Android Market

Android Market: Open for Business

Posted by Sam Churchill on February 13th, 2009

As expected, the Android Market is now accepting priced applications. US and UK developers are the first to be able to take advantage of it.

Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps. Initially, priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid next week. We will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months.

Android Market says they will also enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain later this quarter. By the end of Q1 2009, they will announce support for developers in additional countries. Developers can find more information about priced applications in Android Market at http://market.android.com/support/.

Google Checkout will serve as the payment and billing mechanism for Android Market. Developers who do not already have a Google Checkout merchant account can sign up for one via the publisher website.

Android Market for free applications will become available to users in Australia starting February 15th Pacific Time and in Singapore in the coming weeks. Developers can now make their applications available in these countries via the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish.

T-Mobile’s G1, the first open source Android-powered phone, has not experienced the phenomenal success of Apple’s iPhone.

T-Mobile’s $179 Android phone was announced on Oct. 22, 2008. High Tech Computer (HTC) predicted sales of 1 million G1 handsets by the end of 2008. T-Mobile didn’t provide sales figures for the phone, but did indicate that around 20 percent of phones sold to new customers and existing, upgrading customers were “smart” phones like the G1 that use their new “3G” (AWS-band) data network.

Apple announced their first 4GB iPhone for $499 on January 9, 2007. On July 11, 2008, the 8GB iPhone 3G was released for $199, supporting faster 3G speeds and Assisted GPS.

According to IDC data reported in RCR Wireless, Apple sold a total of 13.7 million units in 2008. The iPhone was No. 6 among all mobile phone vendors in the United States with 4 percent of the total market.

Nokia will unveil its new application store next week. The Finnish firm, the world’s top cellphone maker, will reportedly merge its current software Download! store with free media sharing site Mosh and widget service WidSets.

Nokia is also expected to unveil their new E75 smartphone at the Mobile World Congress trade show next week in Barcelona. It features a sideways slide-out full keyboard and will sell for 390 pounds ($563), but will be free in Britain, with an operator contract.

Ethan Nicholas raked in $600,000 in a single month with a single iPhone game, says Wired. His tank artillery game called iShoot, rose to No. 1 in the App Store, earning him $37,000 in a single day.

Until recently, there has been no realistic way for individual programmers to make serious money on their own. Most of the software market is dominated by big companies, and the traditional distribution method for independent developers — shareware — isn’t conductive to striking it rich.

By contrast, Apple’s iTunes App Store — and now the Android Market — provide a platform for marketing, selling and distributing software; all a developer needs to provide is a good idea and some working code. The Guardian explains How to become an iPhone developer in eight easy steps.

Worldwide smartphone sales totaled 32.2 million units in the second quarter, 2008, according to Gartner, up 15.7% from the same period last year.

By 2012, Strategy Analytics projects that smartphones will comprise 30% of all handsets shipped, or about 452 million out of 1.5 billion handsets. By then Symbian will still hold 39% of the smartphone OS market, with Linux/Android at 22% and Apple at 18%.

source: dailywireless.org