Freemium Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Disney reports 40% jump in iOS downloads from holiday 2010

by Mike Schramm (Jan 7th, 2012)

Disney is the latest company to announce some crazy numbers from last year's holiday season (with Rovio having announced big numbers earlier this week, and the App Store overall seeing a big boost in sales over the holiday). The biggest title in the company's catalog was Where's My Water, which ...

Daily iPad App: Trenches 2

by Mike Schramm (Dec 28th, 2011)

Thunder Game Works' Trenches was quite the hit on the iPhone last year, combining a cartoony World War 2 setting with some solid real-time strategy combat and quite a few innovative game features. The game also spawned a few spinoffs, and was popular enough for EA to publish the sequel. There ...

Daily iPhone App: Spellcraft School of Magic

by Mike Schramm (Dec 26th, 2011)

I'll be honest: I have come down with a pretty bad case of freemium ADD. Pocket Frogs was my first real freemium hookup on the iPhone (and it's still pretty great), but since then, I've made my way through a train of freemium games, including We Rule, Tiny Tower, Battle Nations, We Farm, more ...

LogMeIn goes freemium for iOS; Ignition users get more features

by Steven Sande (Dec 22nd, 2011)

Some changes are in store for users of the LogMeIn remote control application for iOS. The previous version, known as LogMeIn Ignition, is a popular way for iPhone or iPad owners to remotely control their Macs or PCs. Now the application has been released in a new free version called LogMeIn, ...

NimbleBit comments on popularity of Tiny Tower, working on new IP

by Mike Schramm (Dec 15th, 2011)

Inside Mobile Apps has an interview with the winners of Apple's choice for best iPhone game of the year, David and Ian Marsh of NimbleBit. I was a huge fan of their freemium title Pocket Frogs, but it's their latest release, Tiny Tower, that has earned a lot of solid accolades (not to mention a ...

Infinity Blade 2 and The Sims FreePlay get previews

by Mike Schramm (Nov 29th, 2011)

It's likely going to be another banner week of releases on the App Store, headlined by the long awaited sequel, Infinity Blade 2. Chair Entertainment has released a developer diary, which you can watch below, and holy swords of power, Batman, this game looks good. As we've heard before, the ...

Daily iPhone App: Battle Nations

by Mike Schramm (Nov 24th, 2011)

You may have played Z2Live's first big freemium iOS game, Trade Nations, and the recently released Battle Nations is a sort of spiritual sequel to that one. It features the same kind of Farmville-style gameplay, so if that turns you off, you should probably just go ahead and move on (Happy ...

Free games and big updates this weekend on the App Store

by Mike Schramm (Nov 18th, 2011)

Another day of the holiday season brings a whole lot of great downloads from the App Store. What we saw yesterday was mostly new releases, but here's a list of free games (and free updates) you might want to check out. A whole bunch of great games have gone free for the weekend, including ...

Daily iPhone App: Asteroids Gunner

by Mike Schramm (Nov 16th, 2011)

I launched Asteroids Gunner with low expectations. Asteroids is one of the oldest games around, and it's hard to see how even Atari can squeeze anything more from this relic. But lo and behold, it has. Asteroids Gunner is a remarkable freemium dual-stick shooter, turning the top-down 2D ...

Daily iPhone App: My Town 2

by Mike Schramm (Nov 11th, 2011)

You probably remember Booyah's MyTown, which eventually claimed more users than even Foursquare for a time. Booyah's management has switched up a bit since then, but the company is still plugging away at the iOS market, most recently releasing a sequel to MyTown called (not surprisingly) My ...

Forever Drive gets update to add new free features, smoother gameplay

by Mike Schramm (Nov 7th, 2011)

I'll admit, I've balked at Forever Drive on iOS in the past -- it's a freemium driving game that has seemed a little too simple to me until now. But developers Supermono Studios have released a big new update for the game, and it's worth checking out if you haven't yet. Instead of choosing a ...

Daily iPhone App: Boss Battles

by Mike Schramm (Oct 3rd, 2011)

I was just saying that we'd see more freemium action from Backflip Studios soon, but I didn't think it'd be quite this soon. The studio has released its second big freemium title, called Boss Battles. This time, they're taking on the space shooter genre. As you might guess from the title, the ...

Report: In-app purchases a strong source of iOS app revenue

by Steven Sande (Sep 22nd, 2011)

iOS app developers who are looking to make big bucks on the App Store should consider using the in-app purchase model, according to a recently published study from Distimo. In-app purchases are a huge source of revenue, accounting for a whopping 72 percent of all App Store revenues. That ...

Daily iPhone App: DragonVale

by Mike Schramm (Sep 19th, 2011)

DragonVale is the newest game from Backflip Studios, a company we've covered in detail here on the site before. It represents kind of a new direction for the company, too -- so far, CEO Julian Farrior and his team have gone after mostly ad views, selling cheap or even free apps to lots and lots ...

360iDev: How to make money from a free app

by Mike Schramm (Sep 12th, 2011)

Developer Brian Robbins from Riptide Games gave a fascinating talk today about the apparent paradox of trying to make money off of a free app on Apple's App Store. Originally the App Store had only the two choices of a free or paid release. More recently, developers have a bevy of options for ...