Venture Capital Exposure - Buying, Selling, & Funding

I know that advertising, CPC, CPI platforms, and in-app purchasing are the typical monetization tactics, but these seem like several steps off from where many developers (including myself) are. I know that networking and meeting the right people may land you an opportunity to pitch an app for potential VC/angel funding, but other than that, would love to hear people's experiences and lessons learned with these types of opportunities.

generalu said:
I know that advertising, CPC, CPI platforms, and in-app purchasing are the typical monetization tactics, but these seem like several steps off from where many developers (including myself) are. I know that networking and meeting the right people may land you an opportunity to pitch an app for potential VC/angel funding, but other than that, would love to hear people's experiences and lessons learned with these types of opportunities.
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I am in the same boat here...I would love to hear some resources or ideas for funding that people have actually used, that doesn't involve things like kickstarter/etc. I have 10 App ideas sitting on a back burner now. I don't think all of them are money makers, but after testing the ideas on a sample audience, I firmly believe 2-3 of them are. All of the layouts, planning, theory, and even some artwork is done for multiple of them, but just need more resources to full get going.
Again, would love to hear what real people have done to get going.

asmocon said:
I am in the same boat here...I would love to hear some resources or ideas for funding that people have actually used, that doesn't involve things like kickstarter/etc. I have 10 App ideas sitting on a back burner now. I don't think all of them are money makers, but after testing the ideas on a sample audience, I firmly believe 2-3 of them are. All of the layouts, planning, theory, and even some artwork is done for multiple of them, but just need more resources to full get going.
Again, would love to hear what real people have done to get going.
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You should submit to this competition: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2355446&highlight=samsung+s+smart+app
I was reading up on the details, and the Venture Capital potential is intriguing to me - the grand prize wouldn't be so bad either. Are you working on these ideas by yourself or with a team? I'm lacking a lot of the programming end of the spectrum.

VC might be difficult
I'd say, looking at the current climate in the industry, it would be very difficult to land even a seed round (less than $500k) without a significant previous experience and a good team. Most of the investors perceive mobile gaming as a hit-driven business and I think they are right, it's high-risk and requires skills, cash and the right team to deliver any kind of decent results. I've seen teams raising seed / A rounds and just burning money.
As for personal experience - last year we've raised a seed round, it was quite difficult and I'm quite sure it would be even more difficult now.
Anyway, I'd love to hear more from others.

tom.mleko said:
I'd say, looking at the current climate in the industry, it would be very difficult to land even a seed round (less than $500k) without a significant previous experience and a good team. Most of the investors perceive mobile gaming as a hit-driven business and I think they are right, it's high-risk and requires skills, cash and the right team to deliver any kind of decent results. I've seen teams raising seed / A rounds and just burning money.
As for personal experience - last year we've raised a seed round, it was quite difficult and I'm quite sure it would be even more difficult now.
Anyway, I'd love to hear more from others.
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Honestly, if cash is a commodity for you (and to who is it not), crowdfunding is your best bet. If you can come up with a good trailer and and effective pitch, the money will start rolling in, to which you can THEN start attracting the VCs. That's what happened when I started my business.

JeffM123 said:
Honestly, if cash is a commodity for you (and to who is it not), crowdfunding is your best bet. If you can come up with a good trailer and and effective pitch, the money will start rolling in, to which you can THEN start attracting the VCs. That's what happened when I started my business.
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Yes, crowdfunding is a very important, and potentially the quickest, source of cash. Thing is not each and every product is suitable for crowdfunding. Just to give you an example - my project is a B2B type of thing and its main clients are F2P mobile game devs. I guess it would be hard for us to crowdsource enough money to start the project. Crowdfunding is great for B2C, not so sure about B2B.

tom.mleko said:
Yes, crowdfunding is a very important, and potentially the quickest, source of cash. Thing is not each and every product is suitable for crowdfunding. Just to give you an example - my project is a B2B type of thing and its main clients are F2P mobile game devs. I guess it would be hard for us to crowdsource enough money to start the project. Crowdfunding is great for B2C, not so sure about B2B.
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Be sure to get your apps in all of the app stores including Amazon (the name), GiveMeApps (no developer fees, get to keep 100% of your profits), GetJar (large network) and all of the others.

JeffM123 said:
Be sure to get your apps in all of the app stores including Amazon (the name), GiveMeApps (no developer fees, get to keep 100% of your profits), GetJar (large network) and all of the others.
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Good general advice but our project is not an app

Coastal Shows and The App Show
generalu said:
I know that advertising, CPC, CPI platforms, and in-app purchasing are the typical monetization tactics, but these seem like several steps off from where many developers (including myself) are. I know that networking and meeting the right people may land you an opportunity to pitch an app for potential VC/angel funding, but other than that, would love to hear people's experiences and lessons learned with these types of opportunities.
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Investors, Ventures and Angel Funds are waiting to hear about your new business - go to the Funding, Discovery and Monetization Conference Sept 12 and 13, coastalshows.com, and don't miss theappshow.org

Investment share
I have some investors for my app and we're at the stage of drawing up contracts. Not sure how to figure out percentage of profits (if we're lucky enough to get any) for myself and investors.
Any thoughts.
Thank you.

Mondo33 said:
I have some investors for my app and we're at the stage of drawing up contracts. Not sure how to figure out percentage of profits (if we're lucky enough to get any) for myself and investors.
Any thoughts.
Thank you.
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Tough question. Are they funding the whole development, marketing, etc.?

tom.mleko said:
Tough question. Are they funding the whole development, marketing, etc.?
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Yes they are.
My idea and sweat equity by providing content.

Mondo33 said:
Yes they are.
My idea and sweat equity by providing content.
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In fact they are investing on a seed stage, right? If so, I would expect to give them up to 20% of the equity. We got lucky and got away with single digits

generalu said:
I know that advertising, CPC, CPI platforms, and in-app purchasing are the typical monetization tactics, but these seem like several steps off from where many developers (including myself) are. I know that networking and meeting the right people may land you an opportunity to pitch an app for potential VC/angel funding, but other than that, would love to hear people's experiences and lessons learned with these types of opportunities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't help but see this thread and try to help out some fellow app developers. I understand monetizing an app can be extremely difficult if you can't find the right person to pitch your product too. I'm an app developer myself and I attended the funding, discovery, and monetization conference hosted by The AppShow and CONNECT in San Diego, CA and learned a lot about monetizing my product there. I'm now going to be attending The AppShow in San Diego early January, 2014 where I can talk to investors face-to-face and hopefully get my app funded, I'm so excited!!

Related

[ATTENTION DEVS] Donations and Open-Source/Freeware Discussion

I just thought I'd start this thread to ask other developers about their opinion on the matter.
I spent many hours across several weeks reverse engineering the Samsung Galaxy S flashing protocol and then programming, testing and distributing Heimdall as open-source software.
Based on bandwidth consumption Heimdall has been downloaded anywhere between 2000 and 8000 times (depending on whether the source or binaries were downloaded). I have received no more than eight donations, a very sincere thank-you goes out to those eight people! Let's assume that 25% of the total number of downloads were repeat downloaders, so we have somewhere between 1500 and 6000 unique users. So only 0.134-0.534% of users actually donate. Those sorts of donation rates are barely able to cover the cost of bandwidth, if at all.
I know there are a lot of people out there who consider themselves avid supporters of open-source and open-source software. I wouldn't necessarily call myself one of those people, however I do believe there is definitely a time and a place for open-source software, Heimdall being a perfect example.
I also know a lot of people who distribute ROMs, apps, tools, mods etc. are hobbyists who do what they do in their spare time, and the community should be very thankful of that. As for myself, I work as a independent software/games developer, not particularly the most monetarily rewarding profession around.
As much as we do enjoy releasing free software for the community, it is difficult for developers such as myself to justify the work involved when there is little to no return, after all the bills need to be paid somehow.
My question is this, is it possible for developers releasing open-source software directly to the community, not large corporations, to make a living off their work? Furthermore, how do we encourage community members to give back to developers who have donated their time to the community?
Can't you use Google Code instead for hosting? or SourceForge? all provide free bandwidth IIRC.
Don't expect any donations as a rule, if you are expecting profit then either use ads on your website or charge.
I would have thought the primary reason for developing OSS on your phone is to improve the product you originally bought.
Cheers,
MiG
If you want free hosting, I can hook you up at http://www.sgscompilebox.dreamhosters.com/ that I'm paying for anyway for z4mod. Unlimited bandwidth/space. Offer goes out to anybody who wants to host anything for the SGS.
EDIT: Oh, and to answer your question: No, I don't believe it's possible to make a living off making 3rd party open source tools that only a fraction(technical users) of a device's users will use. If you want to make a living off open source, the best bet is through a company such as Canonical, or by creating applications focused at casual users with as much potential marketshare as possible. Or do what most people do: get a regular 'closed' job, and do open source stuff as a hobby.
MiG- said:
Can't you use Google Code instead for hosting? or SourceForge? all provide free bandwidth IIRC.
Don't expect any donations as a rule, if you are expecting profit then either use ads on your website or charge.
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I don't think you fully understand what I'm trying to discuss. The bandwidth costs are fairly negligible, especially if I'm approximately able to cover the costs with just eight donations. A developers time however is substantially more expensive, and in some ways the effort and intention is priceless
I'm not expecting profit as such, nor do I particularly wish this discussion to center around myself (I'm just using my statistics as an example). I'm just curious to know whether people think it is possible to be a "sustainable" open-source developer who contributes software directly to a community? As opposed to large open-source products targeted towards large corporations who pay technical support contracts.
I'm also not a big fan off stuffing ads down the throat of my user-base. Also, in this particular context I seriously doubt that sort of approach would work, especially if third-party free hosting (sourceforge, github etc.) is used.
MiG- said:
I would have thought the primary reason for developing OSS on your phone is to improve the product you originally bought.
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Not necessarily. In my particular case I've simply released a tool to further enable the community to do something that other users (myself included) could already do, in some capacity or another.
For most developers releasing open-source software isn't so much about improving something they own. It's more about providing something for a community to use and benefit from without constraints. It's not unreasonable to ask the community to support you in return. After all there is nothing that forces developers to ever release the software they develop, unless you've used GPL code which is another matter entirely.
MiG-, based on your answer I'm assuming you're saying, no you do not think it's possible, which is definitely a perfectly valid answer to questions I've asked. Although I would definitely love to hear what more community members, particularly developers, have to say about the topic.
RyanZA said:
If you want free hosting, I can hook you up at http://www.sgscompilebox.dreamhosters.com/ that I'm paying for anyway for z4mod. Unlimited bandwidth/space. Offer goes out to anybody who wants to host anything for the SGS.
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Bit of topic.. you can host roms?
DocRambone said:
Bit of topic.. you can host roms?
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Until someone stops me, sure.
RyanZA said:
EDIT: Oh, and to answer your question: No, I don't believe it's possible to make a living off making 3rd party open source tools that only a fraction(technical users) of a device's users will use. If you want to make a living off open source, the best bet is through a company such as Canonical, or by creating applications focused at casual users with as much potential marketshare as possible. Or do what most people do: get a regular 'closed' job, and do open source stuff as a hobby.
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I agree with pretty much everything except the part about targeting casual users in order to make money. In my experience technically inclined users, who have an appreciation for a piece of software, are substantially more likely to donate that casual users who lack the knowledge of the work involved. Of course selling software is something that can be more easily achieved when targeting a casual user base, especially if they know nothing of piracy. However it is generally not possible to sell "open-source" software directly.
Benjamin Dobell said:
I agree with pretty much everything except the part about targeting casual users in order to make money. In my experience technically inclined users, who have an appreciation for a piece of software, are substantially more likely to donate that casual users who lack the knowledge of the work involved. Of course selling software is something that can be more easily achieved when targeting a casual user base, especially if they know nothing of piracy. However it is generally not possible to sell "open-source" software directly.
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Of course it is. Why do you think all of these app stores and market place etc is all catching on? You're never going to get rich off it, but putting up a popular open source application with an advert (and the option to turn it off even) should be able to bring in a pretty good revenue! Social networking seems to do the best for these types of apps.
Also, you'd probably want to diversify if relying on ad money - one banner ad in 25 open source apps, with 100K users each could easily reach a lot of money. And it should be possible to crank out a simple, well made open source app that serves a definite purpose in under 3 months. So with some time investment, in a couple years you'd be able to live off it. No different from closed sourced apps when you you use advertising.
Most important thing though is to make something that
1) the average user understands what it does
2) does the job as simply as possible
3) actually helps the user
4) has as wide a potential market as possible
You could look at firefox as the ultimate in this type of thing.
This is all a lot of work though, I'm sure, and if you're after money, a regular desk job is almost guaranteed to work out better.
RyanZA said:
Of course it is. Why do you think all of these app stores and market place etc is all catching on? You're never going to get rich off it, but putting up a popular open source application with an advert (and the option to turn it off even) should be able to bring in a pretty good revenue! Social networking seems to do the best for these types of apps.
Also, you'd probably want to diversify if relying on ad money - one banner ad in 25 open source apps, with 100K users each could easily reach a lot of money. And it should be possible to crank out a simple, well made open source app that serves a definite purpose in under 3 months. So with some time investment, in a couple years you'd be able to live off it. No different from closed sourced apps when you you use advertising.
Most important thing though is to make something that
1) the average user understands what it does
2) does the job as simply as possible
3) actually helps the user
4) has as wide a potential market as possible
You could look at firefox as the ultimate in this type of thing.
This is all a lot of work though, I'm sure, and if you're after money, a regular desk job is almost guaranteed to work out better.
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Agreed, I mostly meant that it's difficult to "sell" open-source software. If your software is truly open-source then users are likely to download it, compile it and then redistribute it for free, which is sort of reasonable given that it's meant to be open source.
However advertising in a free application is slightly different than selling an application and it does have a lot more potential to succeed. However depending on what you mean by "putting up a popular open source application" I might have moral issues with that. Unless the popular application is your own or you've substantially modified (added a UI etc) to an existing piece of open-source software. Although a lot less likely to happen if your app is free, if it is open-source there is still the chance someone else will distribute it for free, unless of course the non-code assets aren't open.
I definitely do believe that at the moment it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to live off the type of open-source software I initially described. It's a bit saddening though to realise how massively one falls short, hopefully this will change in the future.
About those donations. If I would use it, I would probably donate.
I worked my a** of for the community, providing ROMs and kitchens for 3 years for the HTC S710 and S740 and I got about 4 or 5 donations over that period of time. Sometimes it get's very frustrating, but hang in there, it's worth it after all (there would be no WM 6.5 on the Vox or the Rose without me (dare I say that ), but I wanted it anyway, so I made it and just released it for others as well)!
PS: SAP r3 is open source and it sells veeeeeery good
I think the community can recognize such invaluable work & devote a part of their donations to them, if they are using his software & really think its worth.
I think however small percentage it could be, it would make the developer feel wanted & make him continue devoting his valuable time.
I just read an article either today or yesterday regarding a conference of software developers for android community, & when one developer went to the podium & said he is earning a steady $1-$2 per day, people actually laughed. He retorted, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. Android hasn't penetrated the markets YET like iPhone. So awareness & earnings are still low.
BTW, a nice GUI would change everything.
Just my 2 cents worth.
PS : In continuation to RyanZA's talk, I would like to mention that if you think you have something worth using, MAKE A LOT of noise about it. THAT's how people notice, use & donate. No one can understand a software's worth until you tell them. Like some WWii prime minister said, if you want the world to understand what you are telling, tell it like you are telling a donkey.
Ben, I think you need to differentiate between recognition, fame & money. Ideas are many have you tried http://www.ideaken.com/ ?
Benjamin Dobell said:
Agreed, I mostly meant that it's difficult to "sell" open-source software. If your software is truly open-source then users are likely to download it, compile it and then redistribute it for free, which is sort of reasonable given that it's meant to be open source.
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Most companies "built on open-source" provide binaries, and real support for those binaries, and earn a living from that. In an enterprise environment giving support can earn a lot of money (mainly because a lot of companies have policies to only use software/hardware that has decent support). On my last job we had to use a really crappy software, just because the (really) good alternative didn't had a support center in our country.
For the casual users: the marketplaces + ads are a good place to start. If you manage to create something that casual users will use, then it might pay of. Those users don't actaully care about the software being FOSS or not. Actually there aren't many people who care how free an application really is (except for most people working in IT or similar)
If bandwidth is an issue then host it over megaupload and such, problem solved.
ragin said:
BTW, a nice GUI would change everything.
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And give users the ability to think they are actually a power user. Most people here at xda can't write even simple scripts, but they do want to try out new and experimental stuff. (on the other hand there are a lot of users who want things that just work, for them give a simple gui saying: "DO DA STUFF")
EarlZ said:
If bandwidth is an issue then host it over megaupload and such, problem solved.
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I hate when people upload source code to megaupload. There's github, code.google.com and sf.net. sf.net is although quite old now, the other too are still great when it comes to hosting FOSS stuff.
Github is even nicer since they've added a big "Download" button for the end users.

Appaloosa for WP7

Sadly this project is no more. We were a dev team of 3 people who had about 3 months into Appaloosa. However, the slow build of the WP7 platform and some reported low sales numbers in the App Marketplace made it hard to justify the additional time needed to bring this title to market.
Was very hard to let go of so much work and creative energy.
Here is a walk thru of an alpha build. It definately shows what that phone is capable of pushing (forum is perventing the url, sorry first post).
img816.imageshack.us/img816/3521/32430348.mp4
You're kidding, right?
The WP7 platform has had a faster uptake than both iOS and Android when they were first launched. As for marketplace sales, I don't know what numbers you have seen, but games is what generally sells well, especially ones with great graphics as they are not only used as a game but also as a "look at what my phone can do" kinda thing amongst the owners friends.
From the video, and with no background information available, it doesn't look like a game for me, but if it was performing well and priced correctly I would still probably pick it up.
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
Hi there
lard666 said:
However, the slow build of the WP7 platform and some reported low sales numbers in the App Marketplace[...]
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I don't know exactly what numbers you are referring to, but I guess you mean LG's statement. Isn't LG maybe just part of the picture? There are Samsung and HTC that are currently the main sellers of WP7. (for the shares, look here: http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/wp7oem.png)
Although I can't exactly be sure why LG is doing that bad (it might have to do something with the phone they offer...) - that's up for speculation.
I'd like to add that T-Mobile Germany just stated that they are ahead of their plans regarding WP7 sales (source: http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/201...-windows-phone-7-sales-are-ahead-of-schedule/ along with several other sites)
Personally, I don't get the impression that WP7 is doing badly.
lard666 said:
Was very hard to let go of so much work and creative energy.
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Judging from what is shown in the trailer, I'd say it's a great thing you did so far.
And I'd like to buy a version as soon as it is out (I know that I am just one person - but there might be others who think the same)
lard666 said:
Here is a walk thru of an alpha build. It definately shows what that phone is capable of pushing (forum is perventing the url, sorry first post).
img816.imageshack.us/img816/3521/32430348.mp4
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Like stated above, it looks fantastic up 'till now.
I'd like you to continue your work and take this project all the way to the Marketplace.
Wow! That looks absolutely amazing.
Maybe this is a stupid suggestion but if you get it to be an xbox live game (they seem to do well) then it has every chance of being a success. Not sure how much Microsoft will take but worth consdering.
Good job!
I'm with you guys. I don't even know what this game is about but from the alpha build the 3D graphics look slick as hell. If you look at a game like Zombies!!! MS took it under its wing, gave it XBox Live integration and now it'll get a sh!tload of sales because of that. And that seems to be what they're donig with high performance games so it's worth pursuing...
If you write for Android you won't make money. No one buys anything on that platform. if you write for iOS no one will see your game in the sea of apps. WP7 still has potential.
Moving this to SW development since this is an ongoing project. Once its in the "its an app" stage I will move it back to the release section.
~~Tito~~
With regard to the kind words about the looks of the project, thank you.
The environment for level one (which was shown in the video in it's incomplete form) was 210K polygons.
Appaloosa is an old school western pistol pack'n arcade style shooter. It's based in a fantastic, toony, world centered loosely around America's late 1800's Old West. It's a rail shooter with shorter action-areas that can be completed in a single mobile time wasting session. So think western popup shooter crossed with Time Crisis; and add tumble-weed bonus rounds ala Galaga. It also had direct Face Book integration for quick posting of achievements. The game was to be priced at $.99 for each level (we were toying with the idea of releasing one level at a time, episodic style) or $2.99 for the complete game.
About WP7 being viable (currently, say this year 2011) to develop apps for... I don't see the indicators or hard data that proves so. And I'm not saying this with a confrontational tone, I just haven't seen any. I keep hearing lazy statistics (which are easily manipulated like, "fastest sales", "highest rate of apps", "most devs to date", etc.) and praise ("performing better then expected")... but the hard numbers are being held for some reason. I would bet no one had recovered their time investment for WP7 development yet, let along make a living from it.
Regardless, the numbers of phones sold is something to be mindful of, but more important is how the paid apps are selling. And the short answer is they aren't.
Games sell more then any other app and 'LIVE' games sell the most. We knew we would be dead in the water without 'LIVE' support, but when we spoke to a MSFT rep in Belgium we got the answer, "oh LIVE... yes yes, that is tricky. Probably can't get you LIVE status; that is reserved for the big guys. Let me know when your game is done, and I will see what I can do to push it up the list."
We were also in contact with a dev studio who's game has always been in the top 10 and has "LIVE" certification. Their game has sold in the tens of thousands; which doesn't even cover dev costs. Maybe the costs will be recovered over the next year. But that 'maybe' was a risk I couldn't take; not with a self-funded (sweat equity) game.
We weren't looking to make big bucks. Just wanted to be able to exercise our craft and make a living. Everyone on the team was willing to live on 1/3 a typical studio salary in exchange for creative freedom and a chance to gain from their own sweat equity. We all brought senior experience to the table (I've worked on Tomb Raider, Half-Life, Tribes, Tony Hawk, and others). Sadly, the numbers aren't there. Punch in some basic math numbers on keeping 3 people alive for a 9 month dev cycle; plus additional time for sales and payment, and it's just not an equation that balances yet. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I'm bound by the realities of the real world, so at the New Year we had to evaluate the project progress and platform landscape.
If anyone has direct access to a MSFT rep, I would be happy to chat with them about bringing the game to market; Or point them to this post.
I guess the point of this post is that the phone is capable of pushing some great graphics and supporting original, mobile specific, titles of very high quality. But if a tiny 3 person team can't justify a 9 months development risk... then I see a chicken-n-egg scenario formed.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=902681
the person that posted this works for Microsoft... send him a message.
@lard666 One thing you have not accounted for in your numbers are Xbox sales. I am assuming this is written in XNA which means you can release it on the Xbox with it's 30 million users and $1 billion revenue last year almost at the flick of a switch.
I'm not saying this means you would definitely recoup your costs, but I know quite a few people who have high-selling titles on XBL, so it is possible.
I'd also like to point out that regional MS reps are nowhere near as helpful as their US counterparts. We had more luck contacting US people directly than we did liaising with the Swedish reps. I cannot say for certain that this is the same everywhere, but I have had similar experience in two other European countries in the past.
I'll forward this to Brandon Watson right now.
Guess you didn't hear about the Nokia deal. Too bad you quit.
lard666 said:
With regard to the kind words about the looks of the project, thank you.
The environment for level one (which was shown in the video in it's incomplete form) was 210K polygons.
Appaloosa is an old school western pistol pack'n arcade style shooter. It's based in a fantastic, toony, world centered loosely around America's late 1800's Old West. It's a rail shooter with shorter action-areas that can be completed in a single mobile time wasting session. So think western popup shooter crossed with Time Crisis; and add tumble-weed bonus rounds ala Galaga. It also had direct Face Book integration for quick posting of achievements. The game was to be priced at $.99 for each level (we were toying with the idea of releasing one level at a time, episodic style) or $2.99 for the complete game.
About WP7 being viable (currently, say this year 2011) to develop apps for... I don't see the indicators or hard data that proves so. And I'm not saying this with a confrontational tone, I just haven't seen any. I keep hearing lazy statistics (which are easily manipulated like, "fastest sales", "highest rate of apps", "most devs to date", etc.) and praise ("performing better then expected")... but the hard numbers are being held for some reason. I would bet no one had recovered their time investment for WP7 development yet, let along make a living from it.
Regardless, the numbers of phones sold is something to be mindful of, but more important is how the paid apps are selling. And the short answer is they aren't.
Games sell more then any other app and 'LIVE' games sell the most. We knew we would be dead in the water without 'LIVE' support, but when we spoke to a MSFT rep in Belgium we got the answer, "oh LIVE... yes yes, that is tricky. Probably can't get you LIVE status; that is reserved for the big guys. Let me know when your game is done, and I will see what I can do to push it up the list."
We were also in contact with a dev studio who's game has always been in the top 10 and has "LIVE" certification. Their game has sold in the tens of thousands; which doesn't even cover dev costs. Maybe the costs will be recovered over the next year. But that 'maybe' was a risk I couldn't take; not with a self-funded (sweat equity) game.
We weren't looking to make big bucks. Just wanted to be able to exercise our craft and make a living. Everyone on the team was willing to live on 1/3 a typical studio salary in exchange for creative freedom and a chance to gain from their own sweat equity. We all brought senior experience to the table (I've worked on Tomb Raider, Half-Life, Tribes, Tony Hawk, and others). Sadly, the numbers aren't there. Punch in some basic math numbers on keeping 3 people alive for a 9 month dev cycle; plus additional time for sales and payment, and it's just not an equation that balances yet. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I'm bound by the realities of the real world, so at the New Year we had to evaluate the project progress and platform landscape.
If anyone has direct access to a MSFT rep, I would be happy to chat with them about bringing the game to market; Or point them to this post.
I guess the point of this post is that the phone is capable of pushing some great graphics and supporting original, mobile specific, titles of very high quality. But if a tiny 3 person team can't justify a 9 months development risk... then I see a chicken-n-egg scenario formed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Apps - A Coordinated Effort?

We all know one of the biggest gripes about Windows Phone is the lack of a few key apps. I know that I frequently contact a few companies to let them know that I am looking forward to a Windows Phone version of their existing apps and I’m sure others do as well. So companies get a smattering of requests from some users here and there.
Just wondering if perhaps we focus on one or a few particular apps at a time with many people emailing, tweeting, comments on Facebook etc in a sustained way to let them see that there is actual interest from a large number of users in the Windows Phone community. Who knows, maybe if there is enough noise, some of them will rethink their stand.
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but seemed like good place to see what people think.
Thoughts?
Bad idea. Software business works by different way. No one cares about your tweets or fb posts or forum noise - it's just a children game.
I agree that it may not make a difference, however companies often do actually listen to what people are saying. If it sounds like there is a demand, some companies who have been on the fence, may well pull the trigger and make something happen.
I've had luck getting companies to do things when I ask publicly that they wouldn't do when I asked privately. So it seems like getting more people asking publicly may well help in some instances.
willp2 said:
I agree that it may not make a difference, however companies often do actually listen to what people are saying. If it sounds like there is a demand, some companies who have been on the fence, may well pull the trigger and make something happen.
I've had luck getting companies to do things when I ask publicly that they wouldn't do when I asked privately. So it seems like getting more people asking publicly may well help in some instances.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other than XDA, if you also post this on WPCentral forum, you will get much much much better and enthusiastic response for such requests. There is a list of app-requests somwhere in this forum too, if you wanted a place to pick apps-in-demand from.
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Companies are "listening" their marketing stuff, investors and personal CEO/chairman opinions. Neither facebook posts nor tweets can change company budget, marketing strategy or development roadmap. In fact, the most companies are controlled by the intelligent and informed people, so you may be sure they already knew about WP7 platform
P.S. Let me guess: you've never worked in software industry, don't you?
Thanks for the comments on WPCentral forum, good point. More regular users over there.
sensboston - You made my point exactly. Companies are listening to marketing staff, investors and personal CEO/chairman opinions. Those people, especially the marketing types pay attention to what the outside world is saying. If they see noise about a particular topic, it gets their attention.
For instance, if that company releases a new version of an app that has big problems, they'll hear about it first from all those social sources and they will generally try to react quickly to quite down the noise.
Not that it matters or even relevant to what I'm talking about here, but I've been in the software industry for over 20 years.
willp2 said:
For instance, if that company releases a new version of an app that has big problems, they'll hear about it first from all those social sources and they will generally try to react quickly to quite down the noise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a completely different case. Yes, I agree - huge noise/rumors about critical bug in popular app/software can push (some) companies to force fix or workaround immediately (good example is a Nokia representatives, who's - I believe - are monitoring XDA forums daily)
But porting app to the different platform (especially to WP7!) is very complicated. Most primary titles are written on C++ and uses native code/API calls. "Porting" C++ code to C#/Silverlight isn't just "porting"; it's much more close to complete rewrite. Also WP7 platform support means an additional tier of Q&A and etc. and so on (if you are really worked more than 20 years in industry you can easily extend these requirements).
100 or even 1000 facebook posts and forum requests can't show you a real app demand but statistics can. Unfortunately WP7 market share currently is too small (at the end of 2011 it was about 2%).
I thought there was a similar thread already, but if not then perhaps we can do that. I heard a company saying, they'll port it to windows phone if they enough demands.
I do get that it's not a trivial task.
Again I was really just getting at the many companies who are already considering moving to Windows Phone but are on the fence.
As we know more and more apps are being ported every week so many companies already have been thinking about, planning or are already doing it. In some cases a little public pressure may at least confirm to them that people are interested and perhaps move things along.
lamborg - sorry if someone else already brought this up in another thread, I did search around first.
willp2 said:
I do get that it's not a trivial task.
Again I was really just getting at the many companies who are already considering moving to Windows Phone but are on the fence.
As we know more and more apps are being ported every week so many companies already have been thinking about, planning or are already doing it. In some cases a little public pressure may at least confirm to them that people are interested and perhaps move things along.
lamborg - sorry if someone else already brought this up in another thread, I did search around first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure either but I think I have seen a similar thread, Anyway, if that cannot be found.
BTW it was I think Draw Something which said about the enough demand.
Maybe try crowd funding
Maybe this is an area where crowd funding could help.
I mean, people can make noise about want for a particular WP7 app as much as they like, but at the end of the day somebody has to pay for development, in some way, either directly or indirectly.
A successful crowd funding campaign for an app would probably prove much more that there really is demand than just so many Facebook postings.
Of course there is also the danger that such a campaign fails miserably and shows that there isn't real demand, just a very vocal but small minority wanting the app...
rbrunner7 said:
Maybe this is an area where crowd funding could help.
I mean, people can make noise about want for a particular WP7 app as much as they like, but at the end of the day somebody has to pay for development, in some way, either directly or indirectly.
A successful crowd funding campaign for an app would probably prove much more that there really is demand than just so many Facebook postings.
Of course there is also the danger that such a campaign fails miserably and shows that there isn't real demand, just a very vocal but small minority wanting the app...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guarantee this would not get noticed. Most users on the site don't even donate to the devs that post apps here that they use, let alone donate to some fund for the possibility of an app being ported.
Standard contractor rates for a software engineer are about $100 to $150 per hour. Salaried devs make less, but the cost is close to the same for companies because of benefits packages. So, 1 day of dev time for 1 developer is going to cost around $1000. My guess is a crowd fund would not even reach $100. But even if $10000 were collected, that would only cover a team of 5 for 2 days. And, 5 days for 20 business days would cost $100000. And this is is exactly why companies have been slow to bring apps over. It's expensive.
The other aspect is that although the syntax is similar in C#, Java, and C++; there are enough differences to make it less than a simple task to just switch over. Most devs with experience have been doing either C# or Java or C++. Most have not been doing all 3. This means paying money and taking time to get the existing devs trained or hire additional devs and transfering domain knowledge to them. Both have costs. (Note: iPhone is Objective C, which is different, but also has similarities. Same issues though)
Many companies just don't have the resources to spend when the return on investment is not short term. Long term as more consumers buy Windows Phones, it will be more economically viable for companies to invest in porting the applications.
JVH3 said:
Guarantee this would not get noticed. Most users on the site don't even donate to the devs that post apps here that they use
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He-he... Most users on the site are too lazy, greedy and irresponsible not even for donation but just for vote and review published here on XDA apps And some are so ungrateful that they forget just to say "Thanks"... Don't tell me about donations: I've collected money for Cotulla, for the Samsung's first freedom ROM for WP7... From hundreds of Focus owners here only 13 or 14 people are donated.
As for your arguments: it's 100% true for an adult professionals but of course not for 12-14 years old teens who "has over 20 years of software industry experience"
Yeah, I am myself a professional developer at day time, and I know how much it costs my company to employ me
But still, I think not all hope is lost. Some people may read this thread and just maybe change their attitude against devs that offer "free" things a little to the better - good that we talked about it, then!
And as I program in my free time anyway, just for fun, even a crowdsourced 1000 dollars could nudge me in a direction that I would not take otherwise, and people get the app they like. Of course only if the right APIs and server permissions are there to build it in the first place which of course is not always the case - many apps can only be built by the companies who own the corresponding server infrastructure.
rbrunner7 said:
Yeah, I am myself a professional developer at day time, and I know how much it costs my company to employ me
But still, I think not all hope is lost. Some people may read this thread and just maybe change their attitude against devs that offer "free" things a little to the better - good that we talked about it, then!
And as I program in my free time anyway, just for fun, even a crowdsourced 1000 dollars could nudge me in a direction that I would not take otherwise, and people get the app they like. Of course only if the right APIs and server permissions are there to build it in the first place which of course is not always the case - many apps can only be built by the companies who own the corresponding server infrastructure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to be discouraging, but it is pretty unlikely to get $1000 in donation from users here. It you look at the weather city editor that I wrote (link to thread in signature) for Windows Mobile, I got maybe close to $500 in donations from the time I created it through the entire time I worked on it, supported it, and enhanced it. I created it because I needed it and turned it into more than I needed so others could easily use it. The donations came from maybe 20 to 30 users. It was downloaded by well over 10000 users.
If looking for money as the reward, you are much better off paying Microsoft the $100 and putting the app on the marketplace and charging a dollar or making it be ad supported.
You'll still get respect for making cool things and posting them here, but it's not going to make you rich. It's a great place to learn and get some experience making apps though. Lots of people are willing to help if you get stuck on something.
It's a nice thought but, in reality it wont work
I thought about doing this too...
If you got everyone to attempt to do it, it might but, if you only get 50 people to do it(and that would be a lot in a fourm to request something they might not be interested in) that is a little bit compared to their marketplace with iOS or Android.
I personally really want Cut the Rope but, after posting a handfull of times on their facebook page and even emailing customer service, no luck

How much does the ads-developers site make every year

Hello,
I just want to know since there was a set of prizes worth $4 million that I think was being sponsored by Samsung how much does XT a development make every year? Obviously you are under no obligation to tell me since it's probably a private firm or maybe ohm by a larger firm. I only ask because most of the money this page because the developers store their hard earned software here and the forms that relate to them and they publish the results of their builds to these forums.
If I don't have quite right please still free to correct me. Please send a no circumstances at defensively and trying to lose your cool. We live in the capitalistic country thank God at least for now until socialism tries to take over. Or continues to try to take over.
Great Darlas I just wondered if any of the money was shared with the developers make the site possible. Are any or all of the developers actually paid by the proceeds from the site? Is any type of compensation whatsoever to the developers for their hard work that make some money that is generated by ADS that the owners of the site profit from? With just for now a set of $4 million in prizes I would think that the amount of money that the site generates is astronomical. By the way where do I sign up for these prizes see in all the videos?
If the developers are not making any money from this, G is the way that they can be made possible?
This is a perfect site for making money because of all the ads in the fact that people come here almost every day for a new set of operating systems to put on the phone, and that the source code from one phone can be used for many phones in general, well at least 60 to 80% or more. Feel free to correct my figures.
Go
Btw your friends does not work very well with voice dictation
Especially with the program called Swype. Example if I
say period it's supposed to put a dot, if I say question mark it should put a?
I wouldn't complain except that you need your text boxes are extremely hard because we're you touch is not where the cursor goes. This makes editing impossible especially at the end of the line. As such ask for your patience because I'm highly disabled list nerve damage and it's very difficult to work your forums. It's not just with this keyboard software it is with others as well. Could you try to fix us as soon as possible
heartspeace said:
Hello,
I just want to know since there was a set of prizes worth $4 million that I think was being sponsored by Samsung how much does XT a development make every year? Obviously you are under no obligation to tell me since it's probably a private firm or maybe ohm by a larger firm. I only ask because most of the money this page because the developers store their hard earned software here and the forms that relate to them and they publish the results of their builds to these forums.
If I don't have quite right please still free to correct me. Please send a no circumstances at defensively and trying to lose your cool. We live in the capitalistic country thank God at least for now until socialism tries to take over. Or continues to try to take over.
Great Darlas I just wondered if any of the money was shared with the developers make the site possible. Are any or all of the developers actually paid by the proceeds from the site? Is any type of compensation whatsoever to the developers for their hard work that make some money that is generated by ADS that the owners of the site profit from? With just for now a set of $4 million in prizes I would think that the amount of money that the site generates is astronomical. By the way where do I sign up for these prizes see in all the videos?
If the developers are not making any money from this, G is the way that they can be made possible?
This is a perfect site for making money because of all the ads in the fact that people come here almost every day for a new set of operating systems to put on the phone, and that the source code from one phone can be used for many phones in general, well at least 60 to 80% or more. Feel free to correct my figures.
Go
Btw your friends does not work very well with voice dictation
Especially with the program called Swype. Example if I
say period it's supposed to put a dot, if I say question mark it should put a?
I wouldn't complain except that you need your text boxes are extremely hard because we're you touch is not where the cursor goes. This makes editing impossible especially at the end of the line. As such ask for your patience because I'm highly disabled list nerve damage and it's very difficult to work your forums. It's not just with this keyboard software it is with others as well. Could you try to fix us as soon as possible
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you have failed to understand exactly WHY this site exists. Tip, it is not for the money....
mf2112 said:
I think you have failed to understand exactly WHY this site exists. Tip, it is not for the money....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do understand why this site exists period and I wouldn't be surprised that you actually make a lot of money orange that you barely break even . I am just curious to to know whether you make a lot of money are you barely breakeven. I only ask us because there was a set of $4 million in prizes being given away . Maybe that was just to third parties companies generosity. Does it hurt at all to ask these questions? /Can /will you answer them?
Also can you answer how I can sign up for the prizes?
heartspeace said:
I do understand why this site exists period and I wouldn't be surprised that you actually make a lot of money orange that you barely break even . I am just curious to to know whether you make a lot of money are you barely breakeven. I only ask us because there was a set of $4 million in prizes being given away . Maybe that was just to third parties companies generosity. Does it hurt at all to ask these questions? /Can /will you answer them?
Also can you answer how I can sign up for the prizes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never heard about the prize so I am not sure. It doesn't hurt to ask although I am not sure this is the proper forum for it, and I am not sure why you felt the need to inject a political message into it, that tends to be frowned upon here as the site is about mobile phones and mobile phones aren't political.
As for your other questions, you might PM svetius. You certainly won't get an answer about finances posted back on a public thread, and frankly I doubt you will get an answer to it at all since you don't need to know it. I apologize if that seems rude, but this is a business like any other and is under no obligation or duty to show anybody anything with regards to finances except the owners.
mf2112 said:
Never heard about the prize so I am not sure. It doesn't hurt to ask although I am not sure this is the proper forum for it, and I am not sure why you felt the need to inject a political message into it, that tends to be frowned upon here as the site is about mobile phones and mobile phones aren't political.
As for your other questions, you might PM svetius. You certainly won't get an answer about finances posted back on a public thread, and frankly I doubt you will get an answer to it at all since you don't need to know it. I apologize if that seems rude, but this is a business like any other and is under no obligation or duty to show anybody anything with regards to finances except the owners.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are the only two questions I'm really asking. Is this a for profit business? And that's a subquestion of that I wondered if the developers work for this business or if they work as a volunteer project? I know that if this is a for profit business it would not exist except for the developers putting up their ROMs and other support here for the many users. I think it would be good if it is a for-profit business Khala that perhaps the business gives some support monetarily to the developers. Is there is a 4 1/2 million dollar set of prizes as it said in the videos, I would love to be signed up for that and I wonder where I can?
I just think sites that are built upon the developers backs or other people's efforts should give back to those people more then just hosting in their software if and only if the company is profitable. On this page alone I see there are three ads. The other side is if this is a business and it needs help because it's not profitable and we can help it then maybe we can give donations? As this is a very valuable resource it to be nice to know what condition it send financially so it
doesn't fail to disappear like so many thousands of other business over the last few years.
HP
mf2112 said:
I think you have failed to understand exactly WHY this site exists. Tip, it is not for the money....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree.
I agree too
Sent from my MT11i using xda premium
The prizes in that competition are provided entirely by Samsung.
If it's the same competition I think you are referring to, you would need to publish an app on Samsung's store, and the most popular apps on a given date win...
Regarding developers, we have introduced a program recently to give a small number of developers phones and tablets to develop with. This is still a relatively small program, but I'm sure with time it will expand a bit, in a controlled manner
heartspeace said:
Hello,
I just want to know since there was a set of prizes worth $4 million that I think was being sponsored by Samsung how much does XT a development make every year? Obviously you are under no obligation to tell me since it's probably a private firm or maybe ohm by a larger firm. I only ask because most of the money this page because the developers store their hard earned software here and the forms that relate to them and they publish the results of their builds to these forums.
If I don't have quite right please still free to correct me. Please send a no circumstances at defensively and trying to lose your cool. We live in the capitalistic country thank God at least for now until socialism tries to take over. Or continues to try to take over.
Great Darlas I just wondered if any of the money was shared with the developers make the site possible. Are any or all of the developers actually paid by the proceeds from the site? Is any type of compensation whatsoever to the developers for their hard work that make some money that is generated by ADS that the owners of the site profit from? With just for now a set of $4 million in prizes I would think that the amount of money that the site generates is astronomical. By the way where do I sign up for these prizes see in all the videos?
If the developers are not making any money from this, G is the way that they can be made possible?
This is a perfect site for making money because of all the ads in the fact that people come here almost every day for a new set of operating systems to put on the phone, and that the source code from one phone can be used for many phones in general, well at least 60 to 80% or more. Feel free to correct my figures.
Go
Btw your friends does not work very well with voice dictation
Especially with the program called Swype. Example if I
say period it's supposed to put a dot, if I say question mark it should put a?
I wouldn't complain except that you need your text boxes are extremely hard because we're you touch is not where the cursor goes. This makes editing impossible especially at the end of the line. As such ask for your patience because I'm highly disabled list nerve damage and it's very difficult to work your forums. It's not just with this keyboard software it is with others as well. Could you try to fix us as soon as possible
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW for typing via swype, have you considered trying the XDA app or Tapatalk? Much easier to use, as it's a native android app...
For the punctuation, I think that is a restriction of the voice to text software used within Swype, which I think is provided by Nuance.
I suggest you start typing your posts like everyone else if possible. Your voice dictated ones are horrible. They remind me of the kind of garbled messages spammers send or the garbage that results when lazy spammers scrap content and put it through an article spinner. Either that or get some decent voice dictation software.
BretonGirl said:
I suggest you start typing your posts like everyone else if possible. Your voice dictated ones are horrible. They remind me of the kind of garbled messages spammers send or the garbage that results when lazy spammers scrap content and put it through an article spinner. Either that or get some decent voice dictation software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious were you in a bad mood when you posted that, or were you just lacking enough charity to have any responsible foresight?
I use voice dictation because I had a bad operation which left me with severe nerve damage and muscle damage and muscle atrophy throughout my upper body; I am in moderate to severe pain about 24 hours a day even while undergoing pain management treatment. I used to run a worldwide software development organization with world-class developers for governmental programs. Forgive me if voice dictation is being my arms for now, and most likely rest my life.
But please if you can recommend voice dictation software better than Nuance on Android please do tell me about it. Google is still a large leap behind. I do not know of any others, do you? Perhaps this is a calling for you to write one to help many without the ability to type. What languages do you know? How proficient are you at programing? What is your background and education? I'm sure I can touch base with some of my old research buddies in the government who would love your donated time for such a project, if you have any programming skills or development background or even research background in linguistics, speech algorithms, or other related technologies.
hp
I suspect she is a teenager. There are quite a few here.
I don't know of any other voice dictation software, sorry. Never had a good opportunity to use it so I never investigated any of the available packages out there personally beyond a guick google once. Actually your posts were not any worse than many of the ones I read by the teenagers here with their abbreviations. :-/

Anyone here have developed apps on the Windows Store?

I am a user of W10M and I was very impressed with the development potential that exists in this forum and also intrigued to think there has not arisen some great big hit app for Windows Phone from some kind of collaborative development from here.
Anyone here have no interest making an app to meet a demand like a really good youtube app or something else?
Windows Phone lack of good apps and if there someplace in the world that can change this reality is here, probably. There is so much to do and here are met very skilled people... I don't know... seems like everything is laying arround here, like tools, knowledge, experience, time, computing resources, even the good will, and etc... Let's face it, today Windows users depends, almost tottaly, on the development of people like you guys, just like the Linux community do... it's the only way, I think...
raphaelsolis said:
I am a user of W10M and I was very impressed with the development potential that exists in this forum and also intrigued to think there has not arisen some great big hit app for Windows Phone from some kind of collaborative development from here.
Anyone here have no interest making an app to meet a demand like a really good youtube app or something else?
Windows Phone lack of good apps and if there someplace in the world that can change this reality is here, probably. There is so much to do and here are met very skilled people... I don't know... seems like everything is laying arround here, like tools, knowledge, experience, time, computing resources, even the good will, and etc... Let's face it, today Windows users depends, almost tottaly, on the development of people like you guys, just like the Linux community do... it's the only way, I think...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really, the main apps missing don't come from independent developers, but from banks, stores, public transportation/airports/airlines, schools, etc.
Until market share picks up, or we make enough fuss, they won't see it as worth the time and effort to deploy apps for windows phone.
here in Croatia, for example, we have bunch of banking apps (almost all banks here have windows apps) because we were annoying
for my bank PBZ, we gathered and every week sent requirements for banks apps six months. Today we have:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/mpbz/9nblggh093bh
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/pbzmtoken/9nblggh0f4rr
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/mpbzcom/9nblgggzkjmg
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/american-express-myaccount/9nblggh52jmn
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/pbz-wave-2-pay-sticker/9wzdncrdjzv4
so, dont be lazy. find people who want some apps also, and every week send request for apps to banks, developers... and maybe you got apps...
P:S
here is apps from other banks here:
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/addiko-mobile-hrvatska/9nblggh0k1m0
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/apps/m-zaba/9nblggh0fv21
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/apps/m-zabaps/9wzdncrdt4n0
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/poba-m-token/9nblggh0jxxl
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/rba-na-dlanu/9wzdncrdl8v0
user107 said:
Really, the main apps missing don't come from independent developers, but from banks, stores, public transportation/airports/airlines, schools, etc.
Until market share picks up, or we make enough fuss, they won't see it as worth the time and effort to deploy apps for windows phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, sorry I have no idea about this fact.
In my experience I see the big majority are shytty unofficial apps and unofficial clients for the big apps we don't have a official version yet, this big majority apps comes from individual developers or small software houses, and the official versions are kind of shytty too, because all lacks of important features, this is what actually we have at our disposal: a bone to the dogs, the leftovers, this is what they have to offer to W10M users. My point is: if we want to have something really good, this will have to come from us, because we are the only people who actually cares with this O.S.
dxdy said:
here in Croatia, for example, we have bunch of banking apps (almost all banks here have windows apps) because we were annoying
for my bank PBZ, we gathered and every week sent requirements for banks apps six months. Today we have:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/mpbz/9nblggh093bh
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/pbzmtoken/9nblggh0f4rr
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/mpbzcom/9nblgggzkjmg
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/american-express-myaccount/9nblggh52jmn
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/pbz-wave-2-pay-sticker/9wzdncrdjzv4
so, dont be lazy. find people who want some apps also, and every week send request for apps to banks, developers... and maybe you got apps...
P:S
here is apps from other banks here:
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/addiko-mobile-hrvatska/9nblggh0k1m0
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/apps/m-zaba/9nblggh0fv21
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/apps/m-zabaps/9wzdncrdt4n0
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/poba-m-token/9nblggh0jxxl
https://www.microsoft.com/hr-hr/store/p/rba-na-dlanu/9wzdncrdl8v0
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Click to collapse
Dude... I'm not lazy... at all my friend... Maybe you don't get what is my point here, I don't want make a fuss like a children begging for something, I want more, we deserve dignity and respect too... The fuss was made already along the years, and we have not been heard, they just shut up us with a pacifier, some diversion to take our attention... until today we don't have even a good FB app, we have a official app but it don't have live streaming and video calls on FB messeger, we always have less then the others plataforms. Linux is the example for us here, they are by himself and they are going well. We have to send a message with a really good big hit app like Youtube or something else...
raphaelsolis said:
I don't want make a fuss like a children begging for something, I want more, we deserve dignity and respect too... The fuss was made already, along the years and we have not been heard, they just shut up us with a pacifier, some diversion to take our attention...
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Are you familiar with the idiom "The squeaky wheel gets the oil"?
user107 said:
Are you familiar with the idiom "The squeaky wheel gets the oil"?
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No, it's new to me. I'm not familiar with english idioms, but I get it...
Like I said, we squeak for a long time and no one seems to care about... They doesn't oil this squeaky wheel, they just make a palliative repair to temporarily stop our noise. They seems not interested in take action to solve the problem once and for all.
My point is: if we could make this great free app (wich we will not do, I know), it will make their irresponsibility with us something embarrassing to then (Google and Microsoft), worldwide. That would be a big squeak.
I wanted a awesome Windows 10 Mobile experience. That is what we paid for, and that we deserve, like the others plataforms are getting.
Big companies (Facebook, Google) are just rich, stupid and cocky... today they are only interested in profit. They are faceless money-sucking parasites who don't care nothing about the users needs from a minor low-profit plataform. We are just a problem to cover up.
But we in other hand (me, at last), have pride. We are enthusiasts and care about this. and we should take care of this situation, that's what I think...
raphaelsolis said:
My point is: if we could make this great free app (wich we will not do, I know), it will make their irresponsibility with us something embarrassing to then (Google and Microsoft), worldwide.
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It's wishful thinking, but we (independent developers) simply do not have access to necessary APIs to develop third-party apps.
Many things can be taken care of through the browser, but still that is not enough in some instances (like my city's public transport system).
Again, you won't do much just ranting here.
You must harass them (facebook, google, etc) daily if necessary.
raphaelsolis said:
Big companies (Facebook, Google) are just rich, stupid and cocky... today they are only interested in profit. They are faceless money-sucking parasites who don't care nothing about the users needs from a minor low-profit plataform. We are just a problem to cover up.
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Businesses must care about profit first, for the owners and shareholders. That's a whole idea about business; otherwise please refer to the "communism" or other "-isemes"...
raphaelsolis said:
But we in other hand (me, at last), have pride. We are enthusiasts and care about this. and we should take care of this situation, that's what I think...
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"Pride" will not cover your time/money/other expenses. You should say "thanks" (in the opposite meaning of this word ) to the M$ who just screwed up a good platform.
Nobody wants to spend money to W10M anymore; there are no W10M jobs on the US market (at all!), many big companies are stopped WP/W10M support at all like Amazon etc. Indie devs are not happy too: if you have good idea, you may earn much more by developing to the other platforms (but you should spend same resources).
P.S. BTW, for your OP: I do have a good apps and games in the store (a lot of) and I always provided my development skills to the community (when I have the time of course)
OK. I gave the shot because here seemed to be the birth place of amazing Android mods like the cyanogenmods and some Windows Hacks... I thought app development for this guys was a child's play.
And, just to make clear about the APIs, I insisted in Youtube App because I know the paid app Metro Tube and seemed possible to do.
But you are totally right, it's wishful thinking...
Thanks for attention.
sensboston said:
Businesses must care about profit first, for the owners and shareholders. That's a whole idea about business; otherwise please refer to the "communism" or other "-isemes"...
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Yes, but not related. Big companies (Google and Facebook) started operations totally focused in offer something cool to users and make money in consequense. Have the users was to whole point. Now they have all the users of the whole world and it changed his attitude and can (stupidly) ignore who are not interesting for them, even if the reason for that is low-profit (but still profit, not a loss), for that I think they are cocky now. That is why I wrote "today" in that sentence. Today is another reality.
sensboston said:
"Pride" will not cover your time/money/other expenses. You should say "thanks" (in the opposite meaning of this word ) to the M$ who just screwed up a good platform.
Nobody wants to spend money to W10M anymore; there are no W10M jobs on the US market (at all!), many big companies are stopped WP/W10M support at all like Amazon etc. Indie devs are not happy too: if you have good idea, you may earn much more by developing to the other platforms (but you should spend same resources).
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Pride certainly will not cover. That is why I brought Linux like an example to follow. They work for themselves to serve all the community. Who have the knowledge helps and I believe you will did the same if a project like "W10M Free Youtube App" existed. This seemed our reality from now on...
Nice Apps by the way...
Thats why I want to emphasize: if we want start to reverse this scenario we have to start make something big by ourselves. W10M need apps to raise his market share? let's make the apps... by ourselves.
I believe if W10M show signs of growth it can grow exponentially when companies start to notice this.
raphaelsolis said:
Yes, but not related. Big companies (Google and Facebook) started operations totally focused in offer something cool to users and make money in consequense.
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He-he, I wish to live in your world but "I'm too old for this sh&t" (c)
raphaelsolis said:
That is why I brought Linux like an example to follow. They work for themselves to serve all the community.
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Linux is a different kind of story; by the way, if you'll try to get help from a linux gurus or other kind of open source nerds like ffmpeg guys by the similar way (I mean your opening post), don't get too upset, usual "RTFM" will be a most decent word
Also, apps are created not by "we" or "let's make". The correct question should sounds like: "I created an ultimate youtube app, the sources are located at the https://github.com/blah-blah-blah. Anybody wanna get a try or join development?"...
People usually do what they are like to do; looks like everybody are happy with the youtube mobile site via Edge, as I am.
sensboston said:
He-he, I wish to live in your world but "I'm too old for this sh&t" (c)
Linux is a different kind of story; by the way, if you'll try to get help from a linux gurus or other kind of open source nerds like ffmpeg guys by the similar way (I mean your opening post), don't get too upset, usual "RTFM" will be a most decent word
Also, apps are created not by "we" or "let's make". The correct question should sounds like: "I created an ultimate youtube app, the sources are located at the https://github.com/blah-blah-blah. Anybody wanna get a try or join development?"...
People usually do what they are like to do; looks like everybody are happy with the youtube mobile site via Edge, as I am.
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Ok... apps can be created by others ways too. Thanks for your interest. There are always a million reasons not to do something...
Let's do nothing and watch this ship sink... it's the best thing do to.
Can you or anyone else tell me how to delete this pointless thread?

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