Sony reveal Playstation Suite game store for Android

I love those moments in life that make you think everything just changed. Android was huge in 2010, with growth numbers to prove it, but the app store is its Achilles' heel. Android Market is brilliant at many things, but selling apps unfortunately isn't one of them. Developers have struggled to make money on the Android platform with freemium seeming like the only way generate revenue, but only if you have a huge brand. No revenue means a lack of premium quality apps in Android Market, something that you didn't really notice when mobile was all about smartphones, but that will become much more obvious as the number of Android tablets increase.

Sony's announcement of a Playstation Suite app game store for Android means that everything just changed. There's genius behind Sony's decision to make the store "hardware-neutral", which is a pretty big step for the company when you consider that gaming has been all about hardware for years, because it means that all Android users will have access to to Playstation Suite. Sony's store will also attract major game developers in a way that Android Market hasn't been able to. Fragmentation will still be an issue with Engadget reporting that it will only be available for Gingerbread level Android, but then when isn't it on Google's platform.

I can help but feel that this is a big moment for Android. Having premium games on the platform will make a big difference to current users and help attract even more people to Android. It looks like it's time to start clearing space on a home screen for all of the different app stores I'm going to be using in 2011.

Source: Engadget

Android Market updated - publishers and developers rejoice

Google have announced on their Android Developers Blog that they will be adding new features to Android Market, to improve things for both consumers and developers/publishers. In their own words,

"this new Market client introduces important features that improve merchandising of applications, streamline the browse-to-purchase experience, and make it easier for developers to distribute their applications."





Sounds great, so what's new?

• New categories for widgets and live wallpapers.
• Related apps features on individual app pages.
• Single page view on app pages, rather than tabbed.
• Refund window reduced to 15mins.
• App file size limit upped to 50mb.

The reduction of the refund window and the increased file size limit are clearly meant to appeal to games developers, who have voiced their concern about publishing into Android Market before. It's great to see Google improving on some of the known issues within the Market. Let's hope that this is the beginning of lots of updates that address the problems with purchasing and selling apps on Google's platform in 2011.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Android Market updates announced by Google - Is a browser-based Market coming soon?

Google have spent Friday 17th November updating the Android Market experience. Here are a list of the new features:

- A “feature” graphic, landscape aspect ratio, 1024 x 500 (required).
- A high-res icon, 512 x 512 (required).. The Android icon design guidelines located at http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/icon_design.html apply.
- 2 screen shots, 320w x 480h, 480w x 854h, or 480w x 800h, increasing to 8 screen shots in the future (1 required).
- A link for a promotional video hosted on YouTube (optional).

Does this mean a new browser-based Android Market is on the way?

The additional screen shots, feature graphic and high-res icons suggests that Google is preparing developers for a browser-based version of the Android Market. This will be very welcome news if true, as it will hopefully help to solve some key problems for consumers and developers when it comes to finding great apps.

Android Market isn't searchable on the web. Doesn't this strike you as ironic given that Google has probably done more than any other company in human history to help make information more discoverable? Being able to search and discover apps on your browser would be a big step forward for Android.

Lower the barriers to purchasing apps. People are more comfortable entering their credit card details into a website than their phones at the moment. If Google can integrate Google Checkout efficiently into the browser-based Android Market and create a smooth process for signing-up, they will significantly reduce that first barrier to people actually buying apps. It isn't mobile billing yet, but it would be a good start.

Fingers crossed.

Source: MobileCrunch

Droidcon Day 1: Earning money from apps in Android Market

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.



It's tougher to make money selling apps than you think
Forget the hype, the truth is that it's actually very difficult for developers to make serious money selling apps, unless you're a game. The average iPhone app earns around $6000 over a two year period for its developer. With its bias towards free apps and high barrier to first purchase (Google Checkout), Android is even tougher. Apps featured on the Android Market homepage generally earn around $400 per day.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. Some apps are doing very well and generating serious money for their developers, especially games. Developers are increasingly looking at innovative ways to generate revenue from their apps. Here are two such methods:

Freemium
When Rovio came to publish Angry Birds on the Android platform they decided not to charge for the app, but to include advertising within the game. Angry Birds sells for 99p on iTunes (at time of writing), so we're not talking about a high price point here. The strategy worked, with Angry Birds receiving 1m downloads on Android on day after release. Some estimate that it might now be up to 10m downloads on Android.

Location based ads
Currently, only Google makes money out of Maps. How can developers make money from location apps? CloudMade have created a location-based advertising platform, which replaces Google Maps and will deliver advertising to any application that uses it.

Droidcon Day 1: Fragmentation of Android Market, opportunity or problem?

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.

Fragmentation of Android Market. An opportunity for developers?
There isn't one Android Market anymore. One of the most noticeable things at Droidcon was the amount of new app stores that are opening up on the Android platform. Vodafone Developer Platform and Orange App Store were both using the event to build awareness of their new markets for applications. I tested Samsung Galaxy S on the Orange stand which had no less than three app stores on the device, Android Market, Samsung Apps and Orange App store.

How should I feel about this?


Worried
Fragmenting the app stores will confuse consumers. One Android Market presents a clear message to the public. Apple understands why this is important and tells a consistent story to people about its products. Android unfortunately does not. This will just lead to more confusion.

People don't want to have to hunt around in different stores for different apps. Imagine if Angry Birds was only available in the Orange App Store and non-Orange customers couldn't download it? This is a nightmare senario for Android.

Submission rules. Mobile operators aren't as relaxed as Google about the apps that are uploaded to their stores. Android's famed openness will challenged if app censorship becomes commonplace in third party app stores.


Optimistic
Operator billing for paid apps. Both Vodafone and Orange will provide on-click purchasing of apps in their stores, with the payments appearing in the phone owner's next bill. This is a brilliant feature and something Google should be doing in Android Market. It's fantastic to see a serious barrier to consumers paying for apps being addressed, which will give developers the chance to earn more money from Android.

The operators will pay the tax for you. Again, this removes a serious barrier for large content and media companies from developing apps for Android, who just can't ignore the payment of taxes within different territories.

New opportunities for promotion. There's no question that Vodafone and Orange reach a lot of customers. The chance to have your app featured in their stores will be enticing to app developers.

Growth of Android. If operators are seriously committing to Android in this way, it can only be good for the platform's growth. Mobile operators will want to earn money from their app stores, so will advertise the Android devices that can host their stores. This will lead to increased Android phone sales, which can only be a good thing.

Aggregate the stores
Google could turn all of these new stores into something really powerful if they used Android Market as an app aggregator. Apps from Orange, Vodafone and Samsung stores would be visible within Android Market, but clearly branded as being from the third party partner.  Users would download the app from the third party store. Both sides would get the benefits from promotion and more apps being available.  If users were able to browser through all available Android apps within Android Market this would also solve all of the concerns about fragmentation.

Android Market hits the 100,000 app mark

Engadget are reporting that the Android Market has now reached 100K apps. Whilst this is still miles behind the Apple App Store, it still feels like a another significant milestone for the platform. Now, if only Google would make it easier for users to buy apps.

How Google can improve Android Market and sell more apps

Android Market is a bohemian dream. I love the chaotic and multi-cultural feel to the Android app store. There's something very cool about not being censored, being able to see Japanese apps that I can't understand and having to work out how to buy apps myself. The early adopter thing was part of my reason for going with this platform in the first place.

However, that freedom comes at a cost. There are elements of Android Market that really annoy me and I think are holding it back. At a time when Android is surging ahead of the competition in terms of phone sales, the app store has some serious flaws that Google needs to address.

1. No one-touch payment
This is a big barrier to selling apps. Google seems to be making it as difficult as possible for consumers to actually buy apps from them. The only option to buy apps is Google Checkout, which requires users to give their credit card details directly to Google in order to be able to make purchases. When will the introduce billing via carriers? No wonder Amazon are starting their own Android app store.

2. Full refund for 24 hours after purchase
This is wonderful for the consumer, but terrible for app developers and content owners. I can understand that Google don't want to police the Android Market. However, forcing developers to refund paid for apps within 24 hours of purchasing is a bad economic model for someone trying to sell apps. Apps with limited lifespans, such as comic book apps that I read once and then forget about, can simply be downloaded by users and then uninstalled at the end of the day, for a free refund.

Why don't Google take a more flexible approach to the refund and allow developers to alter the terms of the refund? Users will of course be more wary of purchasing apps, but then it's up to the developers to establish a good reputation.

3. App discovery
It's very difficult to discover apps within the Android Market. How ridiculous is it that I have to use an app, called AppAware, to find new apps to download. Okay, so iTunes is just as bad, maybe worse, but that's no excuse for not seriously trying to improve user experience within Android Market. There must be a better way of exploring apps other than, popular, featured and new. Google could do worse than take a look at the AppAware approach. Last FM emerged because no one could discover music on iTunes, so I guess similar services will start appearing for apps as well.

4. No moderation
I hate censorship. I don't like the way Apple decides what people can and cannot see on iTunes. However, Apple users do benefit from being protected from exploitation, because Apple cares about the apps that appear in its store. Google's hands off approach to Android Market means that Android phone users can be exploited by phishing apps and other evil applications. Given the recent stories about how unscrupulous developers are collecting personal data from Apple and Android users, Google needs to look at how they can combat these kind of apps, without losing the bohemian appeal of Android.