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From Google:

We are committed to providing you with a consistent and reliable payout experience while we introduce new forms of payment to better serve your users and create more revenue opportunities for you. In order to do so, we are shifting our payout date to 15 days after the month’s end.

Starting in February 2013, we will transition you to a schedule from being paid two days after the end of the month to 15 days after the end of the month. In an attempt to ease the transition, we will make two interim payments before you are completely shifted to the new payment schedule as
follows:

– February 2nd: Payment for January sales
– February 15th: Payment for February 1 – 13 sales
– March 15th: Payment for February 14 – 28 sales
– April 15th: Payment for March sales

And every month after, you will also receive payment on the 15th.

We remain committed to offering a best in class marketplace for developers to sell their apps. These changes will allow us to ensure users can buy your apps and we can transmit payments to you in a reliable fashion.

If you have any questions, please contact Google Checkout Merchant team at http://support.google.com/checkout/sell/bin/request.py

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We believe in the alternate app store space (or we would not be in business :)).  Just as you would never do your grocery shopping at one store, or go to the same restaurant your entire life, there is a need for outlets for mobile apps that go beyond Google Play and iTunes.  The evidence that this is becoming an important avenue from app developers, comes from looking at Mobango’s 2012 numbers.

Mobango 2012 downloads by category (Source: Mobango)

In 2012, Mobango had a stellar year. They signed up 8.000+ games developers (their strongest category), published over 15.000 games, and recorded significant engagement metrics on Android.  Mobango is on the way up, and is one of the key app stores we are supporting here at CodeNgo. Congratulations to Mobango, and thanks for leading the way in the alternative app store space (we’ll have to come up with a better name for this, we know).

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A number of things have happened on the BlackBerry app world lately. These are excerpts from BlackBerry announcements:

Changes of note include:

  • Feature image per platform: Submit a feature image that is specific to each platform
  • App icon per platform: Submit an icon image that is specific to each platform
  • Ratings and reviews per platform: Users now view ratings and reviews specific to their platform (BBOS, BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry PlayBook)
  • The Search Algorithm has changed

Details on BlackBerry World Search

With the recent upgrade to BlackBerry World 4.3, the BlackBerry World search algorithm has changed.
It now uses the following product attributes to determine search results. The attributes are listed in order of importance to the algorithm:

  1. Product Name
  2. Keywords
  3. Vendor Name
  4. Short Description

Note that the Long Description is no longer considered by the Search algorithm.

Read the following developer blog to learn more about the algorithm changes and how to tweak your meta-data to better market your app.
Marketing Your App – BlackBerry World Search Optimization

Pricing Tier Update

In preparation for launch of BlackBerry 10, we will be starting the first wave of our planned pricing update in BlackBerry World. This first wave will update the British Pound (GPB) and Euro (EUR) currencies. Shortly after we will be rolling out updates to other currencies and will be informing you in advance of those changes.

This price tier update includes updated currency exchange rates and VAT requirements. These updates will help to position your content items to be more competitive and attractive to customers in the UK and Eurozone markets. The goal of this adjustment is to ensure prices are in line with currency fluctuations and ensure content within BlackBerry World is competitive.

The price change is completely automatic and will not impact the availability of your content items to customers. You are not required to take any action.

So what does this mean for the customer?

Currently, the lowest tier in the UK is £1.00. Once the price tier changes are implemented, the lowest tier will be £0.75. For Euros the tier will vary by country. For example, in France the current lowest tier is €0.99. With the pricing tier changes, the new lowest tier will be €0.89.

Should you like to adjust the price tier for your content items in a given country you can freely do so within the BlackBerry World Vendor Portal at any time.

Please note that if you make any changes to the pricing of your content items there will be a delay of up to 24 hours until the prices appear.

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Samsung just published 3 helpful guides for developers to help in the certification process:

[Certification Team] 3 types of Guide for passing the certification are newly uploaded.
On the Samsung Apps Developer Site, Samsung Apps certification team uploaded 3 types of Guide which will help seller to improve certification pass rate. These guides are available in English/Korean/Chinese and we surely recommend seller to read them carefully for seller’s better experience with Samsung Apps.

3 types of guide are as below.
Quick Guide
 – 9 common mistakes made by sellers when they develop and register their applications, and which often result in rejecting the applications.
http://developer.samsung.com/distribute/app-certification/quick-guide
Top 10 Failures and tips
 – Top 10 failures according to their frequencies in ’12 and the solutions of them.
http://developer.samsung.com/distribute/app-certification/top-10-failures-and-tips
Self-Check List
 – The guide for developers to check main functions and policies which they might violate before registering their applications.
http://developer.samsung.com/distribute/app-certification/self-check-list
Those guides will be updated periodically.
Thank you for interest in Samsung Apps and hope you to be with Samsung Apps now and forever.

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If you are a developer of mobile apps, a milestone has until now somewhat quietly become a reality: Google Play now has the same amount of apps as iTunes, standing over 700,000 apps strong.  App discovery is a huge challenge, which probably means developers may be more likely to cry than cheer when hearing the news.

In order to make money on your application, mobile developers now need to consider spending on marketing and user acquisition, language localization, and increased distribution, as the fight for user attention is ever increasing.

Marketing spend is perhaps the most expensive piece, where Distimo in May found that in order to stay in the top 25 on iTunes free chart, you need 25,300 daily downloads. When costs per installs range from $1.54 to up to $3.50 for the big spenders, it is a game very few developers can play.

Language localization has been in the spotlight lately with several reports highlighting the benefits of localization. Distimo found that localizing apps would boost downloads by 128 percent a week after releasing localized versions.  Earlier research showed that for instance in iTunes in Russia, only four percent of the apps are localized but they account for over 70 percent of the revenue on paid apps.  Specialist players like Irish based Tethras have entered the arena to provide dedicated language translation capabilities to app developers, as more and more developers are realizing the importance of localization.

As mobile operator portals are becoming marginalized (according to Vision Mobile’s Developer Economics 2012 report, operator portals saw a 47 percent drop as the primary channels for developers from their 2011 survey), and more developers now use app stores as their primary channel than all other channels combined. However, despite app discovery being a huge challenge, most developers only distribute their apps in one or two app stores, as distribution is time consuming and often a painful process. Companies like Australia based CodeNgo aim to help developers in this process, by taking away the pain associated with distributing to all these stores, by having one submission form reach a wide variety of local and global app stores, and a dedicated tool helping developers to avoid having to create an endless array of screenshots. CodeNgo has even partnered with Tehtras to integrate language translation as part of the submission process.

 

The CodeNgo Image Resizer tool shortens the time developers spend creating promotional images of their applications (CodeNgo photo, January 2013).

So while Google Play and iTunes are quickly becoming a grave yard for applications, many in the industry recognize the need for a healthy eco-system of local and international app stores to offer cost effective channels for reaching consumers. Innovative startups and established players continue to attack the challenge of app discovery. If you are a developer, now may be the right time to take advantage of the new opportunities to get your app discovered.

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From Samsung

Dear Seller,
Thank you for using Samsung Apps Seller Office; we deeply appreciate your support for our service.Please note that Seller Office is planning to change the size of icon images, as below, so that it will support the registration of devices with higher resolution; so please check the notice to reduce the number of mistakes made when registering apps.
Effective from : Thursday 31st, January
 – Size change : (Before) 135X135 pixel -> (After) 512X512 pixel
 – More supported formats: (Before) GIF, JPG -> (After) GIF, JPG, PNG
 – Maximum size allowed: (Before) Less than 500 KB -> (After) Less than 1,024 KB
※ When making revisions, icons must be edited to fit the new size (if you don’t make any revisions, the current size can be kept).
※ If you only change the icon image when making revisions, please enter the details of the change in your Comments to the Certification Team to make certification faster.

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From Samsung:

Dear seller,
Thank you for being a part of Samsung Apps.Please note that the following improvements will be made to the service to reflect your valuable opinions of using Seller Office.
Effective from
 – Thursday 13th December, 2012
Major changes
1. Multiple Binary
 – You can upload up to 10 binary files to an application.
 – Target OS: bada and Android (except for other OS and bada widgets).
2. Flexible Price
 – You can choose the price of your applications and items at your own discretion.
 – You can configure the price to be automatically converted to foreign currencies based on the exchange rate of when you entered the standard price.
※ However, the recommended Phone Bill Price is automatically set to the highest approximation if you are using Phone Bill because Phone Bill Price is fixed by country.
3. Service now available in more countries
 – New countries with paid stores: New Zealand and Nigeria.
 – New countries where P-SMS payment can be used: Philippines, Kuwait, and Qatar.
4. Other Information
 – The Add button in Trial will be removed from applications that are On Sale and In Certification.
 – The NFC option will be added to Device Recommendation (Auto detection: Android, Direct input: bada).
For questions and comments, please use Seller Office > Support > Contac Us
We will continue to work hard in order to provide you with the best possible service.
Thank you.
Your Seller Office Team.

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From Google:

We’re writing to let you know that Google Play will be supporting tax-inclusive prices in Brazil. Prices set in the Developer Console must be tax inclusive. We encourage you to log into your Developer Console  and make any necessary adjustments to your pricing. To learn more, please visit our Help center at http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138000

We would also like to remind you that we have introduced Buyer’s Currency in Brazil. All prices for this locale will be in the Brazilian Real (BRL) currency.

IMPORTANT:  If you have not manually set pricing for Brazil in the Google Play Android Developer Console by Dec 17, 2012, Google Play will automatically assign Brazilian Real prices for your products. Google Play assigns a Brazilian Real price based on the price of your app in your home currency, converted to Brazilian Real using the exchange rate on that day. Google Play will also automatically add taxes based on the tax rate you defined in the Google Checkout Merchant Center.  This is a one-time conversion associated with the transition to the new Buyer’s Currency model. If you have already set your per-currency prices manually, Google Play will not override them.

You can continue to set and adjust the prices of your apps at any time, in your home currency and in any Buyer’s Currency available.

For more information about how Buyer’s Currency works, please visit the Google Play Help Center:

http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1169947

We are aware that in our communication from December 12, 2012, we listed wrong currency for Brazil. Rest assured that the currency we are supporting is Brazilian Real. Please accept our sincerest apologies for the confusion.

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BlackBerry is arranging a “port-a-thon” to attract developers to the new BlackBerry 10 platform. In a 36 hour event, they will put a ton of technical resources and people at disposal for developers, and they’ve opened the goodie bag:

  • Developers receive $100 for each approved app (up to a max of $2000). Interesting twist as opposed to Google Play where you have to pay to submit
  • Developers submitting between 2-5 games get a free PlayBook tablet
  • A BB10 Alpha device is given to the first 100 developers who submit between 5-10 games
  • The first 10 developers who submit between 10-20 apps, get a BB10 Alpha app + a free trip to GDC in San Francisco

 

So the question is whether this will be enough to entice developers.  BlackBerry is a profitable platform, and generates significant revenues for those that are in their store, probably due to lack of apps. It is also interesting to note their heavy focus on games, no doubt due to their purchase of ScoreLoops and having Volker Hirsch head up this unit.