Hi all, I can see two problems with app sales at the moment. First, Android is still, for all intents and purposes, a beta product. The G1 phone and the OS running on it are lacking some of the polish found in the iPhone, for example. However, the Open Handset Alliance partners will eventually produce more hardware, and Android will mature (come on, cupcake, let's go already :-). Until the OS platform, and the hardware, and thus the apps built for them, acquire that slick, streamlined user experience that gets everyone ooh-ing and aah-ing, penetration of any market demographic will be slow going.
The second problem is that the current userbase seems to consist primarily of extremely immature, arrogant American 13-yr-olds with a staggeringly overdeveloped sense of entitlement. I base my observation on the number of assinine 'first' posts in the reviews, the childish language and the rather ubiquitous lack of anything remotely useful to anyone hoping to read an actual product review. It's clear that national and religious bigotry are alive and well in this crowd, too. I've never been able to understand the mental state of an individual who goes to considerable lengths to bash a product which is well-built and does what its advertised to do, on the basis that the product doesn't do something else or that it force-closes due to OS bugs (which happens on all handset platforms). It's especially galling when you realize that pretty much all of these hyper-critical dorks can't write a single line of code themselves, but feel it's OK to mouth off at a developer who has sincerely and diligently gone to great lengths to build a working, useful, bug-free app. I always want to reply "if you're so damn smart, download the SDK and build a better app yourself", but I know my suggestion won't be followed, and it'll just add even more useless noise to the reviews. While I'm generally in favor of Google's hands-off approach to moderating the reviews (or maybe it's just laziness, or maybe they're hoping the 'wisdom of the crowd' will take care of the buffoons), the marketplace has, in my view, rapidly devolved into a useless kiddy- centric mess. If Google's been aiming for the barely-teenager crowd, they're right on the money. If they were hoping to penetrate the business user market or even the Joe Average market, the antics of the "kiddiots" in the reviews section of the Market are going to severely hurt Google's efforts. A long-press on a review will mark it as spam; that's nice, but we really need a second option, either 'mark as inappropriate', or 'rate usefulness 1-5 stars' so we can drown out the dumbest comments with a majority vote. The as-yet immaturity of the Android platform is a Good Thing; it represents an excellent opportunity for early adopters to get into what's most likely going to be a really big game, right at the start, and "ride the wave". The immaturity of the majority of current app reviews is most decidedly NOT a Good Thing, and I think Google would be well advised to provide some tools to help keep the dweeb noise level down, or risk losing credibility with and/or support from app developers. Just my $0.02. Brad On Mar 8, 5:57 pm, Stoyan Damov <[email protected]> wrote: > Ahahahahaha, I did look at the downloads of the top 10 apps - they are > PATHETIC, the max number of downloads I saw was 1000-5000. How many G1 > owners are out there, I'd bet on < 100K. > > On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 10:42 PM, friedger <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Android stats say here are 10 paid applications. > >http://androidstats.com/ranking/applications?filter=paid > > > However, I don't know what this stats are based on, better check the > > market yourself... > > > Friedger > > > On 7 Mrz., 00:16, JP <[email protected]> wrote: > >> You can find out for yourself. Browse the market with a G1 and check > >> the number of downloads of some of the at-price apps that compare to > >> your friend's vision apps and that have been made available for > >> download for a few weeks now. This would be a 15 to 30 minute exercise > >> that will give you the business intel you are looking for. Then assume > >> a return rate, deduct Google's 30% cut from the revenue. You're friend > >> will now the applicable taxes, ODC etc. > >> This will be an order of magnitude estimate only, but should be > >> accurate enough to arrive at a conclusion. > > >> On Mar 6, 2:20 pm, Anil <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > An acquaintance who runs a small business (not in the mobile area) and > >> > employs one programmer, is wondering whether to develop apps for > >> > Android Marketplace. He wondered whether it is financial sense to do > >> > so and I recommended the Android marketplace, but do not want to > >> > mislead him. While the commercial success of the iPhone marketplace is > >> > well known, what has been the commercial story of apps sold in the > >> > Android marketplace? > >> > How many downloads per month, how much sales volume in $, average > >> > price of an app, how many are free downloads vs paid, how many apps, > >> > how many G1 phones are around etc. Are there any reliable statistics > >> > from Google on this? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
