Publishing Your App in the Market, App Store and App World

Are you planning to develop application for Android, or iPhone or Blackberry? Recently I have had the luxury to observe the differences  between Google's  Android Market, Apple's App Store and Blackberry's App World. My observation is from direct experience in publishing applications to each platform.

The Android Market is the most open. As long as your apps satisfy their basic requirements, it gets publish. It's also the most friendly in getting your apps advertised… its Google's main business after all to make money in advertising.  The process of publishing application, advertising and monetizing is very easy that I am convinced my 9 year old daughter can do without assistance. The AdMob advertising works wonders, getting our app widespread impressions at a single click, so far within a day of getting our personal safety and security app called Yelpz, we got over a thousand installs… Amazing!

The App Store I think is the most strict, they really review your app into the tiniest possible detail. The first time we submitted our Customer Experience Management app called GEOptimA to the App Store they came back with 2 comment on 2 items that we missed based on their definition of what's possible and not, and to that end of those is simply a very tiny mistake inside the source code that calls for it to run in the background. I am impressed by their thoroughness.  After a change and upgrade on capabilities it took them 3 days to approve the revised app.

Now App World gives you the least friendly experience. After the app (GEOptimA with SOS monitoring) was uploaded to the App World, there was no feedback for 3 weeks then suddenly the app was approved. It gave the impression that they simply took the time to wait then approved. I also have difficulties finding ways to promote the app in the Blackberry App World… I guess maybe because I do not use a Blackberry phone since their service is not available in Sweden…

I can't say much about Microsoft Phone, since we are still finalizing the app for publications, I would like to see they are being bench marked with Google's Android.. The phone interface is nice though…a but rough on the edges but comparable to Android or iOS.

Customer Experience Directly from Mobile Devices

Recently there have been a huge wave of public outcry on Carrier IQ's embedded CEM solution in the US. The issue is now even being called for congressional hearing as Lawmakers seek hearing on Carrier IQ privacy issues. The controversy on this is best summarized by Jaikumar Vijayan's article behind the issue and an article by Zachary Lutz explains what it is all about.

What does this mean for us who are in the telecoms industry? Does this mean that we should now all drop our CEM solutions because of privacy concerns? To my little world I believe we should not, but we should also avoid the pitfalls that carrier IQ have gotten themselves into. Managing customer experience is important to the network operators to ensure they deliver the best service and the correct level of service to each subscriber. It is equallly important to subscribers so they do not get bombarded with advertisement and offers that they do not want aside from the satisfaction of a good mobile / cellular network service.

Subscriber activities are actually being captured by the network even without the device agents by using network probes that records everything about a subscriber activity. This solution is not only expensive but  can also  be considered as breaking privacy laws, since it captures subscriber activity without the knowledge of the subscriber. The question to my mind is what CEM solution is actually efficient, effective and acceptable by subscribers or mobile phone users. There is no holy grail here but I can offer an answer. Native applications.

The main problem with embedded application or network probes is that the subscriber and phone user are not aware of the records being made, there is no opt-in or opt-out possibilities. With a native app the subscriber or phone user can easily install such CEM app if they want to and can easily remove it as well. Awareness I think is the key.

For network operators perhaps the best approach is to only have device agents on the subscriber phone to solve issues notice by the subscriber instead of recording everything the subscriber phone is doing. One such application is GEOptimA.