Quality Of Android Market Apps Is 'Pathetically Low': Developer

Developers love the Android Market because there's no approval process required, unlike in the Apple App Store. But that same freedom gives rise to one major problem: A lot of the apps in the Android Market aren't that great.

Noah Bordner, a game developer, detailed his experience with his app, Battleheart, on Android in comparison to on iOS.

Apple has around 500,000 apps available on its iTunes App Store, while the Android Market currently has around 300,000 apps, though a recent report indicated that a full 32 percent of Android apps can not actually be downloaded, compared to 16 percent of iOS apps.

When it comes to making money, Bordner wrote that he was surprised by his success selling his paid app on the Android Market. Revenue from Android, he says, is within 80 percent of what it is on iOS. He attributed this success to the fact that Battleheart is within the top 50 on Android. Though the iOS version of Battleheart is not in the top 200, it still outsells the Android version.

Bordner actually writes that "a polished, high quality product is more likely to be embraced on Android than on iOS because the quality bar on the android market is so pathetically low." Battleheart is reviewed more highly and more often on Android, which he credits to a "lack of competition."

But Bordner also expressed his frustration at the administrative snafus that characterize the Android experience, calling the market a "loud, obnoxious baby." He described being bombarded daily by emails from users having download and installation problems that stem from Android Market and Android OS issues rather than from the app itself.

"Based on the amount of e-mails I get every day, download problems affect 1-2% of all buyers, or in more practical terms, somewhere between two and three shit-loads," he wrote.

Even worse, he wrote, Android developers must be vendors through Google Checkout, making them responsible for dealing with billing issues, like refunds--on iOS, Apple deals with these problems.

"There are days where I just want to pull the plug on the whole thing because I'm sick of 12 year olds (or people with comparable communication skills) trying to convince me they've been wronged and I should give them their 3 dollars back," he wrote. "I just remind myself that my user review average would indicate that it's a vocal minority that has these problems, and I shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water."

He later clarified,

Just to be clear (since I'm getting more traffic than expected), my experience with Android has been overwhelmingly positive, and I have every intention of continuing to support the platform. It's just that without the iTunes "shield" between myself and customer, I'm having to wear my customer service hat a lot more than I'm used to.

Bordner is not the only one to malign the Android app store. Apple recently criticized Android apps for being struck with high levels of security risks, referring to the high number of malware-infected apps that have had to be removed since the store's inception.

Other critics have bemoaned the fragmentation that results from Android's running on different platforms, as well as from the various different app stores that are offered. A full 86 percent of surveyed developers saw this fragmentation as an issue. Apple, on the other hand, has one app store and one platform, an advantage Steve Jobs has repeatedly touted.

[via Fortune]

Comments

[Android Sim]

12:17 AM on 06/28/2011

I dont see why this is suprising to anyone. Just look at all the trash app on the market! They can even make a decent driver installer for android...
http://www.androidsim.net/2009/08/how-to-1-how-to-install-usb-driver-on.html

[Brandon Ma]

05:50 AM on 06/22/2011

So 2 things I picked up about Braveheart (which I own):

1) his app is top 50 on android but not even top 200 on App Store, and yet he still makes more from the App Store. Wow.
2) I don't think Android fan boys are picking on the issue which he is complaining about, which is the problems which are NOT related his app/game and more an OS issue, which he has to deal with from the Android community.

[JohnTheMac]

07:16 PM on 06/21/2011

No wonder Android is wearing out. People are getting tired of not-ready-for-primetime crap and going to iPhone:
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2011/06/21/android-market-share-decreases-for.html?ana=yfcpc

[menschmaschine5]

04:04 PM on 06/21/2011

Yes, there is a lot of junk on the Android market. There's a lot of great stuff, too. Also, the dev complaining that he has to provide his own customer support is a bit off base.

Android Market still has a little ways to go, but I find it perfectly usable, and have never had a problem downloading an app. They just need better discovery methods.

[jt1980]

02:08 PM on 06/21/2011

Pathetically low? That's strange because I'm satisfied with most of the apps I downloaded so far. If there is any problem, it's that the market is the equivalent of going to a bazaar. Lots to choose from, and the onus is on the buyers to make the right selection.

But isn't that the fun of going to a bazaar or a flea market?

[dan90254]

09:19 PM on 06/21/2011

I'd rather go to Macy's than a flea market any day. That's the perfect analogy between Apple's App store and the Android Market. You get what you pay for.

[virt hdd]

02:06 PM on 06/21/2011

I am glad to see the Android market improving - Google has more work ahead!

To manage your Android devices I recommend 2x mobiledevicemanager

Manage apps installed by your group, track Android devices used with Google Maps! - track lost or stolen Android - know where your users are, more...
Available at
2x.com/mobiledevicemanager and from the Android Market.

[Roray]

11:32 AM on 06/21/2011

Haha looks like the anti-apple zealots attacked him for criticizing android. Typical.

[ramblingjohnny]

11:28 AM on 06/21/2011

I heard that kind of dev before it usually start by. "How dare I have to provide customer support for my product!" Followed by. "All I wanted was to make a quick bucks with a few days of coding."

[RevSpaminator]

02:18 PM on 06/21/2011

"I Am Rich"

[David Chu]

03:11 PM on 06/21/2011

There is a big difference between providing customer support for things that are your fault and for things that are not.

[stepintothelight]

11:25 AM on 06/21/2011

If:
then:
if not:.

[CrankyCatGame]

10:36 AM on 06/21/2011

I'm of the belief that there are actually many high-quality applications in the Android Market, and they are growing in number. The problem, right now, is one of discovery; there's currently no easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff and find the great content.

If I may toot my own horn, I've recently released a casual game for the Android that I'm convinced you'd all consider wonderful, if you only knew it existed!

[RevSpaminator]

02:17 PM on 06/21/2011

The way to measure quality in the Android Market is by reviews, star rating and number of downloads. If we could sort by those criteria then we could get past a lot of garbage.

[themoosespeaks]

09:05 AM on 06/21/2011

A developer complains he has to run his business in the android market. Developers complain that "fragmentation" makes their jobs harder. Both of these can be summed up in one word: laziness.

If you want to sell a product, you should know how to run a business and have to deal with customers. Fragmentation is an excuse thrown about by hacks who don't know how to write properly layered code with hardware abstraction. Professional software engineers deal with this issue on a daily basis without giving it a second thought.

The malware claims are legitimate. It's the price of a more open market, but they tend to get identified and removed pretty quickly. And a lot of these malware apps masquerade as sex or hacker apps, just like web sites. Most sensible people know enough to seer clear of those.

[CaptainObvvious]

09:45 AM on 06/21/2011

It is a problem when iOS is making them more money AND its easier.

[RevSpaminator]

02:13 PM on 06/21/2011

To be clear, writing QUALITY code in any environment is more difficult than cranking out some junk that is a lame variant of "Hello World". Objective C and iOS APIs have their ways just like Java and Android APIs. Either platform takes hard work to get good at. There is are right ways and wrong ways to do things in any environment. If things are done the right way in Android, "fragmentation" is not an issue. Just like code written the right way in iOS won't need to be fixed after the next OS update. "Easier" is an excuse for junk programs.

[Sabum]

06:08 AM on 06/21/2011

this isn't surprising.
the Android Market is a second rate online shop.
just because a ton of apps are free doesn't make them high quality or good.
and every other app is a task manager.what the heck is that all about? 5000 task manager apps and not one decent game.
yes i do know that there are emulators there, but i'm not sixteen anymore and i couldn't give a flying flip about crappy old SNES or Sega games.

[Thinks4Self]

09:54 AM on 06/21/2011

That is completely inaccurate you can get angry birds fruit ninja and many other favorites from the iOS platform from the Market as well as other games from developers like Gameloft directly. Then there is Amazon's APPstore which gives you even more choice and security if you unable to figure out that a flashlight app shouldn't have access to your contacts and the internet before installing it.

[jt1980]

02:09 PM on 06/21/2011

Most of the popular games are available for the Android.

[Martin Hill]

05:25 PM on 06/24/2011

Except all the top tier ones. ID games anyone? Infinity Blade? Etc etc.

There are well over 300 games from Gameloft, ID, Popcap, EA, Ngmoco, Pangea on iOS and on about 20-30 from those games publishers on Android.

[cdub1991]

01:57 AM on 06/21/2011

I like competition. The more the merrier. I have to ask, however--300,000 apps vs. 500,000 apps. How many do you actually need? I've downloaded about 120 or so apps so far for my Evo, and I'll eventually end up deleting many of those and replacing them with something more useful. Chances are, the thing that ends up on my phone will always be from a specific vendor or best of breed. I don't have to go through 300,000 apps to find that. I doubt if I have to go through more than a few thousand. So, does the numerical difference alone create a qualitative difference between the two app stores? That's an honest question, since I've never used the Apple store; I'm not dogging Apple here. Of course, most develop for iOS first and then Android, but being the first on my block with an app isn't that important to me.

[oldsquare]

10:18 AM on 06/21/2011

I do not understand your point. Agreed, competition is a good thing. What I question is your question about the number needed. Your needs represent only you. Others have individual specific needs and wants. Hence, there is no definable number of needed apps. Ultimately, competition will win out and the number of apps will stabilize.

[mavenous]

02:31 PM on 06/22/2011

Everyone's needs are indeed different, however, NO ONE will need to install anywhere close to 300,000 apps...no matter which market/store you are using. I believe that was cdub1991's point.

[independendy]

10:08 PM on 06/20/2011

I saw the headlines of this article and before I read it, I tried to predict the content.

I then read the article.

And my predictions were correct.

The only two comments I can make about this article:

1) If the Android Market was even close to Apple, Apple would go bankrupt. In otherwords, Apple must maintain at all cost a higher quality of anything if it is going to compete with open source.

2) When the Java language or the Linux OS becomes obsolete (which I don't believe will happen anytime soon), then I may consider the possibility that Android will go obsolete. Until then Android will always be available to non-Apple users and Apple users for that matter.

But I might add that I like Apple too.

[Martin Hill]

05:33 PM on 06/24/2011

Except for the fact that iOS devices download 71% of all app downloads and iOS developers make 82% of all app income vs 5% for Android devs. Number of apps is only a small part of the iOS App behemoth.

-Mart

[jsrl317]

09:20 PM on 06/20/2011

Yep, iOS rocks, Google makes stuff not all that useable.

Reminds me of when I used to work with a bunch of PhD's back during the tech bubble. In order to become a Mgr. you had to have a PhD, didn't matter that you never managed anything other than a very small team of research staff or had little experience doing that at all. What was most perplexing is that with all that brainpower, these guys did not build anything anyone really wanted. It looked cool on paper, and the stock rocketed up to $275/share. But int he end it was nothing. That is Google's problem.

THey only hire the smartest of the smart. Everyone codes for the most part, and everyone is a deep thinker on all things tech. This is a supreme engineering company that Google. But that does not mean they make anything a consumer wants. Yes, they have the phone market, but they have a zillion phones android runs on, and that you simply cannot program for.

Android is a cool little OS, very advanced, but you can tell engineers built it, and you can tell engineers built out the store and you can tell they know zip about consumers. The number of good apps speaks volumes.

Apple' stuff is superior for one thing and one thing only, it simply works.

[Onutz]

10:04 PM on 06/20/2011

((Everyone codes for the most part, and everyone is a deep thinker on all things tech.))

They need a decent design team fer' cryin' out loud!

[ResearchtheFacts]

11:11 PM on 06/20/2011

Actually the design is sweet, fluid and 100% modd-able. I love Android whatever this $2.99 game developer is talking about is laughable. I have been buying apps for years. I've paid and would pay twenty times that amount for an app. Including the one I have on my cellphone now which cost me $14,99 for SPB Mobile shell 10,599 total sales. Oh, which they do sell on android market. 

Do you hear them complaining about android market and making money? Check out the website https://market.android.com/details?id=com.spb.shell3d  and compare it to mickey mouse Battlecrap game developer in the article 1,200. Light years worth of difference. I rest my case. lol

[mavenous]

02:43 PM on 06/22/2011

Google has made amazing advancements in UI design, look at gmail and google calendar. Android and their market aren't quite there, but each version makes huge improvements. The difference being that Apple all ready had a well-tested and widely-used market available for iOS apps. The biggest benefit to the Android market being that you will NEVER need a PC/Mac to fully use it. Can you use every feature of iTunes without your computer?

Android market lacks great search features Which, this is well known, however, I'm not all that impressed with iTunes either. Once you get over 100,000 applications there's always going to be _some_ trouble finding apps, I think that will be true no matter the company running it, yea?

You can't tell me Google is incapable of building software that just works. That's a bit of a cop-out, don't you think? I think millions of gmail users would politely disagree. Android is in the same boat, I've setup corporate users that have no business being anywhere near technology, and have not heard anything from them. The same is true for iOS, I'm sure, but the point is there will always be those that have an issue regardless the OS.

[jsrl317]

05:18 PM on 06/22/2011

Google has a market stretched over a myriad of devices. Look, if ALL the google phones ran Android 3.0 oh what a wonderful world it would be, but they cannot. THAT is a big problem. There will always be some folks, a large majority, left behind. Apple doesn't do that. As for design, sorry, Google is lackluster in comparison, on just about any front.

They can improve, and it will take time, but I think that with Apple has a distinct advantage in owning both the device and the iOS. That is a market advantage that Google Android will just not be able to beat in the long term, ask Microsoft.

That's the thing, it's not how much market you have, it's what you do with whatever market you have that counts. Apple has never dominated anything but UI, customer service (superior), and ease of use. They have around 10% of the overall desktop market and on paper they stomp Microsoft into the ground. That is a stunning feat they've been able to pull off for decades, never having the numbers in terms of users, of any of it's rivals. Apple does something else too, customer loyalty and high net promoters.

Google may get there, maybe, but they first have to figure out how to level their own 'Droid playing field to maximize their products for everyone, including developers.

Let the competition continue!