Polyclef Blog

How Google is Killing Indie Android Developers

2012-01-18T07:05:00.000-08:00

I've been a full-time indie Android developer for over two years now. It's been an awesome experience, but this is going to be a watershed year, and at the end of it, I'm not sure I'll still be in business.

First some background...I published my first app on the Android Market in March of 2009. At the time I was a graduate student hoping for some pizza money. I didn't expect it to turn into a full-time business, but that's what ended up happening.

My early efforts at apps were clumsy. I published simple utility calculators just to learn the development environment and get my feet wet. Then I moved on to games. I was the first to publish some staple games on the platform, like Spades and Dominoes. And my version of Golf Solitaire has also been very popular. Because I was one of the more successful early indie publishers on the market, I was approached by a Russian developer to resell EasyTether, because at that time Russian devs were unable to publish in the market. So we worked out a publishing agreement and I've been very fortunate to be able to publish that app.In total, I've published 39 apps on the Android Market. Many are very simple. You can see them in the market here. Some have done well, and some have flopped. But all of my new apps had a fighting chance.Until last summer.

In July 2011 Google revamped the Android Market and removed the "Just In" category. I can't speak for other devs, but this decision may have wrecked my small business. Why? Because for most indie devs, the Android Market is their primary distribution channel, and if users don't see it there, they don't see it. Some section of the market displaying the newest releases is very nearly the only way indie apps are going to get any exposure. Instead, there are now "Top New Paid" and "Top New Free" sections, which only reinforce the popularity of apps that already have exposure, and do nothing for new apps that have no traction.This editorial over at Android Police was in favor of the change at the time. They said:

Of course, the problem is that these developers can't actually determine what percentage of their app's "clicks" come from the "Just In" section - there seems to be a tacit assumption that it's a large number, without any evidence to back up this claim. I don't think that is at all the case, but I don't have any numbers, either - just my own personal experience that I think many of you will be able to corroborate.

Well, I have several years of direct experience with the market, publishing numerous apps. Let me share a little with you.

Here are the first day sales for apps published:

Drywall Calculator, Jan2010 (4)
Friction Loss Calculator, Jan2010 (8)
Puzzle Lords, Jan2010 (4)
ReceiptBook, Apr2010 (5)
HairBook, Feb2011 (4)

HairBook, a hair stylist customer database app, went on to sell 30 copies in the first week. All of these apps, and all of my earlier apps and games benefited from the initial exposure of the Just In section. What typically happens is that sales tend to either drop off after that first week, or pick up and plateau (as has happened with my more popular games).

Now let me share first-day sales figures for the last two apps I've released:

Flick Hearts, Oct 2010: (0)
Save the Egg, Jan 2012 (0)

Flick Hearts was admittedly an experimental game of sorts. It requires multiple devices to play, and was designed to use a hi-res device (such as a tablet or Google TV) as the playing surface, with phones used for holding your cards. Users flick the cards from their phones to the host device (like playing cards on a table), which tracks tricks, points, and scores. Admittedly the market is smaller for this game, because of the requirements and format. But zero sales?The most disheartening, though, and possibly the nail in the coffin, is my latest game, Save the Egg. It's a physics-based puzzler, a game type that has been very popular and performed well for indie developers (e.g. Apparatus, X Construction). This game represents a significant investment in time and money, and to have it fall completely flat on the first day is just horrible.It's not dead in the water, but not having that initial exposure in Just In hurts its chances. This is undeniable.

Now, I've tried marketing efforts in the past for other games, and I can tell you from my experience that they have been utterly worthless. Ad campaigns have led to no significant increase in sales or downloads. My guess is that you have to have a critical threshold for an advertising budget to begin to see any kind of return.For Save the Egg, I have done what I can to set it up for success. I'm in the process of issuing a press release. I've published a free demo version with the first 5 levels (which got exactly 1 download on its first day). I'm cross-promoting the app with house ads in my other apps. I've announced the release via my company's Twitter feed. I've published the app in secondary markets such as the Amazon Appstore and SlideMe.

The fact is this: The single largest factor for sales or downloads is exposure in the market. An indie cannot advertise their way into this exposure. They can hope they get free exposure from being featured, but this is akin to winning the lottery.

Currently the only way for most users to discover new apps is reading blogs (which many do not do), or searching for the app. If the app or game is novel, and not a clone of an existing concept, users simply will not find it via search. My dominoes app may be found this way, because people purchasing an Android phone who want to play dominoes, will search for that term. But original apps and games will be disproportionately punished by a lack of ad hoc discovery.My revenues are down significantly from the previous two years. January is going to be one of the worst months I've ever had. Some of my older games are still chugging along, thanks to gaining market rank in their respective categories. But they are not enough.

I cannot sustain on a business model where I continue to invest time and money into new projects that do not generate any new revenue.If Google had wanted to avoid unscrupulous devs from spamming such a section, there were much less drastic and more more effective ways of doing it. The Just In category was indicating updated, as well as new apps. They could have restricted it to newly published apps. And for those devs who might just rename apps and publish tons of new apps every day, simply restrict the number of apps published per week. If a company has a legitimate reason to publish more than 3 apps a week, for example, give them an appeal process. Though it is highly unlikely that any developer should be publishing a large number of apps. Instead of targeting the problem, Google simply hacked it off, thereby severely hurting legitimate developers.

Other developers may have different experiences, but I can only speak for myself and my company. And I can say without a doubt that the current state of the Android Market is killing my business, slowly but surely.

Flick Hearts

2011-09-15T10:16:00.001-07:00

Our newest game, Flick Hearts, is out!https://market.android.com/details?id=com.flickhearts&feature=search_result

Google, Android, and the Patent Wars

2011-08-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

Lots of vitriol flying around the internet today regarding this Google blog post by David Drummond, Google's Chief Legal Officer:

I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what's going on. Here is what’s happening:

Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers. Android and other platforms are competing hard against each other, and that’s yielding cool new devices and amazing mobile apps for consumers.

But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Phone 7; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.

A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a “tax” for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.

This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.

We’re not naive; technology is a tough and ever-changing industry and we work very hard to stay focused on our own business and make better products. But in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it.

We’re looking intensely at a number of ways to do that. We’re encouraged that the Department of Justice forced the group I mentioned earlier to license the former Novell patents on fair terms, and that it’s looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anti-competitive means. We’re also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio. Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone.

Of course, I make my livelihood from Android, so I can't claim to be unbiased, but here Google is clearly right.

But there's stuff like this generating lots of traffic:

Google Are Pussies

Everything -- every single fucking thing -- since Bill Clinton has been a copy, a steal, a buy-out -- or a take down.

And now, you pussies, you are in a fight with companies that are equally big, probably better run, and have something you don't: scars, scars from real battles, and you run to the PR teams and the lobbyists and the government and cry: no fair.

Patents bad. We want! Give us!

Tell me, pussies. Which of the Oracle and Microsoft and Apple patents are "bogus"? You say it above. BOGUS PATENTS...Oracle, Apple, Microsoft.

Which ones? Don't be a pussy. Tell us. Which ones are bogus?

And while you're at it, tell us which patents are not bogus? Any? Do you believe in intellectual property? Property ownership? Or is it all there for Google's taking?

I think I can answer that one pretty well. Which of the patents that Microsoft and Apple just banded together to fork out billions of dollars to acquire from Novell's old patent portfolio are bogus?

All of them. In the sense that these were not technological innovations that Apple or Microsoft conceived and used the patent system to protect. These patents are ammunition, plain and simple. They have nothing to do with protecting the intellectual property of any of the companies involved.

Microsoft, Apple, and the other purchasers of the patent portfolio are making a calculated investment in these patents under the assumption that they will either:

A) Be able to severely hurt Android's market share by filing patent lawsuits based on this portfolio, thereby helping the market share of their own products in a highly competitive space.

and/or

B) Generate direct revenue by essentially extorting Google for licensing fees.

Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with protecting intellectual property, which is the purpose of the patent system. In fact, it's the opposite. Apple and Microsoft are going to use this war chest of purchased patents to file lawsuits and injunctions against their largest competitor, rather than trying to compete by building a better product.

People are calling out Google as hypocrites for bidding on the patents themselves, and now sore losers for not being able to get them for the price they bid. It's obvious that they bid on the patents as a defensive move. Unfortunately the patents themselves are meaningless in terms of actually representing true innovations developed in house at these companies. These patents are simply fuel for proxy battles. And Google can't merely sit by while their competitors snatch up patent portfolios, giving them more and more ammunition for endless lawsuits.

Basically the whole system is fucked, but it is unlikely to change anytime in the near future. I'd like to hear that the patent system, especially with regard to software, is undergoing review for massive reforms, but I don't think that's the case. As it is, the big dogs will just continue to try to amass as many patents as possible and hash out these issues in expensive, lengthy legal disputes. This will be time and money that won't go into actually developing cooler, better products, and in fact the proxy patent wars will lead to overall higher prices for consumers no matter what the outcome.

Save the Egg Preview

2011-08-02T08:45:00.001-07:00

Over at Google+, I've posted a preview video of our newest game, Save the Egg. Check it out:

https://plus.google.com/115741823263310305343/posts/QEN3FQK8Xjk

Chromebook Fail

2011-07-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

At the end of last week I received my new Samsung Chromebook that was promised to all attendees of Google I/O 2011.

The form factor is very nice. It's light, with a great screen and a very comfortable, responsible keyboard. The trackpad actually depresses when you push it, and it's one of the nice trackpads I've used on a laptop-type device.

I resigned myself to the fact that it really is not a primary computing device. That is, like a tablet, it's an auxiliary device, something you would just use to do lightweight computing, such as browsing while watching TV or in a coffee shop. I actually loaned it to my girlfriend to see if it would replace her aging laptop.

So she called me up the next day and said "How do you change the screen timeout settings?" See, she was trying to cook something new, and had the recipe up on the Chromebook while she cooked. The screen kept timing out.

I didn't know, but when I got onto the device, I checked the system settings, which are very limited. Nothing for screen timeout. Turns out that you cannot change these settings. Here's the info from the Chromebook online help guide:

Your Chromebook screen also automatically turns off if it's been inactive for a period of time. When plugged in to a power source, the screen turns off after 8 minutes of inactivity. When unplugged, the screen turns off after 3 minutes of inactivity.

Yep, that's right. This is hard-coded in and not configurable. In a forum discussing this issue with the CR-48 test devices, testers complained. The response from a Google engineer was basically that they didn't want to add unnecessary complexity to the settings, so they went with default settings that most people would find acceptable.

Fail.

I'm all for simplicity in user interfaces, but this is not something that should be unconfigurable. As in the above-mentioned use case, if you're using the device for any purpose where you are using it as a reference and are using your hands for something else, a 3-minute screen timeout is going to render it unusable. I haven't tested it for media (music or video), but this might also be a deal-breaker.

What's worse is that they actually got this feedback during testing, but decided to ignore it and release a production device without this setting enabled. Apparently they are selling well on Amazon, though I haven't heard anything about what the return rate is like.

In another forum, I found info about how to toggle the device into developer mode and modify the setting from the command line, though I ran into issues booting into developer mode and could never get access to the shell.

Also, the Chromebook didn't recognize my Droid when I plugged it in to see if I could transfer files back and forth between the devices, which made me wonder how the Chromebook handles driver issues (I'm guessing that in most cases, it just doesn't).

I really wanted to like this device, and approached it with reduced, realistic expectations that it would not replace a computing device with a full-featured operating system. Even with the lowered bar, so far it has failed. The hardware itself is great, but this is my first experience with Chrome OS, and from what I've seen so far they've stripped away too much to make it viable, even as a casual secondary device.

Recording Your App In Action

2011-06-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working on a couple of new game projects, one that is mostly outsourced, a physics-based game called Save the Egg, and one that I'm doing mostly myself, Flick Hearts, a local multiplayer version of Hearts, using multiple devices.

Video screen capture doesn't allow me to show the interactions between devices, which is important to demo for users who might be interested in the game. So I decided to try recording the devices with a video camera.

This immediately poses some technical issues. For the camera, I shopped around a little, but decided to just use my girlfriend's Canon digital camera, which records pretty high-quality video. There's no sense buying a dedicated video camera for close-up video shoots. Then there's the issue of stabilizing the camera for recording. A traditional tripod doesn't work, because what you need is a top-down perspective, from about 2 feet away. I read that what I needed was a copy stand. Not wanting to shell out the cash for a relatively simple piece of equipment, I read some DIY advice on a couple of forums.

Then it was a trip to Lowe's to buy some PVC pipes and screws. $15 and about an hour later, and I had my own recording stand.

This last shot shows the stand set up on my Poker table. The biggest problem was that the camera is picking up on light, and the devices produce a lot of light, being backlit. Suggestions from the forums included lowering the brightness on the devices and trying to get ambient light balanced with the brightness of the devices. I fiddled around with this for a while with mixed results.

The resulting video is okay...not great. You can at least get a sense of how the game works. Lower brightness settings did work better, but this is with the brightness set to the minimum on all devices. My Motorola Droid was the brightest, even at min brightness.

I had a couple of issues flicking from the Eris. I need to adjust the sensitivity for the gesture, but you get the general idea. Hopefully I can continue to refine the recording procedure to make it look even nicer in the future, but this isn't a bad first cut.

Bluetooth Chat: One Server, Multiple Clients

2011-06-08T06:53:00.001-07:00

In attempting to solve this issue, I believe I have successfully extended the official Android Bluetooth Chat example to work with a server connecting to multiple clients.

I've uploaded my modifications to github here:

https://github.com/polyclef/BluetoothChatMulti

One device acts as the server by selecting "Menu>Make discoverable". Each client then connects by selecting "Menu>Connect a device". I was successfully able to connect my Motorola Droid and HTC Eris as clients to my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1". Each message sent from a client displays only on the server. A message sent from the server displays on all clients.

This was a tedious process getting it to work at all. Connectivity with the HTC devices is sporadic, though. I've read elsewhere that bluetooth on HTC is buggy, so I'm chalking it up to that.

Hopefully someone else will find this example useful. If you have any questions, suggestions, or other feedback, please let me know.

What We've Got Here is...Failure to Communicate: Bluetooth, Android, and iPhone

2011-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

I'm disheartened and exhausted now, after trying to break ground on a new game that would involve peer-to-peer networking among a number of Android and iPhone devices.

What I want is to have an app that would install on tablets (e.g. Xoom, iPad) and act as a server. Players would connect to the server with phone-sized devices and exchange information with the server.

My first inclination was to use bluetooth. Well, just getting two test devices connected to a tablet is something I haven't been able to accomplish. The BluetoothChat example in the Android SDK enables connection and communication between two devices, with a single app that can function as either the server or client. I've tried to modify this app into two distinct apps: a dedicated server and client, and that works fine. But attempting to connect a second device has proven undoable so far.

I made a couple of modifications to the example code so that the AcceptThread continues to listen, even after the first connection is made (the example stops listening after the one connection is made, because it only needs to establish connections between two devices). I created an ArrayList to handle the multiple connections. Each time a new connection is attempted from a remote device, a new ConnectedThread is created and added to the list.

The first client connects just fine.

When the second client attempts to connect, the connection fails. The log output is:

D/BluetoothEventLoop( 140): Device property changed: property: Connected value: true
I/BluetoothService( 140): ACL connected, mAclLinkCount = 2
D/BluetoothEventLoop( 140): Device property changed: property: Connected value: false
I/BluetoothService( 140): ACL disconnected, mAclLinkCount = 1

So it looks like the second connection attempt is successful, but then it is immediately disconnected. This looks like it's happening at a low level, outside anything the code is handling. This happens with a number of different types of test devices, so I don't think it's due to a particular firmware or hardware issue.

At the Lafayette Mobile Developer's meetup last night, we talked about bluetooth communication between Android and iPhone devices. I hadn't even looked into the iPhone side, but I should have known that they basically don't have a bluetooth API for iOS. Or rather, they don't have one that allows Apple devices to talk to non-Apple devices. Bluetooth on iOS can be done through GameKit. This thread on Stack Overflow suggests that it would be possible to spoof the GameKit functionality on Android to allow an Android device to talk to an iOS device, but I can see no indication that anyone has done such a thing.

I noticed in the same thread that the Bump API is mentioned, and I always assumed that it used bluetooth or some other kind of local connectivity. Nope...it uses a device's data connection, sends information to the cloud and syncs up devices based on their GPS position, which is kind of cool, but it also means that devices without a network connection (e.g. wifi only devices) can't use it. This is a deal breaker, because a lot of tablets are going to be wifi only.

So what about wifi? Well, on that front it sounds like Android does not support ad-hoc peer-to-peer networks, at least according to this post.

I find this ridiculous and depressing that these devices are all equipped with multiple ways to communicate locally, but in both cases (Android and iOS), the SDK functionality doesn't allow a way for them to talk to one another enough to write a simple app that pass something like a string between devices. NFC technology might enable local communication effectively, but it doesn't sound like NFC capabilities are coming to iPhone anytime soon, and they may be locked down if/when they do.

At this point I'm not even sure that a wifi-only tablet and multiple phone client app is going to work. It will likely work fine within a given platform, but not cross-platform, and that is extremely limiting.

Bah.

Google I/O 2011

2011-05-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Google I/O 2011 wrapped up yesterday. Overall it was another great experience. I attended for the first time last year.

First off, I/O had a much bigger Android footprint than last year. That might have something to do with the fact that the platform has exploded in growth. But this year they devoted an entire floor to Android. Some pics...

Here's me showing my love for the green guy:

Here you can see the giant Android figures all over the place:

They even tore up the carpet on the third floor and put down custom Android carpeting. There were autonomous Android-bots roaming around bumping into people and chirping as well.

And the first day keynote focused on Android, rather than teasing us until the second day, like last year.

Goodie-wise, they gave us all a new Samsung Galaxy limited edition 10.1" tab, which is pretty sweet, though I hope they don't release the software in this condition when it goes live. I've found some page rendering in the browser (ironically, the acceptance to Google Music Beta didn't render properly on my tab). I couldn't find the books app, either natively installed or on the market. And I couldn't find a native video player. When I uploaded an mp4 to try it out, I could not find it via the file explorer or any other way. So I basically couldn't figure out how to play a video that I put on the device. Unlike other Android devices, when you attach it to a PC it either needs to be in USB debugging mode, and if that is toggled off, you can then mount for file transfer. But every other Android device allows you to do both when attaching to a PC. This is pretty weird. We're supposed to get an OS update in "a few weeks", so hopefully that will clear up a lot of these issues.

We also got invitations to Google Music Beta. I'll discuss that when I play around with it more. We got a promise that we'd get information on how to claim free ChromeBooks, laptops running the new ChromeOS. I'm somewhat skeptical about this paradigm, but I'm still looking forward to trying it out. And finally, we all got mobile wi-fi hotspots with 3 free months from Verizon. Thanks to Google and the manufacturers!

Some people also received the new Sony-Ericsson Xperia play phones if they were lucky enough to attend a particular session on Day 2. I think this was a pretty bad idea. First of all, second day Android sessions had very severe capacity issues, so many devs, including myself, weren't able to attend most of the Android afternoon sessions, including the one with the giveaway. In fact, I think it's possible that rumors of a giveaway may have created the congestion. So this was bad for the two main reasons that it possibly kept some developers from attending sessions they wanted to attend, and it probably engendered some bad feelings from devs who selectively received free phones.

I actually heard another rumor that HTC wanted to give away phones to everyone, but Google thought that level of hardware giveaway would be too extreme. Ah well. So I didn't get a phone, which I need to upgrade. And unfortunately the Nexus S is not available on Verizon. So I'll probably end up getting a Thunderbolt, or possibly switching carriers.

Anyway, I had a good time, and got to talk to a lot of nice folks from Google, as well as other devs. I didn't meet up with nearly as many devs as last year. I think they could do a better job of facilitating networking between devs with common interests, and I told them as much in my feedback note.

So I'll most likely be there next year as well.

Polyclef Apps Now Available on Amazon App Store

2011-03-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

So Amazon launched its Android app store this week. Leading up to its release, I was skeptical that it would really do any better than any other 3rd-party app store. The official Google Android Market comes preinstalled on most devices. A 3rd-party app store requires the user to go out and find it, set their phone to accept non-market installs, and install it manually. Amazon has the further requirement of entering in payment information, even if you only want to download free apps.

Who would jump through all these hoops for a market with way fewer apps than the Android Market, most of them shared between the two?

Well apparently a lot of people. The reason? I guess I should have trusted that the people at Amazon would have a trick or two up their sleeves, and the magic ingredient was Angry Birds. Specifically, a new app called Angry Birds Rio that is exclusive to the Amazon App Store, and free for a limited time. Angry Birds is so incredibly popular that exclusive content was a genius way to drive users specifically to the Amazon Appstore. Once the user has jumped through the initial hoops, the market is just as reliable and easy to use as the official one.

I have over 30 apps on Android. I took a cautious approach to the Amazon Appstore by only submitting two apps, WordWise Pro and Golf Solitaire. So far they're doing well enough to get me to submit additional apps. There may just be an initial rush, but I don't think so. I'm thinking now that Amazon has probably done things right and will continue doing so.

For now, here are the links to WordWise Pro and Golf Solitaire on the Amazon Appstore. More to come soon.

Match and Hatch for Android Preview

2011-02-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that we're close to releasing a new match-3 game for Android called "Match and Hatch".

If you're not familiar with the match-3 genre of casual games, like Bejeweled, basically the goal is to move elements on the screen to make matches of 3 or more of the same element in a row, either horizontally or vertically.

Ahead of Easter, I thought an egg theme would be kind of cool, though it's not explicitly an Easter game. There are a couple of twists on typical match-3 play. For one, every time you make a match, the eggs hatch open, revealing either points, pets, or food.

If you find a pet (some are much rarer than others), you can then view them on the pet screen:

Once you hatch a pet, you'll need to take care of it at least a couple of times a day, by feeding it and showing it a little attention (you can pet the critters by rubbing their head or their belly). This increases their happiness and levels them up. If you neglect your pets long enough, they'll level down and eventually run away.

I thought this blend of match-3 and virtual pets would be a cool hybrid. We'll see. I'm going to release the paid version first, probably for $1.99, followed closely by a free ad-based version. Then I'm going to look into using Google's new in-app purchase system to allow users to directly purchase food and pets. Some players may want to spend hours and hours hatching eggs, but others may enjoy the pet aspect more.

And I'm also likely going to commission an iPhone version in the near future.

Stay tuned...I'll let you know when it hits the market!

PetPass for iPhone is Now Live!

2011-02-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

It took a while, but our new social networking app PetPass is now live on the iTunes app market:

http://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/petpass/id385460118?mt=8

If you have an iPhone or know someone who does, check it out! It's free.

PetPass

2010-11-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

This summer I commissioned an app based on an idea I had: What if you could create a virtual mail carrier, put a message and/or photo in its mailbag, and pass it (physically) to a friend, then they could add a message and/or photo and pass it to someone else, and so on? You could also track your pet's journeys around the world and see all the places and people it has interacted with. That was the idea behind PetPass...kind of a chain mail Twitter with cute animals, leveraging the Bump API.

It's been a rocky road getting this thing produced, but we finally got it submitted to Apple yesterday. It's still a little rough around the edges (especially when it comes to handling poor network connectivity). Here's how it works:

The app is free. You get 100 credits with the free download. It costs 10 credits to create a new pet. You choose a pet type (monkey, panda, robot, etc.) and give it a unique name. Then you add a message and (optionally) a photo to its mailbag. You click Pass Pet. A friend of yours who also has the app on their device clicks Receive Pet. You shake your phones near each other and the pet passes from your phone to theirs. You earn 1 credit for each pet you pass, though you can't earn more credits by passing the same pet multiple times. You can also purchase 10 credits for $0.99.

Will people like and use this app? I really don't know. I thought the idea sounded cool at the time. I'd been wanting to produce a social networking app, and one that used both in-app purchases and the Bump API. But who knows?

It is implemented reasonably well, and it is free. Though I've found that ironically users tend to be even harsher on free apps than they are on paid ones. You do get a lot more downloads with a free app, so the chances of it catching on are increased by the price tag. It should take another week or so for the app to be approved (or rejected). If the app does reasonably well on the iPhone, I will develop an Android version. The Bump API allows for transactions between iPhone and Android devices. But we'll have to see how it does first.

Why Microsoft's New Mobile Phone Platform Poses No Threat, and Who Was the Ad Wizard That Came Up With That?

2010-10-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

Wired has a ridiculous article entitled Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic.

The crucial part of Microsoft’s new phone strategy is the quality control it imposes onto its hardware partners. Rather than code an operating system and allow manufacturers to do whatever they want with it — like Google is doing with Android — Microsoft is requiring hardware partners to meet a rigid criteria in order to run Windows Phone 7.

Each device must feature three standard hardware buttons, for example, and before they can ship with Windows Phone 7, they have to pass a series of tests directed by Microsoft.

...

The effort to control quality and consistency may be just what Microsoft needs to regain some ground in the phone battle.

Yep, I'm sure a more closed, rigid OS is exactly what's needed to gain more market share. Good grief.

Microsoft may carve out a marginal slice of the smartphone market share. It's a rapidly expanding market with lots of room. But they are not going to pose a serious threat to Android's trajectory to become the dominant player in the market. The two main reasons are: apps and specs. Microsoft has actually done a pretty good job providing the necessary tools to devs to make cool apps for the platform. But there has to be some intrinsic appeal to cause devs to cross-port or migrate. With Android it was an obvious platform to lure devs away from iOS because it is a less restrictive development and publishing environment. The two things that are going to lure a dev to a new platform are either money or coolness. Android initially didn't have the first, but it had the second. What does WP7 have? If the app store ramps up and they get enough phones into people's hands this holiday season to make it seem like a viable decision to port apps over, then Microsoft might be able to muscle into a minority market share.

But the other big issue is the one highlighted in the article, which actually works against them: hardware.

As one commenter pointed out, when you put more restrictions on the hardware manufacturers, you get more consistency, but you limit the range of devices and the speed of adoption to new hardware. The new WP7 devices are shipping with chipsets that are already second-best in the market. That gap is only going to get worse as the development cycle for WP7 phones lags while Android devices flood the market at blinding speeds. This is the same reason Android will continue to chew away market share from the iPhone. The rate of innovation for Android, both in terms of the OS and hardware, will drastically outpace other restrictive platforms. Very soon we'll be seeing dual-core chipsets in devices running Android, with version 3.0 and a revamped market. Android will be on a broader spectrum of devices, meaning a wider demographic will be able to buy the phone for their budget, and the high-end devices will be clearly superior spec-wise than models with competing OSs.

And Microsoft's head-scratching marketing campain won't help either. Check this out:

The commercial is well done, if what you want to do is make people feel bad or guilty for using their smartphones. It would be a great public service announcement to spend more time and pay more attention to your loved ones. What they're sort of trying to say is that their phones are so efficient you won't want to use them. I think that's pretty counter to the motivations of most users and buyers, though. This is exactly the opposite of "There's an app for that", or the Droid's campaign of morphing you into a next-level cybernetic entity by augmenting you with their device. The WP7 campaign isn't saying you'll want to spend more time with your device because of all the cool stuff it can do, but that you'll want to do less with it. I understand the strategy, but it's a horrible one.

I'm always ready to eat some crow when it comes to prediction, but in this case I'll be very surprised if WP7 is able to carve out even 5% of the smartphone market.

WordWise for iPhone 1.01 Update Released

2010-10-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Our release of WordWise for iPhone was rocky, to say the least. That first version probably shouldn't have been submitted or made it through review. We really rushed to try to be first-to-market with Android/iPhone cross-compatibility, and the quality suffered.

But today 1.01 of WordWise for iPhone was approved, and most of the major issues should be fixed. Specifically, the game was crashing on most older phones and the iPod touch when loading games with lots of tiles, such as a game near completion. This was a memory issues and should now be resolved. There was an issue with loading games that should have affected all versions, but was particularly problematic on the iPad, keeping games from being launched at all. This should be fixed. And overall, performance in terms of moving and dropping tiles should be smoother.

Thanks a heap to the guys over at In a Day Development for their help. Go check out their apps (and buy some)!

As mentioned in an earlier post, while testing, we reverted to the development keys for notification, and forgot to change them back to production keys, so notifications are likely broken. We're going to submit yet another update (sigh) to get those working again. Hopefully the game is much more playable and those of you who want to play between Android and iPhone should be able to.

WordWise for iPhone Issues

2010-09-23T12:15:00.001-07:00

WordWise was developed primarily on iPhone OS 3, and we tested it on iOS 4, but we're getting reports of issues in two main areas:

1) Error connecting to server
2) Crashes loading the game after several moves are made

The first issue is likely to do with storing and using authentication information. What's probably happening is that the authentication used to log into our servers is timing out, and we need to fix the app to either refresh or fetch new credentials.

The second is most likely a memory issue. Each tile is a separate graphic, and since the crash is occurring later in games, while attempting to load, it is likely because the memory required to render a larger number of tiles is causing the crash. This is probably mostly occurring on older devices.

Sorry for the issues. We're going to get them fixed as soon as we can. In the meantime, if you do have problems, if you could email us at polyclefsoftware@gmail.com and let us know what happened and what device and OS you're using, that would really help us troubleshoot.

WordWise for iPhone Released!

2010-09-21T06:51:00.001-07:00

The wait is over...WordWise for iPhone is now available in the iTunes App Store for just 99 cents!

Judging by the amount of emails I get requesting Android/iPhone cross-platform play, there is pretty big demand for a game of this type. So if you've got an iPhone, check it out. If your friends have iPhones, tell them to check it out.

And remember this is v1.00, so it's not going to be nearly as polished or feature-rich as it will with a few more updates. But it will get you started on playing between Android and iPhone.

Polyclef is Interviewed for Newsweek Article

2010-09-17T06:43:00.001-07:00

So a reporter from Newsweek contacted me a couple of weeks ago asking if I'd be willing to answer a few questions about the app business on Android.

It's not really an article...more like a featurette. It's called How to Build a Better App: Mobile app makers share tips on creating a successful app. From the intro:

So what does it take for a new app maker to get in on this action? We asked two entrepreneurs who have already done it. Ilene Jones, 38, is cofounder of Kitty Code, maker of iPhone’s Hurricane storm-tracking app, which has logged 60,000 downloads at $3.99 a pop. Derek James, 39, who runs Polyclef Software, has created paid games for Android that have clocked more than 50,000 downloads.

And my Android-specific advice that made it in?

1. Think local
When it comes to picking a developer, says James, it may be better to hire someone you can work with directly, as opposed to someone in Mumbai. To find the right person, he suggests checking out Craigslist, contacting local tech groups, and leaving fliers at nearby universities.

2. Go where the app lovers are
In 2009, James was a graduate student looking to make “pizza money” when he got into the app game. To figure out what to make, he began reading Android forums and looking for mentions of popular games that users wanted as apps. He started with card games—first Spades and then Hearts.

3. In chaos lies opportunity
Unlike Apple, Google doesn’t review every app. Developers basically upload and push “publish,” says James. And with fewer apps than Apple, Android has more unexploited niches. That said, any Android app will have to be written in multiple versions to accommodate various smart phones.

4. Experiment with pricing
James tinkers with his games to find the right price point. He’s started some games at $2.99, then lowered them to 99 cents for a week to see how that affects downloads. Most settle at $1.99, but WordWise, a game he invented, draws about 40% more downloads a day at 99 cents than at $1.99.

5. Use search to your advantage
James decided to make apps based on games consumers could easily identify. “Someone searches ‘domino,’ and my [Domino] app comes up,” he says. For WordWise, he put a mention of Scrabble in the description so it would show up in related searches.

I haven't seen the print version, but I'm assuming it's the same. Either way, it's nice to have the exposure in a national publication.

Why Would Anyone Choose Android over iPhone?

2010-09-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch has a pretty stupid article in which he follows up on another silly article in which he rhetorically wondered out loud if the reason why Android was overtaking the iPhone in market share was because of AT&T exclusivity for the iPhone.

In that first article, he wrote:

While I obviously understand that people have different tastes, I can’t see how you can objectively say that the overall experience of using an Android phone isn’t worse than using an iPhone.

In response to this, people then proceeded to give reasons other than AT&T that the Android experience is better than the iPhone. In the second article, he picks what he perceives as the primary reason: openness. He then proceeds to say that the idea that Android is more open than the iPhone is "a load of crap".

His justification? Recent demo models of Android phones he has received come with a bunch of pre-installed apps he doesn't want.

There's also this:

From what we’re hearing, Verizon is also planning to launch this store on their Android phones as well in the future. Obviously, this store would be pre-installed, and it would likely be more prominently displayed than Android’s own Market for apps.

Um, V Cast is already included on Verizon phones, as a channel in the Android Market alongside existing ones. I guess it's possible that Verizon would replace the official Android Market with their own, but I highly doubt it. I don't think Siegler has a clue what he's talking about here.

Then he talks about how certain models of Android phones don't allow the installation of non-market apps. Then he talks about how tethering is not available via the native support for it in 2.2. Hint: You can buy EasyTether and tether away to your hearts content.

Then he goes on to bash the carriers for not updating Android to the most current OS version fast enough. Look, I wish every Android phone was running 2.2, but here's the situation: Android devices are coming out at a breakneck speed, with bigger and better specs all the time. Older devices (and we're just talking 6-12 months old) often don't have the hardware hefty enough to run the latest version of Android optimally. There's a trade-off here. You can either have rapid innovation and a certain amount of buyer's remorse when the phone you bought 6 months ago is eclipsed by the newest phone with much better specs, or we can just slow down the pace of innovation so better devices only come out once a year or so. Which would you prefer? I'll take the rapid innovation, personally. As a dev it makes compatibility a bigger problem, and as a consumer you may feel like you're getting left in the dust, but I'd take than any day over a much slower pace of increasing specs.

Realistically compare this to the PC market. If you buy the newest PC, within a relatively short amount of time it will no longer be the best and brightest. You can upgrade the OS and hardware yourself (though your average consumer won't), but you certainly don't get automatic updates to an entirely new version for free, mediated by your ISP. I think it is reasonably for the average Android user to expect 1-2 full version upgrades in the lifetime of their device.

Anyway, back to one core question: Is Android more open? Of course it is.

You can tether on Android, without rooting, either by being on a support OS/carrier, or buying a tethering app (which would never make it onto the iTunes market). Steve Jobs derisively talked about a "porn store" on Android, and guess what? A lot of people like porn. If you don't want Apple to be your nanny when it comes to app content, you might just prefer an Android device. It is simply an irrefutable fact that in terms of functionality and content of apps, Android allows a wider range than the iPhone. No one in their right mind would dispute this, and it is a far more sensible metric of openness than any that Siegler gives.

So what about the other big question originally raised by Siegler: Why would anyone in their right mind choose an Android phone over an iPhone?

Here are a few:

1) Choice. The iPhone only has a few models, and only one newest model. With Android, besides having your choice of carrier, you also have your choice of hardware. Do you want a hardware keyboard? Do you want a huge display? A small one? Is the camera especially important to you? The point is that with Android you have a vast array of choices in terms of specs, features, and price, and that spectrum is only getting larger.

2) Price. You can get a budget Android phone or go for top-of-the-line. Not everyone wants to fork out the max amount for the best available phone. In this respect, Android has a huge edge that is analogous to the PC market. Some consumers prefer to trade features and specs for a bit of money in savings.

3) Google. Yes, the iPhone allows some Google apps to run (but apparently not others, such as Google Voice). If you are already an avid user of Google's web-based services, you just might want the tight integration with things like GMail and Google Calender that the Android environment provides.

These are three big ones off the top of my head. There are others, such as the liberal Android Market return policy that is very consumer-friendly. But look, the iPhone is a great device, very well designed and very user friendly. But it is not perfect, and it is currently no longer the objectively best smartphone on the market. In terms of specs and functionality, the newest Android devices, such as the Evo and Droid X are better. The gap has closed, and the scary thing for Apple is that soon there will be Android devices that are clearly superior to the iPhone in virtually every respect. Android innovation is not on a yearly schedule like the iPhone. By this holiday season, there will be new Android devices with specs that outperform the iPhone in every category. Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) will be released this year as well, along with the improved Android Market with over-the-air purchases and installs and integration with Google's new music service. Apple apologists can currently continue to make arguments that the iPhone is at or near the top of the heap, but very, very soon that argument will simply be made obsolete by the steady march of better and better Android devices.

So while there are already good reasons to prefer an Android device over an iPhone, right now to a large degree it is personal preference. Over the next 6 months that will no longer be the case and the chasm will widen. The iPhone won't fall away, but it will be relegated to a much smaller market share, just as in the PC market. And I'm sure guys like Siegler will be whining louder than ever.

Android Market and Taxes

2010-09-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

A fellow developer wrote me today and said:

I have had some success with one of my apps and I'm starting to get concerned on how I should be handling taxes. Do you have any links you could suggest on how I should be reporting income and sales tax?

Disclaimer here: It is entirely possible I have no clue what I'm talking about, so you should take everything I say with a huge grain of salt.

Near the end of 2009, when my apps started doing reasonably well, I began to investigate tax issues. It's hard to find decent information and get clarification from Google, so your best bet is to find either a good tax attorney, CPA, or both if you are generating enough revenue to be worried about it. If your apps are making less than $5K a year, then you're probably well under the radar.

Anyway, last summer I formed an LLC as the sole member, and basically my taxes on my company's income were treated the same as an individual. This year I've hired a local CPA who advised forming an S corporation, which will supposedly save on paying self-employment taxes and end up costing me less in taxes than I would as an LLC. No matter how you handle it, if you're making a substantial amount of money, you need to be declaring it and paying taxes on it.

As for sales tax, that's pretty murky. I searched around quite a lot in various forums, and ended up with the following understanding: Developers selling apps through the Android Market are responsible for collecting any associated sales tax as a result of each sale. I am based in Louisiana, so I contacted the Louisiana Department of Revenue and the representative I spoke with confirmed that I am responsible for collecting sales tax on transactions that take place in the same state in which my company is based. So basically I collect the 4% sales tax on app sales in Louisiana. I file monthly sales tax reports through the LDR website, basically reporting $X in gross sales minus $Y in interstate and international sales, which are exempt from taxation in Louisiana. The sales tax can be set up in the Google Checkout console (Settings tab, Tax Setup). Then, because reporting is so abysmal in Google Checkout, I manually look up the number of sales of a given app at its taxed price. In other words, at the end of each month I search Google Checkout for all apps sold at $1.03, which are all my $0.99 apps plus the 4% sales tax. I manually count these sales because I am not able to generate a CSV report and export it from Google Checkout. This is, of course, a crapload of fun. I should probably just be thankful I only have to collect sales tax in my state, and not for every state, country, and territory.

So I do business under the assumption that I do not either need to collect or pay sales tax in states or countries other than the one in which I am based. Google has not done a good job communicating tax liabilities to developers, so if this information isn't correct, I'm not in very good shape, and neither is the Android Market. Hopefully it is the way we're supposed to be doing business. This is one area where the iPhone app market is clearly superior. Apple apparently collects any necessary taxes associated with sales, handles currency conversions, and provides developers with very clear itemized monthly sales reports. Google is taking a much more laissez faire approach, and if it ends up biting some developers in the butt because they're not handling their taxes right, that would be damaging for everyone. I just figure I've done due diligence and look at potential unforeseen tax liabilities as a mitigated risk.

Anyway, that's my understanding of how things work and a description of how I currently handle taxes. I'd be interested in hearing other stories or getting any clarifications from anyone who knows better.

Update: WordWise for iPhone

2010-09-07T09:49:00.001-07:00

So we submitted WordWise for the iPhone to Apple about 10 days ago. After about a week, the first version was rejected. Turns out we had a nasty bug to do with the login process.

We fixed that, but in the process found another bug. So we spent another day fixing that. This morning we resubmitted to Apple. It looks like the review process is taking about a week these days, so we should know something next Wednesday. It's a fairly complex app, so it wouldn't totally surprise me if it takes multiple rounds of submissions to make it through the process. Hopefully not, but for those who are looking forward to playing across platforms, between Android and iPhone, thanks for your patience.

WordWise for iPhone Submitted to Apple

2010-08-27T11:23:00.001-07:00

We finally got most of the kinks worked out and submitted WordWise Pro for the iPhone today. It's still a little rough around the edges, but we think it's pretty good for a first version, and will be the first Android-iPhone cross-platform crossword board game.

Approval periods can vary quite a bit, so we'll keep you updated here and let you know when it goes live.

EDIT: Someone asked about the price. It's going to debut at 99 cents.

Yet Another Android Success Story: Polyclef Software

2010-08-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

This week another Android success story is making the rounds. Android dev Arron La, maker of Advanced Task Manager, posted his revenue figures for the app. Looks like he made about $18K last year and about $80K this year from a combination of paid sales and ad revenue through AdMob.

I've posted stats before (here's a review of 2009). In the spirit of sharing some hard numbers and getting the word out about Android as a viable platform for devs, especially independent ones, I'm going to share some more extensive stats through the end of July 2010.

First of all, I uploaded my first app to the Android Market in March of 2009. That was a tip calculator called TippinTime that was free, with no ads. I learned the platform by building simple, niche-oriented calculators and simple novelty apps, eventually working my way up to more complex games like Spades, Dominoes, and the newest app, WordWise. Polyclef currently has 31 apps on the market, with a mix of monetization methods, including paid sales and free ad-based apps. I also serve as publisher for EasyTether, an app by a developer who is currently unable to publish paid apps directly through the Android Market. For most of these apps, I'm the sole developer, though I occasionally contract out artwork and music for games, and on rare occasions some coding. With WordWise, my friend and co-developer has done all the server-side implementation, while I've been responsible for the client.

Here is a summary chart of revenue from March 2009 to July 2010, broken down by the relative contribution of ad revenue and paid sales:

Ad revenue has been decreasing as the overall percentage of revenue. I don't understand all the factors related to ad revenue (they're generally not made available to devs). Ad revenue tends to decrease during the summer months, but that doesn't completely explain things, especially since the number of both impressions and clicks has continued to grow significantly, while actual revenue from ads has fallen. I'm hoping that turns around in the Fall.

But the general trend is obviously up, and average monthly revenue this year is a little over $8K. As long as revenue either continues to grow or levels off, I'm on target to make six figures this year as an independent Android developer.

Not bad. It's obviously beyond what I expected when I started doing this last year to earn a little extra dinner money as a grad student. Now I'm taking time from the program to pursue this full-time.

Just another data point to drive home that Android is definitely a viable platform for indie developers. Unlike La's example or Edward Kim, my strategy is very diverse, with lots of apps and several different ways to monetize.

Although, just as in the app market itself, my own apps follow a long-tail distribution. That is, a few of my apps make a lot of money, while most of my apps make very little.

Right now my own top earners are Dominoes, Golf Solitaire, and WordWise. Here are some screenshots of the portal stats:

As you can see, ratings and active install rates tend to be lower for free versions. I think people have a lower perception of value when they get something for free, and thus the lower rating. I've tried different price points for most of my apps, typically ranging from $0.99 to $2.99 for these three apps. Right now I've settled at $1.99 for the first two, though WordWise is currently at $0.99 because higher price points seem to significantly negatively impact sales, and we're trying to stay in the top ten in Paid>Brain & Puzzle.

Most of my paid apps tend to have active install rates between 70-80%, which I believe is actually quite good, comparing it to what I hear in various forums from other devs.

None of my individual apps have broken into the upper echelon (e.g. >250K downloads), but many have been well-ranked and well-rated. Dominoes, Golf Solitaire, and WordWise are all in the top 10 in their respective subcategory, though the free versions have not cracked the upper rankings.

I've dabbled some in iPhone development as well, though I have not enjoyed comparable success there. The iPhone version of WordWise will be submitted this week though, allowing cross-platform play between Android and iPhone users, and I'm hoping it will be at least a moderate hit.

In any case, this is just some companion info to go along with La and Kim's anecdotes. I still come across threads where people say that Android, while growing as a platform, is still unproven when it comes to making money. Consider this another case study from someone who is now doing this full-time and making a good income.

If you can churn out a single hit, that's great, though the strategy that's working for me so far is diversification. I think in the long run it will end up being a more robust strategy (i.e. if Google makes some core improvement to Android that makes your app obsolete, you're kind of out of luck). I don't know what the future brings, but with Android adoption continuing to explode, I'm obviously optimistic.

XNA and GUI Elements

2010-08-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

When you make a video game, there are essential things you need to create, like menus and other interface elements that let the user navigate and control your game, set options, etc.

Now XNA Game Studio is ostensibly a package that allows you to create games, doing a lot of essential stuff under the hood. It's surprising then, that it's on version 3.1, and it doesn't include any prebuilt GUI elements, like buttons, drop-down menus, etc. There are game engines you can use in conjunction with XNA, and stand-alone GUI packages as well, but this seems like such a basic element of a game framework I'm pretty disappointed it's not included. I don't want to waste my time building my own text field from scratch, and it was time consuming to sift through the various options for third-party solutions and find one with halfway decent examples and documentation. I started messing around with Neoforce Controls, and it looks like it's going to work reasonably well.

I'd be interested to hear from any other devs using XNA whether they build their GUIs from scratch, using a game engine that includes GUI elements, or use a stand-along GUI package.

Polyclef Update for August

2010-08-14T08:10:00.001-07:00

Things have been pretty busy around here, so I've neglected the blog, but here are some updates on current and future goings-on...

WordWise development is still very active. We keep running into lots of minor issues with the iPhone version. The final piece of functionality to integrate is push notification for the iPhone version. Once that's done and it's tested, we'll submit it to Apple. We'll also have a new release of the Android version next week with push notifications and a better random opponent matching algorithm. Why haven't we implemented push notifications before this? Well, the simple answer is that we couldn't figure out how. Until Android 2.2, there was no built-in support for push notifications. Devs had to either create their own solutions from scratch or rely on a third-party service. We tried to do both, looking at the myriad of approaches others suggested. Most of the custom approaches wouldn't work because we're using Google App Engine as the back end and we can't maintain an open connection to their servers. So far, third-party solutions we tried didn't work very well. No doubt there exists some clever implementation of push notification from Google App Engine, but we couldn't find it or figure it out. Anyway, we finally found a third-party solution that we hope will work well, and allows us to use the same system for both our iPhone and Android versions.

Puzzle Lords is finally going to get a little more love soon. The game has made very little money, but it's very highly rated. I've been wanting to expand it for a long time, and I've finally commissioned some new artwork to add in "Act 2", which features new enemies, new minibosses, and the second boss.

Here's some concept art to peak your interest:

I'm also looking into integrating online leaderboards into apps like Golf Solitaire. I'd like to maintain a balance of working on new projects and improving existing ones. Some devs have suggested there are diminishing returns from updating existing apps, and that might be true in terms of immediate financial return. But I think it does engender a lot of good will among users. Like good customer support, the direct rewards for this are hard to quantify, but I think it's a pretty sound strategy to keep your user base happy.

I'm also revisiting XNA studio for development of a prototype desktop/XBOX game. I've enjoyed success already on Android, but it does make me nervous putting all my eggs in one basket, so I would like to diversify a bit, and of course learn new things. Attempts at diversifying revenue via selling goods (e.g. Android toys), hasn't worked well. Neither has trying to host an Android workshop (of course, I didn't market it very well and only offered it here in Louisiana). But I think concentrating some percentage of my time on developing for another platform will make me a better designer and developer overall and will hopefully result in a nice new game. As the project progresses, I'll post more about it.

Finally, on the financial side, July was Polyclef's best month ever, but it looks like August is going to be down from July. A large part of this is the crash of ad revenue. I won't go into the gory details, but revenue from advertising is just not looking good for August. There are a lot of variables in play, including the seasonality (it's back-to-school time, which may increase ad revenue for some things, but hurt others). I don't want to give the impression that revenue is weak. It's still very strong. It's just that not all revenue streams are firing on all cylinders, so this month is probably going to be a bit worse than last.

Polyclef is still a strong success story of independent Android development. I think August will be a slight dip in the road toward a very strong holiday season.

WordWise for iPhone Preview

2010-07-26T18:43:00.001-07:00

Here's a preview of what the iPhone version of WordWise is going to look like:

And don't fret, Android players. We're going to reskin the Android version with this design as well.

Why Android Will Dominate Smartphone Market Share (and Sooner Than You Think)

2010-07-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw this article on Android Police, Cage Fight, Part 1: Why Android Will Win The Smartphone War. While I agree with the assessment, I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on why I think by next year Apple is going to be lose a very large chunk of market share to Android and will no longer be the leader in the smartphone space.

Yes, Android is continually marching out new devices, threatening to bury the competition in a deluge of models of all shapes and sizes. One argument does that Android and iPhone devices cater to different demographics, but Android is now not only covering the spectrum from budget smartphones up to higher-end devices. The high end devices are already either comparable or better in some respects than the newest iPhone model.

Today the Droid X goes on sale on Verizon and the Samsung Vibrant goes on sale at T-Mobile.

There are already good reasons to buy a Droid X over an iPhone 4. It's got a larger screen, serves as a wi-fi hotspot for up to 5 devices, has built in voice navigation. It doesn't have a front-facing camera, like the Evo, but it's still a worthy competitor to the best high-end smartphones available right now.

But see, here's the thing. Android is not standing still. New, better models come out just about every month. This summer is the point at which, in terms of specs, Android devices are going to march right past the iPhone, which will be standing still for another year, even disregarding the iPhone 4's antenna issues.

There are people who are such loyalists that they will stick with the iPhone no matter what. But at some point, the average consumer will be doing side-by-side comparisons and will no longer be able to ignore the growing gulf in specs between the iPhone and the newer generations of devices coming out. By this Christmas, there are rumored Android devices with 2 GHz processors and other substantially beefy specs that will eclipse the current generation of smartphones. You would have to be a hardcore Apple loyalist to purchase a phone with half the specs for the same price as a competing product.

And while there's innovation in the hardware, the software just keeps marching on as well. By this holiday season, Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) will be released, and it's likely to be a significant step up from an already solid OS.

I think the one other factor that not many people are talking about is the revamped Android Market demoed at Google I/O. It features a web interface for searching and buying apps, and allows you to push purchased apps over the air directly to your device. This is going to be huge, and it's coming soon. Couple that with Google's new music store through the same portal, and the process of purchasing content for an Android smartphone will be far superior to that of iTunes. This is the biggest missing piece in the Android puzzle right now. And when it clicks into place, I think it's going to seal the deal.

The iPhone is going to share a fate similar to Apple's desktop machines. They will enjoy a small, loyal chunk of the market share, but relatively soon, within a year, they will no longer dominate the high-end smartphone market. That spot will belong to the growing legion of Android devices.

Need Testers for WordWise for v1.5 and v1.6

2010-07-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

We're working on backward compatibility for WordWise for versions 1.5 and 1.6 of Android. If you have an Android device running one of these versions and would like to test out WordWise, send us an email at polyclefsoftware@gmail.com.

New Milestones Reached

2010-07-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

July 2010 looks to be Polyclef's best month yet, and we just passed two very nice milestones.

We now have over 40,000 paid sales in the Android Market.

Polyclef's combined free apps now consistently serve up over 200,000 ads per day. Ad revenue has not kept pace with paid sales revenue, but ad prices fluctuate based on a lot of factors, so hopefully relatively soon it will.

Thanks to everyone who keeps buying and using Polyclef apps and games!

New WordWise Version Released Today

2010-07-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Version 1.22 was just released.

New Features:

*Added tile values and distribution information to instructions
*Added Stats and Leaderboard buttons to Title Screen
*Volume of sound effects is now the same as ringtone volume, controlled by hardware volume buttons
*Pan while zoomed in by clicking and dragging board
*Shuffle rack by shaking device or selecting Menu>Shuffle
*Tile interaction with board while zoomed out now shifts with horizontal position

Slouching Toward An Updated Ecosystem

2010-07-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Google maintains a nice page that displays the current distribution of Android versions in the wild. Here are the charts as right now.

Current:

Historical:

That increasing share of 2.0 or greater is likely due to new phones coming out, rather than users of previous versions abandoning their devices.

Obviously, I'm chomping at the bit for not only new devices to come out, but the older ones to be upgraded. There were rumors that the myTouch was going to get 2.1 in June, which obviously didn't happen. Hopefully that will happen this month, since they represent well over a million potential users of WordWise.

Meanwhile, it looks like Droid users are the dominant demographic for WordWise, clocking in at just about 50% of our users. The Evo and the Eris both clock in around 10%. Here's hoping that as many older devices as possible get upgraded.

New App Concept Art

2010-07-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share some preliminary artwork for a new app project. It's done by a freelance artist named Llaima Castro.

The app is called PetPass, and initially it will be for iPhone only. If it does reasonably well on that platform, I'll develop an Android version. I'll share more details about the app nearer release, but for now think of it as Bump + Twitter + the garden gnome from Amelie.

HTC Evo vs. iPhone 4

2010-06-29T10:04:00.000-07:00

This video is pretty funny, though the language is not safe for work:

Interviewed by Tim Bray

2010-06-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

There's an interview with me by Tim Bray, a developer advocate at Google.

Check it out.

WordWise Pro #3 in its Category, #14 Overall

2010-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

I had only really been monitoring the progress of WordWise Pro within its category, ignoring it's overall ranking among paid games. But checking it this morning, I see that it has vaulted into the top 20 of all paid games on the Android Market, to #14!

Unfortunately, we continue to be plagued with memory issues, and the new notification system still isn't working quite right. Also, we get bombarded daily with new feature requests. At the top of our list is making a page for player stats, global stats for all players and individual stats for each player, indicating top game scores, top words, win/loss records, etc. Once that gets implemented, we'll focus on a ranking system so that people near the same skill level can find each other easily. There have also been lots of requests for pass-and-play and also solo play. We'll see about that, but right now it's not our highest priority.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who as supported the game. It's already shot up near the top...here's hoping it stays there and gets just a little higher.

WordWise Free Released!

2010-06-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

We've just released a free version of WordWise, for those who don't want to shell out any money to try the app (although apps on Android do come with a 24-hour, no-questions-asked return policy). The free version limits you to 3 active games and includes ads. The pro version allows up to 100 active games, with no ads.

Meanwhile, WordWise Pro has climbed yet again to the #3 spot in Games>Brains&Puzzle>Paid. Thanks to everyone who keeps buying it!

Also, today we released an update that includes:

1) A new notification system. Please bear with us while the iron out the kinks.
2) A rematch feature that lets you invite your current opponent to another game.
3) Additional fixes for out of memory errors.
4) A refresh feature for the title/login screen (Menu>Refresh).

And lots of other little things. We're working hard to improve the experience by adding and optimizing features. If you've already downloaded a version of WordWise, thanks!

WordWise Pro Climbs

2010-06-20T08:31:00.001-07:00

It's difficult to track the rankings of apps in the Android Market. There used to be a website called AndroidStats that would show the rankings and movements of apps in the market, but they went down a while back, supposedly because Google either restricted or changed how market data can be accessed.

Anyway, since it's release, WordWise Pro has been vaulting up the rankings in Games>Brain&Puzzle>Paid. A few days after it was released, it wasn't anywhere near the top. About a week ago, I took the time to count the ranking manually, and saw that we were at #50. Yesterday when I checked, we clocked in at #15, which was pretty nice movement. I figured we'd be in the top 10 by next week.

Checking this morning, I see that WordWise Pro is now #7 in its category. Not bad, huh? I figured it would be a popular app, since there's not another multiplayer crossword game on the market. But the launch has been a little shaky, and we've had a number of issues with both the client and the server that we've had to work through, so we're sitting at a 3.5-star rating, while other apps in the top 10 all have 4.5-5 star ratings. Hopefully our rating will go up as we continue to improve the app and the experience for users stabilizes.

I'm particularly happy because even though I've been able to get top-ranking apps in the Games>Cards&Casino category, that is the smallest subcategory in Games. I figured maybe those apps were just doing well because there wasn't a lot of competition. According to AndroLib, though, Brain&Puzzle is the biggest game category. As of this writing, these are AndroLib's stats:

Games (All): 8164 applications in this category

Arcade & Action: 2069 applications in this category
Brain & Puzzle: 3350 applications in this category
Cards & Casino: 763 applications in this category
Casual: 1982 applications in this category

Since WordWise's rating is lower compared to other apps, we must really be outselling other apps in the category to jump that high in the ratings. Hopefully we'll make it into the top 5 this coming week.

We're also working hard to get the free version out, and that should only help boost sales of the paid version. Thanks to everyone who's buying and supporting the app!

Android Figurines Now on Sale!

2010-06-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

We had some Android figurines custom made for our promotion last month, and now we're putting them on sale. They're $9.99 + $2.99 shipping (only available in the continental US). Order one today!

Fourth Week and Grand Prize Winners!

2010-05-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a great month. We had exactly 5,000 sales from the period between May 2nd and May 29th, the period of our first promotional giveaway.

http://polyclefsoftware.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-polyclef-software-may.html

I'm happy to announce the fourth and final week's winners:

Deidre A. of Hemet, CA

Christopher B. of Culpeper, VA

Tamara W. of Virginia Beach, VA

Each winner above receives an Android figurine!

And the winner of the Grand Prize, a brand new boxed Motorola Droid:

Steven G. of Poncha Springs, CO

Congratulations! I'll be contacting all the winners via email. Please contact us at polyclefsoftware@gmail.com if you have any questions. Thanks for making this a great month at Polyclef.

Polyclef Software May Giveaway: 3rd Week Winners!

2010-05-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

We've had a great response to our Polyclef May Giveaway:

http://polyclefsoftware.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-polyclef-software-may.html

I'm happy to announce the third week's winners:

Gregory H. of Granbury, TX
Christopher R. of Enterprise, AL
April M. of Albany, GA

Each winner receives an Android figurine! And if you didn't win this week, don't worry, we're giving away three more figurines each remaining week in May, and everyone who purchases an app from May 2nd until the end of the month is qualified for our Grand Prize: a brand new Motorola Droid!

WordWise Google Group

2010-05-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

If you're a current player or interested in WordWise, keep informed on updates, new versions, supported platforms, report bugs, and if you like, share your invitation info at:

http://groups.google.com/group/wordwise

The group is public. Anyone can view topics, but you have to join to post.

Congratulations to Second Round Winners!

2010-05-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

http://polyclefsoftware.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-polyclef-software-may.html

I'm happy to announce the second week's winners:

Adrian O. of Rio Grande City, TX
David W. of Fort Worth, TX
Cheryl D. of Papillion, NE

Each winner receives an Android figurine! And if you didn't win this week, don't worry, we're giving away three more figurines each remaining week in May, and everyone who purchases an app from May 2nd until the end of the month is qualified for our Grand Prize: a brand new Motorola Droid!

I wrote this one!

2010-05-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

WordWise Pro Released!

2010-05-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

We're excited to announce the release of WordWise Pro for Android!

For those hungry for 2-player crossword board gaming, wait no more...

A free version will be released within the next few days, but for now the Pro version offers the full WordWise experience with no ads and up to 100 concurrent games.

And all for the low introductory price of just 99 cents!

Announcing IT Organizer

2010-05-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we released our newest app: IT Organizer.

From the description:

If you are like me you carry around a binder with all of your clients' information. Why not store it all in an app?

Features: a computer inventory, organized by client and employee; a billing timer; password database; notes database; quick access to your contacts, email, and calendar; and a backup/restore utility.

A great app for IT professionals.

Congratulations to the First Round Winners!

2010-05-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

We've had a great response to our Polyclef May Giveaway:

http://polyclefsoftware.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-polyclef-software-may.html

I'm happy to announce the first week's winners:

Mark J. of Sealy, TX

Ricardo O. of Orlando, FL

Edward D. of Smithfield, KY

Each winner receives an Android figurine! And if you didn't win this week, don't worry, we're giving away three more figurines each remaining week in May, and everyone who purchases an app from May 2nd until the end of the month is qualified for our Grand Prize: a brand new Motorola Droid!

Android Developer Console Implements Error Tracking

2010-04-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've praised an Android Market feature, especially from the developer side, but I have to give them props today.

They've implemented what they're calling a "Feedback Experiment" in the developer portal, where developers upload and maintain their apps. At first, I thought this was referring to market comments, but when I launched the feature, I saw that it was an error tracking console, indicating freezes and crashes from each app. The information includes the date, device model, error, and a stack trace!

I had put in manual error tracking in my more popular apps because none of the analytics packages I've tried handle error tracking worth a squat. But my implementation is pretty clunky. Basically, if the app crashes, the next time the user opens it, they're prompted to send an email with the stack trace and some device information. Now I can take that code out of those apps.

Very nice, Android Team. Thanks.

EDIT (5/1/10): And today it's gone. That was a short experiment. Hopefully it will be up again soon.

Announcing the Polyclef Software May Giveaway!

2010-04-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

FIRST ROUND WINNERS!

SECOND ROUND WINNERS!

THIRD ROUND WINNERS!

During the month of May we're giving away lots of cool stuff.

Starting May 2nd, every week we're going to give away a vinyl Android figurine to three customers. And at the end of the month, one lucky customer will win a brand new Motorola DROID^TM!

The Android figurines are sturdy vinyl toys and measure approximately 3.5"x2"x2". Here are some pictures:

Winners will be announced per the schedule listed below, via our blog:

http://polyclefsoftware.blogspot.com/

And our Twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/PolyclefApps

If you win, we pay the shipping costs!

Official Rules:

To qualify for the weekly and monthly drawings, purchase an app published by Polyclef Software through the Android Market. Each purchase qualifies as one (1) entry. So if you purchase 10 apps that week, you have 10 chances to win. Purchases must be valid, i.e., valid purchases do not include returns, payment denied, or disputed transactions.

Purchase a paid app from us between:

May 2-8, 2010 (drawing on May 9th; winners announced May 10th)
May 9-15, 2010 (drawing on May 16th; winners announced May 17th)
May 16-22, 2010 (drawing on May 23rd; winners announced May 24th)
May 23-29, 2010 (drawing on May 30th; winners announced May 31st)

A purchase within any week range above qualifies for that week's drawing for a free Android figurine. Any purchase that falls within any of the dates above qualifies for the Grand Prize, a brand new Motorola Droid^TM. The winner of the Droid^TM will be announced on May 31st.

You must be 18 or over and live in the the continental US to be eligible for this promotion. Those announced as winners must contact Polyclef Software within 2 weeks to claim their prize.

Polyclef Apps on the Android Market (link only works from Android devices)

Website Links:

Polyclef Apps

Polyclef Games

Android^TM and the robot character design are copyright Google, Inc. and used under the terms of the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License. DROID^TM is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies.

WordWise Preview

2010-04-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some screen shots from our upcoming 2-player crossword game for Android. It's called WordWise. There will be a free version with ads, limited to 3 concurrent games, and a full version with no ads and unlimited games. We haven't made a decision yet on pricing for the full version.

We're going to try to get it in good shape to release in about a week. At that point it may still be a little rough around the edges, so we'd like to get feedback about the interface and game play.

I'm pretty excited about this game. I think there's going to be huge demand for it on Android.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

2010-04-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

The Android robot character design is licensed under the Creative Commons License, which means anybody can use the likeness in any design or product as long as they give proper attribution.

I was inspired by other Android-related products to commission the production of a run of Android vinyl toys. Production took a while, but the shipment finally came in today. Here's a pic of one of these little dudes:

They stand about 3 inches tall, and the vinyl is one solid piece, so you won't have to worry about parts popping off.

Very soon Polyclef will be running a promotion to give some away. Stay tuned!

Android^TM and the robot character design are copyright Google, Inc. and used under the terms of the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

Languishing Android OS Versions

2010-04-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

Google has a nice page here showing the ratios of the various versions of the Android OS running on existing devices. As you can see (if you visit the link), only about 30% of current users are on devices running 2.0 or higher.

This is sad. What's even sadder is that manufacturers are releasing new devices that are running versions earlier than 2.0.

This is particularly sad because Philip and I are working on a shiny new game that's going to be very, very awesome, and it only runs on 2.0. Why? Because we're using Google App Engine as the server, and to log in and authenticate to GAE, you have to have a Google Account. Android devices require a Google Account, and allow developers to write code that allows the user to login and authenticate Google services (such as Reader, Calendar, Gmail, and GAE) without have to enter their account information.

Sounds great, huh? It is, but the AccountManager API that allows this is only included in Android 2.0 on. We started working on an Android/GAE framework last year, and in that time I'd hoped that at least 1.5 would have been phased out and that the majority of users would by now be on 2.0. Alas, such is not the case.

The game is coming along very nicely, and hopefully will be ready for prime time within a few weeks. At that point we'll go ahead and release it, even though it will only work on a third of Android devices. Another option is to either release another version that will allow the user to manually enter their credentials. But then we'd have two versions of the app on the market, which would suck. Right now we're just going to plow ahead with the current version. When the time comes, it might be worthwhile to release two versions, though I hope we don't have to do that. Stay tuned.

ReceiptBook

2010-04-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

This week I saw an app request for a virtual receipt booklet on one of the Android Forums and I thought "Hm, I wonder how hard that would be to do?" The post pointed out that there are a lot of apps that let you take pictures of physical receipts, but what he wanted was a template that was editable, and more importantly, that the recipient of funds could sign with their finger. I started out trying to figure out how to accomplish that last bit, and ended up cranking out the app in just a few hours. Here's a screen shot:

The app lets you edit any field enclosed in a box just by tapping on the field, then typing a new value. The signature field is signable with your finger. Menu options let you save the receipt as a .jpg to your SD card and/or email it as an attachment to an email straight from the app. So you can write out a receipt virtually, have someone sign it on your device, and immediately email it to yourself and the recipient with a click.

If you have an Android device and need to write receipts on the fly, check it out.

Polyclef Has a Twitter Feed

2010-04-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've joined the hive mind. Still not creating a personal feed, but a business feed for Twitter makes sense as a way to announce new apps, updates, price changes, and promotions.

I've also added a Twitter module to the blog (see it over there to the right?). You can follow Polyclef's feed just by clicking the Follow link.

It's Raining Android Phones!

2010-04-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I registered for Google I/O, their big annual developer conference. Last year, participants got a free Android phone. Well, this year they got them, too, a bit early.

Everyone who registered for Google I/O is apparently getting either a new Nexus One or a Droid...looks like all US attendees get a Droid. Sounds like they want devs unfamiliar with the platform to get their hands dirty before they come to conference, so they're possibly in a better position to get more out of the talks. Sounds like a good plan, only it doesn't do a whole lot for me. I already have a Droid (it's my primary phone), and I'm already fairly experienced with developing for Android.

Still, it's a cool gift. I don't have any friends or family who could use the phone, so I was thinking of either selling it (boring), or possibly running a promotional giveaway. The device still probably won't get here for 2 or three weeks, so I've got a bit of time to decide.

I'm Going Back to My Droid

2010-03-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, sad to say it, but after only 48 hours with my new Nexus, I'll be going back to my Droid.

The main reason has nothing to do with the phone itself, which ends up pretty much balancing out in terms of pros and cons when compared to the Droid. No, the biggest problem is the network service itself.

Back when I first got my G1, I signed up with T-Mobile. At that point in Lafayette, they had not implemented 3G coverage in the area. I made due with Edge speeds, and not knowing anything else, was satisfied. Right when I switched to the Droid, T-Mobile upgraded the area to 3G, but I hadn't got a chance to see how well it worked in my area.

Now I have, and unfortunately, it sucks. Trying to simply access mobile websites while at home leads to time-outs. So far I tend to get 2-3 bars within the city limits of Lafayette, though yesterday while in a Barnes & Noble, 100 feet from a T-Mobile outlet, the network reverted to Edge. And coverage completely fell apart when leaving the city limits. It was spotty to non-existent for most of the 1-hour trip toward New Iberia.

Needless to say, very disappointing. Either the network has gotten worse since the upgrade, or more likely, I just didn't realize how bad it was until I got service with Verizon. The extra $15/month is worth it for vastly better coverage.

As for the phone itself, the good things about it are still good. The screen is great. I finally got a Google Voice account with the phone. Pinch zooming works, and it is awesome.

However, I have some minor gripes about the phone itself. One, the form factor is slender and cool, but the phone feels like it's going to slip out of your hand. The shell almost feels like teflon. This is one phone that likely would be much better with a cover. I ordered one on the cheap, and I think it will likely make holding and using the phone better. Second, related to the size, the thing heats up, which is reasonable considering the sheer amount of electronics crammed into such a small package. My Droid may also be heating up, but I never feel it, probably because the hardware keyboard shields it.

Also the default indicator light is the one in the trackball, which is much slower and also much brighter than the one on other Android phones, which by default use the same light for charge strength as for indicating that you have missed emails or calls. I thought perhaps this was a setting I could change, but so far haven't seen anything that will let me use my charge indicator instead of the trackball as the indicator light. Minor, but annoying.

Really, though, the phone-issues are minor, and the Nexus is cool and sleek enough for me to choose it as a primary phone, if the network were comparable. Since it isn't, I'm running back into the arms of my Droid.

Just Got My Nexus...Thanks, Google!

2010-03-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned a while back, Google has been giving out free phones to top developers. I got mine today...just what I wanted, a shiny new Nexus One. Here it is, fresh out of the box, charging up:

It's a beautiful device...slim, light, and comfortable in your hand. I've been using the Droid since November, and I think the Nexus may become my new default phone.

I found the default animated wallpaper distracting right off the bat, while trying to set things up. Though I did look through the other animated wallpapers, and some are not so busy. I'm trying out the waving grass, which is nice.

I was impressed by how the phone automatically imported and installed apps associated with my Google account. I wasn't aware that information was being stored on a server somewhere, and this wasn't something that happened when I switched from my G1 to my Droid, but it's definitely cool.

I'm sure I'll have more feedback as I get more experience with it. In the meanwhile, I think this was a nice move on Google's part. There's lots of room for improvement with Android, but one thing Google gets is that the success of an OS is directly related to the software it runs, and drawing and keeping Android developers happy is a key part of that strategy.

Thanks, Google. :)

Welcome, Canadians!

2010-03-15T18:12:00.001-07:00

I heard a report that Canadians were finally able to purchase paid apps in the Android Market, so I went the developer portal and looked at available countries to sell to, and what do you know? It's true...finally!

I don't know where the logistical hang-ups were that kept Canadians from buying and selling paid apps in the Android Market, but I'm glad they red tape finally got cut.

Polyclef Software: The Year in Review

2010-03-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

And what a year it's been.

For those of you who don't know the story, my friend Philip works at Google. Last year he got a G1, the first Android phone, as a bonus at work. He already had an iPhone, so he gifted it to me for my birthday (March 12th). Turns out it was a great gift!

I hadn't heard of Android before then. When I got the phone, I started reading up on Android. I learned there was an app store comparable to the iPhone app store, only it was in its infancy. There were other differences, too: only a $25 registration fee (for life), no up-front approval process for apps, and apps that are written natively in Java. There were issues, too. Lack of a good web portal (which is still a problem). But the biggest downside was that Android was a bit of a gamble. At that point no one was really making serious money on Android (at least, no one was talking about it).

But it seemed fairly low-risk to try my hand at writing a few apps and trying to supplement my meager graduate student stipend with a little extra cash. My first app was TippinTime, a tip calculator. It was a nice first app because it taught me the basics of how the interface elements like text fields and buttons are laid out using XML and at the most basic level how to construct an app in Android. I published it for free, no ads or anything. It's still doing well on the market despite the flood of tip calculators. It has 6961 active installs and a 4.5-star rating.

What I really wanted to do was make games, but first I wanted to explore the basics of how to use elements of the mobile platform. So I made Where Am I?, a simple app that uses the phone's GPS to determine longitude and latitude, calculate distance from the equator, and other basic location information. I made DogWhistle, a simple app that generates high frequency sounds, and JoyBuzz, a simple app that makes a noise and vibrates when you push a button. All this was just to learn how to do basic input/output with various features. But I put DogWhistle up for $0.99 and was instantly surprised that people would actually pay money for it. The retention rate is fairly low, but to date I've made over $600, which isn't bad.

My first attempt at a game was Spades. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, but it was a lot of fun, too. I designed my own card layouts, using variants of the Android mascot as King, Queen, and Jack.

That was a lot of fun.

When I had my first big day of sales, I thought I had it made. Unfortunately, a rival app appeared on the market within the same week. I made another poor decision, releasing a free ad-supported version that was virtually identical to the paid version. Paid sales never got that high again, but I learned some good lessons.

Next came Golf Solitaire, which I split into two apps, free and paid, but was a bit more clever about. The free version has ads, but only the first 9 holes. The full version has all 18 and no ads. People who like the game are willing to pay to double the content. And now the paid version of Golf Solitaire is #1 in paid apps in Cards & Casino.

Last summer was a fairly big gamble. I worked all summer on a project called Relativia, a mobile RPG that required players to physically travel to real-world locations in order enter places like dungeons and markets within the game. The GPS would tell if you were close enough to a dungeon before the game would let you enter. I thought it would be a novel way to monetize apps, by getting sponsorship from business to be featured as in-game locations. I entered the app in the Android Developer Challenge II. It placed in the top 25%, but was not a finalist.

And when I released the app for free on the market, I got a rude awakening. People just about universally hated the idea of having to travel somewhere to unlock game content. Typical comments praised the puzzle combat system and just about every other element of the game except for the mobile aspect. So I pulled it, retooled it, and released it as a non-mobile version called Puzzle Lords, which has a paid and free version. They are both highly-rated, but are not making a whole lot of money. If I put all my efforts into adding content and polishing the game, it could be a hit, but right now it requires more resources than I have. Still, I learned an awful lot working on that game, even if the effort/reward ratio has been much lower than other apps.

Dominoes was the latest big hit. It was fun working on the game due to the challenges faced by laying out dominoes on such a small space. I think I found a good compromise, and lots of users agree. It's still selling 30-50 copies a day and is ranked #5 in Cards & Casino.

Along the way I churned out lots of small utility apps, health and construction-related calculators, the PetBook database for pets, and many others. They don't sell much on their own, but produce a nice long-tail effect, summing to a decent amount each month.

Most recently, I worked with Kenny and Kyle over at In A Day Development to bring Golf Solitaire to the iPhone. Performance so far hasn't been great, but it also isn't a flatline. I'm still optimistic that over time it will find an audience and continue to grow.

I also made a deal with Mobile Stream to bring the paid version of EasyTether to the Android Market, where it's been very successful.

As of this writing, Polyclef Software has 28 apps published on the Android Market:

19 paid, 9 free
9 of those are games, 19 are utilities
2 (Golf Solitaire and Golf Solitaire Free) are ported to the iPhone

Here's a chart of my monthly net revenue over the past year:

This month is projected, and it's looking very good.

Sales are up. Ad revenue is up. And Android is shipping 60,000 phones a day. Polyclef has all kinds of cool stuff in the pipeline, including a whole line of multiplayer games and potentially apps specifically for the emerging tablet market. So stay tuned...this year should be a wild ride.

I leave you with this cool Android cake my girlfriend Laurie made for me for my birthday.

Yes, he is looking into your soul.

Some New Stats

2010-03-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

The new year has seen Polyclef breaking some very nice new stats.

Last month the mark for 10,000 apps sold was passed...vaulted over, actually. It's already over 11,000 now.

I started tracking usage stats last September in those apps that require internet access. Recently, both Golf Solitaire Free and Spades Free passed the 1,000,000 sessions mark. That means people have played both of those games over a million times each!

I hope to shatter those and many other records by the end of the year. Thanks to all the people out there who have downloaded and used Polyclef apps!

Use an Android to Control...an Android?

2010-03-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

This cool article from Wired, about a couple of dudes who built a robot with a G1 as the brains, really got me thinking.

It makes perfect sense to use a mobile phone (at least a fairly open, easily programmable one) as the nerve center of a robot. It's small, powerful, with wi-fi capabilities to communicate with a server if need be, and GPS for localizing.

Cool, huh?

Google Rewards Devs With Free Phones

2010-03-02T19:31:00.001-08:00

This was a welcome surprise today.

Due to your contribution to the success of Android Market, we would like to present you with a brand new Android device as part of our developer device seeding program. You are receiving this message because you’re one of the top developers in Android Market with one or more of your applications having a 3.5 star or higher rating and more than 5,000 unique downloads.

That's a snippet from the email sent to qualifying developers today. Did I have a qualifying app? C'mon now. I have 6!

Golf Solitaire Free: 73,605 (4 stars)
JoyBuzz: 17,298 (3.5 stars)
PetBook Free: 9,081 (3.5 stars)
Puzzle Lords Free: 5,957 (4 stars)
Spades Free: 113,727 (3.5 stars)
TippinTime: 11,189 (4.5 stars)

Another week and Dominoes would have also made the list, with 4,836 downloads and a 4-star rating.

Do I get 6 phones? Mmmm...probably not. But I'm happy with the one, and I'd just like to extend a hearty thanks to the folks at Google for this gesture. I'm certainly happy to be developing for Android, and I'm also racking up a pretty nice Android phone collection. I've got my trusty G1, an HTC Tattoo, my Droid, and hopefully soon a shiny new Nexus One. Verizon's service has been nice, but it is a bit more expensive. I'm not locked into a contract, so I may very well head back to T-Mobile with the Nexus One.

Which phone are they sending out? That part is a bit strange. If you're in the US, you randomly either get a Motorola Droid or a Nexus One.

Now, I already own a Droid, so I would very much like a Nexus One. I'm not sure why they didn't just dole out the preferred device on a first-come, first-serve basis. If they have a set number of each they could give devs their preferred device until they ran out, then just give the rest away to those who were the last ones to register. As it is, some devs have already talked of swapping, and someone has already set up a forum to facilitate the swaps. Ah well...a pretty minor quibble with otherwise wonderful news.

How Do You Know When You're Doing Well? When the Competition Sues You!

2010-03-02T10:09:00.001-08:00

Gizmodo reports that Apple is suing handset manufacturer HTC (makers of the G1, Nexus One, myTouch, Hero, and Tattoo) for copyright infringement on 20 patents, such as:

The ‘849 Patent, entitled "Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image," was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.

As many comments over there have pointed out, the suit looks completely ridiculous, mostly based on the absurdly broad language of the patents. If Apple could show that HTC was engaged in corporate espionage, and snuck into their labs one night and stole a bunch of code and hardware, that would be one thing. But this just looks like a case of "Look! They made a touchscreen smartphone too!"

I would hope that HTC countersues and wins. This kind of practice just seems utterly desperate and frivolous. One the plus side, you can tell that Apple is obviously feeling threatened in the marketplace.

February Recap

2010-03-02T07:37:00.001-08:00

Soon I plan to do a recap of my first year selling apps in the Android Market (whew!), but for now I'll just stick to recapping last month...

Unfortunately I'm going to start getting a little vague and cagey about hard numbers. This is because I've started to make deals with other developers, and those deals don't necessarily include publicly disclosing sales and revenue figures.

But I can say that February was Polyclef's best month to date, revenue-wise. The Android Market ranking shuffle didn't have a big impact, keeping my top-performing apps in the top five in their category. Ad revenue has stayed mostly flat, while sales have increased. Historically, ad and sales revenue had been about 50/50, but February saw a shift to over 60% of my revenue coming from sales. I'd prefer that most of my revenue come from ads...ad-based apps are a better defense against piracy, and I don't have to worry about finding the best price points, etc. But I'll take the revenue how ever it wants to come.

I'm not doing nearly as well as Edward Kim (see the last post), but I'm getting there. Instead of having a single, high-profile app, I've got a variety of about 20 apps, and I'm using a mixed strategy for revenue. This has led to, and will hopefully continue to lead to, robust, sustained growth.

Stay tuned for the yearly recap, where I'll talk about how far Polyclef has come and what the plans are for the next year...obviously I'm optimistic.

An Android Success Story

2010-03-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

Edward Kim has blogged about his experiences with his app Car Locator, after placing 3rd in his category in the ADC2 and being featured in the Android Market.

He says he was making $80-100/day off the app before it was featured. Being featured bumped this up to about $435/day. Now, I'd heard that being featured by Apple in the iTunes store can vault your app into massive numbers, but until now I hadn't heard about any comparable effect in the Android Market. Being featured more than quadrupled his daily revenue, so I'd say that's a pretty nice effect. It does make sense, since the featured apps are the very first thing you see when you open the Android Market app.

None of my apps has been featured by Google, but PetBook did get featured in T-Mobile's Top Picks. Then I only had a free version, and I've struggled with complaints from some users regarding information being saved properly and the photo gallery working right. Here's a graphic of my usage stats for PetBook, and the bump I got from T-Mobile near the end of January (that second bump is from releasing an update).

Around the time of the first peak, I had two $9.00 days from the advertising in PetBook, but within a week I was back down to the norm of about $0.75/day. It would have been interesting to see if I had an active paid version whether that would have translated into some really nice sales, but oh well.

The temporary boost was nice, but apparently nowhere near being featured in the main Android Market. Maybe someday...

Anyway, congrats to Edward. He encourages devs interested in mobile app development to give Android a try. More awareness of success stories is going to lead to much more interest in the platform. I'm generating a very nice income myself...not up to $13K a month, yet, but definitely a self-sustaining income. So it can definitely be done.

Pro Golf Solitaire Free for iPhone

2010-02-24T07:25:00.000-08:00

The free, ad-supported iPhone version of Golf Solitaire Free has been approved and released. It apparently takes some time for new apps to be indexed so that they appear on new release pages and in searches in iTunes. Unfortunately, there were already several golf solitaire apps in the iPhone market, but In A Day Development did a fantastic job with the conversion to iPhone, and I think our version is the best on the market now. With the addition of a free version, which our competitors lack, I think we'll soon gain the competitive edge.

I can't go without commenting on Apple's app review process. I'm not going to go into details. Suffice to say, their approval criteria are...strange. The best thing I can say about it is that it was fast. And it certainly does make me appreciate the Android Market's approach.

Asplosive Growth for Android

2010-02-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

According to EuroDroid, Gartner estimates that about 6.8 million handsets were purchased last year.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that currently about 60,000 Android handsets a day are being shipped. That would result in about 22 million Android handsets by the end of the year, assuming no growth.

But we know there's a new slew of Android phones coming out this year, including ones from Sony Ericsson, Dell, Acer, and others that haven't even entered the market yet. So 22 million is pretty conservative.

We're probably going to see at least a quintupling of the Android market by the end of the year.

Hold on to your butts.

Android Market Rankings Shuffle

2010-02-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

The rankings of apps in the Android Market changed quite a bit, I noticed yesterday. At first I thought it was a periodic bug. I've seen my apps mis-ranked due to glitches in the past. But this actually looks like it might be a permanent change, and it looks like it's probably due to a change in the ranking formula.

For at least the past week, Dominoes had been holding firm at #2 and Golf Solitaire at #4. Here are the new rankings as of yesterday:

Golf Solitaire is now #1, which is cool. But Dominoes slid all the way down to #6. So if this is a deliberate change to the system, what happened?

My guess is that they changed the relative weighting of both retention rate and customer ratings. Here are the stats for both apps (click image to view full-size):

Dominoes has over twice as many active installs, but a slightly lower retention rate and customer rating. And they're both the same price, so that shouldn't be a factor in their difference.

If this is an effort on Google's part to improve rankings by placing more emphasis on quality, then I suppose I'm pleased. I now have a #1 app again, and Dominoes is still selling well. If anyone else has noticed changes and has any further input or insight, please share in the comments.

Pro Golf Solitaire for iPhone is Here!

2010-02-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

Check it out here:

EasyTether

2010-02-18T06:32:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that Polyclef Software has just published EasyTether, a new tethering app for Android developed by Mobile Stream.

As of this writing, the full version of EasyTether sells for $9.95 (while the only other tethering app on Android right now, PdaNet, sells for $23.95).

If you're an Android user in need of tethering, log on to the market and get your copy now!

Pro Golf Solitaire Coming Soon to iPhone

2010-02-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Kenny and the folks over at In A Day Development have finished the port of our popular game Golf Solitaire. It's been submitted to Apple for approval (which should take anywhere from 3 days to ???).

They had to adjust the name, since there was a collision with an existing app. Here are some screens:

Looks great. :) If you have an iPhone or know someone that does, give it a shot!

Website Redesign

2010-02-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

Polyclef Software has a new website design.

Most importantly, the website detects whether you're accessing it from a mobile device or your desktop, and renders the appropriate version. Those accessing from an Android phone can click icons to access apps directly in the Android Market.

As mentioned on the new site, we're also looking for beta testers. If you're interested, contact us at polyclefsoftware@gmail.com.

January Recap

2010-01-31T08:32:00.000-08:00

January turned out to be a better month than expected. The first week started out below the average for the previous month. Sales, especially in Dominoes, started to decline. I thought maybe I'd reached some kind of saturation point for the game. But this last week has been the strongest ever in sales, and I'm going to be very close to last month's total. For the first time in a while, sales revenue is going to beat ad revenue, which has been pretty flat this month.

The free version of Golf Solitaire has the lowest click-through rate of any app, and that'a probably because I don't serve ads on the same screen where the user is playing. They only see ads on the title screen, the high score screen, and between holes. There is now support for large ads that take up the bulk of the screen, to be used as transitions between content. I was toying with the idea of using them in GS, but I think a lot of people might not be happy with such a change, so I'm going to leave things as they are for now.

This month I released both free (ad-supported) and paid versions of Puzzle Lords. It's been well-received, with over 4,000 downloads of the free version and a 4-star rating. I didn't want to release a paid version right away, because I knew there would be some major kinks to work out. There was a memory-related bug associated with the looping music track that was causing a lot of crashes early on, so I just removed combat music. For Android games in the future, I think I'm just going to stick with short intro themes and sound effects...no looping tracks. I had a request for a colorblind version, which was pretty quick and easy to institute and seemed to make the colorblind customers happy. But the biggest request was to be able to save dungeon progress. That was the last pretty fundamental functionality. At this point, there seems to be sufficient demand to add more content, and hopefully a bit more polish. The game is still rough around the edges, but then again, it is both a puzzle game and an RPG (albeit a very scaled-down one). Still, the local version was essentially implemented by one person (me), and even implementing a small number of elements (equipable items, enemies, quests, classes, spells, etc.) is extremely time-consuming.

Hopefully in the next month I'll have the time to implement several more dungeons with at least a couple of unique enemies, another boss, and more items. So stay tuned.

January finished strong, so I'm hoping that will carry on through to February. Work on the multiplayer framework is coming along. I'm now thinking of possibly first implementing a turn-based word game as the first game in this framework, since I know there is high demand.

Also, I'm going to dabble a bit with the XBOX 360 game development framework, since I have worked up a game design for a cooperative platformer...working title: Awesome Alpine Adventure. By the way, does anybody reading this blog know how to yodel? Or know anybody who can? I'm not joking...I really need a couple of yodelers, one male and one female.

Golf Solitaire Resurgence

2010-01-25T06:30:00.000-08:00

The perceived wisdom for smartphone app sales is that most of your sales tend to come in the first few days of release, when the app is most visible. Subsequent bumps are generally due to other factors, like releasing a free demo version or getting featured somewhere.

Fortunately, my overall best-selling app, Golf Solitaire, has bucked that trend. Here's a chart of sales since the game was released in May:

Sales have steadily increased month over month...a very nice trend. And you'll notice that I already have over 300 sales this month with about a week left.

I believe the highest rank it achieved was #3, before sliding back down to #9. But it never fell out of the top ten and as of this writing it has managed to climb back up to #4. I was resigned to see it slide down the rankings, replaced by newer apps, but it just keeps on keeping on, which is very satisfying.

I've added a mulligan feature (which unfortunately had a scoring bug), but that's now been fixed. People seem to love the game, and I hope it keeps on performing well throughout the year.

Golf Solitaire on iPhone

2010-01-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

I've worked out a deal with Kenny and the folks over at In A Day Development for an iPhone port of my popular app Golf Solitaire. I originally designed the game for the 480x320 resolution of what was then the only Android phone on the market, the G1. This is the same resolution as the iPhone, so in terms of graphics and their placement, the game should port relatively well to the iPhone and look pretty good on that platform. IADD has a screenshot of the title screen in an iPhone skin...looks nice!

They're estimating it should take them about a month to do the port, but it sounds like the approval process isn't that bad these days, so hopefully Golf Solitaire will be available on the iPhone before Spring.

I'm very interested to see if the game performs well at all on that platform. It's simple, but I think simplicity often works very well for mobile games. On Android, the game has been my best performer overall between the ad revenue for the free version and sales of the paid version. Sales for the game continue to increase month over month, rather than fading away, which is nice. Currently, Golf Solitaire is #5 in paid Cards&Casino games and #75 in paid games overall. I consistently get comments stating how addictive the game is, and it currently has a 4.5/5.0 rating. Even if it is marginally successful on the iPhone, it will probably financially outperform the Android versions, but we'll just have to see.

Stay tuned...

Web Portals for Android

2010-01-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

The best thing that could happen to Android right now is for Google to unveil a real desktop client for the Android Market that provides a live view of the market as if viewed from a phone, filterable by hardware configuration and carrier. Ideally it would also be integrated with Google Checkout so that users could browse and purchase apps from their desktop.

As of this writing, this is what the official Android Market site looks like, and it's pretty horrible. It's just a landing page with a few outdated featured apps.

At one point Cyrket provided a live snapshot of the market, but Google did something on their end to make the feed that Cyrket was using unusable. So it's been dead for a while. And AndroidStats, a great site that used the Cyrket feed, is consequently also dead.

For a while people touted AndroidLib as a viable replacement. But it is horribly slow on my machine (I think it's probably not scaling well). It only filters by time and rating, and is far from from a live view. I also really dislike the interface, full of feeds and clutter.

So far the most viable 3rd-party contender is AndroidZoom. They had a makeover recently, and the site looks very good. Apps can be sorted by All/Free/Paid and Newest/Popularity/Rating. The interface is clean and sharp. The information is a bit outdated (this again is probably due to the lack of a live public feed), but it's probably the best thing out there right now.

At last estimate, the Android Market had over 20,000 apps and was still growing fast. Searching and browsing for apps only on your device is not ideal, and shouldn't be the only option. Google really needs to put together an official web portal, or at the very least make the public feed available again.

What is Google's Strategy with the Nexus One?

2010-01-13T13:16:00.001-08:00

So the Nexus One is probably the highest-end smartphone on the market right now. Google has branded it a "superphone". That's a bit much, but it is a nice device. Supposedly they've sold ~20,000 units in the first week, and there are issues with customer support and glitchy 3G service.

Ultimately, though, what was Google's strategy here? They risk alienating manufacturer partners like Motorola by directly competing with them. I've seen in several places on the web that the strategy behind the Nexus One was to attempt to change the entire smartphone market, and make it more like the television or PC market.

Right now, when you buy a personal computer, you don't buy it from your internet provider. You buy it from a retail outlet, then you go looking for internet service. You don't buy your television from your cable or satellite provider. You buy the TV, then go looking for cable or satellite service. But with smartphones, you're pretty much locked in to buying your phone from your carrier, since the price difference with and without a contract is usually on the order of $300 for most phones.

I bought my Droid off-contract for $529 and I'm going month-to-month with Verizon...mostly because I want the freedom to be able to switch phones and carriers if a device that I want is only available through another carrier. The vast majority of consumers are not going to pay the $300 difference to have the freedom to be off-contract.

Right now, you can apparently use the Nexus One on AT&T's network, but 3G is not supported. Again, most consumers are not going to pay $500 for a phone and whatever the monthly service is for AT&T for subpremium network speeds.

For all intents and purposes, the Nexus One is a T-Mobile phone. It is supposed to be available in the Spring on Verizon, at which point it will be a T-Mobile and a Verizon phone. This is not a game changer. I'm not even sure how it begins to shake up the smartphone business model.

To really shake up the smartphone ecosystem, Google would have needed to release a smartphone that ran on more than two major carriers, supported at least 3G connectivity, and could be purchased off-plan for far less than $500. As far as making it compatible with many carriers, the technology and infrastructure simply may not be sufficient for doing that. As for the price, Google probably needed to sell the Nexus One at an extreme discount, comparable to the contract price, say $200-300, and eat the difference as a loss leader. Google makes money off ads, and if they lost several million dollars up front to basically pay for Android adopters, it would probably be worth it.

As it is, I don't see the Nexus One changing the way business is done in the smartphone market. The device itself is a nice upgrade, and a welcome addition to the newest generation of Android devices. But the business model will not change anything without cooperation and standardization among carriers (not going to happen anytime soon), and not without a heavily discounted off-contract price tag.

I do wish it well. I'm just not sure the strategy behind it is all that sound.

Revenue Drop

2010-01-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Not good news. Yesterday was the worst day for net revenue in over two months. Sales have been steadily sliding this month and ad revenue is down. What's going on?

One possible explanation for the sales slip: the market is saturating, at least for my top games. Maybe most of the people who really wanted Dominoes have bought it by now. Sales for Golf Solitaire, on the other hand, are the highest they've ever been. There should have been an influx of new users from the Christmas holiday, but I've seen no evidence of a bump in sales due to holiday sales. Flurry has estimated Nexus One sales for the first week at about 20,000, which isn't that great, and as I mentioned in my last post, I'm not seeing many accesses to my free apps from Nexus One devices. Nevertheless, my rankings are staying fairly stable, which possibly suggests that everyone else is experiencing the same thing.

What about ads? Ironically, I'm experiencing higher and higher volumes of both views and clicks, but revenue is down. This could just be a result of lower rates for ads following the holiday season. Unlike sales, I would almost expect ad revenue to slide a bit after the holidays, though I was hoping the increase in views and clicks would offset the difference. I've got updates to both Golf Solitaire (now with a mulligan for each round!) and Spades (blind nil and multiple difficulty settings). Golf Solitaire will be updated this weekend, and Spades probably next week. Hopefully that will inject a little life into sales and ads for those two titles.

The numbers on both these sources will naturally fluctuate. The biggest dent currently is from the drop in sales of Dominoes. In the first 10 days of last month, I sold 353 copies of Dominoes. The first 10 days of this month, I sold 241. That's a pretty significant drop, despite the rating staying unchanged at 4 stars and the ranking holding steady at #2. At some point, if sales dip below double digits, I'll consider shifting the title to free/ad-supported, but we're not there yet.

Hopefully this will just be a dip before a generally larger surge. I don't necessarily anticipate that from the Nexus One, but the new Sony-Ericsson phone is coming out soon, plus a whole new bunch of phones from the likes of Acer and Dell. Plus, Android is coming to AT&T, so it will soon be all on carriers. Here's hoping that yesterday was the lowest it gets for the rest of the year.

Update

2010-01-12T07:12:00.000-08:00

Despite releasing several new utility calculators and the free, ad-supported Puzzle Lords, net revenue for this month has flattened out. Now, it's flattened out to a nice level, but you'd always like to see continued growth, especially with new devices coming out.

In the past week, there has been no Nexus One bump, as there was with the Droid. My own stats are probably not representative, but my two most popular apps currently have fewer than 100 Nexus One users. The top three devices on my most popular app (~24,000 active installs) are:

1) G1 (35.3%)
2) myTouch (14.8%)
3) Droid (13.9%)

The Droid has vaulted to third in a short couple of months, with users logging over 77,000 game sessions in that time. In the past week, Nexus One users have logged 79 sessions. It's still early, and I hope the Nexus One is a success...but from my perspective it's not looking great right now.

Anyway, currently Dominoes is still #2 in Cards&Casino and Golf Solitaire has fought its way back up to #6. Golf Solitaire sales have been up, but unfortunately the combined sales of Dominoes and GS has stayed flat this month.

We're starting to make some real progress on the turn-based multiplayer framework, though, which should enable reasonably quick ports of Dominoes, Spades, and Hearts to online multiplayer versions. I'm planning on all of these being ad-supported since, 1) Networked games are inherently more complex and I fully expect there to be all sorts of issues, 2) On top of that we're using Google App Engine as the backend, which is free up to a certain number of requests, then starts costing money. We can't afford to be paying for people with pirated copies to use our server, 3) Free games are going to have a lot more users, and a large user base is important for the success of multiplayer games.

There's also huge demand for a multiplayer Scrabble-type game, and that should be reasonably easy to implement. I've already done a simple word game that checks against a dictionary, and the graphics should be reusable.

I prefer to have a balance of paid apps and ads, but I think this is the strategy for the online multiplayer games, so if it ends up making a disproportionate amount of the income, so be it.

Puzzle Lords is Out!

2010-01-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last week I released the local adaptation of my ADC2 entry Relativia. It's rebranded Puzzle Lords, and it's a free RPG/puzzle hybrid that lets you create a character, fight enemies through a puzzle game combat system, level up, buy equipment, etc.

There are a few kinks that still need to be worked out. Quite a few people were reporting crashes late in combat. On the hunch that the looping music played during combat was causing a memory leak, I disabled music during combat. Several people report that fixing the problem. I think going forward that I'll plan to have no looping background music for games...just short themes that signify the opening and ending of stages or rounds. The media player in Android is not that great, and the looping wasn't seamless anyway.

Also, at least one spell is still overpowered, giving you enough mana from casting it to endlessly recast it. I published an update, but it's still messed up, so that's on my to-do list, along with some general balancing issues (some users are reporting they are able to two-shot enemies at higher levels). Enemy HP is supposed to scale, but it's apparently not keeping pace with the damage scaling.

And of course people are already asking for more content, which is good. I think it got as low as a 2 1/2 star rating before the bug fixes, and now it's up to 4 stars. One user said they would have been willing to pay for the game, but was glad it was free. That's nice to hear, but since it was a relatively big, complex game (at least for one person to test and debug), I wouldn't have felt right charging for it out of the box. It's serving up ads, and performance is doing pretty well for the first week, so I'll probably keep it that way in the near term.

Anyway, if you've got an Android phone, check it out!

Nexus One Launched

2010-01-05T10:56:00.001-08:00

Google is currently having its press conference to announce its new in-house Android phone, the Nexus One. The new features of 2.1 don't sound all that earth-shattering (stuff like voice-to-text for all input fields). It looks like an incremental upgrade to the Droid, both in terms of software and hardware.

The site selling the Nexus One is now live:

http://www.google.com/phone

The site's got a cool interactive demo of the phone and some of its apps. It's a little buggy for me, even in Google Chrome, but it's still kind of cool.

I'm not going to replace my Droid. If they happen to be giving them out at Google I/O this year, that would be great.

I'm curious to see how well this phone does, sales-wise. It's going to have the mighty behemoth that is Google handling the marketing and advertising, and that's what they do best. Of course I'd like to see them sell truckloads of these things, but time will tell.

Update: Interesting. I just looked at the purchase page for the Nexus One, and it's showing you can buy it subsidized with a contract from T-Mobile for $179, off-contract (to use with ATT) for $529. I knew that already. But there's a slot for using the Nexus One on Verizon, coming this Spring. I don't know how that's going to work. I thought a phone had to be either GSM or CDMA. Maybe there are two versions of the phone? I'd initially heard that Verizon wasn't interesting in supporting the phone. Guess that info was wrong.

The Year in Review

2010-01-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

I started selling Android apps in March 2009. I thought it would be a nice way to supplement my graduate school stipend. By the end of the year I ended up earning more from Android apps than I get from my stipend.

Here's revenue by month for 2009:

The summer months were spent working on my ADC2 entry, Relativia, with no new releases. Things really started to pick up at the end of the year. Three things happened:

1) At the end of September, I applied for and was accepted into the AdSense for Mobile Application Content Beta. Ad revenue started to swell.

2) In October I released Dominoes. It shot up to the top 5 in Cards & Casino and has consistently stayed in the top 1 or 2 position for the past month.

3) The Motorola/Verizon Droid was released on November 6th. On my apps with analytics, Droid users now make up over 12% of the user base. This is a pretty big chunk in less than two months. They're selling a lot of Droids.

Here is daily income for the month of December:

It's a pretty weird pattern, with a big spike a few days before Christmas, but flattening out on and after Christmas. I'm okay with the flattening, as long as the numbers stay where they're at.

Of course, up is always nice too.

Google has a press conference slated for Jan. 5th, where they're expected to publicly announce the Nexus One, which is supposedly Google's pure Android experience, not adapted by a carrier or manufacturer. The phone is expected to be supported through T-Mobile. Hopefully it will be as or more successful than the Droid.

Even if it isn't, I expect to see sustained growth in the Android user base. The new Sony Ericsson XPERIA is also expected to be a very nice device, and that's due to be released early this year. Acer apparently has a whole slew of Android devices they plan to release this year as well.

So I expect 2010 to be a big year for Android, and hopefully a big year for Polyclef. I've got tons of apps and games in the pipeline, while I continue to see an increase in both ads and sales revenue of my existing apps.

Stay tuned, and see you on the other side of 2010.

Where's My Boom?

2009-12-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

According to this article:

The iPod touch is Apple's not-so-secret weapon when it comes to the App Store, especially come Christmas. This year was no exception, according to stats released by Flurry.

The company says that over Christmas, downloads from iPod touches 'eclipsed' iPhone downloads by 172% - and that downloads from third-generation iPod touches jumped by 900% on Christmas Day itself, compared to the average of previous Fridays in December.

Meanwhile, Flurry says December was a record-breaking month for the App Store, with downloads increasing by more than 50% compared to November based on average daily download figures.

The company also tracked Android Market over Christmas, revealing that downloads from the Motorola Droid jumped 93% on Christmas Day compared to previous Fridays in December.

This is a little weird, because I actually expected a bump on Christmas, and didn't get one. I saw a weird spike on Dec. 19-21, with the 21st being my best day of the month by far. But then revenue dropped back down to normal levels, and Christmas Day was actually the 5th lowest day of the month.

Now, the article doesn't break down paid vs. free app downloads, which is pretty important. I was hoping for a spike on or following Christmas, and haven't seen one yet. Not sure why, if these stats are to be believed. Maybe when people first get their phones, they're reluctant to immediately buy apps or click on in-game ads.

Ah well...revenue is still good. It's just not increasing quite yet. Maybe I'll see a climb over the next week or two. Dominoes has spent some time at over the past week, but is currently #2. And Golf Solitaire has dropped out of the top 5 to #7.

I'm hoping to get Puzzle Lords, the revamped version of Relativia, released this week. Hopefully it will be better received than it's predecessor.

2 Back in the Top 5

2009-12-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Last month I had two games ranked in the top 5 in their paid category, Golf Solitaire at #3 and Dominoes at #5. For a while, Golf Solitaire had fallen out of the top 5, but yesterday it wedged its way back, so that I once again have two apps in the top 5, Dominoes at #2 and GS at #5.

For those of you curious about what kind of numbers it takes to make/maintain those rankings, Dominoes has sold an average of 33.75 units/day for December, while Golf Solitaire has sold an average of 7.65/day for the same period.

Yes, You Can Make Money as an Indie Android Developer

2009-12-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

For the past three months, my income from Android development has produced a livable wage. And the good news is that it keeps increasing month over month.

The past three days I've seen a very nice jump in the payment rate for my ads, which has generated my first three +$100 days in ads alone. Sales on top of that are putting me close to $200/day. I don't think there are too many indie app/game developers who wouldn't be happy with that revenue stream.

There are periodic dips in usage and sales day-by-day, but the week-by-week trend is sustained growth. I would expect some kind of bump from Christmas this week, though I honestly have no idea how many people gift smartphones (buy your loved ones an Android phone!). Hopefully tons of new users will activate their shiny new phones Christmas morning and take a virtual visit to the Android Market to buy a bunch of new apps.

I would love to hear reports from other Android devs. A few months ago it was mostly doom and gloom, but if I'm seeing this kind of growth, and none of my games are even ranked in the top 50 overall, then there have to be others who are making some respectable revenue.

I'm not dying to have a ton of new competitors, but in general I would like to see more devs come to the platform. The growth of the market is an indication that that's already happening. I think an increase in both the quantity and the quality of apps will in general be good for everyone, users and devs alike. And I'd like to hear more success stories...I know they're out there.

mid-December Recap

2009-12-18T07:33:00.001-08:00

Revenue has not continued to rise from the end of November, but remains steadily in the $120-150/day range, which is just fine by me. I know of no way to track the number of sales through T-Mobile's new carrier billing system, so I have no way of knowing its effect. So far I haven't seen any kind of bump in sales. Dominoes remains at #2 and Golf Solitaire had spent most of the last two weeks at #8, with a little time at #7. But this morning it had bumped up to #6. For a couple of days in the last two weeks, the app rankings have been screwed up, showing double entries for some lower ranked apps and pushing the real top-ranked apps off the top. I don't know how many users are affected, but that can't help sales when it happens

Google, in partnership with carriers, is constantly working on revisions to the market, so I suppose glitches now and then are expected. I've never noticed being bumped more than 24 hours, so that's something. The carrier billing on T-Mobile is supposed to keep rolling out until the end of the month. And of course Christmas is just around the corner. So I'm actually expecting an increase in revenue, at least in the last week of December, but we'll see.

Carrier Billing Launches on T-Mobile

2009-12-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Apparently T-Mobile has begun soft launching the ability for users to charge paid apps directly to their monthly bill, rather than entering a credit card through Google Checkout. Users will begin seeing the option when they click the Buy button for apps, and the rollout will be staggered across their user base through Dec. 30, so by then everyone with an Android phone on T-Mobile should have the functionality.

I'm not sure why they did it in such a stealthy way. Users that may want to bill apps directly to their T-Mobile bill might not even be aware they have that capability now, unless they try to buy an app. And if they previously had a credit card rejected, they may not even try. And I just posted a question in the T-Mobile developer forums about how devs will be affected. I don't know if such transactions will also show up in our Google Checkout sales interface. If so, that's great. If not, where are we supposed to track such sales? In Google Checkout we had to manually set up sales tax for valid states. Is T-Mobile handling that now? Is there some transparent interface between T-Mobile and Google Checkout? It would be nice to know such things. It would also be nice to be able to track how many sales are a result of carrier billing vs. credit card.

Anyway, revenue so far in December has fluctuated between $120/day and $150/day, which is great. I wondered if revenue would continue to climb, but it seems to have settled somewhat in that range for now.

Dominoes is holding tight at #2 and Golf Solitaire has traded the #7 and #8 slots with Euchre all week, but is currently sitting at #8. InfusionCalc is sliding down the ranks for paid Health apps, but it continues to sell about the same amount. I released an update for Dominoes to be compatible with QVGA devices, such as the HTC Tattoo. I have no idea whether it's actually showing up on the market for folks with a Tattoo...if you have one or know somebody with one, let me know if you can see Dominoes in the market, please.

It would be great to have a tool that allows you to get a live preview of the market from the perspective of a particular hardware/carrier configuration, but I'll just add that to the list of nice-to-haves. I could embed analytics into Dominoes to see what devices people are running it on, but that would require adding internet permissions, which might adversely affect sales for an app that has no obvious need to connect to the internet.

Anyway, the European version of the Droid, the Milestone, apparently is selling incredibly well. One online retailer reports completely selling out of stock in less than 24 hours. And Time magazine just named the Droid as the gadget of the year, so hopefully they'll continue to see strong sales through the holiday season and into 2010. I'm certainly not complaining, but I sure wouldn't mind if the numbers kept rising.

Droid, Early Impressions

2009-12-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

I got my Droid yesterday and was able to activate it month-to-month through Verizon over the phone. I've had it for less than 24 hours, but here are some early impressions:

--This thing is fast. I don't know a whole lot about processors, but the speed must be less dependent on the actual number and more on other factors, because I don't think the listed speed of the Droid is significantly higher than the G1, but there is a pretty huge difference in performance. I click an icon to open an app and it opens almost instantly. I didn't realize how slow screen transitions were on the G1...now I do.

--The network is strong. I'm getting 4 solid bars of 3G goodness at home. With TMobile I normally got 2 bars at home, and that's what I was getting yesterday, even with the upgrade to 3G.

--The hardware keyboard...I like it. The one thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have room to give numbers their own dedicated keys, so they're ALTs on the upper row of letters. This is a bit annoying if you're entering in numeric or alphanumeric info, but I can live with it.

--I kind of miss my trackball, and to use the D-pad on the Droid you have to slid open the keyboard, so for basic menu navigation you need to use the touchscreen. Luckily the screen feels even more accurate and responsive than my G1. I still kind of miss my trackball.

--Android 2.0 is very nice. There are already a few little touches that make the experience better. The screen auto-orients to landscape or portrait depending on how you are holding the phone...this is nice. When you're on a phone call, if you take the phone away from your ear (e.g. to enter in a number) the screen becomes active. My G1 didn't do this...you had to press the menu button and then pull up the dialpad to enter a number...annoying.

So far in terms of usability, speed, and functionality this thing is 3 steps up from the G1. Looks like it was a worthwhile upgrade, but I'm glad I'm month-to-month, because it wouldn't surprise me if in 6-9 months there's a shiny new phone I'd be interested in switching to. But so far I'm extremely happy with the Droid.

November Recap...Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Droid

2009-12-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

Android as a mobile OS is finally starting to take off. It's now on at least 2 phones on every major carrier except ATT, and the monster is the Droid. Initial reports indicated that Verizon/Motorola had sold 100K in the first weekend, 250K the first week, and estimated 600K by the end of the year. But new reports indicate those stats were lowballed, and that the Droid has actually sold between 700-800K already and will easily top 1M by the end of the year. Verizon apparently launched a $100M marketing campaign and it looks like it's paying off.

What does this mean for devs? Reports were that revenue from games jumped 53% from September to October. I haven't seen any numbers for November yet, but I'd be surprised if they didn't increase at least another 50%.

Personally, I saw an 80% increase from October to November, mostly on strong sales of Dominoes, but also on a boost from ad revenue. Here's a chart of daily revenue:

Notice the trend, as well. I expect another increase in December...possibly not as large as the one from Oct->Nov, but still an increase. But who knows? Either way I'm enjoying the ride.

Hopefully this means I won't have to worry about departmental funding for graduate school next year. Even if the numbers plateaued, that would still be a decent income for a single-person household. But I still plan on releasing new apps, so we'll see how high we can go and how long it will last.

I Finally Get 3G on TMobile in My Area...The Day I'm Cancelling Service

2009-12-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

So I've had my trusty G1 for about 9 months now, and I had signed up on a month-to-month plan. Service has been reliable, over-the-air updates to Android prompt and clean, but I've never gotten 3G coverage while in Lafayette, which is where I live and obviously spend most of my time. When visiting other cities, like Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, or Boston, I'd seen the little 3G symbol appear, but it was nothing but Edge here at home.

But I wake up this morning and look at my phone, and what do I see? The little 3G symbol! I had talked to a TMobile rep a couple of weeks ago and he had said that Lafayette was supposed to get 3G by the end of the month. Guess he was right.

Unfortunately, I just ordered a Droid from Amazon and it's coming today. I plan to switch to Verizon on a month-to-month basis and see how things go. I liked TMobile, though. If I'm not happy with Verizon, I know I'll have a decent place to go back to.

Well That Didn't Last Long

2009-11-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

Dominoes was knocked from the #1 paid slot in Cards & Casino after only a few days on top. A solitaire collection is currently #1, but Dominoes looks like it's going to hang in solid at #2. It's still selling very well (30-40/day). Dominoes is #50 overall in paid games. Comparably, the #16 in Arcade & Action is #30 on the overall list, which gives an indication of the better-selling categories. Golf Solitaire is hanging tight at #7 with 3-10 sales a day, so it doesn't take much to stay in the top 10 in that particular category.

I'll do a recap at the end of November, but it was a very good month. I'd love to see the numbers go up as more and more people buy Android phones, but I certainly would not complain if they stayed right where they were for a while.

Checkout Check

2009-11-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

I'm just finishing up a new app that's probably the first one I've designed and built specifically for my own personal needs. It's called Checkout Check and it's an interface to Google Checkout that lets you generate simple sales reports. Here are some screens:

Here was the problem: If I want to see what my sales in the Android Market are for a given day or date range, I can log in either from the browser on my PC or on my G1. On the browser, the cookies make the login a two-step process. On the phone it's an additional step and each page that loads is quite slow. Either way, there is no way to sort sales for a given day based on the name of the app. You can export a summary to an .xsl file, but get this...you can't export orders with the name of the app!

Let's say I sold 45 apps on a given day and I want to record the sales. If I want to know how many copies of each app I sold, I have to load up the market interface in the browser and manually count them. And like I said, you can't even sort them by app name. As my sales continue to increase, this becomes increasingly tedious.

So I've developed an app that let's me select a date range and an order state and generate a simple report that details the name of each app, the number sold, the gross revenue, and net revenue, and totals for everything. It's kind of amazing to me that I'm not able to generate such a report through the official market interface.

And let me tell you, it wasn't easy using the Google Checkout API, either. There's a Notification API, which works in real time to notify you of any changes to your account, a Notification History API, which allows you to get information on past notifications, and an Order Report API, which generates reports on orders.

But here's the thing...from what I could tell, only new order notifications contain information regarding item name. So what I had to do was send a query to the server for all the new orders for a given time range, returning order number and item name, then send another query for an order report for the given time range, which contained order number, status (CHARGED, CANCELLED, etc.), and cross-index the two to generate a report with the information I wanted. Sounds fun, huh? Because who would actually want to generate a report with the name of the items they're selling, right?

Anyway, it works. Sort of. It's a bit slow, but right now it's reliably fetching sales information for a single day for charged transactions. I'm still having some issues with other order states, and I'm also getting errors when I search for time ranges over a day.

Another fun property of the Notification History API is that you can only fetch 50 orders at a time. If a query return is longer than 50 orders, what you get is an XML response with 50 orders and a next-page-token. You have to send another query using that token to get the next page, and so on for every 50 orders. I'm probably either getting a time-out error or an issue with memory for queries longer than a day, but hopefully I'll figure that out soon.

Anyway, I know I'll find it useful, and I hope other Android devs do as well. I'm sticking ads in it to hopefully generate a little revenue. If the ad revenue just isn't worth it, I'll likely just open-source it and see if other devs can help make it better. Also, right now it only supports transaction fee structures for Android merchants. Google takes 30% per transaction for Android apps, but the normal cut for Google Checkout is a tiered structure, depending on your monthly revenue. For non-Android transactions they take a small percentage and a flat fee for every transactions, and the fee gets smaller the larger your monthly transaction total. If there's enough interest and demand I'll probably augment the app to handle non-Android app transactions, but there's no need to do that right now. Besides, non-Android merchants can still use the app to get a summary of units sold and gross revenue.

Dominoes Hits #1!

2009-11-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yep, I've now got the #1 paid app in Cards & Casino in the Android Market. People must love their dominoes. And revenue continues on an upward trend. I could get used to this.

I'm definitely expecting growth through the end of the year. Black Friday is coming up and I would expect another bump from discounts on the current crop of Android phones, as well as another around Christmas when gifted phones are fired up and new users start looking for apps.

Supposedly Verizon/Motorola has already sold around 250,000 Droids, and I saw a report yesterday that estimated 600,000 would be sold by the end of the year. Good stuff.

On the flip side, Golf Solitaire has slid down to #7, but I'm not going to complain.

T-Mobile Carrier Billing for Apps

2009-11-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Apparently T-Mobile had announced that starting Nov. 17th users would be able to purchase Android apps by easily charging them to their mobile bill. They also announced a custom T-Mobile channel in the market. It's Nov. 18th, and browsing the market and searching for T-Mobile, I don't see either of these functions. I have T-Mobile service, but clicking "Buy" for a paid app still takes me to Google Checkout, with no other payment options.

I was excited when I heard they were implementing this, hoping that more payment options would facilitate more sales, especially impulse purchases, and possibly fewer returns. It's not up by the announced date...I do hope they get it up and running soon.

And another quick update: Dominoes has just moved up to #2, but Golf Solitaire has dropped a slot to #6. Having an app in the #1 slot would be oh so sweet. Just one more to go.

Update

2009-11-18T06:50:00.001-08:00

Well, a few days ago Golf Solitaire was #3 and Dominoes was #5. Now their positions are reversed, with Dominoes at #3 and GS at #5. Dominoes is still selling strong, making up about 30% of my revenue right now.

It's been a while since I've shared some hard numbers, so here they are in a pretty graph. This is net revenue by day for the past 6 weeks:

I had been steadily making about $50/day before the release of Dominoes, which gave me a very nice, and so far robust, increase.

As you can see, revenues had started to dip back down slightly before the release of the Droid on Nov. 6. According to reports, they sold 100,000 Droids in the first weekend after it went on sales, and about 250,000 in the first week. It looks like the Android market is poised for steady, sustained growth, mostly on the back of the Droid. Though the bulk of my users are still on the G1 and MyTouch, I'm seeing a steady rise of Cliq, Hero, Eris, and Droid users in my analytics.

My graphics probably look a little grainy on the Droid, though I have yet to confirm this...still wrestling with whether or not to get a Droid. The only confirmed technical issue was with Kilopod, my Centipede clone. I'd built it for trackball support, and hadn't built in controls for a d-pad, which is what comes on the Droid. A user alerted me to this and I fixed it within an hour.

And that's net revenue, after Google has taken their 30%. Revenue from ads makes up about 55% of the daily take, leaving about 45% to net sales. Ads have tended to make up about 50% of revenue since I started this.

In the works are a Google Checkout client for Android called Checkout Check (I'm not happy with the way Google Checkout exports data), a multiplayer version of Dominoes using Google App Engine as the server (Philip is working on this), a local version of Relativia which will be rebranded as Puzzle Lords, and a new game called Mobile Murder Mystery.

2 in the Top 5

2009-11-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

Dominoes has edged it way into the #5 slot in Cards & Casino in the Android Market. Golf Solitaire is wedged in at #3. So I now have two games in the Top 5 in their category, which is very nice. And Dominoes shows no sign of slowing. It might very well pass GS this week and take the #1 (currently held by Ahoy Matey).

Meanwhile, InfusionCalc had dropped out of the Top 10 in Health, but I've had a nice trickle of sales lately, enough to nudge it back into the #10 slot.

I've noticed now that a lot of my niche apps (like Concrete Calculator) are selling in low, steady numbers again, probably due to the infusion of Droid users.

Update

2009-11-13T07:28:00.001-08:00

Sales and ad revenue are still strong, so I'm happy. Golf Solitaire is still #3 in its category, and Dominoes has moved up one slot to #7, and is still selling briskly.

I came close to buckling down and buying a Droid and just going month-to-month on Verizon, but then I heard that there's a GSM version of the Droid called the Milestone that's released in Germany and will soon be released in Canada. See, T-Mobile, the carrier I'm on right now, uses GSM. Verizon uses CDMA. That means the phones don't run on each other's networks. However, even if the Milestone isn't officially released in the US, you should be able to use it on T-Mobile's network. So I'm going to wait a little bit and see if I can make that happen. That would really be the best option.

Gamers Apparently Don't Want to Roam

2009-11-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

So after crapping out of the ADC2, I released a free, ad-supported version of Relativia on the Android Market. It's had about 500 downloads, with a subpar rating. Turns out that people don't really want to have to visit real-world locations to play a game...or at least not my game. The good news is that they do seem to generally like the puzzle combat system. Here are some comments from users:

Good idea but cant play because im not willing to travel around in real life to do so. Please fix!

Just make the game a world map. Battles are interesting though.

This is a good idea but is dumb that u have to go to real locations.

There are more like this. The general consensus seems to be that people like the game except for the part where you have to go to a coffee shop to enter a dungeon.

So, I need to think about retooling the game to just a local version, which would probably do well. In the meantime I've removed the current version from the market.

The Droid Bump

2009-11-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

So Google and Verizon released the Droid on Friday, with a huge marketing push. And they must be selling the things pretty well, because a number of devs in the discussion groups are reporting an increase in downloads, in some cases up to 100% more than their daily average.

I'm not seeing that big an increase, but I am getting a bump. It's more in the 20-30% range, but it is significant.

I've seen +$100 net revenue every day since Friday, and Sunday was a record high. Here's hoping it keeps up!

The rankings in the market are weird. My Dominoes game (which has only been out about 3 weeks) is about to pass my Golf Solitaire game (which has been out about 6 months) in sales. They cost the same price. The only difference is the ratings...GS is about 4.5 stars, while Dominoes is nearer 4 stars. The retention rate for Dominoes is actually a couple of percentage points higher. I don't think anyone knows exactly how rankings are computed, but it has been speculated that it's likely a combination of downloads, ratings, and retention, hopefully with some way to filter out scamming. Meanwhile, Golf Solitaire is holding steady at #3 in its category, while Dominoes hasn't moved from #8 in about a week. It's going to be very strange if Dominoes surpasses GS in sales, has a higher retention rate, and is still ranked lower.

Anyway, it's very nice to have two apps in the top ten in their category, both selling well. And InfusionCalc has also seen a bump in sales and climbed back to #10 in its category after sliding out of the top 10. I was trying to find out if there was a review or mention of it somewhere, but I couldn't find anything new. It could just be that a lot of nurses and paramedics just bought Droids.

I was in a Verizon store yesterday and a guy in scrubs was buying a Droid, so who knows? Speaking of which, I probably won't be getting a Droid, at least not right now. Their price plan would have me paying $15 a more per month than what I'm paying with T-Mobile, which might be worth it to insure that I have 3G coverage here at home. The T-Mobile rep assured me that 3G would be in place in Lafayette by the end of November. Right now the network is a little slow, but it's fine for my purposes...email and very light browsing. It's like being back on dialup. Unfortunately, I was not impressed with either of the reps at either of the two Verizon outlets I visited this weekend. What I really wanted to see on the Droid was how well it browsed the internet, rendered video, and I wanted to handle the hardware keyboard. The guy at the mall had let the battery drain out of the only test model they had and didn't have a working power cord. Okay. At the other store, the rep let me handle a phone fresh out of the box, but didn't have one with an account configured, so again I couldn't test how it performed on the network.

So I'll just wait. The G1 seems outdated, even though I've had it less than a year. But it's still a solid phone, and not worth ditching for the current generation. The Droid is the nicest phone out right now, but for me it's not worth either paying +%500 for the phone and going month-to-month, or being locked into a contract for $15 a month more than what I'm paying now. Android phones are coming out fast, and I'd like to be off-contract so I could upgrade and potentially move between carriers whenever I want. The current generation of Android phones are all sporting around 500MHz processors, but I know there are 1GHz phones in the pipeline, and hopefully one of those will be released by the end of the year and will be compatible with my T-Mobile service, which will hopefully be upgraded to 3G in my area.

Until then I'm staying put, but I'm certainly happy that lots of other people are either switching carriers or upgrading to new Android phones.

Well Crap

2009-11-05T13:56:00.001-08:00

I just got an email from Google notifying me that Relativia didn't make the cut to the second round of the ADC2. On the bright side, the email did inform me that my game was rated among the top 25% overall. That's something, at least.

I now need to figure out what I'm going to do with the app. Obviously I had hoped to place in the money and ride the wave of publicity to fame and fortune. The monetization plan for the app (besides winning prize money) was to form agreements with companies such that they would pay in order to have their business name incorporated into the game as a physical location to visit. I may still just release the game for free and pursue that option. Alternatively I could try to work ads into the game or try to sell it. I need to think about that.

No word on the actual finalists, yet. Someone in the Android Developers Group speculated that the winners have known for a while now, but were bound by an NDA. My guess is that this is probably the case. It would allow them to modify their entries using the 2.0 SDK for compatibility to coincide with the release of Droid tomorrow. I hope to be blown away by the top 20 in my category. That would make me feel less shitty about not moving on.

We'll see.

Google Implements Analytics for Android and iPhone

2009-11-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

Yep. The SDK and documentation is here. This is pretty cool, but I'm currently using Flurry, and I'm extremely happy with their data and visualization. I may go ahead and use Google Analytics on my next app to see how things compare.

In other news, two sites that I used to rely on heavily to track the status of my apps have been down for a week. Cyrket is a site that provided an up-to-the-minute snapshot of the Android Market. It now directs to a blank page. Speculation in the dev forums indicates that Google may have changed something on their end that screws up the way Cyrket was scraping the information. Not sure if that's true or not, but I hope it's only temporary. In forum posts where people are asking about Cyrket, usually the first response is always, "just use AndroLib". AndroLib is okay. There are a couple of problems with it. One, it's much slower to update, as in days. Two, it doesn't display rank information just as the Android Market does. You can sort apps by date or by rating (which is kind of nice...the Android Market doesn't have this function), but you can't see a view of apps based on their current ranking (at least that I can tell). Want to find out what the #1 ranked app in a given category is? You'll have to actually go to the Android Market on your phone. Lame.

The other site that's currently down is AndroidStats. Actually, it's not completely down, it just hasn't updated with new data for a week. From what I've heard, AndroidStats gets its data via Cyrket, so since it went down, they both went down.

This wouldn't be a big deal if Google had a decent web interface to the market that displayed this information. One could possibly hope that the change they made might be related to implementing their own decent web interface to the market. We'll see. They've been pretty good about consistently updating Android itself, but not so much its web presence.

Another issue: I got an email today from a customer who had purchased Dominoes. She loved it, and wanted to give it as a gift to a friend. She asked that I simply charge her credit card again and send him a copy. Only problem is, I can't do that. And the Android Market doesn't currently support gifting apps. So I told her she could either buy him a gift card to let him buy the app on the market, or we could do an end around the Android Market via PayPal and email. Neither option is great. I have read that Google is considering adding this option. I really hope they do...it could only increase sales.

So, daily movements: Golf Solitaire has dropped back down to #4, but Dominoes keeps inching up...it's currently #8.