The iOS MLB app (especially the iPad variety) is probably my favorite. The Android MLB app is probably my least favorite. It's just ugly ... only does a fraction of what the iOS app does, and provides very little beyond what you can get for free from any number of other sports or baseball apps.
People will pay for quality. Right now, the Android app isn't anywhere near what I'd consider a quality app.
Additionally, if you read the fine print, the android app only works with certain phones, this isn't clearly indicated and a friend ran into this last weekend while on vacation.
While I enjoyed last year's app, I'm a little irked by the fact they require iOS 4 this year. I'm still using a 3G and don't really want to upgrade to iOS 4. I understand that sometimes there are reasons they want to put features in an app that requires a more recent OS version, but I don't really see what features those would be with the update for this season.
Also there have been a lot of complaints it seems on iTunes about this year's version for various reasons. Some of them unwarranted, no doubt, but last year the ratings were quite high for a $15 app.
My dad, who is far from being technically-savvy, owns an iPhone (a Christmas gift from my brother and I to our parents.)
He wasn't a fan of the phone at first. Too complicated, too hard to make calls, etc. However, something amazing (considering my dad's, uh, "technological capabilities"...) happened a few weeks ago. He calls me up and asks about his "iTunes password" and whether he had ever set that up. I told him, "yeah we did, and it's probably your e-mail password." He tries it and it works.
I asked him what he needed that for and he replies "I've reached my five song limit for Shazam and want to upgrade."
I was kind of blown away by this. Here is my dad, who can't get drag & drop right, upgrading his free version of Shazam with an in-app purchase. An app, I honestly didn't think he would use that much but found enough value in it, he wanted to pay for the full version...
After that, I walked him through finding more apps on the App store. I warned him though. "The one click purchase makes it easy to go crazy."
While iOS is a smooth experience, I honestly cannot tell what is the substantial difference from Android. Both have the same enter credit card information once, one click purchasing from now on experience.
Beyond the pretty small group of people who don't like giving Google more info/don't trust Google as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, what is so much better about iTunes than Google Checkout?
I consider myself pretty high on the chart of "technology-savvy" and trusting when it comes to payment on the Internet.
But for some reason, I won't pay for something inside the Android store. I know Google's behind it and that my stuff is probably safe. But there's just something inherintly shady about the Android store that I can't put my finger on.
I know it's irrational, but imagine how someone who hasn't created apps feels.
"But for some reason, I won't pay for something inside the Android store."
It could be one of several things, which would actually vary from person to person, but all leading to paltry returns for _most_ Android developers vs. iOS.
1) The "perceived value" proposition - To a user, Google is "the search engine" and Android "the mobile OS", but they're both free to use. In a consumer's mind, why wouldn't then _everything_ else, including the Marketplace apps, be free. It doesn't help matters that Rovio's runaway blockbuster cultural gamechanger shared timesink app Angry birds is free on Android (albeit with ads).
2) The blatant, flagrant, rampant, money-maker shaking heaps of copyright theft and IP violations that make it to the top of the Marketplace lists. It makes the whole thing feel like a grey market bazaar in old Morocco or Bangkok - just sketchy as all hell. How could I entrust my credit card with a service that allows GPL violators and copyright flouters to rise to the _very tippy top_ of the charts? I mean, alot of that has changed since Google started putting the screws on very obvious scofflaws like Nintendo emulator game ROM packs, Star Wars weapon simulators, and famous rapper soundboards. But the die may be cast for some of the old-school adopters.
3) The weird availability - Android phone users had to pirate Marketplace apps from day one if they didn't come from the US. Now they're expected to _pay_ for stuff? Sorry, but once you've told them it's free, it's free for a loooong time. Hell, Napster all taught us way back that music "wanted to be free". It's taken over a decade for paid music to come back into some semblance of making any money; coincidentally, it's via Apple's iTunes.
My guess (not having used the Amazon store however) is that Android's permissions system is hurting it. Why does that app need location and full network access? So you become suspicious. And so on. While on iOS its automatically given full rights apps get, apart from location, which it asks for at runtime, not install time. So while the iOS app has as much ability to start feeding data home, the fact that the Android app is forced to admit it uses network access leaves us more suspicious.
It doesn't help that many apps have a perfectly legitimate purpose for that network access, to download and display ads.
I agree 100%. However, I tried the amazon app store and instantly felt better at actually spending money. Somehow it just "feels" less shady.
This is probably all irrational and the Amazon store most likely doesn't address the real issues with the Google run store. But at the same time, I know the next time I want to look for an app, I will go to Amazon first.
I bought a Nexus one recently and while browsing for apps on the market saw many apps just listing every keyword from the dictionary in their description to get some keyword juice. Its similar to the keyword list you find in CL ads. Of course it turns you off that app but also does not make you feel good about the store itself.
How about there is no Honeycomb version of At Bat, but there is an iPad and iPhone/iPod version. Basically, they don't support Android the same way they support iOS. I have both and iPad and a Xoom, but I only purchased the iPad version because there is no Honeycomb version.
I'm curious: Do you find you use the iPad more because of that one app? Or, is the iPad strictly used for At Bat, and the rest of your time (email, browsing, etc.) used on the Xoom?
I know Apple likes to advertise how many apps they have, but you're the first person that I've seen who has claimed to purchase hardware based on app availability...
Android phones are available for free from carriers. Thus, the typical Android buy is more price sensitive. They are more likely to choose free content & apps.
iPhone customers don't get FREE iPhones. They are willing to pay $200+ for a phone and contract. Their willingness to pay for apps & content is higher than Android users.
Just look at Angry Birds. It's FREE on the Android store, but charged for on the iOS store.
While there are some 'free' (subsidized over two years) android phones available, most of those are low-performance devices more akin to feature phones. Those purchasers may indeed be less likely to buy apps due to spending habits. But there are plenty of Android phones above $200, even on contract. And a 3GS can now be had for $49.
I think it's also that Android users tend to use their phones more as solely communications devices (FB, Twitter, news, email) and less as an 'app console' device, for lack of a better description.
"iPhone customers don't get FREE iPhones. They are willing to pay $200+ for a phone and contract. Their willingness to pay for apps & content is higher than Android users."
Exactly. They have shown their willingness to spend their disposable income on their phone.
iPhone users are a marketer's dream. Hence why ads on the platform will also generate a higher ecpm than Android.
One other thing about the iPhone is that Apple has much more uniform and confident marketing as a single company than Android has being spread across the industry. That means if I buy an app now, I feel sure I'll be able to use it for years to come on whatever new iPhone I have at the time. I feel confident investing in my mobile app library. I bought a $100 GPS app on the iPhone because I believe I'll be able to to use it for the next 5 years at least. That's value. If I could only be sure I would be able to use it till I got a phone upgrade, I wouldn't have bought it. With Android, (I have an Android phone too) it's not so clear to me that when I buy an app I'll still be able to have that same app on my phone in 5-10 years with whatever phone I have at the time. Maybe other people feel differently, but I'm not sure who I'm putting my confidence in with Android. Google doesn't control what handsets are made, so I can't just put my confidence in them, and A lot of the mobile carriers have hinted at building their own OS, etc, so I could see Android growing out of favor. This may be very unlikely, but I just don't feel as confident about it, so I don't feel I can invest in my software library like I can with the iPhone.
Neither Android phones, nor Angry birds are "free". One is subsidized by years long contracts, and the other is ad-supported. If these things are really affecting sales then it's mostly psychological, which is interesting in itself.
Recent surveys in the UK by YouGov suggest iPhone users are poorer and manage money less well than Android or Blackberry users, but also that the people who use their phone 4+ hours a day are more often found on the iOS platform. This is an interesting reversal of the common wisdom that Android is the home of freetards and geeks. But an audience of geeks with poor impulse control over their spending sounds pretty good, even if they're relatively poor.
"Android phones are available for free from carriers."
I can't find a way to interpret this statement and have it be true.
There is no fee to use the o.s. The devices cost the carriers a great deal. They purchase them in bulk from the oems and then sell them to customers. The cost is then recovered over the life of the contract.
This is why it's hard to know exactly how many windows phones are active in the ecosystem. The only public data is the bulk sales to carriers by oems.
Wrt your other points, I don't have any nits to pick. :)
Only in the U.S. though - here in Australia, most carriers offer a free iPhone with a 2 year contract (e.g. you can get a 16GB iPhone 4 on a $54/month two year contract with no upfront fee).
And we don't have to pay for incoming calls on our mobiles here.
MLB.tv is the only subscription service (that I'm aware of) that charges for the app as well. And they do it inconsistently.
I paid I think $120-$130, somewhere in that range, for MLB.tv, however I need to pay an additional $15 to get it on my Android phone and an additional $15 to get it on my iPad. However on Roku I pay no additional cost for the app, and on the web I pay no additional cost.
I bought the iPad app because I felt I would be more likely to use it, when laying in bed and such. On the phone I would probably only use it in rare situations and so it's just not worth it for me.
Is any one aware of another subscription that has this type of price model?
This is exactly my issue with the At Bat app. I already pay for MLB.tv which plays video in Flash and I have a flash capable Android phone. I don't understand why I should have to pay extra for the app just to watch video. However, last time I checked I was blocked from watching content on my phone.
Be careful about generalizing too far from the MLB experience. As has been discussed over and over, the Android experience for video locked down by DRM is sorely lacking. iOS has a single unified video DRM scheme while different carriers and handset makers seem to be going different ways on Android. Hence, the MLB app's video is only available for 11 phones so far, there's no official Netflix client for any yet and so on. The fact that MLB makes 5 times more from iOS users is partially explained by the fact that all iOS users can buy the app but only a small portion of Android users.
However, not sure that should apply to the entire spectrum of apps. Rovio has said it's making the same on both platforms and the Pocket Legends folks say they make more on Android. Not to say that Android is equal to iOS in app monetization, which it's surely not, but there are signs that it's catching up in some segments. Video, however, is not one of those areas.
I recently switched from iPhone to an Android and I am definitely less willing to pay for apps. To me its all about the pricing.
Going through a list of apps on the first page of the android market I see prices of: $8.05, $7.99, $2.89, $0.99, $9.99, $14.26, $5.99, $2.99.
A random selection from the iTunes app store: $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $4.99, $2.99.
To me, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one, a $3 app is 20x more expensive than a $1 app. There are few iPhone apps that cost more than $1 and its rare to find one more than $5. This pricing makes me feel like the android marketplace is a huge ripoff, so there is almost no chance of me buying an app for $15. When I buy an app that sucks on the iPhone market I only lose $1 which in turn makes me feel better about future purchases.
Wait ... he says he gets 5 x the sales on iOS but then drops this line:
> MLB recently expanded the number of supported handsets from 6 to 11
So out of literally hundreds of Android handsets on the market they supported 6?!!?! And they wonder why their Android sales are not very good? Am I missing something here?
[+] [-] uptown|15 years ago|reply
People will pay for quality. Right now, the Android app isn't anywhere near what I'd consider a quality app.
[+] [-] mey|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WarDekar|15 years ago|reply
Also there have been a lot of complaints it seems on iTunes about this year's version for various reasons. Some of them unwarranted, no doubt, but last year the ratings were quite high for a $15 app.
[+] [-] naner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j79|15 years ago|reply
He wasn't a fan of the phone at first. Too complicated, too hard to make calls, etc. However, something amazing (considering my dad's, uh, "technological capabilities"...) happened a few weeks ago. He calls me up and asks about his "iTunes password" and whether he had ever set that up. I told him, "yeah we did, and it's probably your e-mail password." He tries it and it works.
I asked him what he needed that for and he replies "I've reached my five song limit for Shazam and want to upgrade."
I was kind of blown away by this. Here is my dad, who can't get drag & drop right, upgrading his free version of Shazam with an in-app purchase. An app, I honestly didn't think he would use that much but found enough value in it, he wanted to pay for the full version...
After that, I walked him through finding more apps on the App store. I warned him though. "The one click purchase makes it easy to go crazy."
[+] [-] Kylekramer|15 years ago|reply
Beyond the pretty small group of people who don't like giving Google more info/don't trust Google as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, what is so much better about iTunes than Google Checkout?
[+] [-] emehrkay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffclark|15 years ago|reply
But for some reason, I won't pay for something inside the Android store. I know Google's behind it and that my stuff is probably safe. But there's just something inherintly shady about the Android store that I can't put my finger on.
I know it's irrational, but imagine how someone who hasn't created apps feels.
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|15 years ago|reply
It could be one of several things, which would actually vary from person to person, but all leading to paltry returns for _most_ Android developers vs. iOS.
1) The "perceived value" proposition - To a user, Google is "the search engine" and Android "the mobile OS", but they're both free to use. In a consumer's mind, why wouldn't then _everything_ else, including the Marketplace apps, be free. It doesn't help matters that Rovio's runaway blockbuster cultural gamechanger shared timesink app Angry birds is free on Android (albeit with ads).
2) The blatant, flagrant, rampant, money-maker shaking heaps of copyright theft and IP violations that make it to the top of the Marketplace lists. It makes the whole thing feel like a grey market bazaar in old Morocco or Bangkok - just sketchy as all hell. How could I entrust my credit card with a service that allows GPL violators and copyright flouters to rise to the _very tippy top_ of the charts? I mean, alot of that has changed since Google started putting the screws on very obvious scofflaws like Nintendo emulator game ROM packs, Star Wars weapon simulators, and famous rapper soundboards. But the die may be cast for some of the old-school adopters.
3) The weird availability - Android phone users had to pirate Marketplace apps from day one if they didn't come from the US. Now they're expected to _pay_ for stuff? Sorry, but once you've told them it's free, it's free for a loooong time. Hell, Napster all taught us way back that music "wanted to be free". It's taken over a decade for paid music to come back into some semblance of making any money; coincidentally, it's via Apple's iTunes.
[+] [-] Macha|15 years ago|reply
It doesn't help that many apps have a perfectly legitimate purpose for that network access, to download and display ads.
[+] [-] timtadh|15 years ago|reply
This is probably all irrational and the Amazon store most likely doesn't address the real issues with the Google run store. But at the same time, I know the next time I want to look for an app, I will go to Amazon first.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yalogin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shuchton|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j79|15 years ago|reply
I know Apple likes to advertise how many apps they have, but you're the first person that I've seen who has claimed to purchase hardware based on app availability...
[+] [-] amitraman1|15 years ago|reply
Android phones are available for free from carriers. Thus, the typical Android buy is more price sensitive. They are more likely to choose free content & apps.
iPhone customers don't get FREE iPhones. They are willing to pay $200+ for a phone and contract. Their willingness to pay for apps & content is higher than Android users.
Just look at Angry Birds. It's FREE on the Android store, but charged for on the iOS store.
[+] [-] mgcross|15 years ago|reply
I think it's also that Android users tend to use their phones more as solely communications devices (FB, Twitter, news, email) and less as an 'app console' device, for lack of a better description.
[+] [-] dangero|15 years ago|reply
Exactly. They have shown their willingness to spend their disposable income on their phone.
iPhone users are a marketer's dream. Hence why ads on the platform will also generate a higher ecpm than Android.
One other thing about the iPhone is that Apple has much more uniform and confident marketing as a single company than Android has being spread across the industry. That means if I buy an app now, I feel sure I'll be able to use it for years to come on whatever new iPhone I have at the time. I feel confident investing in my mobile app library. I bought a $100 GPS app on the iPhone because I believe I'll be able to to use it for the next 5 years at least. That's value. If I could only be sure I would be able to use it till I got a phone upgrade, I wouldn't have bought it. With Android, (I have an Android phone too) it's not so clear to me that when I buy an app I'll still be able to have that same app on my phone in 5-10 years with whatever phone I have at the time. Maybe other people feel differently, but I'm not sure who I'm putting my confidence in with Android. Google doesn't control what handsets are made, so I can't just put my confidence in them, and A lot of the mobile carriers have hinted at building their own OS, etc, so I could see Android growing out of favor. This may be very unlikely, but I just don't feel as confident about it, so I don't feel I can invest in my software library like I can with the iPhone.
[+] [-] jrockway|15 years ago|reply
But it's 99 cents on the Amazon Android store: http://www.amazon.com/Rovio-Mobile-Angry-Birds-Ad-Free/dp/B0...
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|15 years ago|reply
Recent surveys in the UK by YouGov suggest iPhone users are poorer and manage money less well than Android or Blackberry users, but also that the people who use their phone 4+ hours a day are more often found on the iOS platform. This is an interesting reversal of the common wisdom that Android is the home of freetards and geeks. But an audience of geeks with poor impulse control over their spending sounds pretty good, even if they're relatively poor.
[+] [-] pmarsh|15 years ago|reply
Experience in this space with my company is much the same. iOS outsold our Android version 7 to 1 and the iOS app was out for less than half the time.
Android might be taking the numbers lead but if I was a developer and I only had the resources to do 1 platform iOS would win easily.
[+] [-] nookiemonster|15 years ago|reply
I can't find a way to interpret this statement and have it be true.
There is no fee to use the o.s. The devices cost the carriers a great deal. They purchase them in bulk from the oems and then sell them to customers. The cost is then recovered over the life of the contract.
This is why it's hard to know exactly how many windows phones are active in the ecosystem. The only public data is the bulk sales to carriers by oems.
Wrt your other points, I don't have any nits to pick. :)
[+] [-] thelibrarian|15 years ago|reply
And we don't have to pay for incoming calls on our mobiles here.
[+] [-] MatthewPhillips|15 years ago|reply
I paid I think $120-$130, somewhere in that range, for MLB.tv, however I need to pay an additional $15 to get it on my Android phone and an additional $15 to get it on my iPad. However on Roku I pay no additional cost for the app, and on the web I pay no additional cost.
I bought the iPad app because I felt I would be more likely to use it, when laying in bed and such. On the phone I would probably only use it in rare situations and so it's just not worth it for me.
Is any one aware of another subscription that has this type of price model?
[+] [-] nomad2986|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apress|15 years ago|reply
However, not sure that should apply to the entire spectrum of apps. Rovio has said it's making the same on both platforms and the Pocket Legends folks say they make more on Android. Not to say that Android is equal to iOS in app monetization, which it's surely not, but there are signs that it's catching up in some segments. Video, however, is not one of those areas.
[+] [-] mhb|15 years ago|reply
http://mattmaroon.com/2011/03/31/why-the-amazon-app-store-is...
[+] [-] lojack|15 years ago|reply
Going through a list of apps on the first page of the android market I see prices of: $8.05, $7.99, $2.89, $0.99, $9.99, $14.26, $5.99, $2.99.
A random selection from the iTunes app store: $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $0.99, $4.99, $2.99.
To me, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one, a $3 app is 20x more expensive than a $1 app. There are few iPhone apps that cost more than $1 and its rare to find one more than $5. This pricing makes me feel like the android marketplace is a huge ripoff, so there is almost no chance of me buying an app for $15. When I buy an app that sucks on the iPhone market I only lose $1 which in turn makes me feel better about future purchases.
[+] [-] Andys|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zmmmmm|15 years ago|reply
> MLB recently expanded the number of supported handsets from 6 to 11
So out of literally hundreds of Android handsets on the market they supported 6?!!?! And they wonder why their Android sales are not very good? Am I missing something here?