They don't seem to care to much about serving the public as they pretend to. This is a legit platform with users that have no intentions of leaving it, who want to support Snapchat. Why won't they simply create a pathway for us? Smaller companies like YouVersion create bible apps for ALL platforms for free but these guys have this isolationist business model.
"Snapchat has always celebrated the way that you and your friends see the world. It’s fun to experience different perspectives through Snaps, Stories and Our Story."
Bible Apps that are free for all platforms are done by companies in large part as a "mission work" to help spread the word. This is what they believe in. They believe every person should have access to the Bible in their own native language, and send and fund teams of people to go into the world to learn languages where there are no interpreters in order to create a written Bible in that language. It's not about market share for them. It's about reaching every single person that is possible to reach. That's why you will also find the apps on Symbian, BlackBerry, and every flavor of every proprietary feature phone available (nearly).
Snapchat is all about the money. They are a business and they are in the business of making money, otherwise they would be called a charity. A business will say or do whatever it takes to convince you that they are your friend and want to do what is best for you, but they only do this to get your money. Case in point, the Used Car Salesman. He's your buddy. He wants you to have the best car. He wants you to drive away "happy." Actually, he just wants that paycheck you just got so he can spend it on himself. He doesn't really care if the car he just sold you breaks down on the way home from the dealership, as long as you aren't able to sue him for it.
When companies give you that "We Love You" kind of garbage line, know that they are in business to make money. There are places you can give your money that aren't in it "just for the money." They are called Charities. With those, however, when you give them your money you get a good feeling instead of a product. That's okay, too.
I can't be mad at Snapchat for not wanting to do Windows Phone. I've heard developer after developer state it's hard to make any money developing for Windows Phone, because there is practically no ad revenue, which is due to the small user base.
Why due to the small user base? You say there are plenty of Windows Phone users. Yes, there are... but let's look how it really breaks down to ad revenue.
1. 70 million Windows Phone users in the entire world.
2. Your app is limited to the number of Windows Phone users possibly for a particular region or language, which cuts the number down dramatically. In the United States, less people use WP than anywhere else in the world, so it is a very small percentage of the 70 million.
3. Of those, let's be generous and say 10 million WP users in the USA, how many of those 10 million will download and use YOUR app? 1% would be a very generous number. Even with that many, it would only be 100,000 people, out of 250,000,000. Actually, there are an extremely limited number of apps that get that many downloads. That's usually counting iOS and Android downloads in there to get that many for a single app.
4. Out of 100,000, how many of those use the app every single day? Probably less than 1%. 5% once a week? Most of my apps, I use less than once a month. I use the Facebook app fairly often, which is every other day, for like 10 minutes. I know people that are glued to the Facebook app nearly 24/7, but that's not everyone.
5. Okay, 1% may use the app every day to help create revenue from ads. That's about 1000 people. How many of these people "click" the ads in order to generate revenue for the app developer? Probably about 1 in 1000.
I realize all of this is just made up, hypothetical stuff, but it gives you a general idea of how the world works around this stuff. In the above example, out of 70 million WP users, a particular app developer is getting 1 ad click per day to pay his bills to keep his lights on. If this were a business development team instead of a home hobbyist, they would go broke pretty quick.
I know, you will say that a lot more people on WP would use it. I doubt the number of WP snapchat users would be more than 100,000, and I seriously doubt the number of people that take actions while using snapchat will actually generate revenue for the company. They are in a position where they need the largest possible user base with the least possible effort just to stay afloat. If they were to put someone on the job to develop an in-house app for snapchat, the investors who are currently keeping the company afloat would cry foul. It's all about the bottom line and keeping the investors happy.
Now, once Microsoft gets to the point that they release a version of Visual Studio that lets a developer press a button and "Presto!", compiles are made for iOS, Android, and W10 for phones all without having to do any code modification to make it work, then it will become profitable to do so. Until then, too much in resources is wasted on just not making enough money to cover those resources.
You say, "Well, they don't have to continue to support it, just release something once and we'll be happy." Seriously, haven't you heard the cries of foul over developers not releasing updates? Plus, snapchat has been adding new features to their service right and left lately, which means more development time on all the apps they have to keep up with. Keeping up with a WP app right now just isn't economical for the payoff.
I really hate saying any of this. It makes me sound like I'm anti-Windows Phone, when I'm probably the most avid supporter of it. Windows Phone is hands down the best mobile phone OS on the market today. I wish more people go the chance to see that. But, business is business. I've been a CIO, and I can see that.
Windows 10 is the FIRST step to change all this. A version of Visual Studio that I discussed above will have to be the second step, and getting developers to adopt that new version of Visual Studio for their iOS and Android work is the 3rd step. We get there, and we'll be not just catching up, but surpassing others in phone market share. Yes, it is going to take a bit longer for all this to be in place. I will be here watching and waiting for it to come to fruition. My personal outlook is that it will take 3 years, but in 3 years it will be glorious.
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