10Apr

Android On Your PC: Qualcomm Invests In BlueStacks After Beta Sees 1M Downloads In 10 Days

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New BlueStacks Logo

If you’re an Android and a PC, you should check out BlueStacks — before hackers catch on or Chrome sneaks in this functionality, take advantage. The startup’s software has been going like hotcakes over the last few months, as it’s offering a much-needed service for Android and PC users, having developed software that allows Android users to run their apps on all Windows PCs, tablets, and laptops — without any modifications.

Thanks to this appealing concept, BlueStacks lured $7.6 million in venture funding pre-launch, before adding another $6.4 million a few months later — all from investors like AMD, Citrix Systems, Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures, and more.

The startup finally released its public beta on March 27th, and so far users have been eating it up. In the first 10 days after its release, BlueStacks’ App Player racked up more than 1 million downloads, with over 12 million apps collectively being run by its users. It’s on the heels of this early traction that the company is today announcing it has found yet another investor — this time from global telecom giant, Qualcomm.

Acting through its venture arm, Qualcomm Ventures, the chipmaker invested an undisclosed amount in BlueStacks, but from what we’ve been hearing from those familiar with the matter, the round was in the seven-figure range.

The startup now has over $15 million in outside investment, which is notable both in size (relative to the age of its product) and for the fact that BlueStacks has been able to bring together (at least symbolically) two of the biggest semiconductor/chipmakers on the market — Qualcomm and AMD. Not two names one typically finds side-by-side on a startup’s roster of investors.

“Consumers are increasingly looking for computing experiences that enable them to access their apps across different platforms,” said VP of Qualcomm Ventures Nagraj Kashyap. “We believe BlueStacks is well-positioned to capitalize on the marriage of mobile and PC.”

Again, for a recap for those unfamiliar, BlueStacks’ App Player is a free software download that gives Android users the ability to get one-click access to their apps on any Windows PC, including full-screen viewing. In turn, the startup’s Cloud Connect lets users push apps from their phone onto their PC easily and remotely, turning PCs into extensions of any Android-based mobile device, using their own personal cloud-based app channel.

Obviously, the big goal for BlueStacks is to bring the some 450,000 Android apps to those billion-odd PC users out there. If done right, it’s a fairly sizable market, to say the least. The other key to the startup’s beta release was the new ability to run graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs, using its patent-pending technology called “Layercake.” Essentially, as we wrote at the time, Layercake allows Android apps to run on x86-based PCs, including apps written for the ARM processor, like Angry Birds Space or Fruit Ninja, for example.

The beta release leverages the PC’s graphics card to enable apps running graphics-intensive engines like Unity to process without hiccups, and also offers accelerometer tilting and pinch-to-zoom smartphone UI features to the desktop via mouse and keyboard prompts. Users can also now download apps from within BlueStacks even if they don’t have an Android phone, and can send and receive SMS messages on their PCs.

The company partnered with the developers behind apps like Fruit Ninja, SliceIt!, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Townsmen, Evernote, Defender and StumbleUpon for its beta release. Shainiel Deo, the CEO of Halfbrick (the makers of Fruit Ninja), said that the appeal of BlueStacks’ software is that developers don’t have to port or modify apps to run them on PCs, meaning there’s no heavy lifting for those who’ve already developed apps for Android.

Of course, Android fragmentation could be a problem, as some users of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in particular have complained of trouble in syncing app data between devices and PCs — beyond simply syncing APKs — something which will be crucial for its long-term viability. It will also be interesting to see how BlueStacks deals with security, as some users pointed out that the software could become a victim of having to make repeated security upgrades as hackers catch onto loopholes.

But, in the meantime, BlueStacks could offer Android users a great way to avoid using data-time on their smartphones, reducing bills across the board. It also offers Android developers of all stripes access to the billion-user PC market, something which has previously only been offered for a select few, like Rovio and Cut the Rope.

In that sense, BlueStacks wants to become a developer platform, by which developers can build for Android and get a PC app version for free. It’s without a doubt a smart play, and with big money from Andreessen, AMD, Qualcomm and more there’s reason to believe its product will continue to improve, though it will certainly be interesting to see how sustainable the company’s concept can be in the long term. If Windows 8 tablets take off, long-term viability could be within reach.

For more on BlueStacks, check ‘em out at home here. Below you’ll find a demo video of Fruit Ninja fullscreen on a PC using BlueStacks software:



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10Apr

Amazon Takes In-App Purchases Out Of Beta: Here’s How They Compromised On Revenue Share

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amazon-apps

Amazon is taking the wraps off a new in-app purchasing service today in an effort to make its app store competitive with what Apple and Google offer developers. That should let developers for Amazon’s appstore tap into what has emerged as the most lucrative way of monetizing apps over the past year: staying free but offering virtual currency or other items for purchase inside the app.

After undergoing testing for several months, the new in-app purchasing service is now available for everyone. It’s based off Amazon’s one-click buying experience and applies to digital content like in-game currency, expansion packs, upgrades and subscriptions from inside apps and games.

But as I pointed out last week, the interesting part of this story is not whether Amazon is doing in-app purchases. It’s obvious that the company would do this.

The question is how is it setting up the pricing? You see, Amazon has historically pushed hard for the power to set prices for books and other goods. When it unveiled the appstore last year, it had the ability to discount apps at will. Developers would either earn 20 percent of what they wanted to charge or 70 percent of whatever Amazon ultimately charged — whatever was higher. That irked developers, naturally.

With in-app purchases, it turns out Amazon still has the ability to discount in-app items. But the developers will always earn 70 percent of the list price or what they wanted to charge for it, according to Amazon appstore’s director Aaron Rubenson.

“We’re just following the paradigm that’s out there with the 70-30 split,” he said. “This is a little bit different from the revenue share that we have for paid app sales. We looked at each purchase case separately.”

This is an interesting little compromise that lets Amazon keep its pricing power, while ensuring that developers see no losses as a result of it.

It’s also my understanding that Amazon isn’t mandating that developers only use the company’s in-app purchasing service. That said, Google’s in-app purchasing technology won’t work on the Kindle Fire, according to Rubenson. For that device, developers will have to use Amazon’s system. But on other tablets and phones, developers can use any number of in-app purchasing systems. That’s different from other app stores: Apple prohibits developers from using other in-app purchasing system for digital content. Google technically has the same rule although it hasn’t really enforced it until recently.

Here is the fine print if you want to read it yourself. It looks like there is a special exception for news media products:

4. Royalty; List Price. For each sale of an In-App Product, we will pay you a Royalty equal to 70% of the List Price as of the time of purchase. However, no Royalty is due for (a) In-App Products with a List Price of $0.00, (b) Subscription In-App Products listed in our News or Magazine categories (or similar or successor categories) that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers of up to 30 days (or any longer period you approve), or (c) other Subscription In-App Products that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers that you approve. For sales of Subscription In-App Products to renewing subscribers, your Royalty will be calculated based on the lower of (i) the then current List Price and (ii) the List Price in effect at the time the applicable end user first subscribed. A Royalty is due only for sales for which we have received final payment from or on behalf of an end user. If an In-App Product is purchased using a credit card or bank account deduction mechanism, final payment will be deemed to have occurred when the applicable credit card company or bank has fully settled the payment for the applicable purchase. “List Price” has the same meaning with respect to In-App Products as the meaning set forth in the Agreement with respect to Apps. You will update the List Price for each In-App Product as necessary to ensure it meets the List Price requirements.

In-app payments are something that Amazon is very well-positioned to do as the company has had a decade to build up expertise in online transactions. Coincidentally, it’s an area that Google is historically weak in providing. And developers are noticing. With about 34,000 apps and a very attractive base of paying customers, Amazon’s app store is becoming one to watch among mobile developers.

Flurry has reported that the average revenue per user from Amazon’s store is about 89 percent of what Apple iOS platform produces. Google lags behind with a revenue per user that sits at about 23 percent of what iOS can do. Keep in mind though that Amazon’s userbase is still much smaller than the audience that Google Play can reach. So Google Play might be able to make up for its weakness in monetization through scale.

Below is a video explaining Amazon in-app purchases plus some excerpts from the documentation that show the differences between Amazon and Google’s systems:



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10Apr

Amazon Takes In-App Purchases Out Of Beta: Here’s How They Compromised On Revenue Share

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

amazon-apps

Amazon is taking the wraps off a new in-app purchasing service today in an effort to make its app store competitive with what Apple and Google offer developers. That should let developers for Amazon’s appstore tap into what has emerged as the most lucrative way of monetizing apps over the past year: staying free but offering virtual currency or other items for purchase inside the app.

After undergoing testing for several months, the new in-app purchasing service is now available for everyone. It’s based off Amazon’s one-click buying experience and applies to digital content like in-game currency, expansion packs, upgrades and subscriptions from inside apps and games.

But as I pointed out last week, the interesting part of this story is not whether Amazon is doing in-app purchases. It’s obvious that the company would do this.

The question is how is it setting up the pricing? You see, Amazon has historically pushed hard for the power to set prices for books and other goods. When it unveiled the appstore last year, it had the ability to discount apps at will. Developers would either earn 20 percent of what they wanted to charge or 70 percent of whatever Amazon ultimately charged — whatever was higher. That irked developers, naturally.

With in-app purchases, it turns out Amazon still has the ability to discount in-app items. But the developers will always earn 70 percent of the list price or what they wanted to charge for it, according to Amazon appstore’s director Aaron Rubenson.

“We’re just following the paradigm that’s out there with the 70-30 split,” he said. “This is a little bit different from the revenue share that we have for paid app sales. We looked at each purchase case separately.”

This is an interesting little compromise that lets Amazon keep its pricing power, while ensuring that developers see no losses as a result of it.

It’s also my understanding that Amazon isn’t mandating that developers only use the company’s in-app purchasing service. That said, Google’s in-app purchasing technology won’t work on the Kindle Fire, according to Rubenson. For that device, developers will have to use Amazon’s system. But on other tablets and phones, developers can use any number of in-app purchasing systems. That’s different from other app stores: Apple prohibits developers from using other in-app purchasing system for digital content. Google technically has the same rule although it hasn’t really enforced it until recently.

Here is the fine print if you want to read it yourself. It looks like there is a special exception for news media products:

4. Royalty; List Price. For each sale of an In-App Product, we will pay you a Royalty equal to 70% of the List Price as of the time of purchase. However, no Royalty is due for (a) In-App Products with a List Price of $0.00, (b) Subscription In-App Products listed in our News or Magazine categories (or similar or successor categories) that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers of up to 30 days (or any longer period you approve), or (c) other Subscription In-App Products that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers that you approve. For sales of Subscription In-App Products to renewing subscribers, your Royalty will be calculated based on the lower of (i) the then current List Price and (ii) the List Price in effect at the time the applicable end user first subscribed. A Royalty is due only for sales for which we have received final payment from or on behalf of an end user. If an In-App Product is purchased using a credit card or bank account deduction mechanism, final payment will be deemed to have occurred when the applicable credit card company or bank has fully settled the payment for the applicable purchase. “List Price” has the same meaning with respect to In-App Products as the meaning set forth in the Agreement with respect to Apps. You will update the List Price for each In-App Product as necessary to ensure it meets the List Price requirements.

In-app payments are something that Amazon is very well-positioned to do as the company has had a decade to build up expertise in online transactions. Coincidentally, it’s an area that Google is historically weak in providing. And developers are noticing. With about 34,000 apps and a very attractive base of paying customers, Amazon’s app store is becoming one to watch among mobile developers.

Flurry has reported that the average revenue per user from Amazon’s store is about 89 percent of what Apple iOS platform produces. Google lags behind with a revenue per user that sits at about 23 percent of what iOS can do. Keep in mind though that Amazon’s userbase is still much smaller than the audience that Google Play can reach. So Google Play might be able to make up for its weakness in monetization through scale.

Below is a video explaining Amazon in-app purchases plus some excerpts from the documentation that show the differences between Amazon and Google’s systems:



View full post on TechCrunch » Mobile

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10Apr

Amazon’s Takes In-App Purchases Out Of Beta: Here’s How They Compromised On Revenue Share

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

amazon-apps

Amazon is taking the wraps off a new in-app purchasing service today in an effort to make its app store competitive with what Apple and Google offer developers. That should let developers for Amazon’s appstore tap into what has emerged as the most lucrative revenue way of monetizing apps over the past year: staying free but offering virtual currency or other items for purchase inside the app.

After undergoing testing for several months, the new in-app purchasing service is now available for everyone. It’s based off Amazon’s one-click buying experience and applies to digital content like in-game currency, expansion packs, upgrades and subscriptions from inside apps and games.

But as I pointed out last week, the interesting part of this story is not whether Amazon is doing in-app purchases. It’s obvious that the company would do this.

The question is how is it setting up the pricing? You see, Amazon has historically pushed hard for the power to set prices for books and other goods. When it unveiled the appstore last year, it had the ability to discount apps at will. Developers would either earn 20 percent of what they wanted to charge or 70 percent of whatever Amazon ultimately charged — whatever was higher. That irked developers, naturally.

With in-app purchases, it turns out Amazon still has the ability to discount in-app items. But the developers will always earn 70 percent of the list price or what they wanted to charge for it, according to Amazon appstore’s director Aaron Rubenson.

“We’re just following the paradigm that’s out there with the 70-30 split,” he said. “This is a little bit different from the revenue share that we have for paid app sales. We looked at each purchase case separately.”

This is an interesting little compromise that lets Amazon keep its pricing power, while ensuring that developers see no losses as a result of it.

It’s also my understanding that Amazon isn’t mandating that developers only use the company’s in-app purchasing service. That said, Google’s in-app purchasing technology won’t work on the Kindle Fire, according to Rubenson. For that device, developers will have to use Amazon’s system. But on other tablets and phones, developers can use any number of in-app purchasing systems. That’s different from other app stores: Apple prohibits developers from using other in-app purchasing system for digital content. Google technically has the same rule although it hasn’t really enforced it until recently.

Here is the fine print if you want to read it yourself. It looks like there is a special exception for news media products:

4. Royalty; List Price. For each sale of an In-App Product, we will pay you a Royalty equal to 70% of the List Price as of the time of purchase. However, no Royalty is due for (a) In-App Products with a List Price of $0.00, (b) Subscription In-App Products listed in our News or Magazine categories (or similar or successor categories) that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers of up to 30 days (or any longer period you approve), or (c) other Subscription In-App Products that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers that you approve. For sales of Subscription In-App Products to renewing subscribers, your Royalty will be calculated based on the lower of (i) the then current List Price and (ii) the List Price in effect at the time the applicable end user first subscribed. A Royalty is due only for sales for which we have received final payment from or on behalf of an end user. If an In-App Product is purchased using a credit card or bank account deduction mechanism, final payment will be deemed to have occurred when the applicable credit card company or bank has fully settled the payment for the applicable purchase. “List Price” has the same meaning with respect to In-App Products as the meaning set forth in the Agreement with respect to Apps. You will update the List Price for each In-App Product as necessary to ensure it meets the List Price requirements.

In-app payments are something that Amazon is very well-positioned to do as the company has had a decade to build up expertise in online transactions. Coincidentally, it’s an area that Google is historically weak in providing. And developers are noticing. With about 34,000 apps and a very attractive base of paying customers, Amazon’s app store is becoming one to watch among mobile developers.

Flurry has reported that the average revenue per user from Amazon’s store is about 89 percent of what Apple iOS platform produces. Google lags behind with a revenue per user that sits at about 23 percent of what iOS can do. Keep in mind though that Amazon’s userbase is still much smaller than the audience that Google Play can reach. So Google Play might be able to make up for its weakness in monetization through scale.

Below is a video explaining Amazon in-app purchases plus some excerpts from the documentation that show the differences between Amazon and Google’s systems:



View full post on TechCrunch » Mobile

, , , , , , , , ,

10Apr

Amazon’s Takes In-App Purchases Out Of Beta: Here’s How They Compromised On Revenue Share

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

amazon-apps

Amazon is taking the wraps off a new in-app purchasing service today in an effort to make its app store competitive with what Apple and Google offer developers. That should let developers for Amazon’s appstore tap into what has emerged as the most lucrative revenue way of monetizing apps over the past year: staying free but offering virtual currency or other items for purchase inside the app.

After undergoing testing for several months, the new in-app purchasing service is now available for everyone. It’s based off Amazon’s one-click buying experience and applies to digital content like in-game currency, expansion packs, upgrades and subscriptions from inside apps and games.

But as I pointed out last week, the interesting part of this story is not whether Amazon is doing in-app purchases. It’s obvious that the company would do this.

The question is how is it setting up the pricing? You see, Amazon has historically pushed hard for the power to set prices for books and other goods. When it unveiled the appstore last year, it had the ability to discount apps at will. Developers would either earn 20 percent of what they wanted to charge or 70 percent of whatever Amazon ultimately charged — whatever was higher. That irked developers, naturally.

With in-app purchases, it turns out Amazon still has the ability to discount in-app items. But the developers will always earn 70 percent of the list price or what they wanted to charge for it, according to Amazon appstore’s director Aaron Rubenson.

“We’re just following the paradigm that’s out there with the 70-30 split,” he said. “This is a little bit different from the revenue share that we have for paid app sales. We looked at each purchase case separately.”

This is an interesting little compromise that lets Amazon keep its pricing power, while ensuring that developers see no losses as a result of it.

It’s also my understanding that Amazon isn’t mandating that developers only use the company’s in-app purchasing service. That said, Google’s in-app purchasing technology won’t work on the Kindle Fire, according to Rubenson. For that device, developers will have to use Amazon’s system. But on other tablets and phones, developers can use any number of in-app purchasing systems. That’s different from other app stores: Apple prohibits developers from using other in-app purchasing system for digital content. Google technically has the same rule although it hasn’t really enforced it until recently.

Here is the fine print if you want to read it yourself. It looks like there is a special exception for news media products:

4. Royalty; List Price. For each sale of an In-App Product, we will pay you a Royalty equal to 70% of the List Price as of the time of purchase. However, no Royalty is due for (a) In-App Products with a List Price of $0.00, (b) Subscription In-App Products listed in our News or Magazine categories (or similar or successor categories) that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers of up to 30 days (or any longer period you approve), or (c) other Subscription In-App Products that we make available to end users at no charge as part of free trial subscriptions or other promotional offers that you approve. For sales of Subscription In-App Products to renewing subscribers, your Royalty will be calculated based on the lower of (i) the then current List Price and (ii) the List Price in effect at the time the applicable end user first subscribed. A Royalty is due only for sales for which we have received final payment from or on behalf of an end user. If an In-App Product is purchased using a credit card or bank account deduction mechanism, final payment will be deemed to have occurred when the applicable credit card company or bank has fully settled the payment for the applicable purchase. “List Price” has the same meaning with respect to In-App Products as the meaning set forth in the Agreement with respect to Apps. You will update the List Price for each In-App Product as necessary to ensure it meets the List Price requirements.

In-app payments are something that Amazon is very well-positioned to do as the company has had a decade to build up expertise in online transactions. Coincidentally, it’s an area that Google is historically weak in providing. And developers are noticing. With about 34,000 apps and a very attractive base of paying customers, Amazon’s app store is becoming one to watch among mobile developers.

Flurry has reported that the average revenue per user from Amazon’s store is about 89 percent of what Apple iOS platform produces. Google lags behind with a revenue per user that sits at about 23 percent of what iOS can do. Keep in mind though that Amazon’s userbase is still much smaller than the audience that Google Play can reach. So Google Play might be able to make up for its weakness in monetization through scale.

Below is a video explaining Amazon in-app purchases plus some excerpts from the documentation that show the differences between Amazon and Google’s systems:



View full post on TechCrunch » Mobile

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