Say I had a lab with the sequencers needed for this test. I can't claim to understand the work needed to onboard into this new process, but my question is: how long does the onboarding take before the lab can process these 3840/day ?
there is. I've been running android-x86 builds for a while now, without much problems. On some builds the internet connectivity doesn't work, but that seems to happen less and less.
somehow, I think DeviceAnywhere.com is a much better solution for the same problem. Yes, it's slow most of the times, but they have a plethora of devices to test on and you can test the app however you want.
There's one thing (almost) every developer misses with Android: you need more than just an idea to make a "killer" app. Frankly, the design of Tap That! Number is ugly , and I bet that a more appealing design (look at Angry Birds, Cut the Rope ...) would at least double the downloads.
He used Score Ninja, which is a GREAT step towards making an app viral, but you need to make that game more challenging and more rewarding. Like, penalizing users for taping wrong numbers, rewarding them for taping two successive numbers at once (use multi-touch, it does wonders for PR), etc ...
As an experiment, I launched an app about a month ago too, on a niche where there were already tens of similar apps. I'm no artist, so it doesn't look fabulous, but it's not ugly. It's simple, and does it's job. Now, It's making 3-4$/day(peanuts really) at around 25.000 downloads, without any marketing whatsoever.
So, here are a few tips for making a successful app on Android, in the order of their importance (at least, my opinion):
1. Don't have serious bugs that crash the app. The users will tax you, and you'll lose the head start. Use services like DeviceAnywhere for testing on different platforms
2. Avoid complications in the app/game. Usually, it shouldn't take more than 3-4 taps to get from one place of the app to another.
3. Design design design! This is what gives the app a feeling of quality. If your app has a plain black background, in 99% of the cases you have a problem. Use popular apps as a model (Google's apps, Facebook, popular games)
4. Social features. Getting viral is the best way to get your app popular. Integrate Facebook/Twitter wherever you can, use global scores, allow players to challenge each other, etc..
5. Idea. This is the difference from tens of millions of downloads to just hundreds of thousands. You can still make a lot of money with a not-so-original idea, but to get rich you need something that draws attention (check out WordLens for iPhone).
6. Find a niche that's lacking, or the existing apps are lacking serious features. Android is still young, and there is room for quality apps.
7. Once your app is published, send it to as many review sites as possible.
I hope I didn't miss anything. This is like a 'checklist' I use for everything I build, and has helped me so far. Following it at least I know my app isn't going to fail miserably.
So this is actually an Android/phone issue, not really your mistake.
The thing the developers will all have to learn in time, is that absolutely nothing is granted with Android. Until now, this usually only meant hardware features, since Google (supposedly) verifies it's OS on all phone models before granting them access to GApps (market, gmail, maps, etc...).
actually, with the new features in CM7, I don't think Google will like the unlocked phones that much. Users can now simply reject the 'networking' permission and.. bye bye advertising :-)
all that could be said by a lot of startups. After the somewhat unexpected success of twitter, facebook and all that social crap, all investors are afraid of missing out on the next opportunity. Thus, artificially increasing the market and inflating the "bubble"
I actually know someone from Somalia who got successful there, got screwed and left to Holland. Got successful there again, and again got screwed and left to Romania. He has a successful business here, and he probably won't get screwed again :P
After the first "failure", his connections helped him rise again.