14 DAY TRIAL // Hundreds of people, both developers and Android enthusiasts, gathered this week to the Eastern European event held in Bucharest.
The two-day event was full of workshops, speeches and presentations, as well as a lot of chatter going on between developers.
While I didn’t attend the first day of the event, which was held on Monday, I was present for the entire second day.
The list of speakers included well-known names in the industry, people who have made themselves known through their work. Most part of the day was dedicated to app developers as presentations centered on ways they can improve their work and, in the end, earn more money for their businesses.
For instance, Michael Liebe, the project leader of DGT13 talked about the games app market in Germany, which is quite stable and growing constantly, although at a more tempered pace than in the years before.
Games are so popular among app users in Germany, in fact, that they are nearly as equally used as social media apps.
However, the point wasn’t to brag about how good game developers have it on the German market, but rather to indicate that the important user base, the one that’s going to make any money for the developer, is only of about 0.5 percent of the entire number of players.
Furthermore, despite some 10 percent of users playing games every day, they’re not all going to be willing to pay for the apps they’re using.
Also, it seems to be generally accepted that apps posted on Android marketplace will not bring in the same amount of money as those created for Apple devices. This is mostly due to the fact that Android users rarely pay for content, while iOS users became accustomed to shell out money for apps from the start.
Users come first
Another important subject discussed during the second day at Droidcon was what developers need to do to make their apps visible and, eventually, to get people to download them.
Skobbler’s Philipp Kandal said that there were certain things that should be important for the developers. The top priority for them should be users, namely raising the numbers considerably.
Then, developers present for the speech were urged to create apps that users want to come back to, meaning they’ll earn active users that actually launch an app more than a couple of times.
Only when these two steps have been checked, the developer should think of ways to make money.
And when it comes to making money, developers were advised to create connections, partnerships that would pay off in the end and to focus on the details. For instance, it’s quite important to create a good visual representation of the app in the App store, to add good screenshots, text, videos and explanations.
The app and company name, as well as the number of keywords peppered through the description, are particularly important as well.
Further into the day, monetization strategies seemed to be the trend as most developers have issues with actually making money after the hard work they put in in building, updating and keeping things interesting for the users.
Google Glass and its first game
Another important segment of the second day at Droidcon Eastern Europe was the Google Glass presentation held by members of the AMA (Advanced Mobile Applications) development team, the very same team that created several apps for the Google wearable device, including the first game.
During the presentation, the AMA team took the time to explain how Google Glass works, but put the spotlight on the apps they built over the past several months.
The apps themselves are pretty impressive, including the game, which frankly I had doubts could exist, given the limitations I thought the device had in this aspect. But despite my doubts, the game, called “Escape” is quite nice, moves well and the developers have found a way to take advantage of the touch gestures Glass recognizes, making this a quite enjoyable experience.
The night ended with two workshops, one hosted by Stefan Hoth, developer programs support associated for Google, and one by Marius Mailat, CTO of Appseleration GmbH, who discussed just how secure Android apps were and how much of our information was actually a lot easier to access than generally thought. Just so you know, you probably are best off without a banking app on your Android phone.
The bottom line is that this year’s Droidcon was an event that certainly helped everyone attending in one way or another. Such initiatives should be applauded and encouraged for both the sake of the users and the people making apps.