[amitraman1]

This applies to apps too. Here my simple logic.

Android phones are available for free from carriers. Thus, the typical Android buy is more price sensitive. They are more likely to choose free content & apps.

iPhone customers don't get FREE iPhones. They are willing to pay $200+ for a phone and contract. Their willingness to pay for apps & content is higher than Android users.

Just look at Angry Birds. It's FREE on the Android store, but charged for on the iOS store.

[mgcross]

While there are some 'free' (subsidized over two years) android phones available, most of those are low-performance devices more akin to feature phones. Those purchasers may indeed be less likely to buy apps due to spending habits. But there are plenty of Android phones above $200, even on contract. And a 3GS can now be had for $49.

I think it's also that Android users tend to use their phones more as solely communications devices (FB, Twitter, news, email) and less as an 'app console' device, for lack of a better description.

[dangero]

"iPhone customers don't get FREE iPhones. They are willing to pay $200+ for a phone and contract. Their willingness to pay for apps & content is higher than Android users."

Exactly. They have shown their willingness to spend their disposable income on their phone.

iPhone users are a marketer's dream. Hence why ads on the platform will also generate a higher ecpm than Android.

One other thing about the iPhone is that Apple has much more uniform and confident marketing as a single company than Android has being spread across the industry. That means if I buy an app now, I feel sure I'll be able to use it for years to come on whatever new iPhone I have at the time. I feel confident investing in my mobile app library. I bought a $100 GPS app on the iPhone because I believe I'll be able to to use it for the next 5 years at least. That's value. If I could only be sure I would be able to use it till I got a phone upgrade, I wouldn't have bought it. With Android, (I have an Android phone too) it's not so clear to me that when I buy an app I'll still be able to have that same app on my phone in 5-10 years with whatever phone I have at the time. Maybe other people feel differently, but I'm not sure who I'm putting my confidence in with Android. Google doesn't control what handsets are made, so I can't just put my confidence in them, and A lot of the mobile carriers have hinted at building their own OS, etc, so I could see Android growing out of favor. This may be very unlikely, but I just don't feel as confident about it, so I don't feel I can invest in my software library like I can with the iPhone.

[jrockway]

Just look at Angry Birds. It's FREE on the Android store, but charged for on the iOS store.

But it's 99 cents on the Amazon Android store: http://www.amazon.com/Rovio-Mobile-Angry-Birds-Ad-Free/dp/B0...

[chc]

Maybe I've missed it, but has Amazon actually released any sales numbers from its store? So far, it seems to me like little more than a curiosity. The difficulty of installation alone will rule out most customers.

[jrockway]

Isn't that true of anything? "Why would people trust Amazon to run their data center?" "Why would people wait for books to be shipped when they could just go to the bookstore?"

Fact is, everything new and different is new and different at first. But that fades away quite quickly.

[chc]

Sorry, I think the way I backed into my point has confused you. I'm not saying, "Amazon's store is new and different. Why would people use it?" What I mean to say is: "I don't have any reason to believe many people are currently using Amazon's store. It seems unlikely. Since (as far as we can tell) this store is currently not successful, and its lack of success is quite possibly due to factors other than price, its pricing doesn't reveal much about what people are willing to pay." And that is not true of everything.

[coob]

The difficulty is definitely an issue currently. But Amazon have shown willingness to get involved in the hardware market.

An Amazon (or Kindle?) branded Android tablet with the Amazon store and music locker service is starting to be more and more likely.

[chc]

That still doesn't mean their current pricing strategy will turn out to be successful.

[ZeroGravitas]

Neither Android phones, nor Angry birds are "free". One is subsidized by years long contracts, and the other is ad-supported. If these things are really affecting sales then it's mostly psychological, which is interesting in itself.

Recent surveys in the UK by YouGov suggest iPhone users are poorer and manage money less well than Android or Blackberry users, but also that the people who use their phone 4+ hours a day are more often found on the iOS platform. This is an interesting reversal of the common wisdom that Android is the home of freetards and geeks. But an audience of geeks with poor impulse control over their spending sounds pretty good, even if they're relatively poor.

[MrScruff]

Do you have a link to the survey results? I can only find links to the Daily Mail which seems to be hand picking results. I ask because it really doesn't gel with my own observations in London at all. Nearly everyone I know running Android is either a technology enthusiast, price sensitive or both.

[ZeroGravitas]

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-...

I'm not in London, for me the geeks/normal split oseems fairly even between iPhone and Android e.g. a female, non-tech colleague who went into the store wanting something with a hardware keyboard and came out raving about Swype while my tech colleagues all have iPhones.

[MrScruff]

According to those results, 31% of android users are earning £10-20,000 vs 13% for iPhone. In the £20-30,000 category the positions are reversed. On the other hand, Symbian users seem to be even more affluent so I'm not sure this proves anything.

[pmarsh]

My thoughts exactly. Even Verizon's commercials highlight "This and thousands of other free apps..."

Experience in this space with my company is much the same. iOS outsold our Android version 7 to 1 and the iOS app was out for less than half the time.

Android might be taking the numbers lead but if I was a developer and I only had the resources to do 1 platform iOS would win easily.

[nookiemonster]

"Android phones are available for free from carriers."

I can't find a way to interpret this statement and have it be true.

There is no fee to use the o.s. The devices cost the carriers a great deal. They purchase them in bulk from the oems and then sell them to customers. The cost is then recovered over the life of the contract.

This is why it's hard to know exactly how many windows phones are active in the ecosystem. The only public data is the bulk sales to carriers by oems.

Wrt your other points, I don't have any nits to pick. :)

[thelibrarian]

Only in the U.S. though - here in Australia, most carriers offer a free iPhone with a 2 year contract (e.g. you can get a 16GB iPhone 4 on a $54/month two year contract with no upfront fee).

And we don't have to pay for incoming calls on our mobiles here.