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Posts: 56 | Thanked: 4 times | Joined on Dec 2007
#7
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
It sure is. Anyway, I liked the numbers.



... I still have to think about this. My assumption always was that because the number of devices sold is so different, even a very unsuccessful commercial jPhone app would have masses of downloads compared to a very popular, free Maemo-app. This, at least, seems to be wrong.

Also, you have to take into account that while on the Apple-side the store-statistics pretty much cover all downloads for an application offered there, figures on downloads.maemo.org aren't necessarily complete. The *.deb could be floating around everywhere on the web, hosted by the author on a separate homepage or whatever, so the counter at maemo.org says something like "at least xxx copies sold downloaded".

What do I make of all this? Nothing. It's nonsensical statistics. But at least now I know that publishing a good Maemo application has a potential of being more rewarding (in terms of ego, karma and such, not in terms of money) than publishing an average application for the jPhone.... which I didn't believe before.
And again it comes down to the open source mindset vs commercial. I develop the bulk of my software to pay bills and feed my family, not for a rewarding karma experience. To each their own. The Apple App Store is not a license to print money, some have managed to make it so but the majority wont, it comes down to making good software and promoting it like on any other platform.