Some Claim Android App Store Worse Than iPhone's

eldavojohn writes "If you think the iPhone app store is the only mobile game store suffering an exodus, some game publishers claim Android's app store isn't much better, for a different reason — it doesn't generate much revenue. In fact, French game developer Gameloft (which owes 13% of its profits to iPhone game sales), said, 'We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like... many others. It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue. We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.' So the trade-off seems to be more sales but an annoying approval process, versus a lack of sales promotions and no annoyance around approval. It seems that those in it for money will opt for iPhone, and those in it for distribution will opt for Android. Or maybe someone will get it right one of these days?"

Comments

Who'd have thunk it?

[seanadams.com]

It seems that those in it for money and distribution will opt for iPhone, and those in it for neither will opt for Android.

FTFY. But seriously, did these developers make ANY effort to size the market on each platform before making their decision?

I can totally understand why some developers have problems the iphone approval requirements. But its positively daft to make a business decision on only that basis and then be surprised later to discover that your prospective customers simply do not care. Surprise! They prefer a unified, tightly controlled, non-sucky smartphone experience even at the expense of some interesting apps.

Personally I'd go a step further. I would give up EVERY SINGLE THIRD PARTY APP not to have to go back to the Treo that my iPhone replaced. Maybe Android has come a long way since then but for the first time I am actually happy with my phone and not motivated enough to find out.

Re:Who'd have thunk it?

[Hadlock]

I think the bigger reality isn't that "the iphone app store sucks because they're so restrictive", but "the iphone app store sucks because they won't give us an unfair advantage by allowing us to break rules so we sell more apps than our competitors". I think the Android app store doesn't sell as many units simply because it's newer and simply doesn't have the same installed base as the iPhone/ipod touch. Politicizing things by bringing the apple "standards board" into things only muddies the issue.

Re:Who'd have thunk it?

[eln]

Exactly. A mobile phone, even a smart phone, is far more of an appliance (or a game console) than a standard computer is, and you will lose if you try to treat it like a computer. Apple understands this and offers a uniform experience with a tightly controlled OS and tightly controlled applications available through a simple and easy to use app store interface. Developers only have to develop for one set of hardware requirements, and can fully take advantage of that piece of hardware.

Android, on the other hand, is an open platform designed to work on a wide variety of devices. This means that developers have to design their apps for the lowest common denominator of all these devices, or create different versions for each device depending on its capabilities. This means they can't effectively take advantage of advanced features or greater available resources in the high end phones, because they'll lose out on all of the potential customers with the lower end models. This is much more akin to developing for PCs rather than consoles.

If people saw their phones as personal computers, Android's model would be more successful. However, it doesn't seem to fit in with how most people use their phones. It will find purchase among the small segment of the market that enjoys endlessly tinkering with their gadgets, or philosophically oppose closed designs enough to forgo the iPhone, but the majority of the population will continue to flock to the iPhone.

Re:Who'd have thunk it?

[GooberToo]

The thing most hurting the Android store is piracy. Period. Even worse, many users, for the cost of $0.99, of which .60 went to the developer, demand $20k/year level support and if they don't get it, bad mouth the hell out of the developer and the application. Hell, most of the time users just leave shitty comments on the market and refuse to even report a bug. Any developer or user who has spent much time on the market will verify this fact.

Simple fact - pirates are killing the android market. Period. Entitled users are number two. Number three is Google's complete indifference.

Also, to the masses, please stop with the idiocy of, "get rich", comments and, "size the market". The FACTS are, the market is already plenty big for many developers to make a living - if only that. This isn't about getting rich. The market size is plenty big - and growing very fast. Period. The problem is, everyone is stealing the applications and its making it impossible for developers to make any money what so ever. This is why more and more (vast majority now) are ONLY developing adware based applications because even with extreme piracy they are able to make buck. This in turn is creating backlash for developers - but pirates have left absolutely no other options for developers. Because of pirates, the only options are, abandon the platform or try with adware applications.

If you like the Android platform, kick the holy shit out of any pirates you know because THEY are destroying the entire platform. Without professional developers, with the ability to make a living, or hell, even work for greater than third world wages, by in large the platform is going to remain mired in third rate applications and will likely cause the platform to die before it can ever reach "developer critical mass."

Piracy is so extreme on Android because of all the platforms, its by far the easiest to pirate apps on. Made worse is Google's lie that would provide copy protection. To date, they have not. Google's current "copy protection" is the same concept as the infamous "evil bit" for IP. Bluntly, its all but useless and Google seems more than content to be flipped with developers.

This means the only rescue for Android is to lock down the platform - not likely - or for people the kick, every pirate they know, in the nuts for destroying what was to be the an excellent mobile platform. I already know two developers how have been forced to leave the platform. A third isn't far away. Simply put - pirates suck.

Some claim chocolate ice cream better then vanilla

[Kenja]

But I still say eat which ever you personally like.

Market share

[Gudeldar]

Perhaps Android apps don't sell as well as iPhone apps is because there are a LOT less Android phones than iPhones?

Re:Market share

[mlts]

There are a lot fewer Android phones than iPhones, plus there is one thing people forget:

If you distribute code for Apple's platform, you have to go through the App Store. If you want to distribute code for Windows Mobile and Android, you can just send the user a file. The Android and WM app stores are more of clearinghouses (similar to Handango), as opposed to a central choke point.

So, factoring out pirated apps, Apple's Store shows essentially all the apps that go from developers to customers. Other platforms, the app stores might be used for commercial distribution, but other apps don't need to be. So, even if Android had the same marketshare as Apple's ther app store would always show fewer apps because people are free to use other ways to get from them to their users.

Re:Why not both?

[maccodemonkey]

Sure, if porting over was free... But the reality is that porting an iPhone app to Android requires moving all your iPhone C code to Java, targeting non multitouch devices, targeting devices with different screen sizes and resolutions, and another round of testing... You'd have to hire a second engineering team. What Gameloft seems to be saying is they can hire a dozen engineers to make X number of dollars on Android, or they can take those same engineers and make 400 times X on the iPhone. Economically, it makes no sense for them to keep engineers on Android when those same engineers could be put to work to make 400 times as much money on the iPhone.

Lets see where this stands in 2 quarters

[system1111]

With the Droid out and the recent marketing push in terms of Verizon dollars behind it I think this might look a little different down the road a bit.

Re:Why not both?

[MightyMartian]

And now we know the real reason Apple fears, hates and will continue to block Java on the iPhone.

Re:Perhaps ..

[mjihad]

.. at the moment the difference in sales is due to market segmentation based on who is buying each type of phone?

If you are a trendy game player you are buying the iPhone and games for it, but if you are an Android user you care less for games and more about being "free" ??

Actually, there are two big differences between the Android market and the iPhone app store, business wise: there are less Android phones out there than iPhones and iPod Touches and the Android Market does not have paid apps available in every country, including Canada, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, South Korea, China, Brazil, India and Russia.

Re:Droid Owner

[dagamer34]

Ditto. Even the crappier looking iPhone apps are FAR more pleasing to the eye than some of the best Android apps because there's a standardized UI that just about every iPhone app must use (creating your own UI for iPhone apps is often discouraged in the iPhone developer docs unless it's a game).

CNN on Android developer fears

[maiken2051]

CNN Tech article on developing for Android: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/android.wired/index.html Will developers get stuck building for the "least common denominator" of 'droid phones? Or develop for specific models / versions / capabilities? Throw in phone vendor and carrier OS customizations and the Android app marketplace could get hard to live with...