Filed under: Other Events, Developer, iPhone, SDK
360iDev Denver: iLime building the infrastructure for push, in-app purchase
One sign that the iPhone development world is starting to mature is that companies are beginning to build the infrastructure necessary for devs to enable push notification and in-app purchasing. Usually these functions require a developer to make a significant investment in server hardware and labor to set up and operate the push and/or purchase servers, as well as to write code to integrate those services into their apps.I met with Tim Courtney and Chris Grove of KeyLimeTie yesterday at 360iDev in downtown Denver. Their company's new service, iLime, is a scalable solution consisting of highly reliable server infrastructure and a set of iPhone Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that make it possible for iPhone developers to integrate Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) and in-app purchase easily.
iLime is making it very easy for small, independent developers to test the waters of push notification by making their APIs and server prowess available for free for up to the first 25,000 push messages each month. After that point, the service is charged on a per-push basis on a tiered pricing structure that makes higher volume more attractive. For in-app purchasing, iLime simply charges a flat US$0.05 fee for every content purchase made through their service.
iLime was first announced at iPhone Dev Camp in August. At 360iDev, iLime announced additional features and detailed documentation of the APIs. Courtney also noted that while there are only a handful of apps in the App Store at this time using iLime's services, several hundred iPhone developers have tested and used the services and they expect a significant number of iLime-enabled apps in the near future.
It's great to see KeyLimeTie making the investment in the virtual bricks and mortar that enable push notification and in-app purchasing, so more iPhone devs can take advantage of these iPhone OS features.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
scott said 1:13PM on 9-30-2009
Developers looking to get going with in app purchase today might want to check out Urban Airship (http://urbanairship.com). Our StoreFront is now at v1.1 and allows you to quickly get up and running with In App purchase on the iPhone.
Urban Airship was also the first to bring easy-to-use push notifications to iPhone developers and power the first app in the app store to have push notifications, Tap Tap Revenge.
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Dave said 3:06PM on 9-30-2009
Steven,
Nice blog post. I have tried implementing a few of the iPhone Push Notification APIs over the past month and the iLime API is by far the easiest to get up and running with. My company is using their service for our first iPhone application. One thing you didn't mention that really helped with our decision is that they are hosting in the Amazon cloud. We expect to have thousands of subscribers and the ability to scale quickly was critical.
Thanks,
Dave
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Posimotion said 4:35PM on 9-30-2009
Dave, thanks so much for the info that they are using the Amazon cloud. The whole in store app purchasing is sure to scare away some people at first (and aggravate people in Tweetie's case) but hopefully it will become as normal of a thing as actually buy apps.
It seems like there was a big hesitation to actually purchase apps when the store was first launched and now you have a difficult time finding a non "light" app that is free. Of course, there are many free apps on the market but people seem a bit more willing to throw down 99 cents. We will just have to see if people are willing to do it multiple times over the life of the application.
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Matt said 9:27PM on 9-30-2009
This is surprising in ways....
I'm a developer and though it was a been frustrating at first, it doesn't take a "significant investment in server hardware and labor to set up". I've got 1 server running on our cloud network at $10 a month to handle APNS.
I think the services are great, however any developer can easily replicate on their own.
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