Welcome to the final part of this review of the Pluralsight course Android Beginner Series: Understanding Android by John Sonmez.

John is the founder of Simple Programmer, and the author of the best selling book Soft Skills.

He also hosts the GetUp and CODE podcast, where he talks about fitness for programmers. John is a life coach for software developers, and helps software engineers, programmers and other technical professionals boost their careers and live a more fulfilled life. He empowers them to accomplish their goals by making the complex simple.

It’s important to understand how Android apps can be distributed and sold because it can affect the design of your application. In this module John teaches us all about App Markets.

Android App Markets

What Is An App Market?

John explains that these are places to browse and purchase Android applications.

They make it easy for an Android device owners to find new apps to install, update existing apps and rate their installed apps.

John describes how they work in this lesson.
Some app markets review the apps and decide whether the app meets the app market’s own guidelines before allowing it to be published.

Types Of Markets

There is more than one app market for Android. Google Play is the best known one, and the Amazon App Store is also popular.
John also names some others. Having your app displayed in more than one app store can give your app more exposure and maybe result in more revenue for you.

Google Play

The Google Play app comes on most devices and this is the main reason why it is the most popular App store.

Amazon App Store

Amazon created their own App Store as part of their strategy when they created the Kindle Fire line of devices.
The Google Play store doesn’t come pre-installed on Kindle devices, only the Amazon App Store.

John says the Amazon App Store is more curated than the Play Store.

Open Markets

More open app markets have a higher risk of malware due to fewer checks.

Making Money

There are a few different ways to make money from your Android Apps.

Paid Apps

This is the most straight=forward way. You charge a price for each app and pay a percentage to the app store.

John found that he made more money from his own apps by increasing their price. He explains why it is hard to get traction when charging for apps.

Subscriptions

Some apps lend themselves to a subscription model, which is giving your app away free and then enticing users to subscribe to additional content on a monthly basis.

John says this model is used mostly in magazine apps but can be used for others as well, such as games.

Lite Apps

This is creating a trial version and making it available for free. Users get hooked and then pay for the full version.

Advertising

This is a popular way to generate income and there’s several different services that can be used.
John explains that in app advertising can lead to frustration and uninstallations when the app is aimed at toddlers.

In App Purchases

Give the app away for free and then turn the app into a store. John uses the example of Farm Ville. John breifly discusses how to do this without making your users feel they are getting ripped-off.

App Assets

Some things that you need to publish on an app store:

– Images
– Icons
– Screenshots
– Videos
– Descriptions
– Translations

App Pirating

John says apps aren’t difficult to sideload (install without downloading from an app store).
So as an app author you need to be aware of the risks of your app being pirated.

One approach is to detect when an app is pirated and turn it into a lite version.
You can then sell a legitimate copy of the app to the user that was trying to pirate it.

Want to keep learning with John Sonmez?

Why not watch his follow up course Android Beginner Series: Just Enough Java