Analysis: Android, the Land of the Free App

[wuyanks]

I dont really understand how they get the average price of top grossing 100 apps in the appstore being over $13....there is barely a few apps over the $10 price range....the majority being way less than $10.

for the iphone, don't forget how popular the Navigation apps are. And those run $50+

 

[New2u]

Yes we might have some free apps that don't need to be there, but so does everyone else. Look at the majority of apps for apple. They are either junk, or they are a copy of the other 20 apps that do the exact same thing. Yes there does need to be some changes. I don't think people on android are opposed to paying for apps, just that there are more free apps right now on the market place.

 

[Elric]

Ironically (since this is google), better search and filtering would go a HUGE way toward keeping things free but usable.

Amazon is filled to the brim with absolute garbage products and things you don't want either, yet it's pretty easy to find and isolate good stuff before making a purchase.

 

[aaf709]

I spend most of my searching on AndroLib.com or AndroidZoom.com. That's searching, mind you, as I mostly find out about good apps right here.

 

[nphil]

I think the sheer amount of totally useless junk and the number of totally crappy free apps skew the numbers, though. All those perverted "touching" games, plus a zillion crappy J2ME ports by me4android and a bunch others really mess up the statistics. Google needs to do SOMETHING about the sheer influx of crap in the marketplace, some of these apps have absolutely no need for existing.

I think the biggest turn offs to developers on the Android side of things would be the sheer amount of crap the customer needs to wade through to find the good stuff. I've basicallly given up on the "just in" tab in the marketplace, it seems to belong to me4android.

QFT. Maybe 1 in every 15 apps is actually a real app when I browse the "Just in" section. The rest are all pointless ebooks, soundboards, skins, half naked Asian women etc.

Google really needs to add filters for market searches, and let users classify apps as "spam". It can't be that hard for a company like Google to implement this..

The day i launched my app it was recognizeable for about 5 mins the amount of soundboards are killing the maret and it'sreally NOT good to have a cheap market place for apps... over 50%free is absolutely ridiculous.

Android customers have become or have been cheap and rude... what they want or expect for 2 or 3 bucks is crazy to me...

I've gotten 1 star because my app didnt do what he wanted it to... but it does what it says it does. That's fine but it hurts the ability to move up the rankings when people are being nreasonable...

The Android market is not very developer friendly... it does look like it will improve but the return policy and the inability to respond to irrational buyers needs to soom be implemented.

I'm sure everyone here can agree that common sense is not a strong point for the average Android Market commenter. I have seen many perfectly fine apps rated low because of user error, lack of patience, plain stupidity etc.

Don't let a bunch of imbeciles put you down, I'm sure many other users appreciate the effort you put into your app.

 

[furbearingmammal]

I actually saw someone say "don't rate an app 5 stars just because it does what you expect it to!" while giving a 3 star review of a simple program that did exactly what it promised, nothing more, with a simpler and cleaner interface than any other app in that category I'd ever used. I also agree that the majority of the low-star reviews are from idiots, disgruntled people, and bad downloads/installs/OS incompatibility. I actually saw someone complain about a program designed to run on Cupcake not having Apps2SD ability under a leaked FroYo build for their Droid.

Now, I'm broke, unemployed, and looking for work. If I could afford to buy some of these apps I would, but at the moment I'm living on the largess of a family member. As such, I've been making do with the free apps to date, but unless I'm doing a search or update I don't bother going to the market anymore. Slideshows of half-naked Asian women, soundboards, and ringtones from artists I wouldn't put on the stereo if I were trying to torture someone a la sleep deprivation, do not appeal to me.

As someone pointed out in another article I read here, in a direct comparison between the Market and the AppStore, does it really matter if one store has 250,000 farting apps and the other 100,000?

I'm anti-censorship to a high degree, but in this case how about limiting the number of apps any one party can submit to the store in a day to, say, two and a weekly limit of eight or something? If Google allowed for exemptions to this rule for developers who contacted them and cleared the apps first this wouldn't even be a problem for phone-specific apps being posted en masse. And how about making it mandatory for soundboards to be paid apps? This is a personal thing, though, as I think having twenty Family Guy soundboards is about thirty too many -- also see fart comment above. I have no problem with their being the sex apps, but how about an entire ADULT section that you have to prove you're 18/21 to get into and any app "mistakenly" posted elsewhere getting yanked immediately and if more than one gets posted banning the Dev from posting any more apps for a week with repeat offenders being banned for life? This wouldn't stop someone who was too dedicated, of course, but it would at least slow things down.

Just my two cents.

P.S. I always report the "go to X for free paid apps!" comments as spam too. It's the least I can do.

 

[aaf709]

To me the Market is like a food store. There is a lot of food there. Some of it is healthy for you, but there is a lot of junk food there too. I admit it's easier at a food store to discern which is which.

I suppose the iPhone Apps Store is more like a Health Food Store ("Chocolate? No, use Carob instead.").