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Comment by tsuraan | Hacker News Reader

I've never used the app, but I'm not seeing why their apparently unique approach to eBooks couldn't run on WebOS, Meego, or Android. I assume there's a good reason, since you don't throw away years of work easily, but I'd love to hear what that reason is.

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Build a business on Meego? Are you trolling?

People in these parts honestly believe Android is a hospitable business environment, but if your business involves selling things, you have to content yourself with a tiny fraction of iOS's revenue potential. That's why these guys aren't pivoting. Their business wouldn't have existed in 2011 without iOS.

I sell an SEO app ( http://semtab.com ) on both iOS and Android, and the Android version is outselling the iOS one by a wide margin. It caught me a bit off guard because everyone I know keeps repeating that iOS users buy more than Android ones, but that just hasn't been my experience so far. I even put the iOS version on sale at $0.99 in hopes to increase purchases, but it is _still_ not resulting in as many purchases as the Android version at the original $1.99 price.

You may want to consider a new icon for the iOS app (also, please make sure you have an @2x variant of it, too).

edit: i've had a couple minutes to try using it.

You may want to consider overhauling the application's user experience. It doesn't look or 'feel' like a proper iOS app, and I'm guessing that's why the Android version is outselling the iOS one.

* the icons really need @2x variants.

* The user workflow is brittle, especially given how few view controllers there are, here. I shouldn't be able to choose to look at the 'Web' or 'Social' tabs until I've selected a domain.

* The domain entry experience feels cumbersome. Why is it capitalizing my domain name?

* Why do I delete a domain from the 'Web' and 'Social' tabs, and why isn't there an alert prompt?

Add Domain:

* The navigation bar tint color shouldn't change.

* This should be a modal view controller.

* The text shadow behind the label looks weird.

* The label's text should be something more like: "Domain name:", especially since you already give an example in the text field with its placeholder.

* You should call -becomeFirstResponder on the text field when this view controller appears.

Anyway, I know you didn't ask for any of this, but hopefully it proves helpful in driving up your sales.

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions and critical feedback. This was the first release that I wanted to get on the app store/market as quickly as possible, so it has not been perfected yet.

I am aware it doesn't have the best design/UI right now, but that will soon be corrected in the next release - at least most of your suggestions anyways.

I think it could be a combination of competition on iOS and a very plain UI. iOS users can be UI snobs and to be frank your app looks unfinished.

I think the root of the difference is indeed competition on iOS, and lack thereof on Android. The lack of any decent SEO app on the Android Market is the primary reason I made SEMTab in the first place. I think that is the biggest reason it is selling better there - it's easy to stand out when all the other apps on Android are total crap.

Or perhaps you discovered that there are more search engine marketers on Android than on iOS. Or that your app has more visibility on the Android market. Or multiple factors unrelated to the average user's general app-purchasing habits.

Now that is an interesting data point.

I guess your target market is the tech savvy crowd who are often put off by the iOS closed platform.

Very interesting. Have you marketed them in the same way? Maybe the sheer size of the Android handset market is beginning to turn the tide.

Are you saying that Android is not a hospitable business environment? I'm curious on your take because I'm working on an Android app.

Heh, I guess with Nokia's pivot, I should have said WinMo7, but I had actually forgotten about its existence. The point was that there are other phones out there, with app stores that people (apparently) use. I can't imagine any environment (even Meego's) being less business friendly than Apple's, at this point.

Even with Apple's developer-hostile policies, it seems like it's at best a toss-up at this point between the massive amount of money available on iOS and the greater freedom elsewhere.

If only we could go back to the salad days before Apple's app store when mobile developers had it good.

I think your sarcasm hides a lack of an actual point to your comment (beyond reiterating my comment's point, which was that selling mobile apps seems to kind of suck in general).

I think my actual point was actually that Apple has been great for developers not hostile as you claimed. I think that's true by inspection. I think this developer had a terrible business model that was exposed by entirely predictable changes to market conditions and went out of business and is lashing out.

Eh, the fact that Apple has been "great for developers" is largely an accidental consequence of the fact that their platform has a lot of users who are willing to spend money. Apple attracted the users because Apple wanted the users, not because they wanted to help developers out. Without the userbase, iOS would be relatively unattractive (and I don't think Apple would feel like it could pull this kind of move).

A large portion of what Apple does that's specifically targeted at developers these days is negative. The NDA, rules so broken they were never consistently enforced, arbitrary rejections, retroactively rejecting apps when they decide to come out with a competitor, etc.

Also, I dispute the claim that this rule change was "entirely predictable." Can you show me somewhere that you or anybody else predicted this rule change before it came to light?

I'm curious about that too. What limitations does Android have that make pivoting hard to do? Why weren't they working on both an Android and iOS app, no to mention WebOS and WP7. It does seem there are a lot of options out there, so there must be a very good reason not to have utilized those platforms. Does iOS provide some APIs that make this type of online purchasing model so much easier than other platforms that it's not even worth investing in something else?

agree, I think there biggest failure is not attempting to move to another platform.

Theres plenty of ebook stores that do well on Android.. Kindle, Aldiko, & Nook all do well and I use all of them when there are deals, just like I use the Amazon and Google marketplace. When deals appear on apps/books I like, I buy. The content is more valuable than the actual reader.

I think Android users are just less likely to spend money on apps/content vs iOS users.

I think that's quite the blanket statement. I don't believe that to be the case at all.

I have a data point of one (me) who disagrees with that. I've spent heaps on apps. I was shocked to find that iOS makes you enter a password before buying stuff - what kind of a PITA is that?

"I was shocked to find that iOS makes you enter a password before buying stuff - what kind of a PITA is that?"

On webOS (myself, wife, daughter) I had the option of requiring a password every time an app was purchased or just letting my 13 year old daughter rack up whatever credit card charges she felt like on her phone. I don't consider it a PITA to enter a password, I consider it a security feature. I am shocked that you imply that android does not have such a requirement and I feel further vindicated in choosing webOS over android.

[citation needed]

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