Dear fellow Android users: You're killing good apps on the Play Store.

Posted by Shoeler on June 4, 2012 12:31 pm 83

Now that I hopefully have your attention, here's the real headline: Good Apps aren't Free. To wit, Good Apps That Don't Sap Your Battery Aren't Free. Hopefully you've read the fabulous article about how ads in an app increase battery usage. If not, hit it and then the source link there. Anyone who used the original Angry Birds with ads, then got the version from Amazon without them, knows this to be true. With in-app ads, Angry Birds can be a dog even on current hardware. Without, no stuttering.

Then today I read a tweet by Droid Life that set me off on this rabbit hole a bit. We all know the drill - Android was a third-class citizen in the app world for a long time and has only recently seen Facebook actually somewhat optimize their app for the current platform, seen Instagram, Flipboard and others finally bring their apps to the platform, and have seen so many horrid iOS ports of apps with no use of views or containers. Don't get me started on that topic - a rough iOS port with none of the navigation features of Android's SDK should be a beta until you make it a native implementation, in my esteem. But I digress.

The way we as the users and individuals who effectively fund Android can entice developers to stop making crappy iOS ports and stop providing only ad-supported versions is to stop with the stupid concept that $2.99 is expensive. It's less than the price of a bad Starbucks Latte. It's less than the price of a gallon of gas. It's less than the price of darned near anything you consume on a regular basis, and you consume information and data with an app like Instapaper.

The only reason I'd hesitate right now to pay $2.99 for the Instapaper app is its bad implementation of menus, its lack of fullscreen and in general its not full implementation of Android 4.0 suggested design. But those are things I expect them to fix, and when they do I will be glad to send $2.99 their way. And that should be our attitude - that $2.99 is a paltry amount to spend for good design and implementation. So give us good design and implementation and I'd love to send you more money.

I personally am thrilled to pay good money for quality apps.

Edit: changed "this app" to "the Instapaper app" for better clarity in the 2nd to last paragraph.