I think if an app does add significant new features, then it deserves to be featured in some way. But just a bug fix release shouldn't get featured. Maybe they'll add a recently updated list, though that might make even less of a bump in sales.
just because something is good does not mean it has a divine right to be sucessful. remember betamax vs VHS? stand out titles do sell well but because this market is now saturated and competitive, some of the more niche titles go unrecognised. dont loose heart, build another game/app but dont go into this business with the sole aim of making a mint of cash. much like musicians, it often takes many years of consistant work for it to pay off. instant successes, no matter how good your product is, are quite rare.
just curious - was there any official statement on it ? I mean - this thread was started by a link to a post written by someone who claims that he contacted apple. ok, maybe that's true, I'm not saying it is not. but I would just really like to see something official about it... is there anything like that ? --- assuming it is true: our experience with every game and every update - they give a temporary 50-100% boost to sales. after 2-3 days things are back to normal. so yeah, strategy works but doesn't really pay off in a long term. if a game doesn't earn much - updates are not gonna earn much either... so better to invest in new games --- what I would much much rather see is a "pay-to-submit" scheme, 20-50$ for each update and 90% of appspam would be gone (yes, this number is completely made up)
Now you get to compete with all those devs releasing those 0.0001 as version 1.0 of "Crappy App 2", and then "Crappy App 3". Just so they can continue getting on the New Release list.
Good call! Didn't even think about that one. That would be good. It might also make dev's work a little harder to fix all the little bugs(ones that come up fixed in many little future updates) and other, before ever submitting the game in the first place. I would feel better about my product if I know it is going out near 100% instead of 75% with bug fixes coming soon. If I frustrate my customers with the latter, they'll just run away from my product, delete it, and give it a crappy rating. = no more $ Dev's should have good communication with testers and actually use their feedback to help their product before it sees the light of day in the store. Just sayi'n. But opinions are like a-holes....... ya know?
I was just thinking the same thing. It would be good to have an official announcement from Apple on this topic. Having said that, something is clearly up with the App Store and its behavior the past 2 days. I was hoping for something better than this though. Time will tell.
Nope, competing with those already. I think Apple made the right call on this one, but as always it would have been much better if they informed everyone in advance...
70%? WTF? I remember when we release Snails on Pocket Pc (now Windows Mobile) back in 2002 and they TRIED to get 30% but we told them to screw off. We were considered a 'Gold Member' dev, and I think Handango settled for 10% or 15%. Our first day sales for Snails was something like 400 (or maybe that was the whole month?), and that was considered huge back then.
my physics teacher saw me using my iPT a while back and got one himself, and since then he's loved it and all the apps he's gotten...my research project involved making an iPhone application, he sees me working on it and starts talking about how how much money people make off of apps...I couldn't think of a way to tell him no way
maybe you should QA your games to begin with so you don't need to update them. this is a bunch of bullshit, you speak for 1% of the customers on the store.
http://www.mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/557 - 40% http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?p=1260461 - 50% http://msmobiles.com/news.php/3801.html - 60% 2002 - those were the early days. times have changed you could get 70% if you wanted to sell through their "additional channels - such as palm store and more specifically carriers".. did they deserve to get more than 20%? hell no. users had to learn about their site and visit them - it wasn't an in-device thing. on palm os - there was a built in application for buying applications; they requested 75% - i forgot the name; but it was extortion. its why most developed on palm os and pocket pc started hosting their own payment gateways using sites like esellerate.net
Whether I should complain or not is frankly my very own business. If your ambitions stop at 30 sales per day, mine don't. So stop complaining about me complaining. And let me ask- how many of you "stop complaining guys" have actually quit your day jobs and all your income comes from the iPhone? Ah?
This is easier said than done. Of the 40 or so codes I've sent out, 2 have resulted in (very positive) reviews. Most sites don't even bother replying to say they won't use the code.
Frankly, reading most of the comments I see that most people in this discussion are not actually experienced developers... Having your app reviewed by someone? Really? Have you tried? Have you measured the impact? Because I have...and I've paid. And I've paid thousands of dollars for this. And the impact is still much less significant than just appearing on the list of recently released apps. Seriously guys, if you are not devs, just don't bother hitting the reply button on this thread. It really adds no value. Only volume.
i thought i'd bite the bullet and see your applications - i'm surprised people are buying 400+ a day; especially for applications that can be implemented with less than a few days work. you can easily grab a bit of public information and wrap it around a UIWebView and sell it for a few bucks. i wonder if you actually own the rights to the material that you publish in your applications.. did you license them? or just rip them from the internet? i would be more worried about being contacted by the people who own the content and prepare a cease and desist for you - i wouldn't have quit my day job for this type of business. lets see: http://www.cramzy.com/CruelInsults/ http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/insult.html looks like you've either ripped content from "corsinet.com" for your application.. thats plagiarism (of course; unless you can proove that you own or licensed the content). if it works for you - good on you. i guess you want to ride on being in the "top lists" by publishing new content/updates to your applications.
I think Cramzy has a right to complain. It can be a pain in the ass to find something that works- time, effort, money and frustration. When this gets jacked up, you have to start all over again. In the meantime, you lose sales. iPhone developer is my only job. At this point I am able to pay my bills. I think cramzy's and my situation is very different from other people. When our source of income is toyed with, we need to take action immediately. It might be a rare occasion for most of you to come into work and be notified 'Oh, BTW, your salary has been cut down to 25% from yesterday'. I'm not as affected by this as cramzy (yet), and I would hate to be where he is right now. Even if nobody else in this thread sympathizes, I do.
I do own every bit of information. I've paid for it. And you are very mistaken to believe the apps are that simple. Some of them indeed are simple, but some of them like 18,000 COOL JOKES and Chippy are frankly- freaking advanced. You've no idea how advanced algos we have behind the jokes app. If you want a promo code, drop me a PM...maybe you should give our apps a try, and see they are good and polished. And can somebody explain to me, what did I do to deserve this attitude? The way I see it I am an average guy working on the iPhone market, currently making good money out of it. I quit my day job less than a month ago, and now I plan to support my wife and upcoming baby (in 7 months) with the money I earn from the AppStore. Do you think it's weird to be frustrated and angry when Apple shows zero respect to us, the developers, and potentially harms my business? And what's wrong with making 500 sales a day? What's wrong with wanting more? Everybody wants more...just some people pretend to be saints and say "enough is enough"...no man, it's never enough... I'd rather buy a house and a sports car and still have money left, than living on rental and saying "okay, things have to be fair, so I should not earn too much". So, please, stop blaming me for taking care of my family and business. And stop saying the apps sux...if you don't like what the app is about- okay, you have every right for this. But don't say I stole the content, because I haven't, and don't say the apps themselves suck, because they don't. We put a great deal of effort in creating them, and the people who've used them do see and appreciate this.
apple can do whatever they want - and, trust me - i've been in the mobile business for over 11 years now; what they have provided is one of the best market places that mobile developers have ever seen. they take 30% now; we are all just waiting for that to go up. no-one said they suck. but remember this is the internet - you get flamed and bullied for just existing. i hope the business stays well - and you are able to provide for your family. but remember you are a single pawn in a massive chess game that apple controls the fate of. the indie dev's used to thrive on other platforms; such as palm os, windows mobile - and the big guys like EA, gameloft came in. they got all the exclusive and special treatment; leaving the indie developer in the cold. it's only going to get worse for developers on the platform - you can depend on it.
