Checkers Tutor reaches 1000 downloads

Today, following another download-increasing update to version 1.06, Checkers Tutor has reached over 1000 total downloads. For reasons unclear to me (and from reading on the internet, everybody else too), Google does not offer a PC interface to the Android market, and therefore there are 3rd party websites that do offer such an interface. I use AndroLib, where I can see how many ratings and comments I got, and how the ratings develop over time. Apparently, Checkers Tutor has a rating of 3.33 out of 5, after 9 ratings. Unfortunately, not a single comment on what could be improved...
Androlib also has some download statistics. According to these, of currently 23'477 apps, 61.6% have been downloaded less than 1000 times. So CT is in the top 38.4% of all apps; and only 19.9% of all apps (or 4672) are in the category above with more than 5000 downloads. So CT isn't doing too bad, then again the other checkers programs out there are doing better or much better - and when I run out of upgrade ideas, my downloads will slow down to a trickle once again. I have two upgrade ideas left, but then it will be time to leave CT to its own devices on Android market.

Checkers Tutor 1.04, 1.05 etc.

The Android market has a developer console which tells developers how often their application has been downloaded, how many active installations of it there are, and how the application is rated by the users. These stats are interesting, but not really up to Google standards - for example, you have no clue about how your downloads are distributed over time, and I have been logging in to my dev console every night to see how my Checkers Tutor is doing (it would be so much nicer if daily/weekly/monthly stats were available...). I have noticed that whenever I publish an update of Checkers Tutor, the number of downloads increases massively. I can also see that the number of active installs increases too, so I guess that my app is more visible on the Android market for perhaps a day after an update (but this is pure speculation). Anyway, seeing that my download stats are disappointing, I will be making some incremental updates to Checkers Tutor in the hope of attracting more users (1.04 released, 1.05 going up tonight, and 1.06 already planned), and perhaps gaining visibility in the Android Market (which is probably a combination of downloads and rating, but again this is guesswork). One problem which all checkers apps seem to have in common is that many people don't know that you must capture if you can in checkers. Aart Bik's Checkers for Android is by far the most downloaded checkers app, and it seems that about half of it's comments are "stupid - computer cheats" or "don't install - can't make moves I want to". And the ratings are correspondingly low. Unfortunately, Aart put in an option to make captures optional in his program, which is a bit of a shame because these people should learn how to play checkers for real...