App piracy is actually a substantial issue on both stores:
On Android, sideloading of apps from unauthorized sources (not the store), and frail DRM makes piracy really easy. The US government has been targeting these sources[1], but as you can imagine, there are many. Some have said that Android app piracy may be up to 60%[2], but I think there's some sample bias in these figures and suspect it's a fair bit lower.
On iOS, piracy is a bit more difficult, requiring a jailbreak and then a hack that allows cracked apps. From there, cracked apps can be downloaded from various sources. There are fewer solutions to crack in-app purchases, but recently a few have come into the mainstream[3]. On the whole, Apple's DRM helps, but pirates have found ways around it.
Thanks. I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic.
I'm not a gamer, but I've heard that many gamers have a large, ongoing appetite for new games, and perhaps this makes them more sensitive to price. Even a $0.99 price tag can seem high if you want to play a half dozen new games every month. Meanwhile, a non-gamer who downloads that many apps in a whole year might not mind paying as much.
Also, gamers seem to often be power users, so it doesn't surprise me if many of them are technically savvy enough to know how to pirate. I would imagine that apps meant for garden variety Android users might be less widely pirated.
I mean, FWIW, of the friends of mine who I know use Android phones, I estimate 80 percent would have no clue how to download a pirated app if the thought even were to occur to them. And most of the other 20 percent who are tech savvy enough to do it are probably unlikely to find it worth the hassle.
In addition to the ongoing appetite for new stuff, I guess in terms of games one could add that these audiences are more likely to be younger, less willing or able to spend and generally a little less caring about bills a developer has to pay. At least in contrast to apps, which might be connected to professional interests and needs - games are very likely to be a matter of fun, which may make it easier to justify piracy in a consumer's mind.
I don't want to generalize and it's certainly not a good idea to put everyone into categories, but in my opinion piracy is heavily tied to psychological characteristics and the personality of users - in addition to a user's financial limits of course.
This comment touches an aspect that is hard to sum up in a few sentences as it doesn't come down to one single reason, but generally speaking I guess Android users are more likely to engage in piracy.
> I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic.
I guess it varies by region- I've seen lots of phone shops in Taiwan offering "JB" as their main service. In Germany, I've only ever heard of commercial jailbreaking services for the Xbox and Wii (which used to involve soldering).
Also, my $2 hobby iPhone game has hundreds of Chinese players after only selling one copy in China, according to iTunes Connect. In other regions it's a non-issue.
While this is true, the threshold to jailbreaking has been kept quite low by the iPhone Dev Team (and youtube), and well-organized sites like AppTrackr can get users into the habit of stealing rather than buying.
There's an interesting subtext here about demographics:
As mentioned above, it would seem that games are more vulnerable to piracy due to the broad audience (lowest common denominator) and lack of "necessity" (games may appear trivial and thus not worth paying for to some). Productivity-linked apps such as Instapaper, Omnifocus, and Day One seem to grab paying users with less difficulty.
Additionally, there's been some commentary around Android vs. iOS users being willing to pay for apps. The argument is that Apple was rather successful in targeting an audience who tend to be more willing to pay for applications. As a contrast, it's argued that Android users tend to prefer free software.
On Android, sideloading of apps from unauthorized sources (not the store), and frail DRM makes piracy really easy. The US government has been targeting these sources[1], but as you can imagine, there are many. Some have said that Android app piracy may be up to 60%[2], but I think there's some sample bias in these figures and suspect it's a fair bit lower.
On iOS, piracy is a bit more difficult, requiring a jailbreak and then a hack that allows cracked apps. From there, cracked apps can be downloaded from various sources. There are fewer solutions to crack in-app purchases, but recently a few have come into the mainstream[3]. On the whole, Apple's DRM helps, but pirates have found ways around it.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/22/3259808/android-app-pirate... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-in... [3] http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3156875/ios-free-in-app-pu...