State of the Apps: iFart 10K Earn Rate, Private API Debate, Approval Delay Hate
No sooner did Apple flip the switch on Pull My Finger but 14 fart-themed apps have hit the App Store and according to Macrumors, leader of the app pack, iFart Mobile, generated $9198 in one day. I need to quit this blog and go make iDoody, or something (don’t tell Dieter!).
Daring Fireball weighs in on the use of private API’s, disagreeing not only with the practice of using them, but with the people who use and tell others hot to use them. A risky practice to be certain, and one that does endanger the user experience, but I like to think (or hope) developers are adults who will make their own informed decisions and take personal responsibility for those decisions, not try to lay blame on code samples or books.
Lastly, we have a rant sent in from PHARTGAMES developer Perry Hart who’s more than a littler frustrated with the continued delays and absolute opacity of Apple’s approval process:
I submitted ZombieMangle over a week ago now, Which was what i though would be a perfect time to release just before christmas. However, A few days after submission apple sends me an email stating that they require “Unexpected Additional Time For Review” with no reason whatsoever for the delay. So I do a search for any other developers who have received this email, and it appears there’s ALOT of them. What this email basically means is that your application has joined a queue which never gets looked at and your app wont be approved, or rejected depending on apples discression for months. One developer has been on the queue for three months, and received absolutely no information about what was wrong.
Emails to support were ignored, phone calls to support were outsourced and scripted, and complaints in the official forums have gotten boiler plate from the mods. Hart’s conclusion:
I think it’s time that all developers and potential developers know that they are working with amateurs.
Did Apple underestimate just how popular the App Store would be? Were they unprepared? And is their newness to the market — the newness OF the market — overwhelming them a degree such that they simply cannot cope? Or is this just Apple being Apple again, saying nothing and leaving people to increasingly frustrated assumptions?
December 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Hart’s conclusion is correct. I’ve been selling an application since launch and Apple is the single most incompetent reseller I’ve ever worked with. I’m not a money ***** like these iFart type people so I’m not going to sell **** and jump through Apple’s asinine hoops to get things done. Apple does not respond to email, their legal department does not respond to phone or email, and their finance department is accountable to nobody.
It’s amazing that the same company that was able to hire and maintain a high quality team that could develop the iPhone can be so utterly full of idiots everywhere else.
I really wish these other handset developers would get their heads on straight and build a competitor.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I agree, Joe. The companies out there now have talent, but they could do so much more if they listened better to their various customer bases – for their customers and for themselves.
December 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Apple is the best. Always has been, always will be.
December 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I like to be a positive voice about the app store. We have two apps, Preschool Pals – Henry&Hailey, and ABC Henry and Hailey that are in the education category. Both were approved in only 2 days. The first one, Preschool pals Henry & Hailey was approved in November and the ABC Henry & Haiely was approved in 2 days about 2 weeks ago.
We didn’t have any problems with the approval process. I do wonder how they pick their staff picks. Recently our ABC game Henry & Hailey was rated higher in top paid apps than another abc game. That other abc app was chosen as a staff pick. Then the downloads for our ABC Henry & Hailey started dropping and I suspect it is because people are downloading the staff pick game.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Check out the best iFart Commercial online.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCycWRti64