Apple's Android application, interactive cinema, Rovio's Match3 and other news of the week for a mobile developer

Apple will release an application for Android

Once upon a time Steve Jobs swore to destroy Android. Since then, Apple’s policy has changed a lot, and now the company is already actively developing its first Android application.

There are two reasons for such indulgence. First of all, since Jobs’s aggressive statement, the share of Android smartphones has increased significantly and at the end of 2014 it amounted to as much as 85%. Secondly, the basis of the application in question will be the Beats Music service, the purchase of which was released to the company at $ 3 billion, so installation on Apple devices alone is not enough.
')
Apple's Android application is a streaming music service rival Rdio and Spotify. It is alleged that the cost of a monthly subscription is $ 8, which is $ 2 cheaper than Spotify. The service will support the cloud storage model and have some social network functions.

80.1 million US users download at least 1 app in 2015

Such figures in their study cites the company eMarketer. This third of the total number of residents of the United States who have devices. We are talking about all mobile devices, including those that are not specifically designed to work with the application. Therefore, for iOS-and Android-devices, the figures will be higher.

Interesting is also the difference between smartphone users and tablets. On a tablet, 60.9 million (44%) are willing to pay for a paid application, while on a smartphone only 65.2 million (35.8%).

Paid applications have long been replaced by free (including with the possibility of internal purchases). The volumes of the two markets by income differ hundreds of times. As for the number of downloads, the difference here is not very large. 93% of smartphone owners in America download at least one application during the year, and among tablet owners there will be more than 90% of such users.

Apple sets new records!

Following the auction on February 10, 2015, the value of Apple shares reached a record level of $ 122.02 per share. The capitalization of the American mobile giant exceeded $ 700 billion, according to the data of the exchanges, and this makes Apple the first American company to reach such heights! In second place, but with a sum of more than 2 times smaller, Microsoft is going - $ 347.5 billion.

Rovio launches its Match-3, and Supercell closes

Following a soft launch in Canada, Supercell decided to close its latest project, Spooky Pop. It cannot be said that it was a very classic Match-3, they added a tactical component to it, and the game ceased to be dynamic. It was more like a puzzle, but they are extremely rarely truly massive.

And so, against the background of such news, Rovio is launching its Match-3 Angry Birds Fight! It is not difficult to guess that this is again the battle of birds with pigs. For a limited time, a player needs to match as many chips as possible, and the more you collect, the stronger the attack of the hero will be. Judging by projects with similar gameplay, they have every chance to be fascinating and to gain their audience.

I wonder what causes the increased activity of the Finns? Recently, they are actively making games, but so far they have not been able to repeat their own success.

Is it time interactive cinema?

In the App Store, more and more games in the genre of interactive cinema. The plot of such a game is usually linear, and players simply need to click on a certain area of ​​the screen in time or select one of the answers in the dialogue with the game's heroes to see the continuation of the story.

It happens that the ending or variant of the development of events depends on the choice of the player, but usually there are very few such ramifications or they quickly return to the general plot. But the very fact of participation in the story, though so indirectly, can entice a certain audience, especially if we are talking about a game on some famous TV series or film.

One of the clearest examples of this series of games was the new release of the legendary Fahrenheit, which the players were looking forward to. Together with the new Fahrenheit in the same genre, the release of Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect, based on the movie series of the same name, took place.

It is worth noting that in such games it is difficult to implement the F2P model and earn extra content, but on the fans of the popular series you can try to raise sales of a paid or freemium application.

Developers of all countries, unite!

The question may not be mobile directly, but the development is not on mobiles and on desktops, it’s in the heads, a dance and an experience of pure thought. An interesting trend - the developers unite and arrange streaming development online. This, for example, is devoted to Sabreddit, for whom the tracker has already been written on tweeting , where right now, for example, you can see the broadcast of the development of JRPG / bagel on Unity3D.

In addition to the entertainment element, watch how you program while you program (we need to go deeper!), In the breaks when there are no broadcasts from the game and other coding jams, the main charge, of course, which the initiative carries is educational. Keeping up with the time of the online learning on all fronts, the addition of pure practice, the direct transfer of experience, methods, and with a clear result, for everyone who is learning or thinking to learn something new.

For example, on the same subreddie, we are broadcasting “We are learning Haskell”, votes are being collected for the broadcast of Rails, html5 / css. And most importantly, being recorded, the experience will not be lost and will be available to everyone at any time. Very interesting initiative, is not it?

************************************************** ************************************************** *****************************************
If you liked the material and you had time to evaluate the professionalism of the authors of this blog - there is an opportunity to join them. The KamaGames Studio website has a list of vacancies and information about our company. Let's do mobile games together!