Are average app users cheap?

Papermill launched on Android several weeks ago. Developed by Ryan Bateman and designed with the help of Matt Legaspi, the app is a beautiful Instapaper client for Android devices. Papermill received high praise from the community and widespread media coverage when it launched, and the developer has since broken down its success based on sales. The conclusions he draws about Android users in general are particularly interesting.

Bateman says that, “Android users not being willing to pay for an apps whose focus is quality and whose price reflects this.” Is this true only for the average Android user, or should the average iPhone user be considered as well? How can one make the blanket argument that people don’t want to pay for quality apps? I think it comes down to the basic issue of supply and demand.

What a badass...

Grand Theft Auto III for iOS and Android was introduced earlier this year for $2.99 with much fanfare. Today, we have more exciting news from game maker Rockstar, who has announced that Max Payne Mobile is launching for iOS on April 12th and Android April 26th.

A vulnerability in the Facebook and Dropbox apps for Android and iOS means your data can be taken by anyone with access to your device.

A security researcher has discovered a serious flaw with the Facebook and Dropbox apps for both Android and iOS that puts all of your sensitive personal data at risk.

Anyone with access to your device can use a free piece of software that’s easily available on the internet to retrieve an unencrypted, plain text file from your device that provides access to your entire account — without requiring a jailbreak.

You can add another name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both their iOS and Android mobile apps. Wikipedia feels this change will be a better fit for their goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone.

This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.

I have some great news for users of the popular cloud storage service Dropbox. Earlier today, the Dropbox team announced that they would be doubling the amount of free storage awarded in their referral program. That’s right, from now on, any friend you get to install Dropbox, you’ll both get 500 MB of free space. For those with a free account, you have the ability to invite up to 32 people for a total of 16 GB of extra storage. Those with Pro accounts will now earn 1 GB per referral, for a total of 32 GB of extra space. Now isn’t that just doubletastic!