Android is struggling to catch up with iOS inside and outside.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Geek Park” (ID: Geekpark), author Moonshot, editor Song Desheng.
In early March, Apple released the game subscription service Apple Arcade at the spring conference. Nearly half a year later, Google’s app subscription service plan Play Pass also surfaced.
At the end of June, Quinny899, the developer of XDA, the most famous Android developer forum, found that there is a feature in the Play Store that is being developed and tested, called “Play Pass”. At the time, the developer did not find the Play Pass. The function is just to speculate from the code that it is related to the “subscription system”.
Until July 31, a user received a Google User Survey, one of which was a user’s “Imagine a monthly store that includes apps and games worth hundreds of dollars.” Mechanism attitude. Then the famous Android news media AndroidPolice received a screenshot from the reader, the screenshot shows the “Getting Started” of Google Play Pass.
Screenshots received by AndroidPolice | AndroidPolice
According to the screenshot, Google Play Pass is a subscription program with hundreds of quality apps and games, no ads, no secondary purchases, unlocked in-app purchases, and can be cancelled at any time. The monthly payment is $4.99, and many families Package. According to ars Technica, Google may determine the share of developers by tracking the use of apps and games on the Play Pass.
After receiving the screenshot, Android Police quickly contacted Google to inquire about the matter, and a Google spokesperson confirmed that the Play Pass was being tested.
From app to app storeSubscription system
The subscription system has penetrated into every corner of digital life in recent years. This kind of payment mode that tends to be small, continuous payment, and exclusive content is like a buffet: a reasonable fee, unlimited access to content of interest to users. .
From the video and music fields, the membership-based system with no ads and access to all content, to Netflix, HBO, Apple Music, etc., which only accept subscriptions and pay for access, or the quality of the media is uneven. In the post-truth era, the independent or authoritative media organizations that have established “paywalls” have become a mobile app store.
Apple’s spring launch this year was uncharacteristic, releasing three content products: Apple News+, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+. All three products are subscription-based, the most notable of which is the iOS game subscription service Apple Arcade, which is the first monthly pay-per-view game in the mobile gaming space.
There is no official subscription package on the iOS platform like Play Pass, but many quality apps have been converted from buyouts to subscriptions at Apple’s invitation. In contrast, macOS, macOS applications are more expensive than iOS apps. MacPaw, a well-known macOS app developer, has launched a subscription service, SetApp, which pays $9.99 a month for access to many macOS heavyweight apps. SetApp includes a total of 140+ apps for a total value of nearly $4,000.
SetApp Pricing | SetApp Official Website
The subscription system has just emerged, and the continuous flow of cash from users can continue to benefit the platform and developers, but when the subscription system floods, users also have to face the homogenization of services and choices. In this case, the platform side will combine the high-quality services provided by the developers into a package, and the user exchanges the experience at a lower price, which seems to be a three-win option. SetApp has proven successful in a small area, but whether this model will become the mainstream of future mobile applications depends on the performance of Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass.
Official app store game
Apple Arcade is expected to be officially launched this fall after the debut of Apple’s spring release earlier this year. The Google Play Pass official has admitted its existence, and the official release is just around the corner.
Arcade has no ads, no in-app purchases, and supports family sharing, but is limited to gaming apps that are limited to iOS. According to Google, Play Pass coverage will range from “puzzle games to advanced music apps”, in other words, Play Pass will likely cover premium applications in all categories of the Android platform.
As far as screenshots are concerned, the Play Pass contains a number of famous games, including “Star Dew Grain”, “Marvel Pinball”, “Monument Valley”, “Terraria”, “Limbo” … Although these games are also on the iOS platform, according to foreign media speculation, Apple’s Arcade may be priced the same as Apple News: monthly payment of 9.99 US dollars. If the Play Pass is finally priced at $4.99 a month (usually the price of a high-quality, high-value app on the Google Play Store), the only advantage that Arcade faces in Play Pass will be the exclusiveness of the iOS platform app.
Screenshots received by AndroidPolice | AndroidPolice
According to the latest statistics of the famous mobile application market research institute Sensor Tower, as of June this year, the iOS app store App Store has a global revenue of about 25.5 billion US dollars, and the Android official app store Google Play Store has a revenue of 14.2 billion. Dollar. The Play Store is about 2.8 times more installed than the App Store, but iOS app publishers are 64% more likely than Android app publishers, and the former are 1.8 times more.
2019 App Stores in the First Half of the Year | SensorTower
Although the Google Play Store statistics don’t include the huge domestic Android market, it can be seen that the Play Store has been catching up with the App Store in recent years.
First look at app installs. App Store app installs 14.8 billion times in the first half of 2019, down 1.4% from last year, while app installs in the Google Play Store reached 41.9 billion, up 16.4 from last year. %.
Reviewing revenue, the App Store’s global estimated revenue for the first half of 2019 was $25.5 billion, an increase of 13.2% over the same period last year. The Google Play Store’s global revenue for the first half of the year was $14.2 billion, compared to the same period last year. Growth of 19.6%. For game apps, App Store gaming revenue grew 7.8% to $17.6 billion in the first half of this year, while Play Store game revenue grew 16.8% to $12 billion.
As the most important hardware for iOS, iPhone has been squeezed by Android phones in recent years.
According to the latest data report released by market research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the survey during the three months from April to June 2019 shows:
In the US market, the iPhone market share fell from the original 38.7% to 36.3%, a decrease of 2.4%.
The iPhone market share in the Japanese market fell from the original 42.9% to 37.7%, a decrease of 5.5%. The Android system increased by 6% and 2.5% in both markets over the same period.
In five major markets in Europe, iOS device market share fell by 0.8% year-on-year to 19.1%. In contrast, Android device market share increased by 0.6% year-on-year, from 79.5% in the same period last year to 80.1%.
Only the iOS market share in the Chinese market increased slightly from 19.4% in the second quarter of 2018 to 19.7% in the second quarter of 2019, while Android decreased by 0.5% from 80.4% to 79.9%..
Subscribed Solutions
In recent years, it has been common to sing apples, especially the iPhone. Whether it is hardware innovation or the price/performance ratio of mobile phones, it is impossible to circumvent the iOS and Android platforms.
From the data point of view, iOS developers are more profitable than Android developers in terms of revenue. The closed application management mechanism of the iOS platform firmly grasps the application’s entrance and exit on the App Store. Developer pricing, user pays the bill, developers and Apples are divided separately, and the relatively open features of the Android system make it difficult for developers and platforms to supervise. By the entrance and exit of the application, developers may lose a lot of revenue. In addition, the iOS user’s paid habits and the exclusivity of iOS apps also attract many developers to prefer iOS instead of Android when choosing a platform. This makes it difficult for the Android market to develop a good development ecosystem outside of the game.
According to Sensor Tower’s data, game revenue in the App Store accounted for 67% of total revenue, while in Google Play it increased to 85%.
App Store revenue by application category | SensorTower
Google Play accounts for more than 85% of total app revenue by revenue share of the app category | SensorTower
In the past two years, with the rise of the subscription system, it seems that a development environment that is more conducive to the continued income of developers has gradually formed. On the other hand, several heavyweight applications have begun to choose to circumvent or oppose Apple’s division rules.
Like how Netflix cancelled iOS in-app purchases since the end of last year. Another example is SpotifySince 2015, it has attacked the iOS platform to draw a 30% “Apple tax”. In March of this year, it officially filed a lawsuit against the European Commission, accusing Apple of being a software provider’s monopoly on the iOS platform.
In June, iOS developers launched a class action lawsuit against Apple, not only accusing the Apple tax of 30%, but they also complained that “out of all restrictions, in the App Store with more than 2 million apps, users are difficult It’s harder to talk about profitability when it comes to discovering the applications we develop.”
The ability to be a cross-platform software or service platform, when coming to iOS, often in-app purchases are more expensive than Android. In the final analysis, it is because the operators are not willing to bear the “Apple tax” alone, and have to pass the cost on to the consumers.
A Weibo user’s question about the different pricing of iOS and Android for the same service | Webpage screenshot
Although the “Apple Tax” and iOS platforms make developers love and hate, the Google Play share ratio is similar to the App Store. Beginning January 1, 2018, Google Play began adopting a new subscription revenue sharing policy. If the user continues to subscribe for more than 12 months, the developer and Google share is reduced from 70:30 to 85:15. In other words, Google Play and the App Store have the same percentage of developers. But because Google Play isn’t the only way to install apps on the Android platform, Google can’t get rid of Google Play’s trading behavior (such as in-app purchases). It’s hard to say that it’s lucky or unfortunate for Android platform developers.
App and game-packaged subscription services are still pending on the Android platform, but Google is giving this a possible opportunity, Google Play is catching up, iOS will also face hardware challenges and the Apple Developer Community Maintain multiple pressures.