All Articles Tagged state of the apps

Apple has just announced that their iTunes App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch has passed the 2 billion downloads bar. Boom indeed.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, says:

The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone. The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.

Other numbers include more than 85,000 apps now available from 125,000 registered developers, available in 77 countries around the world, for 50 million iPhones and iPod touches sold to date.

Jugger. Naut.

According to developers, Apple has sent them out the following note:

We are pleased to introduce the App Store Resource Center, a single destination designed to make it easier for you to find details on everything you need to know about distributing your app on the App Store — from how to prepare for app submission to managing your app once it’s been posted.

Make sure you also check out the News and Announcements section of the iPhone Dev Center for tips on submitting your apps to the App Store, turnaround time for app review, new program features, and guidance on everything from development and testing to distribution and marketing.

Is this one more sign of Apple making tangible improvements to the App Store review process? Developers, let us know!

[Thanks anonymous tipster!]

Last week we linked to an AdMob estimate that the iPhone and iPod touch App Store could represent a $2.5 billion a year economy, which based the estimate off usage stats for their mobile ad network, and a survey of 1000 iPhone, iPod touch, and Google Android users. But not so fast, says Cult of Mac along with developers from Polar Bear Farms, App Cubby, and the Yankee Group.

$2.4 billion divided by the 65,000 apps in the App Store is $37,000 per app, per year. And while some developers earn that, many do not.

They figure it’s closer to $250 million to $500 million, or roughly one fifth to one tenth the size.

AdMob is sticking to their original numbers, however, according to the methodology shared again with GigaOm.

To us, it just seems like they’re all guestimating how big that really, really big pie is — just stupid, or goram ridiculous.

[Thanks Icebike for the tip!]

According to developers Bjango, Apple is now telling developers to remove the “Free Memory” function — the ability to clear data from RAM without force quitting or rebooting — from their iPhone (and iPod touch) applications or those applications will be removed from the App Store.

Bjango, who makes iStat [$1.99 on sale - iTunes link] had to do just that for their latest version:

Stat’s Free Memory function was removed at Apple’s request. This decision was completely out of our hands. Please note that all other apps with Free Memory appear to have been removed or updated without their Free Memory function too.

After eliciting feedback and considering their options, Bjango went ahead and removed the feature. (Bjango advises users who want the feature to NOT UPGRADE their copies, and reminds Mac users with Time Machine how to downgrade to the old, “Free Memory”-enabled version if necessary.)

To rub salt on their wounds, negative reviews are now piling up for iStat in iTunes, of course, despite Bjango explaining Apple requested the removal in the app’s “What’s New in This Version” section.

What Apple’s rationale may be (if Phil Schiller deigns anyone with another email) is unknown.

[Thanks Scott for the tip!]

Does the App Store represent a $2.5 billion a year economy, with 26.4 million iPhone users, 50% of whom pay for apps to the tune of $9.49 a month, or $125 million in August alone? That’s the story AdMob’s latest figures (via GigaOm) are telling, with 26.4 million iPod touch users, at 40% who pay, averaging $9.79 or $73 million rounding out Apple’s mobile platform.

Some other interesting metrics include iPhone users downloading 10 new apps a month, 18 for iPod touch. 8 apps are freebies for the iPhone’rs, 16 for iPod touch’ies.

Any wonder everyone and their carrier is trying to get into the App Store game?

[Via Gartenberg]

MobileCrunch has a huge post up detailing the latest, and potentially one of the most brazen cases of fake iPhone reviews (astroturfing) to date.

To sum up, MobileCrunch claims PR firm Reverb Communications has been using fake iTunes accounts to deliberately and strategically post fake App Store reviews for their clients — some of which are fairly recognizable names in the iPhone and iPod touch development space. According to an anonymous tipster:

Reverb employs a small team of interns who are focused on managing online message boards, writing influential game reviews, and keeping a gauge on the online communities. Reverb uses the interns as a sounding board to understand the new mediums where consumers are learning about products, hearing about hot new games and listen to the thoughts of our targeted audience. Reverb will use these interns on Developer Y products to post game reviews (written by Reverb staff members) ensuring the majority of the reviews will have the key messaging and talking points developed by the Reverb PR/marketing team.

Reverb has responded-ish to the claims, and MobileCrunch to the response, so check out the full article for all the annoying details.

Bottom-line remains, however, that if you make great apps, people will tend to find them. If you make great publicity absent a great app, people will only find disappointment and hold a grudge against the next app. So, stick to making great apps, and leave the game playing to the users, b’okay?

As part of their response to the FCC’s investigation into the rejection of Google Voice, Apple stated that they 1) receive about 8500 apps and app updates to review each week, 2) each app is reviewed by two reviewers, and 3) employ more than 40 full-time, trained reviewers.

Assuming that (3) doesn’t mean there are scads more part-time, untrained reviewers doing grunt work in the dark, sweaty back room (more on that in a moment), some math has been run by Mike Ash:

With 17,000 [8500 x 2] reviews per week and 45 reviewers, that means each reviewer performs 378 reviews per week. At 40 hours per week, this is 9.4 reviews per hour, or one review every 6.4 minutes.

Ash points out how this means months of work by a developer is left to the tender mercies of less than 10 minutes (counting overtime) with someone tasked to look at almost 400 other apps that same week. Can we get a “yikes!”

Back to part-time, untrained reviewers, Marco.org hazards to guess:

There could be 41 full-timers and 40 more part-timers. There’s a lot of evidence to indicate that most (if not all) of the front-line reviews are by non-native-English speakers and on schedules that strongly imply that they’re offshore. This may be the cause of a lot of the frustrating rejections in which the reviewer didn’t understand something about the application or description that seems clear to most Americans.

To recapitulate. Between iPhone users and 8500 weekly app submissions (each reviewed twice), stands possibly an unknown number of outsourced, untrained frontliners, 40 odd trained, full-time second liners, an unquantified star-chamber of executive reviews, and ultimately one Phil Schiller who may or may not email the developer or a blog (or two) about it?

Oh, and Steve Jobs.

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Mac developer and Panic luminary Steven Frank’s public break-up with the iPhone over Apple’s capricious App Store policy was one of the few so grounded in rationale and reason we couldn’t discount it, and neither could Apple’s Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller.

While Schiller previously responded to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber over concerns about the Ninjawords app, Schiller’s response to Steve Frank was different in kind, if similar in sentiment:

I haven’t sought Phil’s explicit permission to republish the letter, so I won’t do so here. But to summarize, he said: “we’re listening to your feedback”. Not all of my suggested solutions were viable, he said, but they were taking it all in as they continue to evolve the app store.

He went on to say that the rumors of widespread e-book app rejection I’d heard were false — that specifically one e-book app had been rejected because it facilitated iPhone-to-iPhone sharing of (potentially copyrighted) books. But that otherwise, there was no sweeping ban on e-book readers.

First, it’s interesting to see such high level and yet fairly intimate intervention by an Apple executive when it comes to the App Store. It’s not an open letter by Steve Jobs — it’s something subtler, and yet seemingly targeted to engender the type of good will that could give Apple the time and good faith they need to fix the App Store approval process if — and it’s a huge if — they truly take the time to fix it. And that’s the fulcrum of actions and results upon which Schiller’s intervention will ultimately succeed or fail.

Second, Steven Frank is now left to wonder whether to continue his boycott of the iPhone given the lack of those observable actions visible results, or to extend his hand back to Apple and give them that same second chance.

It will be interesting to see what happens next…

Let’s just ask it: is it time for an open letter from Steve Jobs concerning the state of the iTunes App Store? Apple’s CEO has written several of these over the course of the last few years — rare public statements typically addressing wide-spread perceptions of critical problems or situations facing Apple. He’s taken on DRM in music (but not video) to prevent the EU from forcing Apple to license FairPlay DRM, offered $100 to early iPhone 2G buyers incensed by a rapid post-launch price drop, addressed the lack of native apps on the iPhone amid massive developer dissatisfaction, espoused Apple’s commitment to the environment given Greenpeace’s constant PR pressure, and spoken about the uncertainty surrounding his health prior to Macworld to help assuage investor panic. There was even a “leaked” internal letter regarding the troubled MobileMe launch, one of the worst customer relations situations Apple has faced in recent years.

While the App Store is not yet a large-scale consumer facing problem like the iPhone 2G price cut or MobileMe were (some consumers don’t even use the App Store, many others don’t follow any backstage news about), nor a regulatory issue like DRM-music threatened to be (Apple is hardly a monopoly in the smartphone space) or Jobs’ health might have been to investors, it is and will continue to cause Apple pain in one very important area: tech savvy, power users (and media) who typically influence friends (and readers) and generally presage public perception.

Jason Calacanis, who’s frustration at this point clearly overcame his reason (see Marco Arment’s retort), and Mike Arrington, who might again garner Leo Laporte-esque responses himself, are easy to dismiss given their bombastic personalities, passion, and self-interests. Others aren’t so easily dismissed. Long time Mac developer Steven Frank is one example. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is another. Dieter’s ranted about it on iPhone Live! and Jeremy and I have even written a word or two. Heck, even Apple’s highly operational COO Tim Cook and perennially affable Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, have mentioned it.

But Steve Jobs hasn’t.

Granted, Jobs is just getting back to work after an extended leave of absence and has been letting his team do their share of heavy lifting, but despite Apple’s highly innovative, world class executive team, Steve Jobs is still the voice of Apple, and there’s likely very little else — aside from carefully watching and tracking tiny improvements over an extended period of time — that will help ease the growing concerns about the App Store and grant Apple a little renewed faith along the way.

An open letter from Steve Jobs in Apple’s news feed, symbolic though it may be, stating a clear “we want a delightful App Store experience for developers” manifesto, reflecting an understanding of the current concerns, offering a “Mobile Me News” olive branch of openness — doing what he did for DRM, the $100 credits, the green initiative, the native apps SDK — would not only address the immediate perception problem, but could start fixing the root cause. Even a “leaked” letter like the one that followed MobileMe’s launch would be a start.

Apple’s often effective, often decried, culture of secrecy is widely thought to emanate from Steve Jobs. He’s shattered it before for Apple’s benefit. Is it time for him to shatter it again?