Let me know if you have questions (I'm the lucky indie dev who wrote the post)
What's the breakdown in iOS versions you have to support? I imagine educational buyers probably aren't picking up the latest and greatest hardware.
My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
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Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you recommend a technical person to create the apps (design & coding) themselves or outsource it? You're giving up a little bit of control but you may be able to get more done faster Thoughts??
it really depends on your skills. Coding is one thing. Designing is another and graphics and third one. If you are weak in one, you should get help... I'm good in coding and designing but I'm not so good in graphics and for some graphical tasks I outsource, and always ask for feedback about the graphics I do. Of course I forget a very important one skill : marketing !
Very true. I'm decent at coding but not so good with designing & graphics (so I have no problem outsourcing that). I've also spent a LOT of time over the past few years building up my marketing skills. So I hope to divide & conquer.
Thanks for the feedback!
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes it is still an open question for me. There are many big brands that don't do this - why ? I think everybody is experimenting in kids'app world - it's not clear as in games where (consumable) IAP are very profitable.
I think it's mostly because it's harder to market two apps than one. From my experience (I'm also developing educational apps for kids), what makes an indie iOS app a success is more and more determined by Apple's decision to feature it, and going up in rankings. With two apps, it'll be twice harder to get in the top 10, and you'll have to choose between one of them to be featured.
And from what I've seen, the paid-IAP users' reviews get lost in the free reviews. You split your high-quality reviews (from people who like it well enough to pay) into two pools, and then poison one of them. Worse yet, since people tend to try free versions first, you're funneling a lot of people into the poisoned review pool.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#74Let me know if you have questions (I'm the lucky indie dev who wrote the post)
What's the breakdown in iOS versions you have to support? I imagine educational buyers probably aren't picking up the latest and greatest hardware.
I support all ios device (but you need at least ios5.1).
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#75PierreA, jcampbell1 said you are immensely talented and he meant the app you created. I agree with that but there is one more thing to that, and that is the way you use English. I suppose English is your second language (so is mine) but how clearly you express yourself and what a pleasure it is to read your blog confirms that you're a super talented guy.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Congratulations for you success! Would you say that the most important reason of your success is you penetrated a relatively new market with a good product early, and it was easier to gain traction and build a large user base that you can now cross-promote your other apps? Merci d'avoir partager l'histoire de ton succès. C'est toujours inspirant et surtout éducatif ;) Bonne continuation!
Yes I would say that. Merci!
I've been fairly high up in the iPad photo category since August 2010 and I'd agree. It's much harder to gain traction now.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm disappointed about the Android market, I hope it improves. Based on some research that I have done, iOS revenue is about 2:1 for phone apps, with the gap closing quickly. If the app has strong international appeal, it is probably closer to parity. For tablet apps, iOS has something like a 10:1 revenue advantage. I wouldn't write off Android if the app is designed to be used on phones, but for tablet apps, it is…
It's more like 1.5x difference now according to Distimo: > Apple still has the most lucrative app store, with Distimo estimating that on a typical day in November 2013, global revenues for the 200 top grossing iOS apps were more than $18m. That compares to $12m for Android's Google Play store, although the report notes that a year ago, the respective figures were $15m and $3.5m. The gap is narrowing. http://www.thegu…
These numbers are heavily skewed by the fact that the Top 200 on both iOS and Android are dominated by IAP based games. E.g. Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans are not significantly different on iOS vs Android, and that is where the narrowing gap is coming from.
But for independent app developers (particularly those making paid apps), the numbers that I've seen from many folks (and also from personal experience) are strongly weighted towards iOS. Every single developer I've talked to who has released an app on iOS and Android has come to the same conclusion: Android users simply don't pay for apps.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#78Pierre, thanks for the great post. I have one question for you:
I've heard that the download:rating ratio for iOS apps is around 30:1 and you can, therefore, estimate an app's downloads by multiplying ratings by 30. Do you have any thoughts on this?
You seem to have a higher ratio based on your numbers and the ratings in the app store.
Thanks again.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm disappointed about the Android market, I hope it improves. Based on some research that I have done, iOS revenue is about 2:1 for phone apps, with the gap closing quickly. If the app has strong international appeal, it is probably closer to parity. For tablet apps, iOS has something like a 10:1 revenue advantage. I wouldn't write off Android if the app is designed to be used on phones, but for tablet apps, it is…
Nice feedback on Android market (yes the issue is that I sold mostly on tablet). I don't agree about cloning - what is difficult is to have a good/large user base and being featured. Cloning will not help you a lot for that. Gaming the app store (at least the ios app store) is not easy at all (or very expensive and not applicable for this kind of app). I don't think the trick you describe would work.
for what it's worth, i wanted to buy your crosswords on android, but your version there is incredibly dumbed down. I finally got an old ipad a few months ago so finally bought it there.
Re: My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
#80Pierre, thanks for the great post. I have one question for you: I've heard that the download:rating ratio for iOS apps is around 30:1 and you can, therefore, estimate an app's downloads by multiplying ratings by 30. Do you have any thoughts on this? You seem to have a higher ratio based on your numbers and the ratings in the app store. Thanks again.
I've never heard about this. Some apps have a lot of "fake" 5-stars rating and are not performing very well...