Back in August, Facebook announced a beta for a new ad unit to help drive mobile app installs on iOS and Android. That product was made available to all developers recently and the early user reports are very positive. Is this early success likely to translate into a long term win-win for both Facebook and the mobile developer community?
There’s a lot of buzz about Lean Startups in the software community in general and amongst mobile developers in particular. How lean a startup can be is strongly influenced by the tools and processes available on their chosen platform. Which platforms enable the leanest product development processes? How and why does lean framework matter?
Bryson Meunier from Search Engine Land compiled a list of the 100 most searched for keywords in both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, for new apps. The data was gathered in June using Google’s keyword tool, so it isn’t exactly perfect, but it’s good enough to have a discussion about what works and what doesn’t. Surprisingly, only 22 keyboards appear on both lists, which suggests that Google and Apple uses different algorithms to display apps. It also implies that Android users and iOS users look for different things. Take the search query “games” for example: it’s the 5th most popular term for Apple’s App Store, but on the Google Play Store it’s 15th. The top result in both stores is, unsurprisingly, Facebook.
It goes without saying that people like to try things before buying them. Take magazines for example. No-one expects you to buy a year subscription to The Economist just so you can read it. You can check out a couple of their articles for free on their website, you might even buy an issue from your local newsstand. Then, once you’ve decided that their content is valuable, you buy a subscription.With apps and user trial subscriptions it’s a little bit tricker
Microsoft is set to unveil its next generation mobile operating system, Windows Phone 8, on October 29th in San Francisco. There’s a slight problem though.
Microsoft is providing key partners with a beta of their SDK so they can have apps in the Windows Phone Store on launch day, but it’s unclear how one becomes a key partner. If you run a service used by millions of people, services such as Facebook or Netflix, then chances are Microsoft called you. But if you’re an indie developer, it looks like Microsoft is going to make you wait.
Apple pushed out iOS6 to its customers earlier this month. According to Pocket, a popular service that lets you “bookmark” articles you might want to read at some point in the future, over 60% of their users have already updated to iOS 6. Chitika, an analytics company, reported similar adoption rates. Within 48 hours of iOS6 launching, they saw 25% of all iOS devices in the U.S. and Canada using the new version of the operating system. In other words, because Apple controls the software update experience, they’re able to migrate a significant portion of their customers to newer versions of their software practically overnight.
SwiftKey, makers of a third party keyboard for Android, joined up with two technology publications to survey over 17,000 smartphones users about the number of paid applications they have on their devices. Back in 2011, 12% of Android owners said they had zero paid apps on their phone. Only 10% had 20 or more paid apps. This year, those figures are now 7% and 19% respectively. Translation: Android users are slowly becoming more willing to pay for apps, but if any serious money is to be made here then you’re going to have to make free apps that are ad supported.
In a previous article, we discussed revenue and costs for app developers overall. Here, we add some more detail for each platform individually.
The bar for successful apps is high: if you want your app to stick out among a million others, it needs to be well designed, user friendly and working flawlessly, all of this comes with significant development costs. In this article, we give an indication of the types of costs you need to take into account when planning your app.
Costs can differ wildly depending on your platform and type of app. A mobile game with 3D graphics will have a radically different cost structure than a weather app. The range goes from $5,000 for very simple apps to hundreds of thousands for extensive apps. Often cited, Twitterific estimated their development costs as high as $250,000 back in 2010. Use common sense when thinking about your costs, be realistic and plan for cost overruns.
Here are some costs you need to take into account.
Developers have a range of options to choose from when it comes to generating revenue. This choice is, to some extent, dependent on business model, scale and target market. Which revenue models are most popular, and which are most profitable?
Key insights and recommendations:
Related tools: In-app purchasing and virtual goods | Ad networks and mediation engines