What got you here on Apple, won’t get you there on Android | Hacker News Reader

What got you here on Apple, won’t get you there on Android

tomasztunguz.com

8 pointsttunguz19 comments

uh, what?

>No need to connect the phone to a PC or to fire up the Android Market. In contrast, Apple uses iTunes, a client application on the PC, to install applications. The extra friction in that process reduces app installs and trials, limiting the effectiveness of web-based app distribution.

I don't know about you, but the "open the Appstore app" from a link on my phone sounds identical.

I don't think I've ever bought an app via iTunes on the desktop. You click a link on the web, which opens to the install page in the iOS appstore, and click install. What about that process is cumbersome?

This article doesn't feel like it issues real advice for android development for iOS devs (the purported aim) nor does it feel the author gets iOS by the basic misunderstanding of the common web marketing funnel for iOS apps.

> I don't know about you, but the "open the Appstore app" from a link on my phone sounds identical.

It's not identical, because he was talking about browsing the Market on PC (or tablet, if you must) and installing apps from there. All you need is to login into Android Market with the same account as you are using for the device and you can push apps to your phone. No cable necessary.

Honest question: how is that any different from firing up App Store and click on "Install"[1]? (Yes, I purchased this on iTunes.)

[1]: http://i.imgur.com/KAdEw.png

The article talks about installing apps to your phone while you are browsing the web and reading about them on a different device. You still have to fire up the App Store on your iPhone and find the app and download it (or use iTunes to transfer it) if you bought it using the iPad. On Android, it's installed on your phone automatically without having to visit the Market app to find it.

Ah, thanks. But do installing application from Amazon App Store works that way too?

Currently not, but nothing prevents Amazon from implementing it. It is actually very simple, when the user clicks on Install button on the Android Market web, it then sends c2dm [1] message to your device and the localy installed Android Market app pulls the installation file.

Amazon is free to do the same thing.

[1] http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/index.html

One small clarification - Amazon is free to do part of the process (download it automatically), but Amazon cannot install the application automatically on most phones. The actual installation step requires privileges that the Amazon Market app doesn't have access to (but the Android Market app does).

Of course, custom Amazon Android devices won't have that restriction.

To be fair, of the last three years of owning an iPhone, I can only remember two or three instances where I was reading about an app and had an impulse to purchase it right then and there.

I do see/understand the advantage of having a deep-link on their homepage allowing me to purchase the app without having to launch iTunes (or the App store on my iPhone), but of the few instances (Camera+ was one and I forget the others) I didn't find the "friction" of having to launch the app store on my device much of an issue.

On that note, purchasing apps is more of a "casual" thing for me. When I'm interested in buying an app, it's usually done in "batches". And it's usually done when I've got nothing better to do (before bed, on the train, etc.) so settings where browsing the app store on the phone is the most comfortable.

Is it possible that your habits are partially trained by the device's strengths? It's easy to install from the app store so that's what you do. Don't you think that if you could install apps from the web you might do so after getting used to the feature?

It's a new feature for Android, so this article is really just hitting on how to market to users. It's saying play to Android's strengths, don't try to market the same way you market on iOS (which involves getting on the featured app list). The Market is much more algorithm driven in it's rankings so that approach doesn't work. But if you can spread your app in a viral manner on twitter and facebook with a link straight to purchase/download, how can you say that's not good advice?

>It's a new feature for Android,

Oh, so by android he means, 5% of android owners. Sorry, that's not a great thing to base a strategy around and it would be nice to clarify the different methods iOS has and the fact that this is only in Android W.Y.Z and only 3 phones have that delivery mechanism yet.

(Don't think I am not POed that apple is again on multiple versions. Why are they lagging the Verizon iOS version).

New as "since 2.2", which means something over 2/3 of android users can use this feature.

Actually I meant new as in since January. But yes, it works on most Android phones. I meant new as in people aren't used to using it yet. It's something I'm sure a lot of Android owners aren't aware they can do. Which might be an advantage for those developers who do use it in marketing.

I'm seeing 61%: Android various versions of OS 2.2 market share exceeded 61% of statistics from http://androidmet.com/03/android-various-versions-of-os-2-2-...

I see that you're taking this as an Android vs. iOS conversation and not a "how to effectively market to different audiences" conversation. I'll step out.

I contend it is either A> Not a new feature or B> Not well distributed.

Show me a publication date of the feature and installed base and we'll talk.

It's either not new (which would make it a valid strategy item) or it's not widely available/adopted (which makes it useless). This isn't a niggling unimportant point. iOS had the same issue when they basically left 3G and older phones behind as android does with certain features.

But does that change something about the purchasing decision? Transfering sucks but buying is still easy. I'm skeptical about whether the actual purchasing decision is negativly affected by having to connect a device. You don't have to connect a device to spend money.

So you can almost do that as well on iOS. It just doesn't notify your phone of it until a few days later when you get the charge email and uses the iTunes app to actually auth the purchase.

I see the missing link now, but the article didn't explain that either and still wildly misconstrued the typical install case for people (which is either browse on phone, buy on phone, or find on web, mail to phone, buy on phone). Very few people buy off the phone.

Take it this way: this allows you tweet (or publish in other way) link to your application, where the prospects can buy it and install it without any fuss. That's the entire point, to make life for both vendors and users easier.

One thing I've found painfully missing, as an app developer, is any sort of analytics around the purchase flow of apps in the App Store.

For example, I have no idea how many people visited my app page from their iPhone, from the web deep link, from iTunes and I don't know what % convert. As such, I can't do any A/B testing on images/text content/price, etc (actually I could but it be indirect) on the actual purchase pages.

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