I have NEVER had to use my credit card to make a purchase in the android market/google play store!!!

Also, DVD Profiler 1.0 for android will be out soon in beta form. Be patient.

Quoting NewEnglander:

Quote:
I have NEVER had to use my credit card to make a purchase in the android market/google play store!!!

I have bought a couple of paid apps in the last few months from the Play Store. If I am honest it was only because I really wanted the first app after running the trail and realising it was far better than the free alternatives (Neutron MP in case anyone is wondering) that I created a google wallet account and gave them my credit card details. The second was simply because I had a problem with a free version of an app the author was very responsive and helpful so I figured he deserved some money and at that point buying the Pro version of his app (which was only a few pence) was trivial as the Play Store already had my card details.

The point I am making is that setting up that first purchase is a bit of a psychological hurdle as you have to consciously decide to setup an account with a credit card after which further purchases are trivial and may be done on impulse. Contrast this with my previous phone which was a Nokia N97 with Symbian and the Ovi store. I purchased a few Symbian apps which was extremely easy as it was just billed on my phone bill so no extra steps, no hassle and so spending a few quid to get smilies on my text messages was done with little thought  to remove a minor annoyance with the Symbian OS.

People will pay for Android apps but if you are the first app they are going to purchase you will need to be better than the free alternatives or offer something unique that they want, not be over priced and offer a trial so that users can try it out. If you have a paid version of an ad supported app then you probably need to offer more than removing the ads in the paid version if you want people to stump up the cash because if they have been using a lot of free apps they will be used to ads. If you make the ads annoying to encourage them to buy the ad free version or use nagging prompts they may simply use an alternative app.

In the case of DVD Profiler and mobile apps to support it it already has a unique niche, those who have the desktop app and want to carry their collection around with them. They have probably already paid for the desktop version so you know they already like your product and were willing to pay hard cash for it so monetizing this base shouldn't be hard.

I actually think there may be room for more than one DVD Profiler supporting mobile app. A viewer app like this current one and a full blown mobile app that syncs with the desktop version as I guess Ken will eventually develop. I remember back in my PDA (WM 2003 iPaq) days using a free program written by someone on the original forum and like now that performed enough of what I needed to stop me considering a migration path to another program or as I briefly considered rolling my own. As a strategy for development getting a viewer app out for <insert not fully supported platform here> first and then if demand is sufficient a full blown app later would probably be a good way to make some money and keep your customer base loyal and happy. The fact that third parties seem to be repeatedly willing to do this for free shows that there is a demand for it and that they prefer to write a program to work with it rather than looking for a (probably easier) migration path. The downside of waiting for third parties to do this is that they could legitimately decide to compete with any official mobile offering (and may still do so unintentionally if people deem there version good enough) at which point you have ceded part of your potential market.

Anyway these are just my random thoughts and ramblings on the whole monetizing android and mobile app development subject make of them what you will.

Morpheus

Quoting ozmale:

Quote:
The point of my comment regarding credit card it the a lot of people are becoming resistive to using them on line.  Thus the sudden incresase in the over the counder purchase of non traceable debit cards.  Or "load and go cards" as they are call in Australia.

Whilst that may also be the case (I don't know anyone in the UK that uses a preloaded credit/debit card or recall seeing any adverts for them on TV, in the press or in shops), I think that the inertia part is more significant which is linked to the slight apprehension about trusting google with your card details ensures that its harder to get people to make that first purchase. If like Apple they made you enter your card details to be able to get anything from Google Play (including free apps) then it would be less of a deal as the first time someone went to buy an app it would seem seemless so people would be more likely to pay for that first app on impulse and continue. Currently having to stop and enter card details stops that important impulse buy which would lead to others.

I think Google should be pushing more carrier billing arrangements (I believe they have one with Vodafone UK now) in major markets and allow something like paypal where those don't exist as that would help solve the problems we both perceive with the current arrangement.


Morpheus

I just twigged to this topic. I downloaded the files, Norton did not like the setup file. But after I turned off Norton It installed on my laptop running Win7 OK. I got the DVDP running on my Droid X OK. And after some fumbling and checking the forum I got Profiler to sync (copied the file to the Droid). Ta Da Everything works great.
Woo Hoo I am one happy camper. Finally getting Profiler on my phone, Next my tablet.
Two points I do want to bring up.
The db file is everything (dah of course) But I don't see any way in the android version to list any of the categories, ALL, OWNED, OREDERED, WISH LIST.
I'm also seeing the same cover image for regular DVD and Blu-Ray when I own both. Since one of the things I'm working on is replacing DVD’s with Blu-Ray, being able to tell the difference up front instead of having to check each listing would be much better.
Thanks for getting DVDP up and I can't wait for the working release. Whatever it's cost.

Sounds like you are not getting things to copy correctly.

the DB that copies is going to be a lot smaller because not all the info is needed for the plug in.

You need to run the app on the phone first to have it build the directory structure and drop the dvdp_is_here file in the correct location.

In the plug in in DVDP does it find your phone when its plugged into the PC ?

-Robert

I am going to guess that your PC is seeing your tablet as a media device.

It has some issues with this because it is not given a drive letter.

My suggestion, find a post on your PC and copy the droid_dvdp folder to the PC, thenpoint the plug in to that folder. Once you have it set, then copy that folder to the tablet

See if that fixes your issue.

-R

post some screen shots of your plug in pages and maybe the error

-R

My tablet has HC 3.2.1
The first screenshot below shows you the Droid export box while it's exporting. Notice the removable disk box shows the destination incorrectly. I had navigated to "AT100/Internal Storage/droid_dvdp/droid_dvdp_is_here". Notice all the errors in the main box too.
The second shot shows you the navigation box with the AT100 being my tablet.......Thanks Again for all of your help.





Edit:: Full resolution screen shots