Whenever we post about any of our mobile applications, especially our app ‘Coverage?‘, we end up getting flooded with “what about Android?” requests.
Sometimes the Android fans are pretty pushy – saying things like “Don’t you know that Android is the bulk of the market now?!?!”
There may technically be more Droid users – but so far as developers we haven’t seen much evidence of it.
Last summer Hired Guns Software offered to experiment with a port of our app ‘State Lines‘ to Android, in part to test the market. Other developers had been reporting that Android apps just don’t sell as well as their iOS counterparts. We’ve even had Android users ask for versions of our apps, but admit they’d probably not be interested in paying for them.
And sadly, we’ve found that to be true – our iOS version of State Lines typically outsells the Android version more than two to one.
‘Coverage?’ was written in a way that made a port to Android impractical.
But when we were designing the internals of ‘US Public Lands‘ we kept portability in mind, and we are thrilled to be able to answer our most frequent FAQ so quickly…
[quote_center]The Android version of US Public Lands is now READY![/quote_center]Get it Now!
$1.99
Thank you Hired Gun Software for completing the Android port so quickly. He is also working on wrapping up a version for the Amazon store too.
We have been blown away by the initial responses to the app for iPhone and iPad! We actually rose as high as #2 on the top iPad Travel Apps chart – even briefly eclipsing the indisputably essential ‘Allstays Camp & RV ‘.
What a great launch – thank you everyone for your support, enthusiasm and for helping us spread the word!
Now, Android users -we encourage you to show Hired Guns Software some love for making this port possible. Can the Android version of ‘US Public Lands’ keep pace, if not outsell, the iOS version?
We are planning to move the iOS version of ‘Coverage?’ to use the same newer core technologies as ‘US Public Lands’, and when we do that an Android port of ‘Coverage?’ will be practical for the first time.
If the Android version of ‘US Public Lands’ sells well, this will make the ‘Coverage?’ port an urgent priority.
So…. Droids…. stand up and be counted, and show us that the ecosystem can be supportive of independent niche market developers too.
Related Articles:
Original US Public Lands Announcement – with more information about the app
Count me happy, too! I’m off without the tablet this week to force myself to be social around family but will d/l it there as soon as I get it back and put it on phone later this evening. Many thanks!
As to Android vs iOS, I gave up on all Apple products a few years ago, worn out with being saved from myself and really don’t like their policies anyway, so decided to relieve myself of all Apple devices.
You are probably aware of this but Play Store will not “show” any of your apps to the Nooks, even the ones that have supposedly been “freed up” of B&N’s grip. My son and I have identical units but mine is rooted, his is not (he’s somewhat disabled and I got tired of putting it aright, so it has to stay a Nook for now). He cannot d/l any of your apps, whereas it’s not a problem on my rooted device. And of course he can’t get them from Amazon because Nook no likey Amazon and of course permits no sideloads. I can find them on either without difficulty.
And for what it’s worth, I haven’t given up on my Palms yet, just got my T|X back from the hospital. There are, as noted before, some Palm apps that have yet not only to be beat but equaled. I go nowhere without that little guy…
I have an Android because I feel it is superior technology – both from a hardware and software perspecitve. I fully understand the issues with fragmentation due to size and other issues with Android not providing a consistent development environment. Much of that is corrected these days.
I agree Android users tend to be “cheap” and expect “free” or low cost apps. I’m happy to pay a reasonable price for an app – after all, I’ve been in the software business my entire life. But I find the Apple ecosystem way overpriced, from a hardware perspective….and I think that sets the expectation for Apple customers to pay the software app prices they do. Just a difference from Android. I have no problem paying $5-20 for an app that works well and does what it says it does. Just my opinion…..
Back in the 80’s I published a diskzine for Amiga computer users and your price for the Public Lands app wouldn’t even cover my cost in those more valuable dollars for just the retail packaging, much less how much 3.5 inch diskettes cost then.
I have to agree with Adam about the whole apps business. Also, I was surprised you priced the app at only $1.99, though I know it is difficult to get people to pay more.
I am about to make the (to me) painful transition from my beloved Palm Treo 700p to a Samsung Galaxy Note phone. iPhones do many things better than Android *but* Android phones do some things I depend on that can’t be done on iOS (and the Galaxy Note has a Grafitti app). When I do, US Public Lands will be an early download. Thanks Chris & Cherie.
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Hi Ed!
Which Amiga magazine did you publish?! I used to be a huge Amiga fan from the Amiga 1000 days onward. And of course I was die hard Palm fan… Until the iPhone came out, that is. 🙂
For most users I do strongly recommend iPhone over Android – but for anyone who knows what things like Grafitti are and will actually take customizing their phone to that level… For those people Android makes sense.
There are still things I miss about PalmOS that have not been matched in any current platform. Good luck with the transition.
– Chris
Chris,
Amisoft Diskzine — only a few hundred copies per issue through a local wholesale distributor, thus no subscriptions to keep track of.
I got my first Amiga as a prerelease developer unit… no manuals, no documentation of the built in command line, etc. But it was wonderful. There has never IMNSHO been a better paint program than DeluxePaint which was important as one of my incarnations is a calligrapher and graphic artist. Many of my friends used fonts I designed for both better screen utilization and legibility.
I also produced a real time clock upgrade for the Amiga 1000 that inserted a clock/battery chip under one of the boot ROMs. Used a large paperclip straightened out to space certain of the diskette drives that were thicker. Had fun leading software developer to find the one (and only one) bit we had to change in the boot ROM to delay part of the boot process so the clock reading/setting routine could be read from diskette to avoid copyright hassles .
Just spent time working with demo unit of the latest Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phone and I think I can configure it to do most of what my Treo 700p does but if I had about $10 million, I would get a license from Access International and produce trial run of original PalmOS phones and see what happened using a Dragonfly BSD kernal rather than Linux — Matt Dillon has always been one of my favorite highly opinionated developers. 🙂
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Just downloaded it. Thanks!
I read Adam’s comment with interest as I own his app AllStays as well as State Lines and just purchased US Public Lands. I am an Android buyer and I find it interesting that Apple owners are more apt to purchase an app than those of us that own Android. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I have purchased software that makes my life easier for years. I find a usable app just as helpful to me as a software package, but certainly much less expensive. That is good for me, perhaps not so much for you. Actually, I’ve always wondered how some very helpful apps can cost as little as $1.99. I hope many of my fellow Android users will purchase one of your apps (or both) and make that Apple stigma go away 🙂 They should also check out AllStays 🙂 They are all worth the $. Thank you for making the Android versions. I hope you’re very, very successful!
I couldn’t find US Public Lands in the Google Play Store on my Samsung Galaxy. I downloaded it through your link though. I also have State Lines on my ‘droid.
I had to scroll way down in order to find it.
As owner of AllStays, I will take it a step further and chime in as I love this kind of topic. I have had my apps on both iOS and Android since 2010. Overall, iOS has outsold Android 15-1. This year, it is getting closer to “parity” at 10-1 in favor of iOS. Even the few free apps I have done, iOS gets more downloads at about 8-1. I have about given up on Amazon. A whole month on there equals about 3 hours of downloads on the normal Play store or down to minutes on iOS.
On top of that, 75% of my customer service inquires are about Android because of fragmentation and carrier billing issues I have nothing to do with. I honestly ask myself each week why I am still doing Android. The numbers tech news people quote are misleading because what really counts is the number that we don’t get on Android and that the number of people who have actually set up app store accounts.
There are simple more iOS smartphone users overall and they use their device. Android has quoted the high numbers but I think we have to realize that anyone looking for any kind of cheap phone or for any purpose, just to make a phone call or even as a life alerting safety device, they are going to buy an Android because that is what is widely available on basic plans. And they are counted in that statistic.
With pricing, developers did it to themselves. People pay movie prices. They pay value meal prices. They pay $40 for computer software and $60 for console video games. What if the bottom price for the very first apps in 2007 was $5 or even $10 and it stayed that way. Wouldn’t we have been conditioned to pay more? Yes we would have. But instead the race to the bottom hurts us all. I know many great developers who have given up and moved on as you can’t make a living on it. I average 16 hour days, 7 days a week all year long (of course I love doing camping information and am often traveling too in that work time). Why should we (developers) work for free while big corporations make billions collecting and reselling your personal information or using your bandwidth making you essentially pay to see ads?
Apps like State Lines, my AllStays apps and the new US Public Lands app are all a small fee compared to buying the maps and books and other things we have all bought over and over throughout the years. And now I firmly believe we have much more info at our finger tips for much less. But some people will always complain about paying for a app, with a latte in their hands, a bucket of movie popcorn on the floor or a fast food meal in the trash…things that cost more and are gone while the apps are used year after year.
I had a app like this on my to do list for a long time so now I am glad I don’t have to do it! Get it now and save the hassle of looking at the land any other way.
Hi Adam, it is a thrill to have you chiming in here – AllStays is the gold standard in RV applications!
It is absolutely shameful that your Android versions have done (relatively) so poorly. 15-1 or even 10-1 is crazy!
I know more than most just how meaningless marketshare statistics usually are. When I was responsible for Competitive Analysis at Palm / PalmSource, it was Symbian playing the “dominant” roll that Android is cast in today. Symbian was outselling all the other smartphone platforms combined, and most analysts used this as evidence why PalmOS was doomed and why developers would soon be flocking to “where the users are” to sell apps.
But… We knew from our market research (and common sense) that the vast majority of Symbian “users” didn’t even know that they had a “smartphone”, much less that it was powered by Symbian OS. It was just what the salesman pushed to them as the cheap or free option.
These weren’t customers who were choosing Symbian over PalmOS – they shouldn’t have even been counted as anything other than “feature phone” buyers.
Symbian never broke out of the low-end of the market, whereas Android does have some serious app-using power users who know what they have and are willing to pay for apps. But not nearly as many as the meaningless market statistics make it appear.
Thanks for sharing your perspective here,
– Chris
Android users need to step up and support app developers when apps are made available to us. Everything can’t be free