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Careful with conclusions. These graphs have been carefully prepared. Notice how: 1. Paid apps and free apps are lumped together, you can't really see the diff

by jwr 17y ago

Careful with conclusions. These graphs have been carefully prepared. Notice how: 1. Paid apps and free apps are lumped together, you can't really see the difference in paid apps clearly. This is important from a developer standpoint — only paid apps will pay your salary. 2. iPhone OS is split into two platforms, while all Android devices are lumped together. Huh? 3. Everything is on a per-user basis. This is fine, but those are not the numbers you should be looking at if you are a developer (as most of us on Hacker News are). You want the aggregate market size. You want to plan your revenues. You don't want per-user statistics.

voidpointer 17y ago
Yep. I'd go as far as saying that the fact that Android users, on average, are downloading a similar number of apps as iphone users is hardly interesting at all. The average smartphone user just seems to get around 9 free and one or two paid apps per month. What is important is the number of users that are doing this on a particular platform and maybe any associated trends, if they exist. The correct headline for this information is "iphone and android users have similar app download behavior". The actual headline implies that Android app download volume would be similar to iphone volume. That would have been a bit of a sensation (to me)... But that's just not what happened.
- dminor 17y ago
  On the contrary I'd say that the difference between 1.8 paid apps and 1.1 paid apps per month is pretty big.
- glhaynes 17y ago
  Honestly I'm kind of surprised the Android numbers aren't higher, since Android device sales so far have presumably skewed heavily toward "geeks" who seem more likely to download stuff just to try it out. Perhaps it's a function of there just being fewer apps available and, of those apps that are available, many may be coming from non-Android Market suppliers?

by jwr 17y ago

voidpointer 17y ago

Yep. I'd go as far as saying that the fact that Android users, on average, are downloading a similar number of apps as iphone users is hardly interesting at all. The average smartphone user just seems to get around 9 free and one or two paid apps per month. What is important is the number of users that are doing this on a particular platform and maybe any associated trends, if they exist. The correct headline for this information is "iphone and android users have similar app download behavior". The actual headline implies that Android app download volume would be similar to iphone volume. That would have been a bit of a sensation (to me)... But that's just not what happened.

dminor 17y ago
On the contrary I'd say that the difference between 1.8 paid apps and 1.1 paid apps per month is pretty big.
glhaynes 17y ago
Honestly I'm kind of surprised the Android numbers aren't higher, since Android device sales so far have presumably skewed heavily toward "geeks" who seem more likely to download stuff just to try it out. Perhaps it's a function of there just being fewer apps available and, of those apps that are available, many may be coming from non-Android Market suppliers?