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Android is for startups

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Re: Android is for startups

#101

Post by css771 »

opendomain wrote: post #73
opendomain wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android Apss are easier to deploy, but becuase of that, you get bad code - or WORSE - viruses! There are several Andoid apps that are Malware - there is not one in Apple App store.

Wow! Bad karma for dissing Android! For the record - my family has every platform, including Andorid phone, kindle, and set top boxes. I personally had 2 malwares installed on my Galaxy that bricked it. Also there are way too many apps on Android that ask for information access they should not have - like my GPS location or contacts info for a game. Andoid needs a little higher bar to remove this crapware.

I highly doubt that malware could brick a phone.

Re: Android is for startups

#102

Post by sbuk »

ajross wrote: post #75
Steko wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last graph I saw estimated total revenue from iOS apps was about 2x that of total Play Store revenue If Google had sent that much to developers they'd be saying something. 90% of the data points we see are of the form: My app made X on Android and 5-10X on iOS

I had to dig up a cite. This isn't the article that I remember looking at, but it's probably reporting the same number (specifically that iOS revenue is 2.3x that of Android): http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/android-in-app-downloads/ The reason those "data points" are skewed is psychology. No one is inspired to write a vitriolic blog post whining that their Android app only makes 73% as much as the iOS version. Nor…

One can tell that Apple have sent invites for a town hall event, the negative stories are ramping up.

> Nor is the iOS-centric HN echo chamber...

Read the comments here. The significant majority are pro-Android. The whole 'plucky little Android' schtick is extremely tiresome and frankly devalues your point. The "psychology" that you cite is basically confirmation bias, so beautifully illustrated by your comment.

Whilst Android is making gains is some markets, so Apple is in others. Apple is up before a hardware update in the UK, France and US, taking share away from Android.

Re: Android is for startups

#103

Post by ajross »

clarky07 wrote: post #93
ajross wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to dig up a cite. This isn't the article that I remember looking at, but it's probably reporting the same number (specifically that iOS revenue is 2.3x that of Android): http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/android-in-app-downloads/ The reason those "data points" are skewed is psychology. No one is inspired to write a vitriolic blog post whining that their Android app only makes 73% as much as the iOS version. Nor…

2.3x is still very significant. Would you rather make 3k a month, or 6.9k a month? One of those is 36k a year. The other is 82.8k a year. I know which one I'd prefer.

Yet again, though, this is confusing revenue across the platform with revenue per app/developer/development-hour/etc... The contention in the linked article is that you can get a "bigger slice of the smaller pie" by being an early mover on Android. That may not be true, but you can't argue against it by shouting about the size of the pie as a whole.

Re: Android is for startups

#104

Post by scrrr »

Sorry, but this is not a good article.

Instead of telling me what to do based on a small dataset of evidence, I'd much rather read what you have done. What worked for you. I don't think the author knows what he is talking about.

Re: Android is for startups

#105

Post by jeena »

discostrings wrote: post #4

Being in the process of registering my LLC for an iOS Apple Developer account, I couldn't agree more. It's been over two months now of back-and-forth with Apple and Dun & Bradstreet, and the end is still not in sight. All I'd like them to do is take my $100 and give me the ability to test the free app I'm making on a device and then publish it, but apparently Apple feels a longer-than-two-month turnaround time is acc…

I have my own company and wanted to do the same. Sadly for Swedish companies you have to be a "Aktiebolaget", you need to be on the stockmarket, to be able to have your company name in the App store.

My options waere to either invest about $8000 to become a AB or open a LLC in UK while living in Sweden. After half a year of trying and failing I just gave up and stopped developing for iOS.

Now I just started developing for Firefox OS and hope for the best. My first app is even on the Marketplace already: https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/feedmonkey/

Re: Android is for startups

#106

Post by xutopia »

ensmotko wrote: post #90
jbjohns wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't even afford $100 a year you probably can afford anything you would need to develop for the platform (e.g. a mac).

If $100 a year would allow me to develop iOS apps on my Linux laptop I'd be fine with that. But $100 a year + paying for overpriced apple hardware doesn't sound appealing.

And that is where the line divides. Android users are like you... they don't want to pay for software and go for cheaper hardware when they can.

Re: Android is for startups

#107

Post by Steko »

clarky07 wrote: post #93
ajross wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to dig up a cite. This isn't the article that I remember looking at, but it's probably reporting the same number (specifically that iOS revenue is 2.3x that of Android): http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/android-in-app-downloads/ The reason those "data points" are skewed is psychology. No one is inspired to write a vitriolic blog post whining that their Android app only makes 73% as much as the iOS version. Nor…

2.3x is still very significant. Would you rather make 3k a month, or 6.9k a month? One of those is 36k a year. The other is 82.8k a year. I know which one I'd prefer.

The correct answer is to target both as 3.3 is significantly better than 2.3.

And 2.3 was 2.6 in January so for a really bad back of the envelope calculation we can guess 2.3 will be 1.0 sometime before 2017.

Re: Android is for startups

#108

Post by chimeracoder »

trimbo wrote: post #34

VCs all have iPhones. This is the #1 reason to develop for iPhone first.

> VCs all have iPhones.

Fred Wilson would beg to differ (at least until a few weeks ago, and even then, his reasons for switching are not what you might think).

Seriously, no (good) VC is going to decline to invest just because you're Android-first instead of iOS-first, if that's a decision that actually makes sense for your target market.

Re: Android is for startups

#109

Post by corresation »

benihana wrote: post #39

Another post on the top of Hacker News making the mistake of thinking paying customers give a crap about how easy it is to [write|deploy|test|debug] your app. Even with all the pain associated with the App Store people still write more apps for it than ever. Why? Cause people pay for apps there. They don't on the Play Store.

While I entirely agree with your lead in, your last bit is very "where the puck was" thinking.

Two years ago the Play store yielded 1/10th the revenue of the App Store, by common metrics. One year ago it was 1/4. The most recent stat is 1/2 -- still months old. Do you see where this is going?

The #1 source of revenue for many games and other media on the App Store is via gifted iTunes cards. This is a mechanism that is only now finding its way to Android.

Re: Android is for startups

#110

Post by [deleted] »

discostrings wrote: post #4

Being in the process of registering my LLC for an iOS Apple Developer account, I couldn't agree more. It's been over two months now of back-and-forth with Apple and Dun & Bradstreet, and the end is still not in sight. All I'd like them to do is take my $100 and give me the ability to test the free app I'm making on a device and then publish it, but apparently Apple feels a longer-than-two-month turnaround time is acc…

[deleted]
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