Top Free

So, once again I made it into the Top Free section on the PlayBook portion of BlackBerry App World. Last time it was the games section, this time it was the apps section. Here's what I've learned:

People want things for free. Moreover, they explicitly do not want to pay for things. Getting into the Top-25 Free on the PlayBook seems to require around 1500 downloads per day. From what I can recall, eking your way into the Top-25 Paid requires only around 40, or 2.5% of what it takes to get onto the free list.

Lots of downloads does not translate into lots of money. Since GPS Data Master is free and wasn't ad-supported, it didn't generate any revenue directly. As far as I can tell, it didn't drive anyone to my other apps, and it most certainly didn't encourage anyone to make a donation. If I could make a single dollar per year off everyone who downloads GPSDM, I could become a full-time app developer and give away all my other apps for free. As it stands now, I'll be exceedingly lucky if I make a tenth of a cent per person per year.

There's no way of knowing what'll become popular. I banged out the original version of GPSDM in about a day if I remember correctly. I didn't think anyone would ever use it. I have other apps that I've put hundreds of hours of work into that get maybe 10% of the downloads it does.

Many users have no concept of how apps generate revenue. I've had complaints about some of the least-intrusive ads I could find. I've had people get angry and say they're going to delete one of my ad-free apps if I don't change it in some way. I've had requests for features that would require several days of work from people who say they wouldn't be willing to pay a dollar to upgrade. It takes some cojones to ask a guy who's giving you free stuff to work for a week so you can have more free stuff, so I have to assume that there are users out there who think developers get paid if they download something or keep it installed on their device.

Perhaps most importantly, I've learned that the PlayBook is a dying platform. It's a good device, but right now no one is making apps for it. Over the last week there have been about 25 new games released. I know this because I released a game a week ago and it's still on the Top-25 New Arrivals page. They're not quality games, either. I reviewed a few of them over on my reviews blog, and they were mainly worthless; not that anything I've ever made is spectacular, but some ugly, broken stuff has come out this week. Right now, the PlayBook isn't succeeding in either the quality or the quantity of apps, and that more or less spells the end for it.

I'll continue to make occasional updates to my current apps, but I don't think I'll be making any new ones. If anyone would like to hire me to do a little freelance work, I have some time, now. The stuff on this blog should serve as a fairly good indicator of what I can do. And, apparently, I'm one of the top PlayBook developers out there. Whatever that means.