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Mobile payment provider Fortumo is getting serious about alternative app stores. Through their email blast entitled “Are all your eggs in one basket?”, Fortumo makes a convincing case why developers need to start thinking about other stores than Google Play.  They make an important observation:

Unfortunately, the average user downloads only 40 apps for their phone while Google Play has 700 000 available apps. This makes gaining visibility expensive and user retention tricky due to hundreds or thousands of competing apps. Fighting for attention in Google Play is definitely worth it, but it would also be smart to try out alternative channels where the competition is less tough.

We wholeheartedly support Fortumo in this (surprise, surprise). Of course, being a provider of mobile billing they definitely understand that the predatory practices of Google hurts both developers and their business.  A common objection to carrier billing has been the high cost, which can range for 20-40% of the amount, some times even higher.  But given that the most common in-app pricing point is $4, with many prices ranging under that, it is not that much more expensive than for instance PayPal:

Virtual item sticker price in mobile games (Source: Virtual Economists.com)

Let’s say you charge $0.99 for the in-app purchase. In the UK and Germany, this would pay out nearly exactly the same with carrier billing as it would with PayPal, often without expensive cross border fees for retrieving the money. While $4 would be pricier on mobile billing than PayPal, the difference is not huge – and a very key thing to consider is conversion rate. While not all users will have PayPal accounts, any mobile user will be able to pay through their mobile, often through a one-click confirmation. Any shortfall in revenue caused by payment fees in this regards will more than be compensated in the increased conversion rate and volume.

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From BlackBerry:

We wish to bring all you game developers out there some critical information about GPUs and Texture Compression on BlackBerry 10.

Please note that there are two different GPUs available for the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone: Imagination GPU and Qualcomm GPU.

Even though the specifications of both types of GPUs are comparable, when you build and submit your games to BlackBerry World, we give you the ability to create separate BAR files to target a specific GPU.

Why is this important – Texture Compression.

If you have already built a game on a Dev Alpha A device and optimized texture data on that device, then you will need to repackage your game following the instructions described in this blog. If you do not repackage your game, it will not function on most BlackBerry Z10 devices sold today.

Additionally, if you are building a new game that employs Texture Compression, then you also need to properly package your game to account for the different GPUs.

For specifications on the BlackBerry Z10 GPU variants, and for additional detail regarding Texture Compression, read this post: BlackBerry 10: Texture Compression and GPUs.

Happy Developement,

BlackBerry World Team

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Amazon just announced the release of their own virtual currency, Amazon Coin. Holders will be allowed to spend Amazon Coin  to purchase apps, games, and in-app items on Kindle Fire.  Naturally Amazon does this to promote the eco-system for the Kindle Fire, which to begin with is quite limited.  There are however good reasons that Amazon Coin may be quite interesting for developers.

Amazon Coin1. Virtual currency + games = good

There is no doubt that virtual currency is good for apps, especially games.  In fact, GetJar who sputtered along for ages as more of an industry icon than a money maker, has seen an explosive growth since the introduction of their virtual currency.  Research houses like Juniper feels the market will grow to $4.8bn in in-app purchases alone in 3 years.

We strongly believe while Amazon wants to strategically use this to push the Kindle Fire, the temptation to open this up to the broader Amazon Marketplace and all Android apps/devices will become simply too huge of an opportunity, and that Amazon will eventually open it up everywhere.  Our second point adds to this argument.

2. Amazon’s market power should allow for a huge economy of Amazon Coins

The beauty of virtual currencies is that it can be tied to so much Amazon does, whether it is gifting, earning points for purchases, striking deals with advertisers and brands or more. There is no doubt that if implemented right, Amazon users will start accumulating significant Coin balances, but possibly also in smaller chunks (i.e. lots of people with small balances).  What better way to spend the Coins on items costing $0.49-$4.00, i.e. your typical app or in-app purchase?

3. Amazon Coin is NOT like Facebook Credits

One could easily hear the argument that virtual currency is a bad idea, which is why Facebook abandoned it. This argument is flawed though, as Facebook Credits had a lot of issues that created problems for developers and Facebook itself. First, there was a question about the legality of FB credits.  Second, FB credits created issues as games developers often had their own virtual currency, thus you ended up with virtual currencies competing and subsequent exchange rates between them.  Third, since FB credits were priced in USD, FBs system did not easily allow for pricing in local markets, thus making global games way too expensive in poorer countries.

So while the announcement may seem small and limited to Kindle Fire at the moment, we think that this will not only open up and be good for all app developers submitting to Amazon, but it may also spur similar innovation with other brands and app stores.

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Samsung is changing the size of their app icon images. The good news? As a CodeNgo user it does not matter, as we take care of that for you 🙂

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 has changed the size of icon images, as below, in order to support the registration of devices with higher resolutions; 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.
If you have questions, select Seller Office > Support > Contact us for inquiries.

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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.