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China Overtakes the US in iOS App Store Revenue (techcrunch.com)
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch: China has now overtaken the U.S. to become the largest market in the world for App Store revenue, according to a new report out this morning from app intelligence firm App Annie. The country earned over $1.7 billion in Q3 2016, which puts it ahead of the U.S. by over 15 percent. The U.S. had been the number one iOS market since 2010, the report notes. Today, Chinese consumers spend more than 5 times the amount they were spending compared with just two years prior. In addition, the report predicts that China will drive the largest absolute revenue growth for any country by 2020. The estimations are likely accurate -- App Annie had said at the beginning of the year that if China's rapid App Store revenue growth continued at the same pace, it would overtake the U.S. by year's end. And that has now occurred. This growth is largely being driven by games, and here, China's lead has also widened over the U.S. during the past quarter. Games drive 75 percent of App Store revenue, even though non-game apps make up the majority (75%) of those distributed in Apple's mobile marketplace.
And that is why the app stores (both iOS and Android, but Android in particular) are flooded with shitty micropayment systems and/or crazy amounts of ads.
There are lots of apps on the app store that I am very happy to give money for, because I want to provide direct support for those developers and keep them making more stuff.
Stuff like 1password for password management, the Rooms game series, a very well done transit tracking app, etc.
None of them are particularly expensive, and all are very worth while.
The fact that iOS is doing so well compared to Android boils down to the fact that iOS users are more willing to open their wallets. That's why there are a lot more higher-quality apps. For example, both platforms include an official Scrabble game as a freebee, loading with an absurd amount of ads. My spouse and I were playing it on different devices, so I figured I'd just buy paid-for copies to get rid of the ads. I could do that in iOS, but when I looked on Google Play, they didn't even bother offering it.
Decent software doesn't just materialize out of the sky. You gotta pay for it somehow.
(All this of course, ignores companies like EA that have made a business model out of shitty software...)