With the first 21 days of October behind us, the G1’s “Official” launch day is finally upon us. With the first Android-powered handset now in the hands of giddy customers around the country, Google has provided long-awaited details about the Android App Market.
As made apparent by those G1 pre-order handsets which arrived a day or two early, the Market is live at launch. Though there was a bit of a temporary dip in the number of available apps over the weekend, the count should now be back up over 50. That number will probably explode in just a few days: starting October 27th, developers can upload their own applications.
As we’ve known for some time, only free applications will be allowed on the App Market initially. According to today’s announcement, developers will be able to distribute paid applications beginning in Q1 of 2009. In the past, Google has said that they would not take a cut of the revenue, which many took to mean that 100% of each sale went to the developer. While it is still true that Google is not taking even a single percent for themselves, 30% will go to carriers and the folks who handle billing. This leaves 70% for the developer, matching Apple’s App Store revenue share model.
The decision to push for-pay applications back to Q1 of 2009 intrigues me. While it may be true that the infrastructure for taking payments just might not be ready yet, it really works out in Google’s favor to have a few months of free. They’ve ensured that the initial onslaught of users will gobble up applications without regard. This stress tests the market itself, puts a positive experience into the user’s mind (free = happy) and, of course, sends download numbers skyward.
This is where things get interesting, folks. With Apple and Google both having their own application stores, you’ve got two entirely different approaches to the concept: one closely moderate, the other relatively unrestricted. Will the latter prove to be the mobile paradise many are hoping for?
I can’t wait to see the APP battles unfold!
I’m interested in talking to someone who can build a live chat app for both android and the iphone.
Please email me at kcurtis@ngagelive.com
Thanks,
I’m interested in seeing if Google provides the major pieces of the payment infrastructure that Apple is still clearly missing. Primarily around the ability to do recurring payments (subscriptions) and incremental on demand payments.
I suspect the lack of billing is more of a T-Mobile issue. I don’t think they were able to get the bill to the phone bill system sorted out for this new type of app store (outside their normal vending machine).
That said, from a traditional mobile industry perspective, 70/30 is quite fair. I actually hope Google does get some of T-Mobiles 30% just for helping to move the market forward.
It’s too bad they’re not leveraging Google Checkout the way that Apple leveraged the existing iTunes payment model for their AppStore.
It seems like they’re missing something by waiting to get there, but perhaps it’s reality that until Android reaches more of a critical mass, a payment model for the Android App Market just isn’t relevant.
@kim It’d be great to see something like Xumii for iPhone and Android, and I would expect that Yahoo’s One Connect would eventually launch for Android as well. Why do you want to build another?
It’s too bad no one can take Japan’s mobile initiative of making the revenue share 90/10 to encourage even more app development. In any case, I’m definitely looking into porting some of my iPhone apps over to Android by Q1 of 2009.
The real question is whether or not Google’s interface for their App Market is better than iTunes. If it’s more enjoyable and phone sales are brisk, Google could overtake Apples 200 million downloads pretty quickly.
Porting our iPhone app to Google is gonna be no fun :-( On the other hand, if there is enough distribution, I guess it will be good to get it out there asap. Someone should write an app that can generate apps for both platforms! I know someone out there can do it!
I’m glad that happened – our company is in business of porting apps to different platforms and we just got additional services offering with that launch. Everyone who is interested in porting their existing applications or creating new from scratch is welcome to contact us (check the web site).