We’re all hearing about Android every now and then. Most recently, the hype has been building around Droid, the latest entrant in Android smartphone batallion and there have been enough discussions about its hard-to-beat features and iPhone rivalry on the web already. It does almost everything that a Mobile PC can be expected to do, probably more than that and the smartphone is cashing on its abilities as well. On the weekend when Droid launched, almost 1,00,000 units were sold to its enthusiastic buyers.
But the biggest difference between iPhone and Droid doesn’t really lie in the hardware capabilities or OS features but the hugely piled up App Store compared to poor Android Market. We all know that Android Market boasts over 10k android apps but App Store wins hands down, both quantitatively and qualitatively when it comes to Apps.
One important thing noticed by Eric about Android App Market is its weak, rather pathetic presence on desktop. Just check out Android Market’s website and you will realize that there has hardly been any emphasis of Google on Android Market.
The website looks lame as it features some paid, featured and unpaid apps and that’s it. There is hardly any screenshot of the displayed apps and no way to buy them from the website. Now, you might think that who actually buys from the desktop, right? It’s understandable that over 90% of the apps are bought from the iPhone/Android phone itself but the problem is that most of the users pay attention to Android Market online before buying an android phone or app from Android Market through Phone
Also, as suggested by Eric, if Google actually makes arrangement for a Cloud based Push through solution, wherein users would browse through apps in Android Market on the desktop itself, make a purchase right there and the purchased app download would be provided on the phone then Android Market can compete a lot better with App Store.
We can just hope that Google takes this suggestion into its immediate action plan and get their desktop based android market transform into something useful and appealing.
Hello!
I would like to share my experience on this topic, please.
We develop an application, investing hundreds of night-hours on it. Then, if we wish to sell it, Google does not allow us to sell in the market. “Canadian vendors not allowed in the market”.
Ironically, they did take our 25 US dollars for the privilege of giving our free apps to the users, but no way to sell.
So we put a LITE app in the market, and a paid app in Slide ME. The users see the LITE, free app in the market and ask for more and more features, for free. Nobody buys the paid app.
This can go on for a while, but how long will it be until the good developers burn out and stop developing?
In the iPhone store, the good apps are making nice money out of it (the best 5 apps make roughly 3000-4000 US$ a day). In the Android market, the absolutely best 5 sold apps (not mine, unfortunately) are making around 30-60 dollars a day.
Free apps are nice, but they don’t put food on my kids table, right?
Best regards,
Ari