1）据gigaom报道，移动分析公司Localytics联合创始人及首席执行官Raj Aggarwal日前表示，Android平台正逐步缩小与iOS平台的盈利性差距；从Localytical数据来看，目前iOS盈利性仅比Android多40-50%。

尽管Android每用户平均盈利略逊于iOS，但该平台每用户获取成本远低于iOS，所以有时候Android平台盈利性反而会略高一些。

2）据pocketgamer报道，迪士尼手机游戏《Swampy the Aligator》最近已突破1亿次下载量。

wheres my water(from pocketgamer)

迪士尼移动高级副总裁Bart Decrem曾在6月份表示，他计划一年发布12款游戏，并希望能够推出像小鳄鱼Swampy一样的新角色，也打算将现有迪士尼角色引入新游戏。

3）据gigaom报道，苹果日前宣布iPhone 5发售首周销量达500万部，升级到iOS 6的iPhone、iPad和iPod Touch设备已达1亿部（苹果之前宣布iPhone 4S首周销量时曾指出，当时采用最新操作系统iOS 5的苹果设备是2500万部）。

ios 6(from redsn0wjailbreak.com)

4）调查追踪公司SearchMan.com最新数据显示，iOS 6的改版App Store检索功能的确令游戏开发者颇为担忧。App Store目前已有73万7917款活跃应用，产品曝光度原本就已经很低了，许多开发者还得投入大量营销费用以争取用户。而现在该应用商店的最新检索功能更是令这一问题雪上加霜。

app-store-search(from venturebeat)

在之前的iOS 5版本App Store中，用户可在搜索中看到5个结果，并划动手指看到前25个搜索结果，而iOS 6版本只能看到一款应用的搜索页面，这意味着位居前100名搜索结果的应用将更加难以获得用户关注。

SearchMan还指出，更长的检索字段占据了70%的网页搜索量，这些字段竞争较不激烈，并且点击转化（下载量）率可能更高，因为这意味着用户是在明确检索某款应用。

开发者可通过“长尾”关键字来优化其检索结果，以便在App Store获得有利的显示位置。

SearchMan还发布信息图表列出各类游戏在新版App Store中的检索显示结果相关情况，并发现Avanlix、Aristocrat、Arawella、Pokie Magic等不知名的游戏工作室在与博彩字段相关的前250名搜索结果中却颇占优势。

app-store-search(from SearchMan)

Zynga游戏在“Casino”、“gambling”、“Slot”和“Poker”这4个关键字检索结果中共出现了7次，EA/Chillingo游戏则总共出现了9次，Tinyco游戏出现6次，而Aristocrat游戏出现频率高达50次，Arawella游戏出现43次，Avanlix游戏出现24次。

5）据gamezebo报道，《Temple Run》开发商Imangi Studios日前与Spin Master Games合作，将于10月1日推出桌面游戏《Temple Run Danger Chase》。

Temple Run board game(from target.com)

这款桌游采用了与原手机游戏类似的终极目标，玩家要通过摇骰子跑在Evil Demon Monkey前面，如果骰子摇得太慢，就会被迫返回原点。总之玩家需跑在Demon Monkey前面，并以耐力战胜其他玩家才能获胜。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）iOS’s lead over Android in app monetization is shrinking

By Erica Ogg

This For a long time iOS app monetization was far and away better than on Android. But as monetization strategies change in the app world, the statistics are changing. Android is no longer as far behind.

Conventional wisdom has held for a while that Apple’s iOS platform was by far the best way to monetize apps. Sure, Android’s platform was big but the users who tended to pay for apps were most likely using an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. That’s changing thanks to the greater diversity of app monetization strategies — in-app purchases, driving traffic through social channels, and advertising – a panel of app experts said during a session at GigaOM Mobilize conference today.

For a long time it was reported that iOS monetization was five times better than what you could make on Android, said Raj Aggarwal, CEO and co-founder of Localytics. But because there are so many more ways of examining the data that tells a developer who is interested in their app, and different methods of making money from users, things are changing. “iOS’s lead, in terms of the minds of developers, is only slight right now,” according to Aggarwal. Android is a much closer second than previously thought.

Josh Williams, president and chief science officer at Kontagent, agreed with that assessment. When comparing app downloads between iOS and Android across the same geographic area and by device (smartphone versus tablet), “iOS actually monetizes only 40 to 50 percent better than Android, from the data we’ve seen. It’s actually pretty viable,” said Williams.

And in some cases, Android can even be more profitable, if developers and their marketers are really focused on their objectives, he said.

“While Android monetizes a little less well on a per user basis than iOS, the acquisition costs on Android today are much lower on a per user basis. So sometimes profitability on Android is higher,” said Williams. “Smart businesses that are operating scientifically look at that and allocate their spend for development and marketing across platforms on a profit per user and profit per install basis.”

Other platforms, like Windows Phone and Blackberry, aren’t really in the conversation for most mainstream app makers, though. Unless, Williams said, a business is “trying to do a real brand-building play and be a mass, mass market play,” like Rovio has done with its megahit Angry Birds franchise. For most app makers, it’s still all about Apple and Google’s mobile platforms.

There is, however, one area where iOS still holds a really big lead in the minds of developers, however.

“More than 70 percent are focused on iOS for the enterprise,” said Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator. ”BYOD is a big trend … and I’ve heard quite a number of concerns about customers being burned from a security standpoint on Android,” said Haynie.

So, in at least one sense, iOS still has a big lead in the minds of developers.（source:gigaom）

2）Direct hit for Disney: Where’s My Water? joins 100 million club

by Keith Andrew

Having set out to deliver the kind of all-conquering IP the firm has previously enjoyed on the big screen, it appears Disney’s Swampy the Alligator has achieved its goal.

Stats released by Disney claim Where’s My Water? has now passed 100 million downloads, with the firm dubbing the game as the “breakout mobile game of the past year.”

Happy birthday

The milestone handily comes just as the game turns one, leading to the firm publishing an infographic illustrating the game’s progress over the course of the last year.

Indeed, Disney’s strategy to raise the profile of its first ‘app star’ has seen it try out inventive strategies.

At the start of 2012, the publisher moved to associate Swampy with Conservation International’s Fresh Water Initiative.

The idea was to tap into Disney’s wider Friends For Change campaign, with a $50,000 donation to the initiative – which looks to protect and restore freshwater sources – followed up by a free version of Where’s My Water? loaded with fresh water facts and iconography.

Swamped by success

In essence, Swampy’s success will further validate Disney’s desire to adopt the approach it’s mastered elsewhere in its business in the mobile field.

It’s a trend that looks set to continue.

“I want to release 12 games a year,” Disney Mobile’s SVP Bart Decrem back in June.

“I want one new character like Swampy. We need to be taking chances with new characters. Once a year, I want to make a game based around an event, like Brave. And I want to bring existing Disney characters into new games.” （source:pocketgamer）

3）Over 100 million Apple devices now have iOS 6

By Om Malik

Apple, released sales data for its new iPhone 5 Monday and announced that there are 100 million iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices that are using the latest version of its iOS – version 6, that was released last week. That is an incredible uptake. In comparison, when Apple announced the first weekend sales of iPhone 4s, the company said that 25 million devices were powered by the iOS 5, then the latest version of its software.（source：gigaom）

4）Apple’s iOS 6 App Store search will be tough for game discovery

Dean Takahashi

Game developers are worried about the loss of discoverability with the new App Store search feature in iOS 6, the latest version of Apple’s operating system for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. And with good reason, according to data crunched by the new search tracking startup SearchMan.com.

The problem was that it was already tough to get discovered on the App Store, where there are 737,917 active apps. Many developers have had to pay a considerable amount of money on marketing, driving the cost of acquiring a single user to absurd heights. Now the new search function adds to the pain that developers feel. One game developer, who requested anonymity for fear of angering Apple, told us that the new search function in the App Store is horrible for getting games discovered.

In the previous iOS 5 version, searchers could see five results in the search rankings and get to 25 with the flick of one finger. With iOS 6 search, you only see one app per search page.

That makes it less likely that a user will discover a cool app that is in the top 100 search results.

But Niren Hiro, co-founder of SearchMan.com, says that savvy developers could still use the changes to their advantage. Mountain View, Calif.-based SearchMan.com is a data service that helps app developers track search rankings of their apps and optimize their keywords to improve discoverability.

“If you assume that some of the user behavior we see on the web will transfer to mobile, then when it gets cumbersome for users to browse results, they will enter more descriptive phrases to get relevant results fast,” he said.

For instance, users will search for “free video poker game” instead of just the word “poker.”

“Longer phrases are 70 percent of search volume on the web (indicator), they’re less competitive, and probably see higher post-click conversion (download) rates because the user explicitly searched for “free video poker game,” said Hiro, whose service launched three months ago.

Developers can take steps to get the No. 1 rank under each of their “long tail” keywords. That is, developers can optimize their rankings for keywords that will give them better results on the App Store when users go searching for certain kinds of apps.

“For developers without access to a giant ad budget to boost-market their App into the Top Apple Charts, App Store SEO might be the best bet to improve discoverability inside the over-crowded App Store,” Hiro said.（source:venturebeat）

When you search for ‘casino’ games on iOS, here’s what pops up (Hint: it’s not a Zynga game)

Dean Takahashi

What happens when you search for a popular genre of games on the App Store? You might expect the most popular game to show up first. But that’s not always the case, especially with the hot category of mobile social casino games, according to new search tracking tool startup SearchMan.com.

Search rankings are important because they are the No. 1 way users find apps, according to Nielsen. Optimizing your app for search is a more affordable way for indie developers to get their apps noticed than buying mobile advertising at relatively high prices, says Niren Hiro, co-founder of SearchMan.com, which specializes in optimizing mobile apps for discoverability. You can think of search as the “shelf space” of the digital age. And on Apple’s new iOS 6 (the new version of the operating system for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch), Apple has removed the categories button from the main screen of the iPhone 5 and left search intact.

SearchMan.com found that lesser-known game studios including Avanlix, Aristocrat, Arawella, and Pokie Magic have an extraordinarily large number of apps ranking inside the top 250 search results for gambling-related search keywords in the App Store. Hiro said that results inside the top 250 are visible to users. Zynga is known to be interested in the social casino games genre, but it also has aggressive competition from Backflip Studios, TinyCo, Big Fish Games, and others. The search results are based on the number of appearances of apps published by a specific game company in the top 250 search results for four gambling-related keywords: casino, gambling, slot and poker. The keywords were chosen based on the highest query volume in the U.S. App Store, as estimated by Google Keyword Tool.

As you can see in the chart below, Aristocrat has far better search results than Zynga in the top 250.（source:venturebeat）

5）Temple Run receives the board game treatment

By Dant Rambo

Temple Run developer Imangi Studios has teamed up with Spin Master Games to create Temple Run Danger Chase, a board game based on the massively popular mobile game.

The board game will more or less serve as a physical adaptation of the app, featuring a similar end goal of outrunning an evil Demon Monkey and living to tell the tale. The product description reads:

“The Temple Run Danger Chase Board Game provides all the speed and thrills of the popular Temple Run game app in a multi-player board game! Roll the dice and race against the clock to keep head of the Evil Demon Monkey. Roll too slow, and you’ll move back! Outrun the Demon Monkey and outlast the other players to win!”

If I’m reading that correctly, taking too long to roll will result in you being sent back closer to the Demon Monkey. Ostensibly, this means you can tackle another person and keep them from the dice until the timer runs out and they’re boned. Bring on the black eyes!

Temple Run’s Facebook page states that the game will be released on October 1st.（source: gamezebo）