If you’re an Android app developer, Google has a very handy tool for you called Android Dashboard. The tool has been around for a number of years already and is designed to help developers target their apps based on the active users using a certain Android version.

Originally the statistical data collected by Android dashboard was based on a device pinging Google servers, but a new update to the system hopes to make things a lot more accurate. Now, stats are only collected on those Android devices which log in to Google’s Play app store. This give a more accurate view of active users so developers can concentrate their efforts more effectively.

Since the update, a jump in the number of active users running Android Jelly Bean has been recorded while active Froyo and Gingerbread stats have dropped.

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We already know that Microsoft wants to tie together its various services. That’s why the recent Xbox 360 dashboard update lets us search Bing with our voices (via Kinect). And that’s also why there is the Xbox Companion App for Windows Phone devices. As it turns out, though, Microsoft wants to expand beyond WP7 with its mobile ambitions. It wants iOS and Android too.

At least, that’s what a new job posting leads us to believe. They’re looking for a senior development engineer to work on the Xbox Live Mobile team. The kicker is that they say they want to “bring the latest and greatest gaming and entertainment experience to mobile platforms including Windows Phone, iOS, and other mobile platforms.”

While the “big plus” of having experience developing for Windows Phone, iOS and Android could simply mean that the successful candidate is a good, well-rounded developer, it could also mean that Microsoft wants him or her to develop for these other platforms too. There’s already the My Xbox LIVE app fro iOS, for example.

Why the sudden interest in playing friendly with other platforms? Well, there’s word going around that Sony is approaching the other Android device manufacturers for PlayStation Suite certification. If they’re able to get the PlayStation brand as the brand for mobile gaming, the Xbox brand could be left in the dust. One thing’s pretty much for certain though: Nintendo wants no part of this, at least for now.

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You’d think that getting that kind of front page billing would be very beneficial for developers. They get their name out there and they get in front of the eyeballs of thousands of people that may not have otherwise found their app. Unfortunately, things aren’t always quite as peachy-keen as these devs had hoped.

You see, the way that you can get your Android app featured on the front page of the Amazon Appstore is to agree to be the “Free App of the Day.” The idea is you get the promotion, build up the user base, and gain more sales down the line as a result. However, there is a stipulation in there that goes contrary to earlier assumptions.

Amazon sets the price of the apps sold in the Appstore, giving a 70% cut back to the developer. However, the developer can set a “list price” and be guaranteed to receive at least 20% of that. If you get promoted as the “Free App of the Day,” though, you waive that right. You earn nothing. And that’s what happened to Shifty Jelly, developer of Pocket Casts.

It got promoted as the Free App of the Day one day and got over 100,000 downloads. That resulted in zero dollars, of course. The day after the free promotion saw only 20 sales, then 14, then just one or two. In effect, Shifty Jelly lost money, because it then had to deal with up to 300 e-mails a day from the new 100,000+ users asking for support, plus all the additional server hardware to handle the new load. Free apps are a tough business, and many developers for iPhone experience the same thing with iOS related “free app sites.”

It has also decided to sever its relationship with the Amazon store, and recently tweeted that it had now been told the app can’t be removed unless it was also taken down from the Google Marketplace, though we’ve not been able to confirm that with Amazon.

The take home lesson is similar to that of trying to promote your business, company, or app through Amazon: know what you’re getting into and recognize that it could backfire.

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