had more insight, but I don't have any sort of phone. Looks like the Galaxy S is going to be my first though, so maybe I'll have something new to say soon.
I don't think there is any way to patch up the current fragmentation of the phones, a lot of 1.5 and lower phones are basically lost forever to the void, and they will probably be abandoned - the more important thing is going forward, having a game plan (which I can say with some confidence I think Google has). When all the phones are on the same page, developers and consumers alike will immediately find more use in the app market.
The bigger issue to me though is the market quality, the market layout isn't so bad (I've played around with store demos) - the problem lies in the crap. It's sort of the major negative of having an open market and I think it's one I can live with. What they need to do though is find some way to better rank apps - so that everyone knows the crap is crap, and everyone knows the good stuff is legit - where the good stuff is the first thing you see, and the crap is the last. I know this kind of happens already, but I can't explain it, it doesn't really seem to have quite succeeded yet.
Mind you, I know everything I just said is everything everyone else has already said - I wish I had more insight, but I don't have any sort of phone. Looks like the Galaxy S is going to be my first though, so maybe I'll have something new to say soon.
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