Filed under: Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Developers! Join the Improve The App Store Movement
It's no secret that iPhone app developers are less than happy with the App Store. The criteria for approval of iPhone apps is arcane and approval can take anywhere from a couple of days to months. There's currently no way for developers to "hook" people on apps with a free demo. It's apparent that the sweet spot for iPhone app pricing is at US$0.99, and for developers who are expendng lots of resources to design and implement great software, that is a killer. The list goes on and on...One of the more well-spoken developers who would like to see improvements in the App Store is Layton Duncan from Polar Bear Farm. His company is well-known for the Note Pad, Record, and Nice List apps, among others. Layton has used the Polar Bear Farm blog many times to express his ideas about how the App Store could be improved. Now he's started up a new website, ImproveTheAppStore.com, as a sounding board for all developers.
Layton asks that developers make suggestions to Apple through the traditional Apple Developer Connection channels, but is providing the site as a public forum for ideas. If you're an iPhone developer, join the movement.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
askwatt said 5:22PM on 12-12-2008
I don't recall who wrote this comment exactly, but I read it yesterday. The app store should be considered a place for developers to distribute their apps not to promote their apps. They should have other means of marketing, therefore that 99 cent price really would not come into play. I am perfectly willing to pay whatever price for a good app, but honestly I don't see much marketing from anyone other then Apple for iPhone apps, regardless of who makes them.
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Layton Duncan said 9:13PM on 12-12-2008
Developers aren't oblivious to the need to market their product outside the App Store by any means. However to suggest this is primarily a marketing problem is to be unaware of the App Store market and numbers we're dealing with. Here's some real info on the effectiveness and viability of marketing iPhone apps in the current market: http://www.appcubby.com/blog/files/financial_realities.html
The info in that post on the whole echos our experience with regards to marketing at the moment. Paid advertising is a razor thin line between little return and financial loss as things stand at the moment. Frankly it's not cost effective if you're looking for direct sales as a result of advertising. There are other reasons for advertising, but these are much, much longer term as far as return is concerned.
Even the effect of free advertising by blogs such as TUAW, pale in comparison to the effects of iTunes features by way of banners, staff picks or top 100 lists.
The fact is, that iTunes IS the major contributor towards the marketing of an app at the moment, irrespective of external marketing efforts, it isn't simply a distribution model, it is a store. The effects of it's featuring and the make up of the top 100 lists are dominant forms of promotion in our experience, hence the drive to tweak things for the better for developers and consumers.
askwatt said 10:18PM on 12-12-2008
Seems to me what you are saying is that you are relying on the top 100 list to market you app, thus using Apple to market your app. Other hand held devices have applications sold for them and do not use the means in which people get that app as the means to market that app. Also music vendors do not use iTunes to market their music, they have marketing campaigns. Seems to me if the developers had other means of marketing their apps, and did not rely on the top 100 lists, they would not need to use the 99 cent price tag to get them there.
askwatt said 10:33PM on 12-12-2008
The real question is why do developers feel that their hard work is only worth 99 cents, and then why are people complaining when they buy an app that is priced at more then 99 cents? Don't undervalue your hard work, and don't complain about paying less then a fair price for someones hard work...
Boomcat said 5:24PM on 12-12-2008
Re: "There's currently no way for developers to "hook" people on apps with a free demo."
Sure there is, it just takes a little extra work on the part of the developer/s.
Look at Twitterific. There is essentially a free (demo) version & a paid version.
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enzos said 6:15PM on 12-12-2008
Askwatt has hit the nail plumb on the head. Appleinsider does a bit of (presumably paid) promotion of some apps but where's the rest? Where's the app ad campaigns on podcasts, on net-radio &c.? Surely people aren't *really* that stingy that they won't fork out a few dollars for a quality app if they see a bit of show-and-tell info about it.
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Funk said 6:22PM on 12-12-2008
@Boomcat: You have no idea, what you're talking about. The problem is, that there's no way to do some time limited demo versions whith easy and/or built-in upgrade paths to a full version. It's not allowed by the App Store.
The "free" version you're talking about is an ad sponsored version of the full application. This approach doesn't work for all software and it's definitely more than "a little work" to do two versions in that way.
In addition to that, there's no way to "upgrade" from a trial version to a full version besides trashing the trial version (i.e. loosing all app specific settings and data!), "re-buying" the full version and starting from scratch.
The past months showed, that the convertion rate of people switching form "free" iPhone apps to the full paid counterparts is much (much!) lower than the conversion rate (trial->full version) on the desktop.
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askwatt said 6:57PM on 12-12-2008
Granted, although there are many apps that have free limited use versions that you can try out... If you like it you can upgrade to the full paid versions. I'm no developer, but I would think that would not be as much work as two totally separate fully functioning versions of the same thing, one ads sponsored, one not. Still not ideal.
Sam Soffes said 8:09PM on 12-12-2008
My app has been in review for over a month now. Hopefully this will help change the process.
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Jungulist said 11:08PM on 12-12-2008
www.appvee.com has an iphone app that fixes this prob
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Eric said 8:37AM on 12-13-2008
I am not a deveolper, but I have what I think is a great idea if it could be developed into an app.
Imagine a "Share-a-Ride" app that would utilize GPS to locate users that need a ride and and those that are willing to share a ride. Users benifit by negotiating transportation fees.
GPS would keep track of user locations via mapping, and when clicked on will call,or email them so that a ride can be negotiated.
User would be able to turn on/off when they are available to share a ride.
User contact details would be kept private until owner chooses to share data.
Users would be able to choose to share contact data with specific users contact list
Driver and Passenger destinations would be visible.
Driver and Passenger destinations would be searchable.
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Jason said 4:48PM on 12-13-2008
Wow when we developed apps for Psions back in the 90s we never had Egos like this or moaned about people selling apps cheaper.
If people aren't buying you $9.99 applications then there's good reason, you're not offering value for money.
Drop your app price and guess what, you'll sell more which means more units, more users and a greater market share.
It's really not difficult.
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h1976 said 5:48AM on 12-15-2008
Some views from the buyers side:
While I agree in principles to their arguments, I think, if you look beyond the top 100 list and ignore Koi Pond, you will see that the AppStore is not as "99 cents" as they made it out to be. Have a look at Fieldrunner, Crash Racing, Enigmo, Touchgrind, etc. I really dont understand their gripes.
They made it seem like buyers are paying only 99 cents! I have spent almost 200 dollars, and I readily buy things that - I - perceive is worth 9.99, show it to me! Crash, Enigmo, StarWars, MonkeyBall, Sparta, are just some of the apps I paid 9.99 for, before they are even discounted, and I certainly will spend that much more, on apps like Rolando.
And yes, I only mentioned games on the above, I believe their "value" is easier to judge. Of course its harder to judge the utilities, I mean I certainly wont pay 10 bucks for a landscape keyboard, or a simple ToDo list.
There is no way you can convince me that something like a to do list, or milage tracker is harder and thus take more time to create than a complex game like fieldrunner, asphalt, etc. and hence the aforemetioned "perceived value", personally I wont pay 9.99 for a todo list.
BUT Nevertheless, that doesnt stop some 9.99 ToDo from hitting the top chart either, to prove that perceived value differs from individuals, and no app store buyers does not only buy 99 cent apps.
To conclude; yes there are some cheap apps there, because most of them are exactly just that, cheap apps. If you say that you hired designers, artists, etc. I believe your app would naturally look better, and be more attractive to the buyers! you dont need to set a 0.99 price! Apple even made it easy to change prices, so heck if you believe its worth more than 9.99 by all means do it, you can change it later. If you cannot sell at that, then maybe instead of blaming the other unrelated .99 cents apps, have a look at your app again. Im sorry but men-hour spent on creating apps does not equal good app automatically, you can hire a team of world class staffs and spend months making an app and if the end result is still crappy, you cannot blame the buyers or competition for that! Just like businesses some succeed some fails, its called life, sometimes you are lucky sometimes you are not, you just have to keep trying with other apps, not dwell on it, or spend more money on advertising, if you spend thousands of dollars on advertising, and expect people to foot the bill. Neither can you expect 1 or 2 apps to feed your family for the rest of your life, Bill Gates can yes, but he is the few lucky ones.
Bottomline, I dont think any buyer would want to see a "cartelization" of developers and start seeing crappy apps like countless versions of virtual pets costing 9.99 each!
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chefgon_ign said 8:21AM on 12-15-2008
How about a Windows version of the SDK? I've made a few apps for Windows Mobile and Android, but there's no way in hell I'm shelling out the cash for a Macintosh just to write an iPhone app.
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Scott Meade said 11:14AM on 12-17-2008
Give me a break. As far as I know, there's no way for Wii game developers to 'hook' people onto their games with free demos... yet somehow those games sell for more than 99 cents. This '99 cent' argument is a distraction.
I'm looking right now in the App Store and see the top apps are
Inigmo: $1.99
Fieldrunners: $4.99
The Price is Right: $2.99
Pull my finger: $.99
Touchgrind: $4.99
Crash Bandicot Cart: $5.99
Simple formula: Make apps people love and tell their friends about, and people will:
1) find your app, and
2) pay more than 99 cents.
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