In-App Purchases for Android & BlackBerry

Part One: First Apps With In-App Purchases Enter BlackBerry App World

Recently, RIM introduced a Payment Service SDK to enable in-app payments for developers. This morning (European time-zone), an update of BlackBerry App World was released that now supports in-app purchases. The first applications that offer these purchases to consumers are already available.

One of these applications is Hockey Scores. This app offers daily NHL scores and normally displays advertising.
In-App Purchases presentIn-App Purchases present

Now, users can switch to a ad-free version, with an in-app purchase:
In-App Purchase billing

In the example above PayPal is displayed as payment method, but depending on the country the user is located, this can also be credit card or carrier billing.

Considering the success of in-app purchases on the iOS platform and the huge developer demand on Android, we expect the number of BlackBerry applications with in-app purchases to grow dramatically.

- Vincent

Part Two: Google Meets The Wishes of Developers: In-App Billing Now Available In Android Market



About a week ago we wrote about RIM enabling in-app purchases and as of yesterday in-app billing is available in Google Android Market as well. Developers can start developing by following the step-by-step guide, however  in-app purchases will only be available in Google Android Market 2.3.0. So for the time being, use is limited to testing environments. As in-app purchases require that applications use API level 4 or higher, in-app purchases will be available for all Android phones running Android 1.6 or higher. We showed in a previous blogpost that more than 95% of the Android devices run 1.6 or higher, hence developers can address a large market with in-app purchases. Google expects in-app payments to be available to all users before the end of spring and the transaction fee will be the same as the fee for application purchases (30%).

At an on-campus event showcasing the new Android version Honeycomb, Google debuted a new website for Android Market as well. Previously only accessible via an Android running, Android Market is now available through a web browser. A notable feature is the “push” an app to your device functionality. After browsing the catalog without the limitations of smartphones like a smaller screen and, usually, a slower data connection,  the chosen apps will install directly on the smartphone device that is linked to your account. At Distimo we tried this functionality and applications were pushed to our Nexus One within seconds:



Android platform group manager Eric Chu told at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco that Google was looking at several ways to improve Google Android Market in 2011, and it seems he holds promise with the introduction of these new features.