Android App Analytics
January 12th, 2010 by sI still haven’t decided on an analytics company for my iPhone apps yet. I can’t stand the reports at Pinch Media. Flurry isn’t bad, I hope they keep Flurry’s reports over Pinch’s after the merger. I recently moved my iPhone apps to use Motally, so we’ll see how that goes.
But I think I’ve found my Analytics provider for my Android apps. There aren’t as many choice compared to the iPhone right now, so I’m sure things will change in a few months.
As of January 12, 2010, though, here are my notes from looking into Android App Analytics providers. I’m sure there are others, but I lost interest in evaluating any more.
1. Flurry
I’d looked at Flurry quite some time ago, but balked when they required adding LOCATION permissions to your app’s manifest before using their analytics package. They’ve change it now so all they require is android.permission.INTERNET.
The location permissions are optional (android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION or android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION).
This is who I ended up going with. No complaints about the info they provide. All the usual stuff: users, sessions, customizable events, devices, carrier, firmware info.
Actually, one pleasant surprise was that they tracked errors happening with my apps in the field that I had no idea about.
Flurry Rants – ok, I do have a couple of complaints:
- Their main site doesn’t have a lot of details. It’s mostly fluffy marketing stuff. You have to sign up before finding out anything.
- The documentation isn’t the easiest to find on their developer site and it’s pretty minimal as it is.
2. Motally
I wanted to go with Motally because I just moved my iPhone apps to them and have all my apps in one place, but I ran into a quick showstopper.
Make sure to add the following permissions in your application’s AndroidManifest.xml
• <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE”/>
• <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE”/>
• <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE”/>
• <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION”/>
• <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.INTERNET”/>
WOW! Location permissions are required and also READ_PHONE_STATE! I’m sure my users will love it if I add all those.
Pass.
I’ve been told that the next version will make more permissions optional, so I’ll re-evaluate them down the road.
3. mobilytics
No dice. Still in Private Beta.
4. Localytics
To be honest, I didn’t even get as far as signing up here. The Flash reports in the demo turned me off initially, and then when their wiki/documentation site was slow, I didn’t bother going any further.
5. Medialytics
I couldn’t sign up. Rats.
6. Google Analytics for Android
I’m surprised Google Analytics for Android isn’t the best option out there, but it looks like someone’s side project. It would be nice to have my Android analytics in the same place as my website analytics, but this looks like it hasn’t been updated in ages.
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