All Articles Tagged state of the apps

Pinch Media, who provide metrics/analytics for iPhone users recently gave a presentation on “AppStore Secrets” that highlighted what they’re seeing in terms of free vs. ad supported vs. paid, and usage patterns over time. They try to provide developers with some useful number crunching on how and when to determine if their application is “sticky” and modulate price and ad support, but they also show some things that are interesting from the user perspective:

1. We don’t use free apps that much. Sure, we download them by the gigabyte-full, but after a few tries, it’s buh-bye. If we pay for it, we probably need/want it more, and hence use it more.
2. We keep using games longer than any other type of app.

Things rings true for me. Of all the apps I’ve downloaded (and they’ve been many, free and paid), about the only ones I use consistently are casual games and communication clients (IM, Twitter, etc.) The rest of the time, I’m using built-in apps like Safari, Email, iPod, etc. And even among those “sticky” apps, when I’ve had my fill of one game, I move on to another. When a new Twitter or IM client comes out, I switch to it (and sometimes switch back and forth).

What about you? Do you stop using free apps faster than paid? And what apps do you keep using?

(Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

In one corner, iFart Mobile and Joel Comm, who are now suing to have a judge rule that “pull my finger” can’t be trademarked (honest, we couldn’t make this stuff up):

In my app description on iTunes, I have testimonials. One of them is direct from my site, WorldVillage.com, in which I give the opinion, “Way better than Pull My Finger!” Of course, I have the right to state my opinion, especially one I believe to be true! [...] I also used Twitter to search for people who were discussing any of the competing fart apps and engaged in conversation with them. Air-O-Matic didn’t like that. Perhaps they believe they own Twitter and the people using it?

In the other, Pull My Finger and Air-O-Matic, who wants to get paid:

we estimate he cost us about $500K in sales. His app leapfrogged ours immediately after he started doing these things. That happened to be Christmas week. He sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his app in the next month, in the spot he kicked us off of. We talked to our attorney, and decided to try to end this swiftly by asking for 1/10 of our estimated lost sales, plus attorney fees. $50K is about one week in the top spot in the App Store. We thought that was about right.

In the audience, whole heaps of developers wondering if the App Store is viable in the face of “gaming”, and millions of users who chuckle at cheap flatulence rather than voting with their wallets for innovative, world-changing mobile applications.

(via @chockenberry)

Apple released the iTunes App Store on July 11, 2008. Now, 7 months later TUAW reports they’ve hit 20,000 apps. For those tracking the darn-near-exponential growth at home, it took 5 month to hit 10,000, so they’ve doubled again in less than half the time. Scary.

With Windows Mobile still in stasis, Android only sound and fury thus far, the Pre still pre-mature, and BlackBerry blocked by its small on-board memory, is there anything on the horizon that can slow this juggernaut down? (Aside from developer complaints and infinite fart apps, of course).

And how many of those 20,000 apps have you downloaded already? None? Nine screens full? All of them?! Let us know!

There are no demos available in the App Store, we know this. No try before you buy, no download now, pay later. According to Erica Sadun at Ars Technica, even mentioning demo in your verbiage, like beta, will get you a swift kick in the rejection button. Free “Lite” versions are the only way to go.

Zach Epstein over on the Boy Genius Report wonders out loud why Apple, in its infinite usability, can’t create a mechanism where Apps get downloaded free, and then expire after a short period of time unless you decide to buy and keep them.

So, does Apple really not know how to handle App Store demos yet? Or do they suspect, as TiPb does, f that demos would kill the $0.99 novelty App (and CrApp) impulse-buy business dead? After all, how many would really not tire of the gags before the demo period expired?

I’ll fess up that the Lil John “YEAH!” “OKAY!” “WHAT!” travesty App would never have eaten my $0.99 had there been a demo! What percentage of Apps you’ve bought, do you think having had a demo period wouldn’t have made sure you didn’t buy instead?

TiPb has previously mentioned both Wobble and iJiggles as rivals in the… er… boob bouncing space which we gather is rapidly following the inglorious fart app trend to the top. Only neither Wobble nor iJiggles are actually called by those names anymore. Why not? It seems there’s some escalation going on:

Wobble became Wobble-3D-jiggles and iJiggles became iJiggles-3D-Wobble (though they may have reverted back, or changed again, or… who knows… by the time you read this), and now the only thing that’s really bouncing are the catty/comedic letters and posts back and forth between the developers.

Hopefully the press outweighs the silliness for all?

Warning: Video possibly NSFW-ish. If bikini bouncing will get you in trouble, stay clear.

We previously mentioned in passing that Apple had rejected iBoobs, an iPhone app that presented accelerometer-powered cartoon jiggling. Apparently this crossed even the (sigh) fart app line. Well, the Register says Wobble decided to get around this by not providing any built in booty, cartoon or otherwise. All it does is enable user-definable “wobble” zones in ANY photo or image. We’re guessing that while the above video makes the real focus clear enough, Wobble was likely submitted to Apple with more innocuous images, like jello or cartoon puppies or what not.

As such, Wobble is now one of the more than 15,000 apps available via the iTunes App Store. You buying it? Protesting it? Protesting out loud while nonchalantly hitting the download link?

And guys, before you get too jiggly with it, just imagine what the ladies might do in Wobble revenge…

Head over to Apple.com yet today? If you haven’t seen it already, a new hero image has taken it’s place boom smack in the middle of the home page and it’s announcement couldn’t be more mind-boggling: the App Store now includes over 15,000 iPhone applications, and iPhone users have downloaded apps more that 500,000,000 times.

Considering the App Store only launched 6 months ago, we’re reminded of what Steve Jobs said last quarter — that, in all his time at Apple, they’d never seen platform growth or attachment rates this fast and this furious.

How many apps do you think you’ve downloaded?

It looks like Apple has begin to approve some 3rd party web browsers for the iPhone. Like the (Jobs save us) “fart” apps that were pulled or pending for a long while only to flood the market on some magic-8-ball decided day, some of these web browsers were biding their time in the App Store approval queue for a good long while according to MacRumors:

 Edge Browser (Free) – No loss of screen real estate to the address or navigation bars. Incognito ($1.99) – Now you can browse without leaving a history of any kind. WebMate:Tabbed Browser ($0.99) – Web Mate simplifies browsing by queuing up all the links you click on, then allowing you to view them one by one when you’re ready. And Shaking Web ($1.99) – adds a sophisticated algorithm to compensate small hand shaking to allow for easier reading.

BUT (you did see the big old BUT in the headline, right), those thinking, hoping, praying, or reporting that these are actually alternative rendering engines need to back on up a second. To the best of our knowledge, these are merely different UI implementations of the built-in iPhone WebKit rendering engine, much like those already used in Twitterrific, 1Password, and other long-ago approved Apps. The only difference — that TiPb can tell — is that these are stand-alone iPhone WebKit implementations (like MobileSafari, though more limited due to SDK restrictions and non-default status).

So, no Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or (Jobs save us again!) IE 6 for the iPhone just yet, okay?

Still, for those who want different user experiences and features, well, now you can go get them! Anyone try one yet?

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?

Podcaster was rejected from the App Store for duplicating the (at that point upcoming) functionality of the built in iPod app. Seems like Podstreamer (Streamcaster in the Canadian store?!), however, made it in. While the two apps might not be identical, the situation does nothing to alleviate the appearance of capricious, near-random behavior from Apple’s approval department. (Thanks benstinson for the tip!)

Next up, Daring Fireball reports that a CoverFlow-esque contacts app was rejected by Apple for using the private CoverFlow API.

The problem? According to developer Landon Fuller, they didn’t use any private APIs — they created their own Cover Flow implementation using the public APIs.

Gruber rightly notes the apparent hypocrisy in Google publicly flaunting their use of private API’s in the Google Mobile App, while Peeps is rejected for the mere (apparently wrongful) suspicion they’re using one.

Lastly, Ars Technica says Apple has added a new category to the App Store… one that allows for Pull My Finger to make its inglorious return:

“The very kind Apple Team Member told me that they didn’t want to reject it originally, but that they were sorting out how this ‘genre’ of apps were going to be handled,” he added. “She told me they’d be lifting the restriction on them, and more apps will follow that may have been previously not allowed.”

What else will this new “Entertainment” category cover? What else will it allow? Your most creative guesses welcome in the comments!