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I'll buy apps, but at a much lower rate than I do on iOS. I've owned a Nexus One for about 6 months and have spent ~$25 in that time on 4 apps (Advanced Task K

I'll buy apps, but at a much lower rate than I do on iOS. I've owned a Nexus One for about 6 months and have spent ~$25 in that time on 4 apps (Advanced Task Killer, Locale, SlideScreenPro, and WeatherBugElite). I have not run across any other non-free apps that I have any interest in. I owned an iPhone for 2 years and easily spent an order of magnitude more on apps in the same initial time period, which continued throughout the length of time I owned it (and still continues with my iPad). So, I'd be willing to spend $ on android apps, but it'd have to be a very useful app for me to notice it. I'm just not as conditioned to browse and find android apps as I was on iOS. I haven't seen any statistics on it, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that my experience is pretty normal for iOS vs Android users. EDIT: Just checked iTunes and I've purchased 163 non-free iOS apps in 2.5 years, or ~33 apps every 6 months, so it is close to an order of magnitude more for me (though the plural of anecdote isn't data and all that).

zdw 16y ago
I'm an iOS user, but I support a lot of people on both platforms. The general rule of thumb that I've sen is that there's a percentage of people who never buy anything on their devices, but this percentage is bigger on Android than on iOS, just because people are accustomed to the iTunes interface and buying stuff already. It's also easier to find things in it than in the Android market, which has some fairly substantial usability issues. I'd say this percentage is 15-20% on iOS, and closer to 30-40% on Android. In terms of free apps, if you've downloaded only one thing from the store, it's probably a free app. I don't know of people who only have paid apps, just because of things like Amazon's Kindle app or Facebook/Twitter/etc and if you're downloading something already, you might as well. Some people only download free stuff, especially kids in a family situation. I'd say that "Free Only" is probably 30-40% of iOS users, and 50-60% of Android users Now, paid apps. I'd guess that 40-50% of iOS users have purchased a paid app, compared to 10-20% of Android users, and that the average iOS user has purchased 4-8 times the number of paid apps. There are outliers of course - I know people who have >100 apps on each platform. I hardly ever see paid Android apps other than the ones on the small list in the parent post (ATK and Launcher Pro especially). I'm guessing that very few high profile apps make good money, but the "tail" of the Android marketplace is not a lucrative place to be, whereas the iOS "tail" is somewhat more successful.
- minalecs 16y ago
  I'm really wondering what these usability issues you speak about ? From my perspective the only difference between the ios app market and android market is the curated lists. Apple provides a lot of lists example, news and noteworthy, staff picks, top free, top paid, .. etc. Have you ever tried app brain market interface ? One of the reasons I think ios has people spending more money on apps is simply because of these curated lists. Basically free promotions by apple, and their users willing to try what apple is promoting.
  - zdw 16y ago
    To clarify - the built in Android Market app was less than stellar in terms of usability (navigation and finding stuff mainly) when I've used it in the past - it may have improved. This was one of the main obstacles to getting new apps for most users. App Brain does do a lot to improve things, and I've pointed people to it. The point being that Apple having iTunes and people being used to how it works for purchases, and that they often will already have an account means lower barriers to purchasing apps.

zdw 16y ago

I'm an iOS user, but I support a lot of people on both platforms. The general rule of thumb that I've sen is that there's a percentage of people who never buy anything on their devices, but this percentage is bigger on Android than on iOS, just because people are accustomed to the iTunes interface and buying stuff already. It's also easier to find things in it than in the Android market, which has some fairly substantial usability issues. I'd say this percentage is 15-20% on iOS, and closer to 30-40% on Android. In terms of free apps, if you've downloaded only one thing from the store, it's probably a free app. I don't know of people who only have paid apps, just because of things like Amazon's Kindle app or Facebook/Twitter/etc and if you're downloading something already, you might as well. Some people only download free stuff, especially kids in a family situation. I'd say that "Free Only" is probably 30-40% of iOS users, and 50-60% of Android users Now, paid apps. I'd guess that 40-50% of iOS users have purchased a paid app, compared to 10-20% of Android users, and that the average iOS user has purchased 4-8 times the number of paid apps. There are outliers of course - I know people who have >100 apps on each platform. I hardly ever see paid Android apps other than the ones on the small list in the parent post (ATK and Launcher Pro especially). I'm guessing that very few high profile apps make good money, but the "tail" of the Android marketplace is not a lucrative place to be, whereas the iOS "tail" is somewhat more successful.

minalecs 16y ago
I'm really wondering what these usability issues you speak about ? From my perspective the only difference between the ios app market and android market is the curated lists. Apple provides a lot of lists example, news and noteworthy, staff picks, top free, top paid, .. etc. Have you ever tried app brain market interface ? One of the reasons I think ios has people spending more money on apps is simply because of these curated lists. Basically free promotions by apple, and their users willing to try what apple is promoting.
- zdw 16y ago
  To clarify - the built in Android Market app was less than stellar in terms of usability (navigation and finding stuff mainly) when I've used it in the past - it may have improved. This was one of the main obstacles to getting new apps for most users. App Brain does do a lot to improve things, and I've pointed people to it. The point being that Apple having iTunes and people being used to how it works for purchases, and that they often will already have an account means lower barriers to purchasing apps.