Beat Dialer has received its first review! Ashley from a fantastic mobile music site that I've been following for a while, Palm Sounds, said some wonderful things about Beat Dialer:
"Beat Dialer is a straightforward drum app for Android that has really good timing (and I've used quite a few that couldn't claim that), a different interface from more drum machines and good quality samples. I mean, what more could you ask for in a drum app?"
Thanks Ashley!
Site updates
I've also reworked this site a bit to better focus on my Android application development. Hopefully this will increase the visibility of the site in Google's eyes and help people find my applications.
Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Statistics
This is the current sales state of my Android applications on the Market:
I've decided to show you this as I think there are some interesting statistics here.
Popularity
The most popular (based on downloads/day) is my low-budget animation tester and cat amuser - Mozzy. Since Mozzy was published it has racked up an average of 75 downloads a day, followed by the Lite version of Beat Dialer (25 downloads/day) and the Full version of Beat Dialer (a measly 1.7 downloads/day).
Development effort
The biggest surprise for me was that people seem far more interested in a light-hearted application that was made in 5 hours than a serious music application with hundreds of hours of development behind it.
Earnings
The addition of a free version of Beat Dialer to the Market has helped my 1 sale/week slump in sales (since the new 15 minute market rules were put in place) return to a 1 sale every 2 days average. This recovery is a relief, but is obviously not the sort of return I was expecting.
Active installs
I find it very interesting that all 3 of my applications appear to be settling into 50% active installs. I am not sure if this is a case of my marketing being better than my product or people's general buying behaviour on the Market.
Where to from here
I have to say that this foray into the Android Market has not turned out how I expected. Whilst it was never my intention to become rich from the Market, I certainly was hoping for more interest in paid applications (as is Google).
This foray has also made me challenge my long-held belief in the value of "serious applications" written by "serious developers" (at least on the Android platform). Challenging a long-held belief is not a bad thing, it just means that I no longer intend to spend 300 hours developing an application if there is only a $25/month return.
The light at the end of the tunnel
The good news here is that Google has noticed the lack of purchases of paid applications and is intending to add in-application micro-payments and carrier-integrated billing. These two changes should allow for far more flexible sales - for instance Beat Dialer "Free" could come with 5 samples, extra samples are 5 or 10c each, added to your next mobile bill and purchasable in-application. I think this is a good thing.
The big surprise
What has really surprised me, despite all the above problems, is my customers. I have received a number of bug reports via email and communicating with these people have been very positive. The willingness to help and understanding from these people has exceeded my expectations - thanks guys!
 |
| (click to enlarge) |
Popularity
The most popular (based on downloads/day) is my low-budget animation tester and cat amuser - Mozzy. Since Mozzy was published it has racked up an average of 75 downloads a day, followed by the Lite version of Beat Dialer (25 downloads/day) and the Full version of Beat Dialer (a measly 1.7 downloads/day).
Development effort
The biggest surprise for me was that people seem far more interested in a light-hearted application that was made in 5 hours than a serious music application with hundreds of hours of development behind it.
Earnings
The addition of a free version of Beat Dialer to the Market has helped my 1 sale/week slump in sales (since the new 15 minute market rules were put in place) return to a 1 sale every 2 days average. This recovery is a relief, but is obviously not the sort of return I was expecting.
Active installs
I find it very interesting that all 3 of my applications appear to be settling into 50% active installs. I am not sure if this is a case of my marketing being better than my product or people's general buying behaviour on the Market.
Where to from here
I have to say that this foray into the Android Market has not turned out how I expected. Whilst it was never my intention to become rich from the Market, I certainly was hoping for more interest in paid applications (as is Google).
This foray has also made me challenge my long-held belief in the value of "serious applications" written by "serious developers" (at least on the Android platform). Challenging a long-held belief is not a bad thing, it just means that I no longer intend to spend 300 hours developing an application if there is only a $25/month return.
The light at the end of the tunnel
The good news here is that Google has noticed the lack of purchases of paid applications and is intending to add in-application micro-payments and carrier-integrated billing. These two changes should allow for far more flexible sales - for instance Beat Dialer "Free" could come with 5 samples, extra samples are 5 or 10c each, added to your next mobile bill and purchasable in-application. I think this is a good thing.
The big surprise
What has really surprised me, despite all the above problems, is my customers. I have received a number of bug reports via email and communicating with these people have been very positive. The willingness to help and understanding from these people has exceeded my expectations - thanks guys!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Free version success
Just a short update; the free version of Beat Dialer was downloaded 161 times in the last 48 hours!
This is good news as it confirms that my application is interesting enough from a relevance/marketing perspective, people are just not interested in spending money on it.
The aim now is to use the greater selection of samples to drive people from the free version to the full version - I'll let you know if this is the case.
This is good news as it confirms that my application is interesting enough from a relevance/marketing perspective, people are just not interested in spending money on it.
The aim now is to use the greater selection of samples to drive people from the free version to the full version - I'll let you know if this is the case.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
15 minute refunds and free apps
At the end of last year Google changed the Android application refund time window to 15 minutes from the existing 24 hours. Since the change was put in place I have seen my (low, but acceptable for a niche application) 4-6 sales a day drop to 3-5 a week.
It is my opinion that Google's changes have made it significantly more difficult to sell applications on the Android market because people no longer "try out" applications that catch their eye, only purchasing applications they are absolutely sure will work.
Instead of complaining on the Google message boards, I have decided to release a free "Lite" version of Beat Dialer with only 5 samples.
It will be interesting to see whether this succeeds in enticing people into purchasing the "sample-packed" version or not - I'll certainly let you know.
It is my opinion that Google's changes have made it significantly more difficult to sell applications on the Android market because people no longer "try out" applications that catch their eye, only purchasing applications they are absolutely sure will work.
Instead of complaining on the Google message boards, I have decided to release a free "Lite" version of Beat Dialer with only 5 samples.
It will be interesting to see whether this succeeds in enticing people into purchasing the "sample-packed" version or not - I'll certainly let you know.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
On communication
It's been an exciting week for me - the first time I have really felt like I have "customers."
The first month of sales of Beat Dialer was a very disconnected affair - I watched the sales appear in my Google Checkout whilst I slowly added features. Over this time I received two five-star comments - something that was obviously wonderful.
Then, in the last week I received three one-star ratings, two of which with comments that the device Force Closed on Samsung devices.
As I don't have any Samsung Android devices I was not going to be able to reproduce the error (none of my monkey or functional testing showed any problems). I decided to go out on a limb, contacting the two commenters via the Google Checkout's obfuscated email address and offering a refund for more information on the bug.
The results were spectacular: both commenters replied with details of what lead to the Force Closes and were more than understanding that I couldn't test on all devices. One is also a software developer and offered to test a development build of Beat Dialer. From their feedback I have now implemented a fix - thanks guys!
The lesson I take away from the last week is the importance of communicating with your customers - even when working with micro-transactions on something as anonymous as the Android Market.
The first month of sales of Beat Dialer was a very disconnected affair - I watched the sales appear in my Google Checkout whilst I slowly added features. Over this time I received two five-star comments - something that was obviously wonderful.
Then, in the last week I received three one-star ratings, two of which with comments that the device Force Closed on Samsung devices.
As I don't have any Samsung Android devices I was not going to be able to reproduce the error (none of my monkey or functional testing showed any problems). I decided to go out on a limb, contacting the two commenters via the Google Checkout's obfuscated email address and offering a refund for more information on the bug.
The results were spectacular: both commenters replied with details of what lead to the Force Closes and were more than understanding that I couldn't test on all devices. One is also a software developer and offered to test a development build of Beat Dialer. From their feedback I have now implemented a fix - thanks guys!
The lesson I take away from the last week is the importance of communicating with your customers - even when working with micro-transactions on something as anonymous as the Android Market.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)