P Diddys tyres

Despite my lack of attention to you, lovely blog readers, I have been storing away interesting articles for a day of motivation. Spread the word! That day has arrived, and you’ll be getting not one, but two posts, in less than 24 hours.

Delusions of people actually caring aside, I suppose I could justify the wait because John Carmacks (not-so) recent diatribe has taken me some time to mull over. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the name, Carmack is one of the gaming industries most well respected developers, and his development house, iD software, have created some of the most well known games of the past 20 years, Doom and Quake, being the two most obvious examples. Think of him as the nerd version of James Cameron, he may not be making the best games around at the moment, but his technical skill is breathtaking and his CV speaks for itself. When he talks, people listen.

During a recent Q&A session, in which Carmack showed off some of the latest games he had got running on the iOS platform, including upcoming shooter ‘Rage’, Carmack was asked by an audience member about iD’s support for the Android platform. In response, Carmack asked the audience how many of them had spent more than $20 on the Android app store. The result: not many. And in fact, while I am approaching having spent that sum myself, currently I believe it is less. Carmack went on to say that he has been monitoring Android closely, and iD will eventually bring their products to Android, it just won’t be in the next 6 months. So, is that part of the reason for the disparity between the size of the two app markets?

My point is this. While figures are constantly released giving us the market share of each of the mobile platforms, what we know very little about is the market itself. Demographics, average spend per user, total spend, click through’s, and what kinds of apps are being bought, is all data that is very hard to come by.

Can we make assumptions about this, and more importantly, without aforementioned data to hand, is that what developers are doing? Is it fair to say that the same people who buy into the idea of a free, open platform such as Android running on phones that cost less than a return flight to Kuala Lumpar, also prefer free apps? In the same way, is it true that the same people who are willing/able to shell out £750+ for an iPhone 4 may also be more willing to pay for apps for that device? Compare this to the automotive industry, P Diddy does not put Halfords Value tyres on his Maybach.

What all this means, is that, despite Carmacks reservations about developing for a platform whose users are not splashing the cash, its quite possible that Android, with its increasingly large market share, and users hungry for free content, currently makes a compelling case for Ad funded apps.