Archive for category Android Market

New Android Market Distribution Agreement?

Posted by Simon Judge, Freelance Mobile Developer in Android, Android Market on April 28th, 2009

androidmarket1I just logged into the Android Market to view my latest download statistics and I was presented with a new distribution agreement. So what’s changed? Turns out, nothing. There was a bug a while ago that caused some people to be able to register without viewing the correct agreement. Google are forcing everyone to view it again so everyone is covered.

Android Market Fragmentation

Posted by Simon Judge, Freelance Mobile Developer in Android, Android Market, Linux, My Freeware, phones on April 22nd, 2009

pocketgamerbizPocketGamer.biz has an article on ‘What’s wrong with Android Market’. There are lots of criticisms of the Market many of which I have also expressed here and on MobilePhoneDevelopment.com. However, there’s one new piece of information at the end that I found interesting…

“At least one major carrier is specifying their Android devices to come without the Android store”

This ties in with my previous thoughts that some Android phones might not come with a full set of Google applications.

Presumably a carrier not using the Android Market would implement their own application store. From the carrier standpoint, I can see the sense of this in terms of controlling what’s on their store, app certification, the commission structure, payment mechanisms and ultimately perhaps what the users can install on their Android phone. However, I can see consumer confusion as to why they can’t get particular applications on their phone. There’s also likely to be general developer disillusionment that they can’t easy publish their application to all Android users.

Cross Currency Android Market Sales

Posted by Simon Judge, Freelance Mobile Developer in Android Market, Linux on April 21st, 2009

androidmarketThere’s an interesting post on the Android groups regarding paying over double for an Android app on the Android Market, due to cross-currency credit card fees. The problem is that when paying for a $0.99 app, the fixed credit card fees become significant.

I wondered how Apple solve this problem. It turns out they use a combination of ways…

  • Aggregating multiple payments within a small timeframe so that several micropayments become one
  • Allowing payment by PayPal
  • Allowing payment via iTunes cards (available via retailers)

It seems the Android Market will need to start accepting other payment types if people are not to be put off buying single applications cross currency. This is one area (probably the only one!) where the BlackBerry App Store minimum $2.99 app price seems to make sense.

Android Branding

Posted by Simon Judge, Freelance Mobile Developer in Android Market, Coding, branding on April 8th, 2009

androidrobotIf you are working on Android, there are some branding requirements you should know about.

When I first created this blog I received an email from the ‘The Android Team’ asking me to stop using the ‘Android Logo’. The logo is the name ‘android’ in the custom typeface. The robot is ok to use. For full details see the Android Brand Guidelines. I have since changed the header of this blog.

If you are developing applications for Android you should also be aware that you shouldn’t include the word ‘Android’ in your application title. If you do, Google will remove your application from the Android Market.

Android Market Viability

Posted by Simon Judge, Freelance Mobile Developer in Android, Android Market on April 1st, 2009

androidmarket1There’s great post at GeekYouUp regarding the viability of selling on the Android Market. Two conclusions are that people won’t pay for an app when there’s a free one available, even when the paid one has a better UI and that there’s a strong demand for free apps.

I’d echo the second conclusion. As of writing this, I have had over 30,000 installs of my freeware.

I think it’s far too early to assess the viability of selling applications. The G1 wasn’t very inspiring hardware and even that hasn’t rolled out to many countries yet. With new devices coming and rolling out across many countries, I anticipate it will take at least a year from now before we can assess the viability of selling applications.