It’s hard enough for developers to build apps and make money with the iPhone due to very low prices that the fierce competition has caused.  A large percentage of apps cost 99 cents, and 20% of that goes to Apple.

The saving grace is the huge number of iPhones in the market and the fairly well organized and promoted App Store.

However, many of the same developers started building apps for Android.  What they have found is they are crucified by customers for charging any more than the iPhone equivalent.  The problem is that the install base of Android devices is a fraction of the iPhone’s.  Plus, with the large number of Android devices running different versions of the OS with different interfaces, processors, form factors etc, the process of supporting and building apps for the Android platform is much more difficult.

In addition, Google isn’t doing nearly as much as Apple to promote their app store and to make it easy to find applications.

Palm’s install base is so small, that Palm loyalists are willing to pay $5 or $10 (and even $20 in some cases) for decent quality apps, but this just doesn’t seem to be the case with Android.

To back this up, Reuters reported today that Gameloft, a major mobile game developer is reigning in development for Android in a significant way, as they can’t figure out how to make money on it.  Read about it HERE.

In my opinion, if this doesn’t get reigned in soon, the bloom may be coming off the rose of Android fairly soon.

Related posts:

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2. Android App Store to get a well deserved upgrade – will include comics category!
3. What’s New in Android 1.6?
4. Truphone Launches All-New Version for Android
5. Android on a Netbook: Is it ready?