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As a developer, I don't care about hardware marketshare--I care about the mindshare of people willing to buy apps.

In particular, the iPhone has trained peoople to buy apps at $0.99. Crappy price, but at least they're buying. Android revenues are low compared to the iPhone in spite of their marketshare--the top apps are something like 400-500/day according to the developers I've talked to. You can make a living at it, but you can't (yet) start hiring comfortably.

Wake me up when the app market is competitive with the iPhone.




> Wake me up when the app market is competitive with the iPhone.

the money market isn't in small end-user games. It's in custom business apps, where you are paid for initial developement and licensing by a company for a specific product that they want their employees to use.

At least, that's how I see it.


And since when being conditioned to buy apps has been associated with good or desired phone ownership?


Higher chance of having better apps. Games don't really survive in a low-profit environment -- graphics/sounds/assets costs money usually. There aren't a lot of great open source games.


> In particular, the iPhone has trained peoople to buy apps at $0.99.

is that so ?

> Crappy price, but at least they're buying.

I thought the vast majority of the downloads was free, but I definitely could be wrong.


is that so?

No. Of the currently top grossing apps, only about 20% are $0.99.

I thought the vast majority of the downloads was free, but I definitely could be wrong.

You are right: http://metrics.admob.com/2010/02/january-2010-mobile-metrics...


True, but you also take the risk of arbitrary app rejection with the iPhone market.




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