Well, as a developer with apps on both markets, last year's thinking is reflected in last month's sales reports. And Angry Birds is still at the top of the charts. Do you have any market data to back up your claims?
Getting developers to Android tablets isn't just a matter of getting more units out there than iPad. There are already more Android phones out there than iPhones, but there is still more money to be made on the iPhone than on Android. What Android needs to do is get the type of users that are willing to pay for apps. iPhone users pay for apps. Even Rovio didn't want to release Angry Birds on Android because they didn't think enough Android users would be willing to pay for it. Maybe Rovio can afford to support themselves on ad revenue, but the average developer is going to have it much harder.
I am stuck with Hughesnet, due to living in the boonies. They impose a 425 megabyte limit on my downloads even at the $100 a month plan. The only time it is unlimited is between 2am-7am, which I'm betting isn't enough time to grab an entire OSX distribution. Just getting XCode and the iOS SDK became a race against time once the file hit the 4gb range.
I guess I can stay up until 2, then set an alarm for 7 to pause the Mac App Store download until 2 am the next morning. But still, I'd really like to just pay a few extra bucks and have them ship me a DVD. It doesn't even have to come in a fancy box.
The Android Market in general is pretty broken because of the lack of even a rudimentary review process. The other day I was looking at the new releases in the Sports Games category and there were about 5 or 6 pirated ebooks of Harry Potter, the Twilight Series and several others. Needles to say, this is not only illegal, it's in the wrong category.
This has been a problem in the market since its inception and Google still has yet to do anything about it. If they are unwilling to have someone at least look over the titles and categories that an app is placed in before allowing it on the market, in order to cut back on massive copyright and trademark violations and make browsing the store by category possible, why do we think they'll take any preemptive strike against malware?
Google doesn't even give Android developers a convenient way to contact them. It seems to me that they wanted the Android Market to be a set it and forget it kinda thing. Will the negatively publicity form the malware for them to change that stance? I doubt it.
My roommate, my neighbor, and a friend of mine have all been hit by rogue anti-virus programs on Windows in the past 3 weeks or so. I've had the same thing that happened to you happen to me twice today. I guess someone has decided to bring the rogue anti-virus scam to Macs. Thankfully, it isn't so easy to get administrator access to a UNIX machine and the scammers have to actually ask permission to install their virus. Fixing my roommate's computers was a pain in the ass, and my neighbor had to go to work before I could figure out how to fix his.
For someone who is always harping on freedom, Stallman doesn't seem to understand it. I am FREE to charge for my software so that I can eat and pay my bills. My customers are FREE to pay for it if they so choose. The exchange is mutual and consensual. Commercial software developers only FORCE our customers to pay for software if they want to use it. Until we start forcing them to pay for software they don't want, the only evil is him trying to take our FREEDOM of choice away. Stallman isn't some savior, he's the very fascist that he claims to be rallying against.
I think the point he was trying to make is that there is no difference between a studio audience of hundreds watching a show live then tweeting spoilers and thousands of people going to the first screening of a movie and doing the same. I don't think your some instead of most logic takes this into account. Unless you are suggesting that most people who see a move go to the very first showing. Or that the amount at that first showing all across the nation is miniscule compared to the amount of people in a studio audience.
I did read the article. The courts can get a search warrant to come into my home and take whatever they want, but I doubt that any judge would ever say about my home that I have "no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.” If you have a profile, and you set it to private, than there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any privacy against the actions of the courts. Maybe I'm arguing semantics, I just think it was poorly phrased on the part of the judge.
It seems to me that this completely nullifies any privacy policy in force on any website. If you have no "legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy" with a privacy policy in force, than how can an employee of the website in question, or the management themselves, get in trouble for violating said policy? Judges really need to be careful what garbage they spew out, lest they set the wrong precedent.
I wouldn't leave it laying around kids, but the thing looks exactly like a light saber. Even an adult is likely to pick it up and play with it. I would say the same thing if Smith & Wesson made a gun that looked like a blaster from a Sci-Fi movie. Yes, dangerous equipment should be stored in safe places, but there should also be a responsibility on the part of the manufacturer to not deliberately mimic the look of pop culture items.
Some have argued that the laser only looks like a lightsaber because it is cylindrical and looks "sleek". I disagree, Wicked Lasers makes many lasers that are sleek and do not look like light sabers. If you look at the full image on their website, and not just the one in the article, you will see how light saber like it is.
Any further proof is abundant in the original article announcing the laser here on slashdot. It was rife with light saber comments. It wasn't until George Lucas agreed that everyone started saying that it doesn't look like one.
I don't care about the legal implications of what the laser looks like, but I think it would be a lot cooler to have if it didn't look like a toy. I don't want someone getting a hold of it and thinking it is a light saber and shooting me with it. Dangerous tools should never be made to resemble toys, regardless of who owns the trademarks on the toys.
According to christians, Jesus died and then came back to life. Sounds zombie like to me, would he need to eat human brains for you to agree with the comparison?
Why are all the people that are so offended by this saying that it is bad because Apple is going to become some big publishing monopoly? They don't even have a device with a very readable display yet. The LCD becoming large and portable didn't make it any easier on the eyes than when it was on your desktop, or when it was large and portable on your laptop. Not to mention the established juggernauts Amazon and Barnes and Noble that would have to be toppled. Not to mention that content producers who want to have nudity will seek out publishers who don't mind it.
It seems to me that the Apple haters have far more respect for Apple's products than even the Apple fanboys. I doubt very seriously that anyone who says "I love my iPad" is thinking, "I can't wait until it is the only way for me to read a book". I'm not sure whether it's just "the sky is falling" conspiracy theory on the part of the haters or not, but not even the fanboys have that much delusional confidence in Apple.
I have two apps on both markets (more on iPhone). I make more on iPhone for sure, even though I charge a dollar more for one of the apps on the Android. I don't think price affects sales too much as people love the app on iPhone and I think would have been willing to pay the extra dollar had I not undercut myself.
There are A LOT of things wrong with the Android market though that reduce sales. Many things. First, a ton of phones still use 1.5, which doesn't have any screenshots. You can't even tell what TYPE of game you are getting at times without screenshots.
Second, the entire description is limited to something like 325 characters. It just doesn't allow for much of a sales pitch, or even a detailed description of the app. Also, since there are no keywords associated with the app, like with Apple, you have to try to cram your keywords into that 325 description, making it even harder to say something meaningful.
Another really annoying feature is the 24 hour return window. My best app has a return ratio of about 90%, the second one is around 66%. The kicker is that the second app has a demo available. Free demos seem to be meaningless on the Android. I don't mind a return policy, I have bought apps for my iPhone that I really wish I hadn't. But 24 hours is quite a bit of time. It completely disallows for ebooks, and quick to beat games. There is no reason for the customer to pay for it.
Finally, the Android market doesn't have the common sense to wait for 5 reviews before they give an average. My first review for one app was a 4 star review, the next was a 1 star review. Once my average hit 2.5 sales almost completely stopped.
Google has NO experience in creating this type of product, and the utter lack of polish in the Android market shows. Until these issues are fixed, market share is going to mean diddley for sales.
Before I answer the question about the $x.99 pricing, let me address another logical fallacy. Apple is not raising prices for EVERYONE. Apple is raising prices for those publishers and/or authors who choose to use Apples service, and who choose not to lower their prices instead of raise them.
Now, on the the $x.99. I don't work for Apple, so can only speculate. But don't think of it as prices that end in $0.99. Think of it as their iTunes connect app management pages refer to it, as tiers. You see, by limiting the amount of possible prices, they are able to set and keep set consistent pricing across the world, where currencies are not the same. $1.99 USD may be 1.45 currency X dollars one day and 1.56 currency X dollars the next day. Of course, they could always display the prices in the native currency of the content provider like Android does. Nobody ever complains about having to run to a currency converter program to figure out exactly how much they are paying for the latest and greatest fart app, right?
The fact is, Apple has that pricing structure for a very sound, well thought out reason. One that benefits consumers in a way that competitors like Android fail them. It's why Apple has the market share that they do, and why you are all riled up that you have to play by their rules. You could very easily not publish on Apple platforms, but you want the market share. The market share that the very things you complain about help to build.
Yeah, because it would be impossible for Opera to put out a press release saying "Opera mini rejected by app store" and bring the media right back down upon the issue. Good thing Steve Jobs is the 'evil' genius, and not you. Your plan for platform domination sucks.
If you had a chicken wing restaurant, would you let another chicken wing restaurant serve its wings in your parking lot? Now, are you evil, or just a hypocrite?
I've found it helps if you pick one person as your default drunken email recipient. One who for whatever reason is amused by your drunken ramblings. This worked well for me for nearly two years, but then my target started to respond less quickly. Now my poor Facebook friends are suffering. Maybe my next drunken Facebook status update should be for everyone to blame Brittany that they have to read it....except none of them know who Brittany is. They'll probably blame that poor Britney Spears girl, and really, she has enough on her plate now.
Alice cooper's two most recent CD's, both released in the new millenium, Brutal Planet and Dragontown are not only thematic in and of themselves but together as well. Brutal Planet told the story of a damned future version of earth where the human race has all but destroyed itself with it's greed, hatred and excess. (Although Alice says it frightened him a bit when he found inspiration for this future hell on earth from modern day CNN headlines.) Dragontown, is the story of the worst city on Brutal Planet, although throughout the album the term "Dragontown" can also be very easily seen as a euphimism for Hell.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as a developer with apps on both markets, last year's thinking is reflected in last month's sales reports. And Angry Birds is still at the top of the charts. Do you have any market data to back up your claims?
Getting developers to Android tablets isn't just a matter of getting more units out there than iPad. There are already more Android phones out there than iPhones, but there is still more money to be made on the iPhone than on Android. What Android needs to do is get the type of users that are willing to pay for apps. iPhone users pay for apps. Even Rovio didn't want to release Angry Birds on Android because they didn't think enough Android users would be willing to pay for it. Maybe Rovio can afford to support themselves on ad revenue, but the average developer is going to have it much harder.
I am stuck with Hughesnet, due to living in the boonies. They impose a 425 megabyte limit on my downloads even at the $100 a month plan. The only time it is unlimited is between 2am-7am, which I'm betting isn't enough time to grab an entire OSX distribution. Just getting XCode and the iOS SDK became a race against time once the file hit the 4gb range. I guess I can stay up until 2, then set an alarm for 7 to pause the Mac App Store download until 2 am the next morning. But still, I'd really like to just pay a few extra bucks and have them ship me a DVD. It doesn't even have to come in a fancy box.
The Android Market in general is pretty broken because of the lack of even a rudimentary review process. The other day I was looking at the new releases in the Sports Games category and there were about 5 or 6 pirated ebooks of Harry Potter, the Twilight Series and several others. Needles to say, this is not only illegal, it's in the wrong category. This has been a problem in the market since its inception and Google still has yet to do anything about it. If they are unwilling to have someone at least look over the titles and categories that an app is placed in before allowing it on the market, in order to cut back on massive copyright and trademark violations and make browsing the store by category possible, why do we think they'll take any preemptive strike against malware? Google doesn't even give Android developers a convenient way to contact them. It seems to me that they wanted the Android Market to be a set it and forget it kinda thing. Will the negatively publicity form the malware for them to change that stance? I doubt it.
My roommate, my neighbor, and a friend of mine have all been hit by rogue anti-virus programs on Windows in the past 3 weeks or so. I've had the same thing that happened to you happen to me twice today. I guess someone has decided to bring the rogue anti-virus scam to Macs. Thankfully, it isn't so easy to get administrator access to a UNIX machine and the scammers have to actually ask permission to install their virus. Fixing my roommate's computers was a pain in the ass, and my neighbor had to go to work before I could figure out how to fix his.
For someone who is always harping on freedom, Stallman doesn't seem to understand it. I am FREE to charge for my software so that I can eat and pay my bills. My customers are FREE to pay for it if they so choose. The exchange is mutual and consensual. Commercial software developers only FORCE our customers to pay for software if they want to use it. Until we start forcing them to pay for software they don't want, the only evil is him trying to take our FREEDOM of choice away. Stallman isn't some savior, he's the very fascist that he claims to be rallying against.
I think the point he was trying to make is that there is no difference between a studio audience of hundreds watching a show live then tweeting spoilers and thousands of people going to the first screening of a movie and doing the same. I don't think your some instead of most logic takes this into account. Unless you are suggesting that most people who see a move go to the very first showing. Or that the amount at that first showing all across the nation is miniscule compared to the amount of people in a studio audience.
Clearly this person is trying to get the phrase 'application cache' into google's cache.
So, what you are saying is that at least one website will bend to the will of Google? Youtube might be huge, but it is still just one website.
Does Chrome really have the market share required for this move to have any effect on the decisions of web designers?
I did read the article. The courts can get a search warrant to come into my home and take whatever they want, but I doubt that any judge would ever say about my home that I have "no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.” If you have a profile, and you set it to private, than there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any privacy against the actions of the courts. Maybe I'm arguing semantics, I just think it was poorly phrased on the part of the judge.
It seems to me that this completely nullifies any privacy policy in force on any website. If you have no "legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy" with a privacy policy in force, than how can an employee of the website in question, or the management themselves, get in trouble for violating said policy? Judges really need to be careful what garbage they spew out, lest they set the wrong precedent.
I wouldn't leave it laying around kids, but the thing looks exactly like a light saber. Even an adult is likely to pick it up and play with it. I would say the same thing if Smith & Wesson made a gun that looked like a blaster from a Sci-Fi movie. Yes, dangerous equipment should be stored in safe places, but there should also be a responsibility on the part of the manufacturer to not deliberately mimic the look of pop culture items.
Some have argued that the laser only looks like a lightsaber because it is cylindrical and looks "sleek". I disagree, Wicked Lasers makes many lasers that are sleek and do not look like light sabers. If you look at the full image on their website, and not just the one in the article, you will see how light saber like it is.
Any further proof is abundant in the original article announcing the laser here on slashdot. It was rife with light saber comments. It wasn't until George Lucas agreed that everyone started saying that it doesn't look like one.
I don't care about the legal implications of what the laser looks like, but I think it would be a lot cooler to have if it didn't look like a toy. I don't want someone getting a hold of it and thinking it is a light saber and shooting me with it. Dangerous tools should never be made to resemble toys, regardless of who owns the trademarks on the toys.
According to christians, Jesus died and then came back to life. Sounds zombie like to me, would he need to eat human brains for you to agree with the comparison?
Why are all the people that are so offended by this saying that it is bad because Apple is going to become some big publishing monopoly? They don't even have a device with a very readable display yet. The LCD becoming large and portable didn't make it any easier on the eyes than when it was on your desktop, or when it was large and portable on your laptop. Not to mention the established juggernauts Amazon and Barnes and Noble that would have to be toppled. Not to mention that content producers who want to have nudity will seek out publishers who don't mind it. It seems to me that the Apple haters have far more respect for Apple's products than even the Apple fanboys. I doubt very seriously that anyone who says "I love my iPad" is thinking, "I can't wait until it is the only way for me to read a book". I'm not sure whether it's just "the sky is falling" conspiracy theory on the part of the haters or not, but not even the fanboys have that much delusional confidence in Apple.
I have two apps on both markets (more on iPhone). I make more on iPhone for sure, even though I charge a dollar more for one of the apps on the Android. I don't think price affects sales too much as people love the app on iPhone and I think would have been willing to pay the extra dollar had I not undercut myself. There are A LOT of things wrong with the Android market though that reduce sales. Many things. First, a ton of phones still use 1.5, which doesn't have any screenshots. You can't even tell what TYPE of game you are getting at times without screenshots. Second, the entire description is limited to something like 325 characters. It just doesn't allow for much of a sales pitch, or even a detailed description of the app. Also, since there are no keywords associated with the app, like with Apple, you have to try to cram your keywords into that 325 description, making it even harder to say something meaningful. Another really annoying feature is the 24 hour return window. My best app has a return ratio of about 90%, the second one is around 66%. The kicker is that the second app has a demo available. Free demos seem to be meaningless on the Android. I don't mind a return policy, I have bought apps for my iPhone that I really wish I hadn't. But 24 hours is quite a bit of time. It completely disallows for ebooks, and quick to beat games. There is no reason for the customer to pay for it. Finally, the Android market doesn't have the common sense to wait for 5 reviews before they give an average. My first review for one app was a 4 star review, the next was a 1 star review. Once my average hit 2.5 sales almost completely stopped. Google has NO experience in creating this type of product, and the utter lack of polish in the Android market shows. Until these issues are fixed, market share is going to mean diddley for sales.
Yep. Piracy advocates like to holler "vote with your dollars." Well, the dollars have been voted with and Imagine Babysitter and Pony Lover DS won.
And instead of Manhunt for Wii, why not just buy a lead pipe and run around bashing peoples heads in?
Before I answer the question about the $x.99 pricing, let me address another logical fallacy. Apple is not raising prices for EVERYONE. Apple is raising prices for those publishers and/or authors who choose to use Apples service, and who choose not to lower their prices instead of raise them. Now, on the the $x.99. I don't work for Apple, so can only speculate. But don't think of it as prices that end in $0.99. Think of it as their iTunes connect app management pages refer to it, as tiers. You see, by limiting the amount of possible prices, they are able to set and keep set consistent pricing across the world, where currencies are not the same. $1.99 USD may be 1.45 currency X dollars one day and 1.56 currency X dollars the next day. Of course, they could always display the prices in the native currency of the content provider like Android does. Nobody ever complains about having to run to a currency converter program to figure out exactly how much they are paying for the latest and greatest fart app, right? The fact is, Apple has that pricing structure for a very sound, well thought out reason. One that benefits consumers in a way that competitors like Android fail them. It's why Apple has the market share that they do, and why you are all riled up that you have to play by their rules. You could very easily not publish on Apple platforms, but you want the market share. The market share that the very things you complain about help to build.
Yeah, because it would be impossible for Opera to put out a press release saying "Opera mini rejected by app store" and bring the media right back down upon the issue. Good thing Steve Jobs is the 'evil' genius, and not you. Your plan for platform domination sucks.
If you had a chicken wing restaurant, would you let another chicken wing restaurant serve its wings in your parking lot? Now, are you evil, or just a hypocrite?
I've found it helps if you pick one person as your default drunken email recipient. One who for whatever reason is amused by your drunken ramblings. This worked well for me for nearly two years, but then my target started to respond less quickly. Now my poor Facebook friends are suffering. Maybe my next drunken Facebook status update should be for everyone to blame Brittany that they have to read it....except none of them know who Brittany is. They'll probably blame that poor Britney Spears girl, and really, she has enough on her plate now.
I think you mean not anymore. Remember the cold war?
Alice cooper's two most recent CD's, both released in the new millenium, Brutal Planet and Dragontown are not only thematic in and of themselves but together as well. Brutal Planet told the story of a damned future version of earth where the human race has all but destroyed itself with it's greed, hatred and excess. (Although Alice says it frightened him a bit when he found inspiration for this future hell on earth from modern day CNN headlines.)
Dragontown, is the story of the worst city on Brutal Planet, although throughout the album the term "Dragontown" can also be very easily seen as a euphimism for Hell.