PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Aaron La developer of the Android Advanced Task Manager application has revealed details of revenue his software generated.
La made around $50,000 from the .99c-priced task killer and $29,000 from the later released ad-supported application as revealed on the developer’s web site. What’s particularly interesting is that from May this year the free version with admob adverts over took the paid application in May.
The admob-enabled task manager pulled in $4,000 in May compared to the .99c application’s $3,800 but in the last full month of July the Admob version generated an astonishing $6,200 of revenue compared to the paid version’s $4,400.
Advanced Task Manager got an early start on the Android platform with many Android handset owners using task managers to kill battery-sapping background tasks and services which consumed memory and processor time. Since then Android has improved handling of multitasking and with the latest version removed all support for task killing from the operating system.
It’s unclear who are still buying/downloading Advanced Task Manager now, possibly people who have yet to upgrade to Android 2.2 Froyo but it might also take some time before the Android market comes to realise the redundancy of task killer applications.
What’s interesting to note, however, is that the surging numbers of Android handsets on the market means that the critical mass of software being installed now results in advertising-supported free applications having greater earning potential than their paid counterparts.
