Yup Apple and HP did for a while have an agreement where HP were allowed to sell iPod's with the HP-logo...
Back on topic: I think the change is a good one. The "upgrade often to get attention"-game was never particularly user-friendly. With the exception of Pocket God it seems to me a lot of developers have been making tiny, almost pointless, upgrades every other week to get their apps back up on the recent-lists. Frankly, it seems to me that the former practice rewarded the developers for not finishing their apps before releasing them to the app store...
I'm not convinced that keywords offer any real benefit in the App Store unless you are selling flashlight apps or other utility apps that people are likely to look for by category. The only time I ever "search" for a game is when I already know the name of the game I want. I asked other iPhone users about it here at work, and they never search by keywords either. They exclusively browse through the top lists. I think people already know what they are looking for or simply scroll through the top lists. That is probably 90% or more of the sales (yeah, I pulled that number out of thin air , but it is based on empirical evidence).
That's okay, 87.9% of all statistics are made up on the spot. I don't think I've ever looked for a game under a keyword either. Our first time submitting was declined because we use 'demo' as a keyword. That was the ONLY problem- we made that minor change and had to go through the entire process again. It was approved a week later. There are circumstances that might suggest some games use 'demo' as a keyword. While demolition and demon are valid, there are others that aren't.
In my experience a huge amount of sales come not from the top lists in a specific category but the recently released lists in the category, in case the app stays for at least a day.
Yes it is. Apple and HP partnered to sell iPods in Radio Shack a long time ago. That partnership was short-lived, however.
I would suppose that would depend on what a 'huge amount' would be. If you normally have 10 downloads a day, and 'New Apps' brings you another 10 a day, you just doubled your sales. On the other hand, if you have hundreds a day, that 10 new downloads isn't enough data to be conclusive. This is why I stated that other devs may have a different story. It would be nice if being new brought us thousands of new downloads, but it didn't.
If I had 10 downloads a day, I would not quit my day job for this platform, and I would not be pissed off that much. But I have about 400-500 sales per day for two of our apps, and when they get updated sales increase to 800 and more.
In many ways I think the new system is probably fairer. Those who spend time making their app as good as it can be, perfecting every aspect of it, will no longer have to compete with the latest 0.0001 upgrade of every possible app out there...
Okay, I don't know your situation. And for the THIRD time, I am saying what my situation is and that it MAY NOT APPLY to other developers. Your situation doesn't apply to me, but I am not prepared to dismiss it.
You are right, it could be different with different apps. But still- this visibility provided good increase of sales for most people...they wouldn't be making so many updates if it didn't, right?
There are worse things, like Apple removed three of your apps from sale because a user complained about a bad profile picture. .. About update visibility: one year ago it really was motivating to update the game, because an update was bringing almost the same amount of income as a new release. This effect has decreased a lot because there were tons of new apps and spam in the App Store. For Cocoto Kart we didn't relie on it at all, released one day after the approval and contacted websites etc. to get some push.
No, you wouldn't. And believe me, I feel badly for you and the other developers that will no doubt feel the repurcussions of this. At this point, I still don't know how it will affect me. I'm new enough that I don't think my opinion should count as much. However, do keep in mind that updates will provide you with new Promo Codes that you can use to generate news and interest.
holy crap 400-500 a day? you just made everyone else here jealous... besides I heard android app sales are terrible.
Well I haven't done an update for a few months but when I did - it had a noticeable boost in my sales of Anomaly. That said - it still wasn't enough to make all the effort to do it worthwhile. Sadly - the game was well received but the only sales we had were first day, first day on update and then for about 2 weeks when Apple featured us as one of the "Best Dual Stick Shooters". On the other hand - I agree that lots of people abused the updates to get more exposure and I wondered how Apple was going to keep up. I'm sure they are doing this to reduce the amount of reviewing they are doing - but hope they have measures to insure devs don't release the same stuff under a new name to "get around" this. I do like that this will push developers to finish games before releasing them!
i second this - its an excellent move! if you want to make your updates more public; you'll get a site to review your app. people want to find new applications; not go through a list of old apps being updated. as an itunes user; you get updates without checking.. so; why do they need to be in the main lists?
400+ per day? and your complaining? go ahead and target the other platforms; you'll be lucky to get 10 sales a day on platforms like symbian, android et al - and, if you look closely; the distributors dont take 30%; they take more like 70% (www.handango.com, www.pocketgear.com).. what apple is doing no-one should complain about; they provide a market place great for indie devs to get involved and actually cover (if lucky) the cost of their developments
