back to article Kindle Fire ignites blazing developer interest

Amazon's Kindle Fire has built up quite a head of steam among gadget fans in anticipation of its Tuesday release – and now a new survey shows that that developers are feeling the warmth, as well. "What we asked in our survey was, 'Okay, Mr. Developer, you've been looking at tablets for the last year, what do you make of the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fixed it for ya.

    "The reason for the increased interest in Windows Phone 7 comes from free developer handset bribes".

    Why on earth would developers be interested, when there is no consumer interest, and an abysmal marketshare....

    1. Spearchucker Jones

      You say that...

      ...and yet I wrote an admittedly sub-par app to test out the Windows Marketplace, gave it a stupidly high price to discourage purchase (it's crap, like I said), and submitted it. Almost a year later and I've had 422 sales. That's almost 40 a month.

      I imagine the Android and iOS fans are going to say something about WP7 users settling for crap apps. Maybe. But while crap, my app does serve a niche.

      Forgetting about the quality of my app, it shows exactly why developers would be interested -

      The App Store is flooded.

      The Android Market is prone to cloned apps and exposes users to malware.

      WP7 and Windows 8 have huge revenue potential. Simples.

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Happy

        "I imagine the Android and iOS fans are going to say something....."

        The iOS fanbois should STFU. The Urban Dictionary defines "crapp" as: "An 'app' that is downloaded from the app store for the iPod Touch or iPhone that is total crap.".

        So on that platform they even have a bloody word for it.

      2. Asgard
        WTF?

        @Spearchucker Jones

        @"it shows exactly why developers would be interested"

        Which means there will be many more developers targeting that platform, so any argument about it being better than other platforms because they are flooded is meaningless because it won't be long before your Windows phone app stores will also be flooded.

        Its easy to earn a living when you are up against a few thousand apps. Its much harder to earn a living when you are up against many hundreds of thousands of apps on any platform. As for cost, that too will fall as the numbers of apps goes up.

        Also the slanted thinly veiled attempt to put Android down for malware is an intentionally underhanded way to bias opinion against Android when its obvious every platform has a malware potential and as for using that slant to defend Windows by implying others suffer malware ... wow, you must be in a parallel universe then if you think Windows is immune from malware.

        The simple fact is that these days hundreds of thousands of developers can quickly target any and all mobile platforms that show any sign its a growing market. Therefore if the Windows phone market grows quickly, it will become just as flooded and just as difficult to earn a living as all the other platforms.

        Therefore on closer inspection, there is nothing unique or special about the economics of developing on a Windows phone compared with any other platform.

    2. ThomH

      Because they're betting on the future?

      Nokia have a market capitalisation of $25bn and are betting the house on Windows Phone 7. Subjectively speaking — and nobody can be more surprised about this than I was — it's a really nice user experience and very easy to get on board with the narrative that it's just not had a fair shot at the big time. Microsoft's royalty gathering from Android licensees has eroded WP7's cost disadvantage. Google's sudden transition to a closed source model will be a concern to Samsung and HTC, since it somewhat focusses the mind on the single component supplier problem.

  2. JDX Gold badge

    What app-stores?

    Amazon presumably want to have their own app-store as well as selling content?

    Will their tablet also be able to access Android Marketplace?

    1. Joe Earl
      Flame

      In short: Yes. No

      The long:

      Amazon already have their own app-store. It's only available in the US at the moment although you can browse it (but not download anything) from elsewhere. It's more categorized and easy to browse or find what you are looking for than the Android Market, and it also has daily offers where paid-for-apps are offered for free one day (e.g. today they are offering QuickOffice Pro worth $14.99 for free).

      No Android Market and the other Google apps will not be included on the device.

      1. ThomH

        To add slightly to Joe Earl's comments

        Amazon's App store, and an app to access it if you want, can be installed on any Android handset unless the network has specifically taken steps to prevent it. I wasn't able to use it on a prepaid AT&T SIM but I think the 'prepaid' (ie, pay-as-you-go in American) bit was probably determinative.

        The store itself is actually very good. It's curated, like Apple's, but only to ensure that apps match the functionality that they're advertised with and don't otherwise attempt to do damaging things. Developers pay for access and nominate a list price, with Amazon then acting in much the same way as they do with books. So they can use your app as a loss leader if they want but you're still getting the list price. Which gives them a great lever for attracting customers and organising the thing generally.

        If you're in the US you can also preview the apps directly in your desktop web browser, via an Android emulator, which is really quite fantastic.

  3. JDX Gold badge

    Apps for WP7

    You don't need lots of users. With the app-store so empty, you can get a huge proportion of a few sales rather than the opposite on Android/iOS, and still do OK.

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