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Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

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Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#91

Post by orangecat »

ben1040 wrote: post #55
gregholland wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

One thing that may address your first two points is that Google demoed at I/O a web presence for the Android Market that would work in conjunction with the push service on the phone. Buy an app on the web and it's pushed to the phone. I imagine that if done right this would allow them to match Apple in terms of providing more real estate for promotional content from app developers, and reduce the barrier to buying si…

I agree that one of the major problems with the Android Market at present is certainly this culture of "I won't pay for an app -- and if I have to pay, I'll copy it to my SD card and delete it within the 24 hour return window."

I haven't seen any evidence that piracy on Android is worse than on iOS. My paid app has a 5-10% return rate; even if that's all piracy, it's not worth worrying about.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#92

Post by jadedoto »

gregholland wrote: post #36
melling wrote: post #20

This trend was pretty easy to spot. Almost 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129465 The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps. I've heard several developers complaining that their apps don't sell on Android. Will this eventually change?

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

Marketplace does have a "Top Paid" and "Top Free" section for each genre similar to the App Store.

Most of the apps in App Store are crapware too

Apple gets a revenue from iAds as well. Notice that most of the Apps in App Store that are free are ad supported?

(I don't say this as a troll baiter, I own an iPad and an Android phone and love both equally)

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#93

Post by gregholland »

orangecat wrote: post #91
ben1040 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that may address your first two points is that Google demoed at I/O a web presence for the Android Market that would work in conjunction with the push service on the phone. Buy an app on the web and it's pushed to the phone. I imagine that if done right this would allow them to match Apple in terms of providing more real estate for promotional content from app developers, and reduce the barrier to buying si…

I agree that one of the major problems with the Android Market at present is certainly this culture of "I won't pay for an app -- and if I have to pay, I'll copy it to my SD card and delete it within the 24 hour return window." I haven't seen any evidence that piracy on Android is worse than on iOS. My paid app has a 5-10% return rate; even if that's all piracy, it's not worth worrying about.

The problem with piracy on android is how EASY it is to pull it off. On the iPhone, you have to jailbreak your phone, a step which many consumers are weary of doing in fear of bricking their phone, after this, they also have to find a cracked .ipa to download/install. On android, you simply need to buy an app, copy to SD, return it and viola! free app. Based on stats of my paid android app, there are about 3x as many pirated users as users who actually paid for it =(

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#94

Post by RK »

gregholland wrote: post #36
melling wrote: post #20

This trend was pretty easy to spot. Almost 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129465 The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps. I've heard several developers complaining that their apps don't sell on Android. Will this eventually change?

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't.

Android Market does have "Top paid", "Top free", and "Just in" for the overall market and each app subcategory.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#95

Post by gregholland »

jan_g wrote: post #82
gregholland wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

>I hope they will follow Apple's model of having tighter control over their app stores rather than the mess that the Android marketplace is. It is really interesting that you hope for tight control, while I am waiting for a platform with as little carrier and/or platform vendor control as possible.

In the ideal world, I want everything to be "open" and "free" too. However, there are simply too many spammers/unethical people out there who abuse such a system. Therefore I rather have a high quality app store over one that is filled with spam apps but is "open".

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#96

Post by cheald »

hop wrote: post #75

This is pre iPhone 4 information, it doesn't take into account the biggest phone launch in history. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/02/nielson_androi...

Not to discount the size of the launch, but it's estimated that 77% of iPhone 4 purchases were upgrades from earlier-generation iPhones. Still an impressive launch, but Apple didn't grow their marketshare by 3 million handsets.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/25/77-of-iphone-4-sales-...

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#97

Post by camiller »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #84
camiller wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is he also adding non-phone android deployment?

Are there a lot of non-phone Android devices out there? Do they sell well? If it's less than 40 million units, it doesn't change the result.

Of any single device? I'm not sure, all combined maybe. The B&N nook alone is probably the most common one but probably only a half million units sold. So even all combined probably not.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#98

Post by orangecat »

nlanier wrote: post #33
old-gregg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I absolutely love my Nexus One (we have iPhones in our family) and I believe that N1 represents the "next generation" of mobile devices, if you will. iPhone is stuck in the past - it requires a computer to be fully operational: a few months ago we went overseas and I wanted to put more stuff on it to listen/watch on the plane, but the people we were staying with only had a Linux laptop - iPhone was as useful as b…

+1 This more or less mirrors what I just said. The Nexus One is a tragedy not because the phone itself is bad; in fact it is quite the opposite - The Nexus One is a tragedy because it is the best smartphone on the market and Google/HTC/T-Mob didn't bother to tell anyone about it.

And also because its failure (from a sales perspective) will further entrench the dysfunctional model of subsidized phones that are deliberately crippled.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#99

Post by dejb »

WilliamLP wrote: post #59
gregholland wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

It's ironic that what developers hate about iPhone is precisely what makes it ideal for developers who want to make money. This being the walled garden, the inability to easily install free third party programs, and also the fact that there is a financial barrier to entry (a Mac, plus a dev fee) means that other developers are reluctant to make their apps free in the first place - meaning you don't have to compete wi…

> It's a brilliant, (albeit arguably evil), strategy by Apple to create a viscous circle where developers bind themselves to iPhone, which means the good apps wind up there and thus users buy the product

The only problem with your theory is the 'Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S' part. Perhaps Android will need a bigger market share (double?) to really start stealing the higher quality developers from iOS but if the trend continues this will happen.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#100

Post by sprout »

credo wrote: post #49
melling wrote: post #20

This trend was pretty easy to spot. Almost 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129465 The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps. I've heard several developers complaining that their apps don't sell on Android. Will this eventually change?

As an iPhone developer (who occasionally gets requests for Android ports), my assessment is that the Android-revenue issue isn't going to change much in the short-term. As for the total Android vs. iPhone sales numbers, I think two factors will play a significant role next year (a) if the iPhone is available on Verizon, T-Mobile etc. they'll be able to overtake Android sales again (b) I realize that Microsoft is unpo…

It seems like Windows Phone 7 should take away market share from Android, but there's one key problem that I think will prevent Windows Phone 7 from doing that: Internet Explorer.

IE is a resource hog, and has horrible standards support. Most mobile sites won't work with it unless Microsoft manages to get IE9 ready for production use with Windows Phone 7. From all the stories I've seen, they seem to think they can restrict users to using IE7 and still have a good mobile experience. The mobile web is Webkit, and I don't see IE standing a chance.

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