Regarding #3, I wrote a script that automatically emails the 20% of customers who get their orders declined, asking them to purchase the app directly through me using PayPal. A surprising number of them do. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it recovers some lost revenue. You can have this feature available for your app through http://www.AndroidLicenser.com
iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#52just curious, what is the magic formula for high iOS downloads whether paid or free? good graphics? games? how do you go from zero downloads to many with new apps?
My strategy was to target a well-defined niche and dominate it rather than trying to compete in a saturated category (like games or entertainment). I think overall polish is extremely important. You can't just release an MVP and iterate like you can on the web. You really have to hit a homerun from the get go or you have no chance of survival.
This is good advice. It's important to make a big initial splash. It's a mistake to put out something half-baked with the idea of polishing it later, unlike the web.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#53Simple yet biased answer: Android owners want free apps, iOS users are more willing to pay.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#54Simple yet biased answer: Android owners want free apps, iOS users are more willing to pay.
What are you answering? I think his post goes to show that this statement isn't really true.
Android users are willing to pay for quality apps, and the lack there-of has made your statement somewhat more true in the beginning of Android, but not so much anymore.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#55Thanks for helping to dispel this myth that has somehow developed that Android users "don't buy apps". I don't know how this idea got so entrenched. You can definitely make an argument that they buy somewhat less, but it's completely misleading to say they never buy any, which is what you will see commonly stated around the net.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
MobClix has big promises as to eCPM, but in the past month, AdMob has been KILLING my MobClix performance. I have AdMob AND MobClix in place, and recently dialed it to send 80% of my impressions to AdMob because of >$1 eCPM from AdMob. Also, be sure you HAVE a paid version with no ads available to buy -- and don't forget to cross promote it using house ads. I have about a 1.4% conversion rate to paid (at $2), which a…
Thanks for the tip. What publisher are you working with?
I'd rather not say until I've signed. :)
Contact me offline and I'll let you know what happens -- there's contact info anti-spamified on here: http://rechargegames.com/page/about-quickcharge
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android users are paying, I can attest to that as well. Mind sharing about how high you rank on iOS? Also, I just went to download BridgeBasher. Your game wants crazy permissions. Why should a game have to update my SD card contents, need my location, AND have access to device calls and identity?
The permission requirements are ridiculous, but are required for Mobclix. I would like to get away from all that, with a single requirement for Internet.
Location permissions are optional. I use MobClix, and I don't ask for location.
I might be able to get higher eCPMs if I had it enabled, but between GPS taking more battery (for fine location information) and people being hesitant to download apps that track their location, I'd rather have the higher distribution and happier users.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#58It may be worthwhile for me to chime in here with my own stats, which are far less impressive than bignoggins. I recently ported my iOS app, BridgeBasher, to Android. I took a different route though. Since I had no users on Android, I thought the best thing to do would be to create an ad-based version on Android, mostly because I've heard a lot of people say that Android users are less likely to pay for apps. I decid…
I think many people is losing money with this "Android users dont pay for apps" idea. I bought tons of apps and almost every people I know that uses Android use to buy apps too. It is even easier for people in countries like Brazil, where iPhone users cant buy apps directly (only using gift cards). With google checkout I buy apps in seconds. I have more paid games than most of my friends who have iPhones.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#59Thanks for helping to dispel this myth that has somehow developed that Android users "don't buy apps". I don't know how this idea got so entrenched. You can definitely make an argument that they buy somewhat less, but it's completely misleading to say they never buy any, which is what you will see commonly stated around the net.
It got entrenched from Android devs sharing their numbers and those numbers being lower for Android than iOS. I don't know if other Android devs were making good money and just didn't want to share that info or if it's gotten better recently, but it's good to see that it's actually a viable market now.
Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
#60I agree, the bloodbath of "Payment Declined" orders in our order inbox is downright infuriating. This is especially painful when customers email us saying that they purchase apps all the time on Android and their card didn't work only when they tried to order our games. Agreed, this problem needs to be solved.
I develop for Android and iOS too, and Android Market is terrible with declined purchases and "failed to deliver" issues. What's worse is that there is no good way to get information about what's wrong and who's affected. In-app purchases also have terrible bugs on Android - bugs like this http://code.google.com/p/marketbilling/issues/detail?id=14 open for months cause payments to just 'disappear'. The only thing wor…
So, I'm about to take the plunge into the market, and have been wondering about this exact issue. How do you deal with it when you get failed to deliver problems? I mean, you probably can't just give them the apk, that's its own can of worms... any tips?