Google Moves To Upgrade App Store, Aims To Help Developers Bolster Revenue (reuters.com) 25
Google plans to double down on its efforts to help developers of Android apps build their businesses as concerns mount that the app economy has reached saturation. The company is sharpening Google Play store recommendations with AI and expanding support for various payment platforms, among other initiatives, reports Reuters, citing company's top executive. From the article:Many smartphone users, meanwhile, appear to have tired of downloading apps altogether, especially as messaging services like Snapchat perform more of the functions that once required a separate app. Games remain a focus of the Google Play store, and Nintendo is building a version of its popular Super Mario Run game for Android, said Sameer Samat, who leads product management for the Google Play store. The store is also expanding to new platforms, including wearable devices, virtual reality headsets and Google's Chromebook laptops. "What we are excited about is giving developers that single entry point for more and more of the computing ecosystem," said Samat. Google has eased the once-complicated process of developing apps for the Play store, said James Knight, a former Google employee who launched Pembroke, a consultancy that helps developers convert Apple-compatible iOS apps to Android. A big part of Google's new effort involves emerging markets, where Android is stronger relative to the iPhone. To improve app recommendations for users, the Play store has also made extensive use of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that gleans insights from vast troves of data.
Was always a zero-sum game - working as designed (Score:5, Insightful)
This was always a zero-sum game. I've owned ten different Android phones and four tablets now. I'm still waiting for the first time I actually need to *purchase* an app (or in-app content).
The whole point of "app stores" is to get developers to write apps for a platform, and then for competing apps to beat the price down to zero, thus providing the original platform provider and its users with (essentially) free apps. From what I see it's working perfectly as designed.
Re:Was always a zero-sum game - working as designe (Score:4, Insightful)
How is that different from your PC? When is it the last time you bought a Web browser, a ZIP utility, a SSH client, a text editor, a messaging client or a media player? Never, right? Why do people expect it to be any different on phones?
Phone app stores were like gold rushes. There was some money to make at the very beginning but it wasn't meant to last.
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It's not. The model also worked for Microsoft. In fact, they worked it in two directions by bleeding out PC makers, who fell over themselves to build lower-and-lower margin boxes, while mainly Microsoft and consumers benefited.
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and consumers benefited.
Exactly, so it's a good thing. We all benefit from having these free apps. It's not only Google and Microsoft. The open source community also rely on this. You don't have to buy gzip because there is a good one and it's free.
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Re: Was always a zero-sum game - working as design (Score:1)
Is app store search intentionally bad? (Score:2)
App store search is so bad, you can't even type in the exact name and get the resulting app in the first page of results.
My only guess is that they do this to allow tiny independent app writers to have at least marginal success, the idea being that even if you have 250 high quality apps that meet all user needs, the media is still going to smash Google over the head saying "Google App Store has only 250 apps!" even though they're obviously of much higher quality.
With intentionally bad search
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Hard to find apps (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because you paid when the app was new and good. Three or for "bug fixes" later, it has become a thing of pure evil. A lot of developers seem to think a "bug fix" means installing a bug in the app.
What Google's app store really needs. (Score:2)
What Google's app store really needs.
As a long-time Android user, I have some major suggestions....
1) Add local categories and be geography aware. When looking for news apps, should I really have to wade through ones that deal in local news for states thousands of miles away? Same for banking -- I am unlikely to need an app for a bank not even in my part of the country. Ditto for restaurants and other local businesses. Also, if I really AM interested in something from a distant city (say I am planning a
Jeez (Score:2)
"The company is sharpening Google Play store recommendations with AI..."
Yeah, because you really need powerful AI to have an intern do a search for 'Plants vs Zombies' once a week and make sure there's not five pages of scam apps and guides followed by the real app on Page 6.
Recommendation AI (Score:2)
This was kind of interesting for me to read today as I happened to be in the Play store and glanced at the recommendations.
I was intrigued to see I had a whole section that was recommendations for a bunch of mobile telcos: Vodafone, EE, Three, Telstra. I thought this was weird until I remembered I had two apps from different providers (one in UK and one in Australia), and I'd had two others installed in the last year (one more in UK and one in the USA).
So it's easy to see from the perspective of their algo
Can I filter results by permissions yet? (Score:2)
Ah, this change is aimed at helping developers make more money. So I guess that means figuring out the permissions will just get harder, and I'll be visiting the Play store even less than I do now.