Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results

Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by aetherson on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @08:01PM (#10462068)

I think that's a slightly dated view. I don't think that the app market is mainly defined by "I'll pay $1 for an app" anymore. In a few fields, perhaps. But the most important apps are at this point free ones, and their users are monetized in other ways.

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Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by alwillis on Wednesday October 28, 2015 @01:35AM (#10462993)

Except the data says differently. From the transcript of the conference call:

>The App Store set new all-time quarterly records for both the number of transacting customers and overall revenue. The strong performance of the App Store helped fuel 1.5 billion dollars in services revenue, also an all-time record.

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Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by ghaff on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @08:35PM (#10462203)

In-app payments and other forms of monetization are still monetization that require users to pay money. That said, I agree there's a balancing act. If a hypothetical "luxury smartphone" had a tiny market share, it wouldn't be an attractive development target in general even if its buyers spent a lot of money on certain types of apps.

But the iPhone isn't really in that position. Certainly, it seems to have no trouble attracting developers and companies creating apps to target travel, subscription, and other services.

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Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by aetherson on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @11:18PM (#10462683)

There are plenty of forms of monetization that don't require users to pay money (ad supported being the obvious one), and there are even more forms of monetization that require the users to pay money, but not pay money for an app (think Uber or Grubhub), and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app.

But clearly iPhone is not in that position, I agree!

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Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by alwillis on Wednesday October 28, 2015 @01:43AM (#10463011)

and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app.

You mean like last year's holiday shopping numbers? From "Apple's iOS Has Once Again Decimated Android When It Comes To Data That Matters": http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-android-shopping-data-201...

>Adobe, which is tracking online shopping, reports the following: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively."

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Re:Apple Reports Record Fourth Quarter Results by ghaff on Wednesday October 28, 2015 @08:14AM (#10463955)

I think parent's point was about free apps that are just access points to a physical world service like airlines, hotels, Uber, Yelp, OpenTable, etc. I do suspect iPhone users spend more per capita generally because they're probably a wealthier demographic than Android. But I also suspect that overall marketshare is more relevant to the companies developing the apps in this case. (It's also somewhat beside the point though because everyone in this position is going to have an iOS and an Android app at a minumum.)

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