ProjectJourneyman

Next in the Android Alternate Market Review series is Appia.  You may not have heard of Appia – but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t seen Android apps through their partners.  Appia purports to supply apps to over 40 app stores.  Piping your Android app into a large network sounds enticing – read on to see if this is the right place to put your Android apps and games.

Update: The Appia app store will be closed as of the end of 2013.

One point of entry

Having a single place to upload your Android app is a good thing.  One of the reasons I focus so much on evaluating each Android app market is that I want to choose the best ones for my app and save myself the time on all the rest.

Earlier this year, Appia got $10M of funding, so obviously they are doing something right.

However, I’m not completely sure how much exposure I’m getting with all of those app stores.  It’s possible that Android isn’t their strong suit yet, but it might also simply be that my app isn’t best suited for this market.

Primary points

• The Appia network deploys to over 40 sites
• They offer additional features, such as pay-per-download, ‘cross-sell’ to offer discounts for those that purchase multiple products from you, and volume licensing.
• They support many languages for listings, but some must be approved.
• They offer the ability to add an app store to your web site

I’m not sure how long it takes to get approved for alternate language listings, but my Spanish listing has taken about a week so far.

Obviously the large network of app stores is a good thing.  The jury is still out as to how effective their network is, though.

Negative points

• For paid apps, payment is withheld until $250 is reached
  • UPDATE after over a year on Appia, I haven’t met this threshold.  Downloads of free apps are decent, but Appia might not be good for lower-volume paid apps.
  • Further update: The store is now closing, and I will likely never get paid for my app sales on Appia
• The submission process is a pain, and not intuitive – can’t have any assets with the same name between two different apps, and have to puzzle out the difference between OTA files and download files and figure out where the .apk file should go (hint: for Android apps add the .apk as an OTA file).
• Required graphic asset sizes are non-standard
• App submission requires explicitly indicating compatible devices, screen sizes, etc.
• Download rates are somewhat low on main Appia site, but those numbers aren’t to full picture. Handango doesn’t list DL count, while AndroidGear seems to show a reasonable DL count. PocketGear shows decent download counts. Reports are separate between the sites still, so you have to visit PocketGear separately to see reports for it.

Update:  It looks like the systems have merged.  Or, at least they killed developers.pocketgear.com so it’s a moot point – you can’t check download counts there anymore.

To get download numbers from Appia, go to “Manage Products”->”View/Modify your Products” to see download estimates.

While there is some confusion as to the download rates, I still think this is in the secondary tier of Android app stores.

Is Appia for you?

Due to the international distribution and the large number of affiliated Android app markets, I suggest that Appia stay on your list.  I don’t think it should be at the top of your list though, as I’ve reviewed a number of sites that have given me a larger number of downloads.  Take a look at some of these reviews.

I have just released my paid app to Appia to test how it performs vs. the free apps.  I’ll report on how well that does after a few months (or sooner if it’s doing well).  Update July 2011 – so far, I haven’t see very good download rates at all for my paid app.  I’ll still give it a little time, but I’m not very impressed so far.

Update November 2013 – Appia is closing their app store at the end of 2013.