Pinch Media recently shared some data that they presented at the 360iDev conference regarding the state of piracy in the App Store and the results are definitely interesting, if not somewhat surprising.
Pinch Media decided to start tracking jailbreak users in response to developers seeing unusual spikes in their userbase, spikes that didn’t mesh with what iTunes Connect was reporting for new downloads. As it turns out, those spikes were from pirated apps on jailbroken devices.
According to Pinch Media’s analytics, about 38 percent of jailbreak users run pirated apps. Their data consists of about 4 million jailbroken devices, which means about one and a half million of those devices have a pirated app on them.
Piracy is obviously a global phenomenon, but apparently it’s worse in some countries than in others. Their results indicate that piracy is much more rampant in countries like China, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico, with the U.S., Great Britain, and Japan having the lowest rates. This indicates that piracy is negatively correlated with per capita national GDP.
Out of all of the apps using Pinch Media’s analytics, over 60 percent have been pirated. According to Pinch Media, this estimate is actually low considering pirates will occasionally disable their tracking. And when an app is pirated, about 34 percent of all installs are cracked.
Just like legitimate paid app downloads, pirated apps are used quite a bit at first, but the usage drops of much more rapidly over time than with legitimate app downloads. Pinch Media claims there are three reasons for this. The first being that since the user didn’t actually pay for the app, they have less invested in using it. Second, pirates usually install apps in bulk, meaning that they have a lot more apps to choose from to suit their specific tastes and needs. Third, all jailbroken devices suffer from increased app crash rates, leading to more frequent app un-installs.
The final point they make, and the biggest point as far as I am concerned, is that the “try before you buy” motto that pirates use is completely bogus. Pinch Media’s analytics show that about 7.4 percent of legitimate “Lite” app users go on to purchase the full paid version, which is about a 1 in 14 ratio. If you apply the “try before you buy” theory to all pirated app users the results should be about the same, right? Well, according to Pinch Media, only .43 percent of pirated app users go on to purchase the full version, resulting in a 1 in 233 ratio.
Pinch Media’s findings are rather disappointing, especially for developers. It’s important to note once again that even Pinch Media admits their numbers are quite a bit lower than one would expect thanks to the great lengths some jailbreakers go to to avoid being tracked. At this point there isn’t a whole lot any one person can do to stop app piracy, so just be accountable for your own actions.
So jailbreakers, what do you think about Pinch Media’s findings?
Caveat: I’m writing this in relation to US developers.
While we all know piracy occurs there are serious data issues with this study. Pinch Media has to make far too many assumptions for unknown variables to arrive at their conclusions.
The fundamentally flawed assumption is that developers are losing significant revenue due to piracy. I have yet to see a valid counter-argument for the fact these users would never pay for the app. Do you really think the 16-24 year old males are going to plunk down $100 for the TomTom app? No, they’re simply curious about all the cool apps coming out and want a quick taste, which also explains the low retention rate. They probably don’t even need a GPS because all they do is drive from their apartment to school and to the local bar.
As with piracy for all media I think the problem is extremely overstated in the United States. Those of us who have discretionary funds will buy CDs or purchase MP3s through iTunes or Amazon, will buy DVDs or rent them and would much rather spend a couple dollars on apps and not hassle with bug-ridden jailbreaks. Those without funds and an itch to tinker will jailbreak and pirate, but they wouldn’t allocate the few discretionary dollars they have to apps even if piracy was effectively eliminated.
good post. 100% true. The fact is piracy probably helps more than it hurts in most cases. I pay for all my apps but I have a couple friends that would never paid for apps. They wouldn’t even pay 99 cents for an app for some ridiculous cheap reason. I never understood it but I told them about installous and now half of my app purchases come because they are able to try out everything and then suggest apps for me to buy.
I agree, I have in the past done the jailbreak on my older iphones but it was to get the BSD utilities, like terminal and open ssh.
When it comes to apps if I have a use for it I buy it or try the lite first and then buy the upgrade.
I have probably all together bought about $30-40 in apps from the app store, the most expensive one being FTP on the Go but it is well worth the money if you are a web developer/master like myself.
You can turn off pinch media tracking ur phone with something on cydia
I have a jailbroken iPhone. I have used Installous cracked softwares but purely for evaluation only. I had too many disappointment in buying apps in the apps store and never liking it or stop using it totally. If its is useful and I use regularly then I will buy and support it.
Instalous is great especially those who don’t have credit card. Those people who don’t want to buy will not buy it anyway.
I rarely buy apps, as I honestly do not have the type of money to go buying every app I thnik I’ll like-
But, If I do pirate an app, and it turns out to be something I use often, then I will go and buy it.
I’ve even donated to the developers directly rather than buy the app,
So in the end, everyone wins
I’ve heard this “They’d never have bought it anyway” argument but I feel it is more of a just trying to justify theft rather than a fact. The FACT that a person is willing to put in time / effort to jailbreak and acquire these apps ( is overall more tedious than just clicking the buy or update button ) is evidence that they hold at least some value. Ultimately, the question is if there were NO way of pirating an app, CD, DVD, etc would you just break down and buy it at what the seller is asking? The question could likely result in a “yes,” even if for a curiosity point. Some will still say “no” to that question but there is definitely cases of lost revenue. Let’s not forget Push costs developers more than just to develop the app but also maintain Push functionality and that cost increases with user demand ( amount of simultaneous requests ).
I think you have drawn the wrong conclusion. If 1 in 233 pirated copies turn into purchases, and 1 in 14 lite copies turn into purchases, then, in order for piracy not to affect developers, the people using pirated apps would have to try 16 times as many apps as they would have without the ability to pirate apps. That number seems like a very real possibility to me. Before having the ability to pirate, I very rarely tried apps, but now I try out every app I hear about and many more at random. I have personally spent more money in the app store in 3 weeks of being able to pirate apps than I did in 1.5 years of not knowing how to pirate apps. And yet the 1 in 233 and 1 in 14 numbers are probably not that far off for me, simply because I almost never tried apps before.
I agree with the posters here. I pirate apps on a regular basis, usually when I’m board. I can name several apps (Beejive, AirMouse Pro) that I have purchased simply because I pirated the full versions first (I would have never thought of paying 9 bucks for a messenger client until I saw just how awesome Beejive is, for example). In a lot of cases, I will try the lite version of an app to see if it’s any good, but if there is no lite version I make my own. I don’t have a lot of pirated apps on my phone, just a few I’m evaluating.
On the flip side of this, I have occasionally purchased apps sight-unseen from the appstore, and I’ve pretty much always been disappointed. Either they pretty much suck, or they aren’t worth the buck or more that they cost.