My experience of selling the same apps on iOS and on Android (with numbers) | Hacker News Reader

My experience of selling the same apps on iOS and on Android (with numbers)

speedanatomy.blogspot.com

It's the "Sophie's Choice" for mobile developers: Give up your sense of freedom and openness for smaller exposure but 2x the revenue, or work on your own terms in front of a large and receptive base of customers who loves the sizzle but is "meh" when it comes time to pay for the steak.

Perhaps there will be a critical mass that forms when the geek legion legitimizes the cool factor of Android devices and the consumer comes in and starts snapping up apps in the same way it does on iOS, but, if you _have_ to make a choice between the two right now, which would it be?

Unfortunately, I have to go where the money is.

Given that his Android revenues are 50% of iOS, seems like supporting both is where the money is.

I'm surprised it's that high actually - not long ago people were throwing out figures like 10%.

Looking at it another way, most companies would sell one of their vice presidents to figure out a way to get 50% more business. This could be an easy route to increasing revenue.

That depends entirely on the cost of maintaining two very different codebases, keeping track of two different APIs....

It's probably less than the 50% bump in revenue, and likely cheaper than building it the first time since you can reuse tons of assets...(of course provided that it's 50% of something sufficient).

Let's be realistic about what we're talking about here, most phone apps are not multi-million dollar, multi-year AAA development efforts. They're typically made by a couple guys over a few months. That's why the typical app per-unit price is so low compared to the typical app-per unit price for desktop software. In the case of a "AAA" title, we're likely talking about something that's multi-platform anyway...code is generally cheap, art assets and design is expensive. A great example, Plants vs. Zombies for desktops is $20, for the iPhone it's what...$4? Yet it was completely worth it for PopCap to rebuild the entire game for the i-platforms (twice!)

In other words, if it's not worth doing it for a 50% revenue bump, it probably wasn't worth doing it the first time either.

I think for a large quantity of apps, that's an unnecessary choice. If your codebase isn't likely to be too large, maintaining a separate port won't be too much effort, even if you don't use some cross-platform technology. And for most "lifestyle" apps that mostly consist of a few screens, that's certainly the case. And I think for those kind of programs, the increasing popularity of Android – and especially for lower price devices – is a big boon.

If you're developing a medium- to large-size productivity app, things look quite different, and I would guess that right now the iOS "platform" would be a better choice.

I think you mean Hobson's Choice.

Indeed — Sophie had to choose which of her children would be murdered by Nazis.

Summary: Android marketplace has more free downloads, fewer paying downloads, and requires more support.

Also, yuck:

"Another hypothesis is that I might still be disadvantaged by being Canadian. For example yesterday I received a support e-mail for someone who is usually able to purchase apps with his credit card but wasn't able to pay for my apps. The Google Checkout support site states: "The types of cards accepted through Google Checkout are based on the seller's location."

"I get a few e-mails per day about failed credit card transactions. It's possible that this happens with Apple also and that they simply hide it from us but it's worrisome nonetheless. All of this also amounts to an annoying level of e-mails and considerable amount of time spent answering support mail for stuck installations."

Have any other Canadians had trouble selling apps on Android?

I'm curious how Apple handles the HST for Canadian developers selling to multiple countries.

Pretty simply; the buyer's location is known, and Canadian sales tax rules are much simpler than US ones: the buyer's province is all that matters. They add the tax rate for that province (if any) and the Federal GST, or a blended HST if that exists for the province, or no tax if the buyer isn't in Canada.

It beats having to set a bunch of money aside and work it out yourself at year end.

Do they collect and remit the HST, or do they pass it on to you for remitting to the CRA?

Sorry, I'm not an iPhone developer, and I was always wondering how the accounting would be handled.

I'm fairly certain that since they are the 'retailer' they collect and remit the hst. What the store pays you isn't subject to hst.

What about the 30% commission?

I'm assuming they charge you HST on that which you can recover in your HST filings?

Collect and remit.

I think this (Double your price! (and no, I'm not kidding) - http://tinyurl.com/3xcounq) is a must read for you, particularly concerning the MD versions of your app.

Direct link:http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not...

I get a 404 with your link, but the tinyurl above works.

I got a 404 as well. Somehow elcron missed an apostrophe in "I'm" in the address he posted. Interesting that the URL shortened version actually preserved the link integrity in this case.

Ironically, you can read an argument against shorteners on this same blog here-- http://jacquesmattheij.com/Down+with+URL+shorteners

Note: I avoid shortened links like the plague, just an interesting observation.

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