4 ms·

I think it comes down to it being harder to make money on the android store and ease of piracy vs ios store. The market share / profit tradeoff ratio on androi

by mahyarm 14y ago

I think it comes down to it being harder to make money on the android store and ease of piracy vs ios store. The market share / profit tradeoff ratio on android makes it worth more to be free. On iOS they sometimes make the app free too.

zachalexander 14y ago
Tell me more. I wasn't aware app piracy was a major problem in either store.
- executive 14y ago
  Not in store - Android allows app installs from outside of the store.
- spartango 14y ago
  App piracy is actually a substantial issue on both stores: On Android, sideloading of apps from unauthorized sources (not the store), and frail DRM makes piracy really easy. The US government has been targeting these sources[1], but as you can imagine, there are many. Some have said that Android app piracy may be up to 60%[2], but I think there's some sample bias in these figures and suspect it's a fair bit lower. On iOS, piracy is a bit more difficult, requiring a jailbreak and then a hack that allows cracked apps. From there, cracked apps can be downloaded from various sources. There are fewer solutions to crack in-app purchases, but recently a few have come into the mainstream[3]. On the whole, Apple's DRM helps, but pirates have found ways around it. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/22/3259808/android-app-pirate-department-of-justice-seizure http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/22/3259808/android-app-pirate... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-interview-piracy-android-ios http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-in... [3] http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3156875/ios-free-in-app-purchase-hack http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3156875/ios-free-in-app-pu...
  - zachalexander 14y ago
    Thanks. I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I'm not a gamer, but I've heard that many gamers have a large, ongoing appetite for new games, and perhaps this makes them more sensitive to price. Even a $0.99 price tag can seem high if you want to play a half dozen new games every month. Meanwhile, a non-gamer who downloads that many apps in a whole year might not mind paying as much. Also, gamers seem to often be power users, so it doesn't surprise me if many of them are technically savvy enough to know how to pirate. I would imagine that apps meant for garden variety Android users might be less widely pirated. I mean, FWIW, of the friends of mine who I know use Android phones, I estimate 80 percent would have no clue how to download a pirated app if the thought even were to occur to them. And most of the other 20 percent who are tech savvy enough to do it are probably unlikely to find it worth the hassle.
    - mahyarm 14y ago
      Jailbreaks can destabilize your phone on iOS. From what I understand, pirating android apps usually requires no modification of your phone's OS.
      - spartango 14y ago
        While this is true, the threshold to jailbreaking has been kept quite low by the iPhone Dev Team (and youtube), and well-organized sites like AppTrackr can get users into the habit of stealing rather than buying. There's an interesting subtext here about demographics: As mentioned above, it would seem that games are more vulnerable to piracy due to the broad audience (lowest common denominator) and lack of "necessity" (games may appear trivial and thus not worth paying for to some). Productivity-linked apps such as Instapaper, Omnifocus, and Day One seem to grab paying users with less difficulty. Additionally, there's been some commentary around Android vs. iOS users being willing to pay for apps. The argument is that Apple was rather successful in targeting an audience who tend to be more willing to pay for applications. As a contrast, it's argued that Android users tend to prefer free software.
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
      > I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I guess it varies by region- I've seen lots of phone shops in Taiwan offering "JB" as their main service. In Germany, I've only ever heard of commercial jailbreaking services for the Xbox and Wii (which used to involve soldering). Also, my $2 hobby iPhone game has hundreds of Chinese players after only selling one copy in China, according to iTunes Connect. In other regions it's a non-issue.

by mahyarm 14y ago

zachalexander 14y ago

Tell me more. I wasn't aware app piracy was a major problem in either store.

executive 14y ago
Not in store - Android allows app installs from outside of the store.
spartango 14y ago
App piracy is actually a substantial issue on both stores: On Android, sideloading of apps from unauthorized sources (not the store), and frail DRM makes piracy really easy. The US government has been targeting these sources[1], but as you can imagine, there are many. Some have said that Android app piracy may be up to 60%[2], but I think there's some sample bias in these figures and suspect it's a fair bit lower. On iOS, piracy is a bit more difficult, requiring a jailbreak and then a hack that allows cracked apps. From there, cracked apps can be downloaded from various sources. There are fewer solutions to crack in-app purchases, but recently a few have come into the mainstream[3]. On the whole, Apple's DRM helps, but pirates have found ways around it. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/22/3259808/android-app-pirate-department-of-justice-seizure http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/22/3259808/android-app-pirate... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-interview-piracy-android-ios http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-in... [3] http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3156875/ios-free-in-app-purchase-hack http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3156875/ios-free-in-app-pu...
- zachalexander 14y ago
  Thanks. I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I'm not a gamer, but I've heard that many gamers have a large, ongoing appetite for new games, and perhaps this makes them more sensitive to price. Even a $0.99 price tag can seem high if you want to play a half dozen new games every month. Meanwhile, a non-gamer who downloads that many apps in a whole year might not mind paying as much. Also, gamers seem to often be power users, so it doesn't surprise me if many of them are technically savvy enough to know how to pirate. I would imagine that apps meant for garden variety Android users might be less widely pirated. I mean, FWIW, of the friends of mine who I know use Android phones, I estimate 80 percent would have no clue how to download a pirated app if the thought even were to occur to them. And most of the other 20 percent who are tech savvy enough to do it are probably unlikely to find it worth the hassle.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    Jailbreaks can destabilize your phone on iOS. From what I understand, pirating android apps usually requires no modification of your phone's OS.
    - spartango 14y ago
      While this is true, the threshold to jailbreaking has been kept quite low by the iPhone Dev Team (and youtube), and well-organized sites like AppTrackr can get users into the habit of stealing rather than buying. There's an interesting subtext here about demographics: As mentioned above, it would seem that games are more vulnerable to piracy due to the broad audience (lowest common denominator) and lack of "necessity" (games may appear trivial and thus not worth paying for to some). Productivity-linked apps such as Instapaper, Omnifocus, and Day One seem to grab paying users with less difficulty. Additionally, there's been some commentary around Android vs. iOS users being willing to pay for apps. The argument is that Apple was rather successful in targeting an audience who tend to be more willing to pay for applications. As a contrast, it's argued that Android users tend to prefer free software.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    > I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I guess it varies by region- I've seen lots of phone shops in Taiwan offering "JB" as their main service. In Germany, I've only ever heard of commercial jailbreaking services for the Xbox and Wii (which used to involve soldering). Also, my $2 hobby iPhone game has hundreds of Chinese players after only selling one copy in China, according to iTunes Connect. In other regions it's a non-issue.