From Samsung
| Dear seller, This is the Seller Office team. Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office.We are proud to announce that the development of In-App Purchase 2.0 is complete, and ready for our customers to use, and ask you to read the information below. |
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Being a mobile app developer may often be compared to going to Las Vegas. But at least in Vegas you typically get much better than 1 in a million odds, but with both Google Play and iTunes reaching 1m apps each, dropping your app in the app store means absolutely nothing (unless you hit the jackpot = getting featured). So the alternative is to spend (pay per installs, CPMs, or any flavor you can think of) or to increase your distribution (be in every app store possible).
Now the latter option, increased app store distribution, is fine if you have a free app that is ad financed based, or an app that is pay for download, but with momentum and user preference clearly moving towards in-app purchases, the number one pain point facing the industry is payments. App stores want their 30% cut for putting in all the effort of acquiring users and managing the stores (granted there are plenty of stores that have come up with different business models, but taking a cut of the revenue is still the dominating model among the big ones). For the developer this means multiple payment SDKs, with lots of effort going into development, QA and code base/SKU management and general headaches. As one developer told us, even though it may only presumably take only half a day to drop the code in, it always ends up taking 2 weeks for a key developer when all is finished – precious time often needed for developing the next app.
Up until now, there has been no way around this. But the Open Platform Foundation, backed by Russian giant Yandex , is taking charge on this with the Open In-app Billing project.
1. One SDK saves time
For the reasons mentioned above, if you as a developer only need a single SDK for billing it means you will save a tremendous amount of time for obvious reasons: One integration, one QA process, and possibly even a consolidated revenue view.
2. App stores should love it
Besides Google, we would venture to believe that the likes of Samsung, BlackBerry, heck even Amazon, do not really want to be in the payments business. Yet they have had to build up a payments SDK in order to collect the app store toll. While the 200m credit cards on file were key for Apple’s App Store, and continues to be a major strategic asset (now with 500m cards on file), the others have proven you can have success without that – and simply the key is ease of payment (and revenue collection), not how you do it. Consumers could not care less. They just want to click a button, pay and get on with it.
3. One SDK could make the app store world explode
If the Open IAB project succeeds, which largely depends on the acceptance of the major app stores (they will still be using their billing, so there should not be a compelling reason not to), it means that this can finally open things up for all app stores. All an app store would need to do is simply drop their SDK into Open IAB, or if they don’t have their own payment SDK – cooperate with one of the partners that are available in the project – so that they can be the Merchant of Record in their own store without asking developers to create a special binary for them. This will grow the pie for everyone, as apps can more easily be published to stores without any special requirements, and stores who do not have payment SDKs, suddenly have one and can start taking a cut of the in-app revenue stream.
Enabling app stores all over the world to make money on in-app billing will open up a host of new ways to sell apps, such as affiliate networks, direct selling networks, niche sites dedicated to certain types of apps (for instance the Sports App Store etc) – that will make a much better job for the individual developer than the mega app stores can.
We’re also excited about the App Description File project, as it will simplify distribution quite a bit for the stores that will support it. This is why CodeNgo is an early AppDF supporter, and we encourage developers to try it.
Many perfectly sane individuals are known to suffer from road rage when they get behind the wheel of a car and experience a minor issue. There is something strange that changes some of us when we start driving around and it has been known for calm people to suddenly flip out when things are not going their way. A lot of this down to stress that is endured by bad traffic conditions and rising fuel costs. Removing these two factors will not eradicate road rage, but it will certainly minimise the effects and results a considerable amount. There are some very astute Smartphone applications that are helping motorists to deal with fuel and traffic conditions, let’s see how well they really deal with those two imposters!
Fuel Price Australia by Cartoon Mobile Inc – $3
This app is compatible with your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and it requires iOS 4.0 or later for smooth running. An ‘Australian only’ application that really socks it to those rising fuel prices! Fuel Price Australia will tell you where the cheapest gas is at any time of the day. It currently connects to gas stations in the following areas of Australia:
The app uses your device’s GPS system to locate exactly where your best bet for cheap fuel happens to be and the gas prices are updated every day. You will get automatic directions to each station and all gas types are searchable. This app will save you a load of cash over the year and it weighs in at a tiny 3 dollars, surely one of the best investments you will ever make!
Australia Live by ParkStreetEasy – $3
Here we have another ‘all Australian’ app that has your traffic worries at the forefront of its features. It will run on both your iPhone and iPad devices and cost an amazingly low $3 Australian. The sole purpose of Australia Live is to help you to beat those hideous traffic jams that can ruin your day. There is no subscription charge to worry about and you are constantly getting up to the minute reports about the state of our roads. Any major accident will be flagged up and you always have a selection of alternative routes to take to your destination. Your device uses its GPS signal to sync in with the LiveTraffic web based application. It is a very easy to use app that will help you to get back those hours of wasted time you have already spent in traffic! You also get the chance to contribute to the application by reporting your own real time issues and disputing any misinformation you may have come across. If you are happily motoring along to your chosen destination and the traffic situation is compromised by an incident, you will receive an audible and visible alert on your smartphone app. This will allow you the luxury of selecting a quitter route before it is too late!
Road Rage Hasn’t Got a Chance!
We believe that these 2 apps will definitely help the average motorist to get through the week without a major meltdown. If you feel any stress regarding traffic or parking, download them before your next journey!
License: Creative Commons image source License: Creative Commons image source License: Creative Commons image source License: Creative Commons image sourceToday’s guest blogger, Paul Philip, provides services for auto detailing in Perth. During his time off from work, he likes to unwind and read about the latest updates in technology.
If you work as a roofing contractor, an estate agent, a home inspector or as an estimator you may be very interested to know about the Roofing Calculator app. The app will help you to estimate both simple and complex steep slope roofs, as well as calculating costs such as labour, installation and materials. The app provides you with the ability to save any reports you have made, which can then be forwarded onto contractors or clients.
– You don’t have to worry about estimating the costs of separate roofs at one location. The app will add up a total of 10 separate roofs at any given location, therefore allowing you to calculate the entire roof areas and the materials that are required for the job.
– As soon as you make a calculation the details will be saved into a self-generated report. This allows you to review it at a later date, make certain modifications if required, and even send the details on to yourself or a client. This can be done in an extremely professional manner, as the report can be sent as a PDF or even with your company’s letterhead.
– The Roofing Calculator makes use of GPS, so no matter where you decide to use it, the details of your location will be saved and this information will also automatically be added to your report.
– You can ensure that your estimates are completely accurate, as the report will figure a wide variety of other costs, such as permits you may require, equipment to be used on the job, skip costs if required and even VAT or sales tax.
The Roofing Calculator app is available on both Apple and Android devices and will soon be making an appearance on the Blackberry Playbook tablet. The app is available for US$19.99. This may appear expensive compared with many other apps, but the amount of time and money you are likely to save using the app make this an absolute bargain.
The app does require regular updating, but this is simply to add more and even better features. One such factor that the manufacturer is considering is to have a separate calculator for flat roofs and another calculator for metal roofs. Another feature that is currently being worked on is the ability to calculate cut-up roofs that feature numerous dormers and valleys. Basically, the manufacturer is taking note of all feedback received from contractors and other app users to ensure that they have one of the best products available in the marketplace.
Roofingcalculator.org is the company’s official website and they provide full demonstrations of how the app works, as well as access to both iPhone and Android platforms should you wish to purchase the app. They have also added a discussion forum to the website, therefore allowing users to discuss the workings of the app and its many brilliant and helpful features.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roofing-calculator-pro/id441856599?mt=8&ls=1
License: Creative Commons image source License: Image author owned License: Image author owned License: Image author owned License: Creative Commons image sourceToday’s guest author, Abbey Brooks, is a project supervisor at OpenAire, a retractable stadium roof manufacturer based in the United States. She is a fun loving person and enjoys spending time with friends and family.
From Samsung
| Dear seller, This is the Seller Office team. Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office. |
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The selling of digital goods from inside your app with ‘in-app billing’ is a very good business model to aim for as all signs point to this ‘freemium’ type of model being the most successful strategy for selling content on the app stores, in particular for mobile games. The growth has been tremendous, and in fact Google just announced a 700% increase in the in-app billing volume since last year.
Virtual Goods (Source: MIT Enterprise Forum)Google actually offer developers a direct way to manage a catalogue of digital goods in this way using their own billing systems, and have tightly integrated this within Google Play and Google Wallet. This is likely capability that Google acquired when they bought the digital goods catalogue company Social Gold. The company never continued, but the technology, at least in part, seems to have been absorbed by Google Play.
The functionality is easy enough to use, and you will no doubt on the surface save a lot of coding by choosing this method, but in doing so, you basically create a 1:1 relationship between your app and Google Play. In order to grow your user base (and not be 1 in a million) and give your app the best chance of success though you need to go well beyond just Google Play for distribution.
If you have used this feature from Google, although it probably saved you some development time, you will not be able to easily transport your in-app billing to other stores, so to manage this you would need to then replace this billing setup with an alternative method of managing a shopping cart system to allow for purchases on any other stores.
Then you still need to manage the necessary steps of adding the varying billing APIs for each new store you want to be on (i.e. add the Samsung SDK to be on their store), so there is a lot of work for you as a developer to have an app that can support in-app purchases across multiple stores.
Our advice is to start looking for solutions that help you manage your digital catalogue billing across a wide range of stores from the very beginning. There are plenty of vendors around such as Playerscale and Live Gamer, all with different capabilities and associated costs. While you still need to resolve the multiple in-app billing SDK connections to your billing system, you can at least be sure then you have not limited your apps potential and have the ability to scale as you grow your distribution to new stores.
Simon Slee is an experienced veteran in the mobile games industry. Simon is currently VP of Publishing for Fei Hu Interactive, a Chinese based, cross platform, mobile & social developer of free2play games, including the upcoming title ‘Prisonhood’.
From Amazon:
You Can Now Distribute Apps in Nearly 200 Countries Worldwide on Amazon
Today we announced that the Amazon store is now available to millions of customers in nearly 200 countries around the world, giving them global access to Amazon’s broad selection of quality apps.
Customers will be able to access a large and growing catalog of apps and games from Amazon directly from their computers or Android phones and tablets, including Kindle Fire, and you will quickly have a much larger audience around the world to download and enjoy your apps and games. For a full list of countries offering our store visit the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Blog. We also announced that Kindle Fire is available for pre-order starting today, shipping to over 170 countries beginning on June 13.
This is a great opportunity for you to reach millions of new customers who can now discover apps and games online, from their Android mobile and Kindle Fire devices within our store. If you have country availability for your apps set to all countries where Amazon sells apps then you do not need to do anything to take advantage of this opportunity. Otherwise, you will need to make your apps available internationally by adding the countries you want your apps to be available in. Here is more information on how you can do that.
Get started today by submitting your app on the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal.
Stay connected via our Distribution Blog, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Best regards,
Amazon Mobile App Distribution Team
From Samsung
| Dear seller, This is the Seller Office team. Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office.We would like to announce that the Seller Office will now be providing paid services in more countries. |
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The market for mobile app development is expected to grow from $25.2bn in 2013 to $92bn in 2018 according to Ridgecrest Capital Partners latest research study (which includes an honorable mention of CodeNgo). Backed by data from among others Vision Mobile, Ridgecrest lists a number of companies that have received VC funding in the space, and they also list companies that are likely to be the consolidators in the industry.
Ridgcrest also points to the complexity of being a mobile app developer, a concept that readers of this post are likely to not be a stranger of:
So how big of a problem is the complexity? Well, where there is opportunity, there is talent, and talent deals well with complexity. Asymco points out in a recent article that “Apps are becoming the universal medium for entertainment and iTunes the universal distributor. Talent is catching on to this faster than those who manage and distribute their work. The inevitable result will be a mass migration of talent away from the established content industries.” While we disagree on iTunes being the universal distributor (surprise), especially given Asymco’s love affair with Apple, their main point on the rise of apps is quite compelling. Apps are consuming more and more of consumers time, and has taken over for where other content types, like music, has been faltering. Bring on the talent.
“We believe the mobile applications space has reached an inflection point and thus will gain increased interest on both the funding and M&A front.“
– Ridgecrest Capital Partners
Games are undoubtedly one of the most important category for mobile apps. And we strongly believe we have only seen the beginning of the explosion that is to become mobile gaming. As games permeate from entertainment to education, there are several indicators indicating the action is moving to a smaller screen.
The big guys struggle online
An excellent article in The Motley Fool blog discusses the fate of Zynga. Zynga has seen huge drop in revenue numbers as they struggle to stay relevant. Partly this may be lack of new titles, partly a drop in interest on Facebook – but mainly it is because they see all the action moving to mobile.
As referenced in the article: “Smart phones are the go-to market for literally any struggling software company, but more importantly Mark Pincus believes that social video gaming may be more successful in the mobile space” – we tend to agree with Pincus. The ultimate social device surely should be the most suitable for social gaming.
Mobile is also taking over from console
Mobile games industry veterans will arguably say that mobile games were never intended to take over from console games, rather mobile games are more about killing time rather than an immersive hard core experience. Yet new data shows that increasingly tablets and other devices are increasingly “stealing” audiences from consoles.
Moreover though, we expect not necessarily the battle of mobile vs console to be the main issue, rather we expect a multi-screen/multi-device experience, where all released titles whether online or on console will have a mobile component. The experience may be replicated in full or in part, but that depends on the type of game and the experience the developer is trying to create. Successful games companies in the future will become expert in cross device user engagement – and that engagement will vary depending on device and context.
The hindrance? Payments
Payments hold a key for revenue generation on mobile. Strict demands from app stores and/or mobile carriers to use their payment SDKs, means maintaining multiple SKUs and payment integrations, something most developers do not have resources to go after, other than the big guys. Luckily, a solution may be in the works — but more on this in a later post.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think the growth in mobile gaming will be? Take our poll:
