Neutron :: Bomb

by John Calian |
Topics: Android | Application Stores

So the big news of the day is that the Android Market is allowing 3rd party developers to charge for their Android applications. Although the money isn't flowing yet for developers, they can sign up for their Google Merchant accounts. From the post on Google's Android Developers Blog it sounds like Android users in the U.S. will have paid apps by mid next week.

Couple of questions I have are:

1. Will users automatically get updated versions for free after they make the initial purchase?
2. Will the market force users to pay again if they loose the applications on their phone?

As a 3rd party developer myself I'm really excited to finally be able to make something from one of my side projects. I do have to admit I'm a little hesitant to charge for my applications. One side of me wants to give them away, because they aren't worthy of paid applications, another part is saying...it's only 99 cents or $2.99. Are you a developer? Do you have the same hesitations? Are you an end-user? What do you feel makes an application "worthy" of being more the $0.00?

It'll be interesting to see what applications do well and which ones tank. I wonder if it'll mirror the types of apps which have been successful on the iPhone market...or if Android is just going to get 25 types of farting apps :).