iPhone App Pricing Limits Developers

HardYakka writes "According to this post in the Fortune blog, the iTunes app store has been a boon for users but some developers are saying the number of free and 99 cent apps make it difficult for developers to create complex, higher priced apps. Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory says the iPhone may never get its killer app like the spreadsheet was for the Mac. If Apple does not do something, the store will be left with only ring tones and simple games. Some are suggesting that overpaid developers are the problem and the recession will soon lower the wages and costs for complex apps."

Comments

Spreadsheet

[penguinboy]

Visicalc was an app for the Apple II, not the Mac.

Re:Spreadsheet

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, I have no idea why people think the 'killer app' for the Mac was the spreadsheet. The Mac's killer app was desktop publishing and, later, graphic design. To this day, there is still no better platform for DTP and graphic design than the Mac.

Re:Spreadsheet

[Evanisincontrol]

(Score:0, Troll)

To be fair, you shouldn't have been modded troll -- you should have been modded flamebait.

Re:Spreadsheet

[ishobo]

Umm, Linux does quite a bit better for graphic design. Especially bigtime movie producers (pixar, etc) don't run Mac. They run linux.

Graphic design is not computer animation.

Jeez, when will people (like you) get a clue before posting comments?

Re:Spreadsheet

[poetmatt]

Ah, it is a bit flamey but the intended statement remains, that Mac is not superior for design. People just like to use it. That's fine and all, but it doesn't mean it's the best or worst solution or something. Just a competitor just like every other brand.

Lots of people are hanging on the 10 years prior mentality of "mac is superior for design".

Re:Spreadsheet

[poetmatt]

If you think all pixar does is animation, and that animation is not a category of graphic design, then maybe you need to break out a dictionary.

Re:Spreadsheet

[Evanisincontrol]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that exclaiming the truth is often flamebait. For example, I can start up a discussion about Scientology, but we all know what a steep hill that would be...

Re:Spreadsheet

[truthsearch]

Isn't this advantage almost exclusively for those entirely new to each respective OS?

No. My company switched from all linux desktops to all Mac desktops and laptops about 3 years ago. We're all software developers and very experienced on linux desktops. Our productivity is way up because we spend so little time fussing with the Macs compared to how much time we spent maintaining the linux desktops.

I'm not saying the case will be identical in every situation. But sometimes linux just takes more time to maintain.

Re:Spreadsheet

[stewbacca]

Pagemaker (or Quark), Freehand (Aldus), Authorware/Director, and Photoshop v1.0 were the killer apps back in the late 80s and early 90s. Those programs are what made the Mac "insanely great" and the IBM compatibles go "beep" in all their mono-color glory.

Re:Spreadsheet

[ishobo]

How about I ask my wife? She works as an artist. Honey, is computer animation a form of graphic design. She says no. You would get no animation training in a BFA or MFA graphics design program. The field is about typography, print and editorial design, branding, information design, and packaging.

Re:Spreadsheet

[morgan_greywolf]

As others pointed out to you, what Pixar and other movie studios do with Linux is CGI, not graphic design or DTP. Those are completely different and unrelated concepts.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that while you can certainly do professional graphic design on Linux these days (I do, personally. Surprise! I don't even own a Mac!), there isn't much depth in terms of software choice, and the software that does work is still immature.

You have two good illustration programs -- Inkscape and Xara. Inkscape isn't too bad and it's gotten lots better, but is still missing key features like automatic drop shadows. Xara is okayish, but uses a non-standard file format, is limited in some ways and is pretty unstable.

You have one good photo editing application -- the GIMP. And it lacks a lot of Photoshops really slick 3rd party plugins and the ability to modify photos in CMYK mode. -- But note that it does do CMYK seps, which is really all you need.

There's only one good DTP layout package, and that's Scribus. Scribus is still lacking in some areas compared to major closed-source apps like QuarkXPress and PageMaker -- mostly in the prepress area. It's also less stable than I would like. It does output to PDF, which is good enough for many service bureaus, however.

Now let's compare with the Mac: You have industry standards like Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand on the illustration front. Plus, you can run Inkscape on OS X. You have Photoshop, you have QuarkXpress, you have PageMaker. And you have Scribus and GIMP.

And that just touches the surface. There are so many more applications on the Mac. Plus, Macintosh fonts tend to be rather better than their Windows/Linux equivalents -- the font designers pay much more attention to kerning details and such on the Mac than they do on Windows for some reason.

After having said all that....I don't own a Mac, though I have used one in the course of my professional graphic design work. I use Linux because I prefer the concepts free and open source software over closed-source, proprietary stuff ripe with vendor lock-in, etc.

Re:Spreadsheet

[FishWithAHammer]

For crunching, yes, Linux tends to be used (in part because it makes the boxes doing the crunching cheaper). But the individual artists' workstations are extremely rarely Linux-based, sorry.

I mean--are you seriously going to try to say that Linux beats either platform capable of running Adobe's software when it comes to actually doing the graphics design part of the job? (And if you say GIMP, I'm just going to laugh at you. It's nice if you haven't got anything better, and that's about it. Cinelerra is okay for what it does, but unfortunately for your argument it runs on OS X, too. I'm not enough of a video editing guy to say whether I prefer it over Premiere/After Effects, though. And I will call the men in white coats to take you to be fitted for a very long-sleeved jacket if you try to compare Inkscape with Illustrator.)

Re:Spreadsheet

[Dahamma]

You are just digging yourself deeper with every ignorant post you make.

Who the hell cares what a demo artist or your friend uses. The "bigtime" (your word) studios have clear separations of software and personnel for modelling, animation, and rendering (etc). Some of these steps, especially rendering of late, is done on Linux-based server farms, but a LOT of work is still done on Macs with both commercial and proprietary software.

To your Pixar example... DUUH! Steve Jobs is Chairman of both Apple and Pixar, and trust me, he makes sure Macs do and always will have a significant presence there.

Re:Spreadsheet

[piojo]

Jeez, when will people accept that Macs are designed by people who themselves are designers and the OS is built around the typical workflow of designers and not that of code geeks and techies?

That's well said--I have had a hard time explaining my dislike of Macs. However, a lot of geek techy coworkers of mine use Macs at home, so I'm not sure it's true.

Re:Spreadsheet

[mysidia]

These were all decent apps to make some users choose Mac. But none of these were really killer apps, at least not after 1990. Mac only has 8% market share.

If there ever is a real killer app, Apple should have 50% or more of the market.

By definition a "killer app" is an application so compelling that massive numbers of users buy into the platform to have the benefit of the application.

I.E. The app is at a real risk of hurting other platforms.

Vista for the Intel platform (and Microsoft EOL'ing XP) may eventually proev a killer app benefitting Apple's platform, though.

Just waiting for the owners of the 90% market share, Windows users to change platforms, so that the market share is: 10% Windows, 60% Mac, 30% Linux

Re:Spreadsheet

[Saffaya]

Uhm, no. You only say this because you never knew about the ATARI ST and its 1040 ST + SLM laser printer combo.

Re:Spreadsheet

[binarylarry]

No, Macs are designed by programmers like every other OS.

The difference is: Mac OSX programmers have a very angry man in a black turtle neck furiously yelling at them as they develop new features. This "turtle necked fire," so to speak, is what drives the high quality components of the modern Mac operating environment.

It's a bit like a Katana forged by a master craftsman.

Re:Spreadsheet

[disunencoded]

You would get no animation training in a BFA or MFA graphics design program. The field is about typography, print and editorial design, branding, information design, and packaging.

That sort of depends on the school and the artist's interests. Specialty art schools usually offer several computer animation courses and you can take as electives. At my former college, (http://www.ccad.edu) it was pretty common for advertising and graphic arts majors to take a computer modeling class that had some animation training as part of the coursework. Hell, that was true for me even over a decade ago.

Re:Spreadsheet

[atmurray]

"Bigtime movie producers" can afford to employ people with the sole purpose of maintaining and configuring linux. Small/Medium businesses that specialise in graphic design like to do just that, graphic design. They don't want to have to open up a console to pair a bluetooth mouse (although I am told the latest version of Ubuntu has changed this). Yes linux is getting better by the day, but it isn't quite there for some users.

Re:Spreadsheet

[mabhatter654]

and the first rounds were cheap... prices for good software rise as the market proves GOOD software is hard to make.

Right now iPhone is in "gold rush" mode. Every body is making everything thing at every price because nobody knows what the market is yet, it's been 6 months.. hardly time for doom and gloom.

I think it's time to START complex apps as small apps and see how the market reacts. What can you sell for $1.99? The market is not ready to commit $29.99 to ANY app yet.. frankly if somebody else can make the same app for $2.99 then your app is not worth the higher price.

There's three kinds of "complex". There's problems that are purely hard to solve like encoding video or building 3D game engines that take real talent to make it look easy. There are projects that are large and take lots of grunt work... ERP systems come to mind as simple programs but you need lots of them to work well or they take lots of content or research... think encyclopedias or the Sims again, it takes resources or creativity to make the volume of content required in a manner to sell it, not easy for good quality without money. The last are simply programs that are big... like office programs... They are easy to duplicate functions, but control the market because they have lots of little pieces and people using them. Unless you are in the first two groups don't expect to charge a lot.

Re:Spreadsheet

[profplump]

There are lots of things linux is great for, and depending on your usage it might even be a decent desktop OS. But that's certainly not the case for every desktop user, even with releases from the "last X years" (though I agree they are getting better).

I've run and used daily both an OS X and an Ubuntu workstation for several years, and in that time I've essentially given up on trying to make A/V playback, browser plugins, or even multiple-screen use work on the linux box. 95% of the stuff works fine -- I can play back most codecs, use most browser plugins, and display video on both screens. But that last 5% takes hours to fix, if it can be fixed at all. There are still some codecs I just can't make work, some plugins that won't run, and my cursor is either displayed incorrectly or slightly mis-aligned on my second and third monitors, even after hours of tweaking.

I'm not saying my Mac never annoys me, but when it does the answer is almost always cut and dry -- "it can't be done". Compare that to the linux machine, where "it works for me", or "you just have to do to get it going, unless you have GPU X, then you need to do ". Now sometimes those extra 28 steps are worthwhile, because I can do things that aren't possible on my Mac. But sometimes those extra 28 steps just eat 30 minutes of my life, and if I was using my Mac I wouldn't have wasted the time.

If I were just doing basic computing tasks, and didn't care to muck with the configuration, a linux desktop would be perfectly acceptable and would require little maintenance. But as someone who wants to play with things, and who isn't willing to accept that it works for others but not for me, a linux desktop can be a huge distraction and time sink.

/ Would give my grandmother linux on the desktop

// Still has a linux desktop in daily use

/// Just also needs a unix-like computer that works well enough to keep me from getting distracted by administrative tasks

Re:Spreadsheet

[ishobo]

Well, since GD has nothing to do with animation, it is not nonsense. You can use 3-D tools but that does not equate GD to animation. The field has nothing to do with animation. You could take electives on photography and scultpure, but you cannot say photography is the same as graphic design. Animation and GD are two distinct fields in the the realm of visual arts.

Re:Spreadsheet

[andrewbutts]

I am sitting at my desk at Pixar right now. Our graphic designers use macs.

Re:Spreadsheet

[teg]

These were all decent apps to make some users choose Mac. But none of these were really killer apps, at least not after 1990. Mac only has 8% market share.

A "killer app" can be restricted to specific segments - the Mac market share was much higher than 8% in some specific areas, like graphics design and desktop publishing.

Re:Spreadsheet

[martinX]

Linux may have come a long way in three years, but a business can't just up and change to a new desktop operating environment just because it has passed some arbitrary point for usability. I work in an organisation with about 75 000 employees and we use a frozen XP standard operating environment. Change, though not impossible, is difficult enough that is doesn't happen "just because". This may explain why we still use Novell...

Re:Spreadsheet

[nmg196]

> Linux does quite a bit better for graphic design.

Er no! All you have is the Gimp, which although very useful, is a child's toy compared to Photoshop CS4.

> Especially bigtime movie producers (pixar, etc) don't run Mac. They run linux.

What are you talking about - movie producers like Pixar don't do graphic design. They're a computer animation company! And they're using Linux only for render farms - their desktop computers are Macs!

> It used to be premiere for DTP and graphics design. No longer.

What do you mean "no longer"? Windows is still well behind in this area (and I'm a self confessed Windows lover), and in turn Linux is MILES behind Windows for DTP and graphic design, so what platform are you thinking of?

I have a feeling I'm simply falling for your troll.

Re:Spreadsheet

[JohnnyBGod]

I've run and used daily both an OS X and an Ubuntu workstation for several years, and in that time I've essentially given up on trying to make A/V playback, browser plugins, or even multiple-screen use work on the linux box.

Nowadays, all it takes to make A/V and plugins work on Ubuntu is "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras". Really, that's it.

Re:Spreadsheet

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could mod this +1 Owned.

Re:Spreadsheet

[calmofthestorm]

-1 Flamebait.

Poster has not accepted Linux as his Operating System and Kernel.

Now...why are we OS bashing? I wanted to read about iPhone apps damnit

Re:Spreadsheet

[cawpin]

Yeah, I'm so glad they finally got that high quality sorting of folders before files...oh wait.

Re:Spreadsheet

[drerwk]

I'm not positive that the Laser Writer was the first laser printer - but it sure did work well. I think this was critical in addition to the applications you list.

Re:Spreadsheet

[docgiggles]

Macs cannot compete with Microsoft because of Steve Jobs' compulsive need to throw innovation down our throats. Do we really need yet another iPod? I don't think so. Microsoft is working on OS 7, where Apple has gone far above that in much less time then Microsoft. Why? To allow them to feel superior by adding inconsequential new shiny features. Macs concentrate on unnecessary new appearance stuff. The only reason they are recognized as more secure is because Macs haven't attracted the market share that will allow the big time hackers to really go to work

Re:Spreadsheet

[JohnBailey]

Those companies render the output on Linux. The creation takes place on a Mac.

Not strictly true. Mac hardware perhaps. If you just do a name check for the apps used, you will go away with the wrong impression. Many CGI companies used Unix based systems extensively from the start. The old SGI workstations were usually running Unux, and then Linux was brought in to run on cheaper commodity hardware, and reduce the rewrites needed to do the changeover. Basic good business case scenario. Linux was a smaller move and a cheaper option than the expensive workstation grade systems they were using. Which is why Nvidia has been supporting Linux for so long. Cinepaint was a fork of an early Gimp version that was heavily customised for the movie industry. ILM even created EXR, which was open sourced so other apps could use it. It is commonly used for retouching jobs instead of Photoshop. Practically a custom app for hteis very job. Massive, the crowd control software used in movies such as Lord of the Rings and others for animating large numbers of figures also works on Linux, and according to one article I read, works better on Linux than on Windows. Ever wonder why Maya is available on Linux? could it be that the top CGI studios who have been using Unix for years, and are Maya's main user base, and have been changing to Linux wanted it. And if you read up a bit, there are plenty of articles about Linux being used in the production side. Sometimes even on Apple hardware running Linux. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9951 An interview with the makers of the Spiderwick chronicles. Not a great movie, but some very nice effects. Linux software for content creation running in Apple hardware. http://digitalcontentproducer.com/dcc/revfeat/video_linux_hollywood/ Basically a rundown of Linux in the high end CGI field. Particularly interesting, and shows how wrong you are. There is way more than you think happening with Linux in the CGI world. Off the shelf apps are not enough by a long shot for the movie industry. They have the money and the technical resources to make custom apps that are strictly in house, and will likely never be released to the wider world. For them, Linux works, and works well. And allows them to use the millions of lines of old code from the Unix days that they still need. So basically.. the movie industry uses whatever works, and some of the really big studios have the resources to overcome any limitations of existing software where required. It is a pity they don't release more of their code, but such is life. They don't have to. And much of it would no doubt be useless without the other tools they use for various things. Although the thought of ILM contributing code to Blender and Gimp is quite a nice one.

Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[justcauseisjustthat]

Simply add Top Apps categories for more price ranges...
$1-$5
$5-$10
$10-$50
$50- ??

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[Anthony_Cargile]

I'm more worried about the usage of the oxymoron "overpaid developer".

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[frosty_tsm]

Agreed. Especially when you consider the low product quality that results and higher developer-count required to deliver with lower-cost developers.

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes it an oxymoron? There are plenty of developers who get paid way more than they are worth. Heck, some developers actually have negative value, because they can damage projects and cost money to clean up after.

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[Anthony_Cargile]

And if thats not bad enough, Apple may at any time remove an app designed by us "overpaid developers" just because it may conflict with an existing (or to be existing) Apple app, or if it just pisses Apple off (IAmRich).

I've joked ever since I found out about this that Opera, the Mozilla Foundation and Sun should release their software for the jailbroken iPhones only, in addition to an Android port.

Mobile platforms are the new platform wars: Android (representing Linux), iPhone (Mac), and Windows Mobile (Win). The next generation developers will have to port apps painfully across these platforms, or pick and choose at the cost of some customers. Not to mention other platforms like Blackberry and the like that don't fall into those categories, save Sun's JavaME portability.

If I were ever asked to write a mobile client for any application of mine by anybody, public or not, I would probably shoot myself at the first thought of "But I have this phone". You can have it, spare me until the dust settles.
</rant>

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[Anthony_Cargile]

No I wasn't talking about the same developers you are, e.g. coders that throw function pointers in directly with raw input and similar shit and wonder where the bugs/exploits come from (and get paid a wad to write those patches).

I'm talking about the high quality, underrepresented programmers that get stuck in a low-end job that not only underminds their ability, but pays much lower than the quality of code is that they write, which would be much more suitable for the big companies the shitty programmers get put in. When they would hear "overpaid developers", the first thing they would think of is "Yeah, all I need is less pay".

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[tapehands]

oy. Seriously...if I were a developer that was considering writing an app that could be construed as "killer", the #1 turnoff would be Apple's ability to cannibalize my work.

What recourse, if any, would there be if Apple decided to yank my $XX app off the store, only to have the same functionality trumpeted in a new firmware release? (like they already have done)

Futhermore, Apple chooses when and where to enforce their store rules. Google is allowed to break rules. Would a small development firm be so lucky?

There just isn't enough incentive or security to develop something much more useful than a game, ringtone, or eggtimer.

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[Octorian]

Standard J2ME is way too limited. That's why Android starts from a more modern Java level, with their own APIs. That's why BlackBerry, even though they are more J2ME compatible, add a crapload of additional APIs to fill in the gaps.

Re:Add Top Apps for more price ranges

[teh kurisu]

Old news, this has already been fixed.

What a whiner.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Iâ(TM)ve been thinking about whatâ(TM)s causing this rush to the 99Â price point. From what I can tell, itâ(TM)s because people are buying our products sight unseen. I see customers complaining about how âoeexpensiveâ a $4.99 app is and that it should cost less. (Do they do the same thing when they walk into Starbucks?) The only justification I can find for these attitudes is that you only have a screenshot to evaluate the quality of a product. A buck is easy to waste on an app that looks great in iTunes but works poorly once you install it.

Why not release a free, crippled version of your app that allows people to look at it, evaluate it & decide if it's worth $2.99? Now where have I heard of that business model before?

Honestly, there's so many development restrictions on iPhone apps, why bother publicizing this non-story.

Re:What a whiner.

[Fluffeh]

This is what most of the developers are doing. I have bought a ton of full priced games (that are $5-15) as well as a few apps after trying the free versions.

I think the article could be slightly amended to read: "Poor quality high priced apps won't sell for iPhone" or even "high priced apps without a demo version won't sell on the iPhone" and it would be much closer to the mark.

Re:What a whiner.

[lysergic.acid]

i don't think he ever said $15 was high priced. he's simply referring to the "more complex" software referred to in the letter using the author's own terminology. and if you look at the graph in TFA, $15 is relatively high priced for the average App Store application.

and what is a "high" price is largely relative. while $100 might be a high price for a stick of gum, it wouldn't be a high price for a Ferrari. so whether a price is high or not depends on the value of the product. games for other handheld consoles might start at $15-20, but they're also much more complex and thus more costly to make.

just because $30 is a reasonable price for titles like: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T., Burnout Legends, Killzone: Liberation or Warhammer 40k: Squad Command does not mean it's a reasonable price for the average iPhone game.

i'm not saying that there aren't games for the iPhone worth $20~30, or games for the PSP worth much less, but the vast majority of games for the iPhone simply do not justify a price higher than $10 IMO. they might still be fun games, but so far Flash games that are freely available on the internet. so it's unreasonable to charge PSP prices for iPhone titles.

Re:What a whiner.

[Fluffeh]

For the most part - in a game for example, you get a few levels with full features.

I haven't really come across a demo yet that didn't give me a good indication of whether the game was worth buying or avoiding.

There have been some annoying demos that did in fact turn me off wanting to even investigate further, but I would call that a poor demo. I don't expect all the levels in a demo, but I would expect a few levels with a good array of features to get a proper idea for the game.

If a company is serious about selling a product, they should be serious enough to put together a proper demo of the product that will make people WANT to buy it.

I worked on the Unreal series of games up to and including UT2004. I can tell you that the detail that was payed to demos and shows was JUST as high as the final product. The levels had to be perfect, the functionality there and most of all people had to ENJOY the things.

Re:What a whiner.

[sirambrose]

Lots of developers are making free versions, but apple restricts the developer from using the free version as an effective demo for the full version in the same ways that developers could on palm or windows mobile. Nearly all complex applications for palmOS had a time limited demo that allowed the user to try all the features. Usually the software would have a popup that reminded the user to pay for the software. If you didn't register after a few weeks, the software would disable all the advanced features or display a nag screen for 30 seconds at startup. Apple forbids an iPhone application from doing all these things.

As a result, developers have to find a way to produce a fully functional free version of their software that lacks a few features that the majority of their users will pay extra for. In many cases, the majority of users will not pay extra for premium features even though they would have paid for a well built application on palmOS. People porting applications from palmOS are finding that they need to price their application lower on the iPhone store even though it is better than the other choices in the category. For example, the PocketMoney finance application cost $30 on PalmOS and it costs $10 on iPhone because people are reluctant to try applications without a demo version. If the author released a free version, it would probably be better than the vast majority of similar applications and very few users would pay for the full version.

Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[way2trivial]

What the Hell? spreedsheets were the killer app for PC's period.

it was not mac-specific-- it was a much earlier dawn of the PC age.

"VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It may well be the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool.[1] VisiCalc sold over 700,000 copies in six years.[2]"

Re:Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[Anpheus]

If we're going by sales, StarCraft and Half-Life crush VisiCalc :)

Re:Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[_Sprocket_]

VisiCalc was first released for the Apple (not Mac), and sales skyrocketed. Apple's were the original business desktop computer.

And not only that, they were a key part of getting IBM to consider the microcomputer more than a toy. Enter the IBM PC.

Re:Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[jackbird]

Not if you adjust for the number of PCs in the wild at the time.

Re:Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Visicalc came out for mac first....

Sorry. Visicalc was running on the IBM PC before Macs were made. It actually came out for Apple ][, first - before the IBM PC was made.

Re:Like spreadsheets for the MAC?

[LMacG]

WTF? Who "currently recognizes" an ancient Apple II as a "Mac"?

Right

[Junior J. Junior III]

Some are suggesting that overpaid developers are the problem and the recession will soon lower the wages and costs for complex apps."

Because in the Shitty New Economy, people will be blowing all kinds of money on applications for their overpriced smartphones.

Re:Right

[iluvcapra]

Last time I checked, the iPhone will typically run you $2000-$3000.

By that logic, a Blackberry will run you $2000-3000; a Motorola POS with no money down will push $1500.

Prices will go up

[omeomi]

I think a lot of these free and low-priced apps will eventually go up in price. With the exception of the ridiculously simple apps like all of the various flashlights, I have a feeling that companies are putting apps out for free to get a lot of great reviews, and then plan to eventually jack up the price. I have to admit, though, there are so many free apps out there, it's difficult to find a niche that is likely to have a reasonable pay-off. That's life, though, I guess.

Re:Prices will go up

[joshv]

I code Android apps in my spare time. So basically I've got zero cost. Each of my apps has at least 3 competitors, which seem to be coded by people like me. Granted, many of my competitor's apps look like crap, but they work and provide a valuable service. Most people aren't going to pay top dollar for teh shiny - they are going to buy the cheapest thing that works. So I don't envision ever being able to charge a lot for my apps. I also don't see professional development shops being able to compete with zero cost hobbyists.

BS

[Architect_sasyr]

This is utter crap on behalf of any developer. If you make a decent software app and it sells to 100,000 people for $0.99 then how much have you actually made. Yes it is a competitive market, but you sell your app for 0.50c and let people go with it. 100,000 people buying an app for 50c each should more than pay for it. An idea could be as complex as you like and I still can't see spending more than $100 Grand on it for an iPhone app.

Unless you're a shitty developer or you're not writing a good app.

Re:BS

[pseudonomous]

It might not be that you're writing a shitty app, you could be writing an app that appeals to a limited market segment. Suppose you wrote a great app for the iphone that transcribed single melody line audio input to classically notated sheat music. Your target market would then be people who can read sheet-music, have an interest in transcription, and own an Iphone. How many people fit that description? Suppose further, your software just outputs finale files, now you're market is the subset of music enthusiasts who own both Coda products and an Iphone. Suppose further that your software actually only transcribes bowed string instruments well, great now your market is for people interested in transcribing music played by strings who also own Coda software.

Re:BS

[lucas teh geek]

i think if your product is as niche as the examples you've laid out, you shouldnt have a problem with competitors undercutting you to the $.99 price point. in fact, if you're writing software that niche you can pretty well set the price to whatever you want since there's nobody else for people to buy such a product.

on the other hand, if you're writing throwaway software (eg. todo lists) expect a lot of competition and that you're not going to be able to change as much as you want

Re:BS

[ScrewMaster]

and I still can't see spending more than $100 Grand on it for an iPhone app.

100k goes fast, and that's not even considering non-development-related costs. If your app requires hosting or has any server-side component, that's going to be an ongoing expense. If you aren't selling your product as a service, or have a subscription fee, those costs are going to have to be paid out of the take from new sales. If your app proves to be really popular, odds are you're going to need a support staff. That hundred grand is gone. Pfft.

This is particularly true because any Apple-related product is going to be heavy on the graphics, and that's going to require art support (not many coders know their way around Photoshop or have any animation skills whatsoever.) Ditto on sound effects and music. A hundred grand sounds like a lot, but when it comes to software development and support nowadays, it really isn't.

Well, that is the problem right there

[rolfwind]

One developer said:
"Both developers and designers cost somewhere between $150-200 per hour."

That's too much. I haven't used iTunes, but if it isn't based on simple popularity but has some kind of after-the-purchase rating system, there shouldn't be too many worries. If there isn't, they should implement one. With reviews and ratings like Amazon.

I also have a hard time believing that only the most simple apps will get made, there seems to be a "10 Most Useful" iPhone App list every other week popping up at some social sites like Digg.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[Lumpy]

Exactly. It's a bunch of really whiney people complaining they are not making Millions overnight on the iphone.

Guess what. Cellphones APPS DO NOT SELL IF THEY ARE EXPENSIVE.

This is a fact that has been around ever cince the cellphone could run apps. Now we have a bunch of whiney babies complaining about the prices they can sell their crap apps at.

What's next? They going to ask Washington for a bailout as well?

IF Haji can write a app and sell it for $1.99 that you want to write and sell for $29.99, Haji is going to kick your ass in sales. Whining like little crybabies will not change that fact.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[p0tat03]

Well, contract developers *do* cost that much. I think the real headliner here is: "Useless People Who Must Contract Everything Out Find There's No Profit"... which is kind of a no-brainer. The people who can do their own design, code, and whatnot can operate in the iPhone space. If you're a PHB type who can't code, can't design, and just can't do anything except cook up wacky iPhone application ideas, then there's no room for you. Seems like there's nothing wrong here :)

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[mini me]

$150-$200 per hour doesn't seem out of line for a decent company providing those services on contract. I don't think anyone is talking about an employee being paid those kind of rates here.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[Free the Cowards]

Guess what. Cellphones APPS DO NOT SELL IF THEY ARE EXPENSIVE.

Tell that to Omni, who are making a killing off of OmniFocus at $20 a pop.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Americans haven't outsourced racism yet. Be patient.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[p0tat03]

Precisely. The iPhone is *not* a productivity tool, it is a lifestyle device, and the apps that will show up on the phone will reflect the user base in the form of lifestyle applications that may be worth a few bucks each.

And for that very reason I don't think there will be much of a market for $20+ "productivity" tools.

And honestly, people are looking for "widgets" when it comes to iPhone apps - simple things that support their lifestyle like movie times, bus schedules, concert schedules, etc. That's not to say there aren't some very cool things being done in the iPhone sphere, but that developers looking to spend oodles upon oodles of money developing their apps and selling them for $25 a pop probably aren't going anywhere.

Re:Well, that is the problem right there

[Free the Cowards]

I never said it didn't. The person I responded to made a blanket statement with no provisions for reputation or anything of the sort. OmniFocus proves him wrong. That it's due to their massive reputation doesn't change this fact one whit.

competition?

[arbiter1]

Another limiting factor on iphone app's is fact apple will kill off any app that competes with their's or anything they are about to put out.

Re:competition?

[Ilgaz]

Imagine coding something like http://www.quickoffice.com/ and Apple somehow decides "iPhone enterprise edition" and triggers kill switch on your app using an excuse like "but it does do excel macros, it is against rules".

The real limiting factor is iPhone community which is totally unhealthy. "Cry me a river" etc. type crap comments from people who doesn't even have a clue about what developing a professional application is or who Hockenberry and Icon Factory is.

It seems Symbian will be my mobile operating system for many years. Not like it is great, it has a huge, democratic community who doesn't shoot the messenger. Also a healthy competition between commercial apps, freeware and even open source. It is all up to user to pick that .sis or .sisx or even .jar file from web browser.

I also blame iPhone only developers. They should keep releasing their stuff for Symbian and even Windows Mobile too. Relying on App Store and iPhone really looks like risky especially with such community.

Trism

[whisper_jeff]

Trism is a very simple example of an app that proves that developers can make money, and a lot of it. Last I hear, the guy that wrote the program has made over $250,000 on an app that he sells for $4.99. Why? It's really simple - it's a great game that's well worth the price. Free is fantastic and a majority of apps on my iPod Touch are free apps but, if the content is of quality and worth it, I'll pay for it. And so will thousands and thousands and thousands of other people. Complaining that some people are willing to do some coding for free isn't a way to make money. Make a quality product. If the people who complain about free apps making it hard for people to make money spent more time coding and making a quality app and less time complaining, they might make more money...

Re:Trism

[BigZaphod]

No, he made a bunch of money because he was there on day one with a ton of press lined up and ready to go and managed (against all odds, IMO) to actually be one of the more decent games at launch. (The prices were a lot higher back then, too, since no one knew how the market would evolve.) He either got lucky or was a marketing genius... The app doesn't sell for $4.99 anymore, either. I'm leaning towards luck.

iPhone Darwinism

[actionbastard]

Code something that is 'insanely great' and you will survive to charge $4.99 for your app. Otherwise, perish in flame.

It's a stupid rant

[tkrotchko]

It's a stupid rant. Look at the market for PC software.

There are a lot of *free* applications. Lots. More than I can every use.

Then there are inexpensive shareware stuff. $5-15

Then there are the mainstream shareware apps. $40-60

From there, applications go as high as you want to pay.... $100-500 $1000, $5000

All are available on the internet. Do free applications limit the abilities of developers to churn out $50 software? Or $100 software? No. People will pay what the software is worth.

This guy seems to be making the argument that somehow a low price sets the expectation of low prices. It's a dumb argument. If developers come up with an application that's worth $500 guess what... they will pay $500.

What he's really saying that the $1 applications are so good that he can't compete. And that's probably true. What he needs to do is make his applications worth more than $1. It's not the platform that's holding him back. It's not the price of cheap software holding him back, it's his own inability to write valuable software that commands a premium price. Seriously. Does he even understand that you can't write a general purpose iPhone app and expect to get $50 for it? He's going to have to hit some vertical market software (highly specialized) to command premium dollars. How about a full-blown VST/Softsynth app that will accept plugins for the iPhone? I'd pay $200 for that. How about working with a high-end electronics company to write apps to control lighting/music for home-automation? He could probably get $300-500 for that.

Just being a good programmer isn't good enough. He should know better.

Seriously, he's all wet.

Re:It's a stupid rant

[c_forq]

To add to your point, I work at a company that uses a wide mix of programs (FOSS and closed source). Our company also staffs over 30 programmers (we are not a software or computer-related company, the programmers just do in-house stuff). There are still programs we pay for that are $3,000+ a seat [plus the worker that runs it, who gets $60,000/yr plus benefits, in the midwest (where the cost of living is WAY lower than the coasts or large cities)]. Something that gets the job done, and done well is worth that.

Re:It's a stupid rant

[ScrewMaster]

There are still programs we pay for that are $3,000+ a seat

Some of the simulation programs my company uses cost $75,000 a seat. It's a thunk, but it's not a huge market and compared to the cost of building and tweaking dozens of prototypes ... well worth the money.

Re:It's a stupid rant

[timeOday]

Some of the simulation programs my company uses cost $75,000 a seat.

Boy will they be ticked when I release my competitor on the iPhone for $4.99!

Half truth

[cpct0]

I'm an iPhone developer. My company have been in the top sellers in US and Canada. And I agree, with some reserve, to what is being written.

If you look at the games that are produced on the iPhone, they are very good, frankly, many of them have many hours of replay value, many of the apps are top notch, and compared to other phones, they are of insane quality. And for a game that we sell more than $20 on any PC, and even more on consoles, we can only barely nudge a $5 on the iPhone, for nearly the same production quality. That's thousands and thousands of man-hour of work, sold at $5. Think about that. Even then, we got average results: either the comments were raving on our game, either people were giving one star and saying it was way too expensive. That's total bull. And that's what's pissing off people creating solid applications.

When the iPhone started, some games (like Monkey Ball) were $10. Some productivity apps were $10 to $15. I paid for a few $10 software, and they were with ample merit. Omnifocus is such a tool, real great, well made, even the v1 was excellent. Then, the top sellers became $5 software. Now it's mostly $1 software.

And that's where I put my grumpy developer shell on the shelf. Frankly, I congratulate $1 games and free games and $1 leisure and productivity tools. They make sure we are not paying $5 like on other phones to get a total piece of crap snorted out by a subcontract firm in 2 weeks. They make sure if we want to pay $5, it's for a good reason. That a software becomes a meme and gets sold by the thousands for 2 weeks and then get replaced by the following meme, I congratulate them. The only reason we are noticing these is because the way the ITMS works "free" and "pay" tops, and nothing else.

Many good applications cost much more, and hopefully they are getting their own crowd and their own push, with their own publicity. Like on PC with freewares and sharewares and commercial software, you pay mostly by merit.

Re:Half truth

[Kent Recal]

I don't get the whining. You can whine about apple banning apps that they don't like but whining about pricing? C'mon it's a free market (unless you step on apple's toes) and it works like every other market: People buy what gets the job done for as cheap as they can get.

If you build a top notch app that people want and that has no competition then it will most certainly sell for $5, maybe even for $10 or $50.

Re:Cry me a river...

[Red Flayer]

The iPhone is the first and foremost platform for cellphones these days.

[citation needed]. Truth is, Symbian still dominates the mobile platform market, with RiM in second (though Apple is closing in on Rim).

Apple's market share is about 1/4 that of Symbian.

Please, don't talk out your ass about market share without doing your homework.

iElephant in the Room?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sure, having to compete with el-cheapo apps isn't anybody's idea of fun; but I find it very odd that their presence would act against complex apps. If the simple stuff is a mass of cheap and/or free, then the profit motive will lead developers to try to build products that distinguish themselves from the mass and can command a higher price(or, y'know, lobby for new laws, RIAA style).

Rather than "OMG cheap competition!" I'd be inclined to suspect a couple of things: First and foremost: Uncertainty over App store approval rules. Apple can, and sometimes does, just yank the rug out from under an app during the approval process. The rules are underdetermined and don't seem to be followed terribly consistently, and there is no real appeal. This is Apple's right, legally speaking; but is it any huge surprise that people are not rushing to make large investments in highly complex products?
Secondly, cellphones, even nice ones, are mediocre platforms for big highly complex stuff. Apple has done a substantially better job than usual; but nothing(presently available) can really disguise the fact that you are working on a tiny screen, with very limited input options.

Somehow, those terrible, terrible, innovation killing people who give software away have failed to destroy large, complex applications on the PC, I strongly doubt that they are managing that here.

What is this?

[AceofSpades19]

Is this "Please give me a bail out because I can't figure out how to compete" week on slashdot?

Re:Cry me a river...

[c_forq]

While the iPhone may have a fraction of the marketshare as symbian, I would have a hard time arguing against Apple's strategy to reach that marketshare. The App store is on every iPhone, meaning any app you get into the App store is easy to access on every iPhone. If I have a symbian handset how do I know about your app? How do I get your app? How do I pay for your app? How do I read reviews for your app? When it comes to marketability of an app, I think the iPhone wins over the phones with bigger market share.

How is this different?

[olddotter]

How is this different from other for pay software? I walk into a store and buy shrink wrapped software and 99% of the time I can't return it if I've opened it, much less decided I don't like it. They need something called MARKETING. And all they want is free marketing on the itunes store, but word of mouth or actual ads might work as well or better.

Would a digg like site for the app store help?

Bravely Stupid?

[Gary W. Longsine]

Your hired. You'll be paid $100k a year, and you'll write a new iPhone app for me every six weeks. An idea could be as complex as I like, and I still can't see it taking you more than six weeks to implement, unless you're a shitty developer or wasting time, in which case, you're fired.

Do people really only list apps by lowest price?

[OrangeTide]

I think it would be far more interesting to list apps by highest price. If someone wants $1-$2 for a puzzle game, that's cheap. But not crazy, I suppose.

But if you were selling something more substantial, like many of the utility apps seen on Palm (databases, pdf viewers, word processors, spread sheets, electronic checkbooks, etc). I don't see why people wouldn't fork out $10 for it. Obviously in smaller numbers, because that $1 price barrier is soo easy.

Are people really buying 10 games/ringtones instead of 1 power app that offers something important? I find it hard to believe.

Apps that I would like to see, that could be worth something:
* Spending program, you can take a picture of your paper receipt and it logs the total(using simple OCR) and the time. And then lets you organize the data in powerful ways.
* Generic Inventory Database, store lists of any old thing. the obvious DVD library, CD library, etc has been done to death. Being able to track inventory of any widget with custom fields would be great. How many ming vases do I have with jade? I should be able to list them all immediately and include photos.
* Password keychain
* RSA SecurID softtoken - turn your iphone into a securid fob. get rid of that little keychain you need to log into your work's VPN. (this is indeed possible, I had them for other OSes)

(I'm tired of coming up with examples, but I think there are 20-30 solid utility apps that were done in one form or another for PalmOS that I haven't seen yet on iPhone)

nope, that's not it

[Gary W. Longsine]

There are lots of issues with making complex apps under this pricing universe, and it's definitely a deterrent to making more interesting complex apps. People seek technical support for complex apps. If the app costs $0.99, and they ask you a single question about a problem they caused themselves, they have burned enough time to tank a whole day's worth of sales.

Another issue is that Apple doesn't provide software vendors with contact information for our customers, but does allow (and with iPhone OS 2.2 actively encourages) them to complain in the app store, under essentially anonymous handles, about issues that they caused themselves. For example, an app we make is highly praised by most users, but a few complain vociferously that it's "unstable" or "crashes a lot". Yes, in fact our QA tells us this is definitely true -- but only if you run it on a Jail Broken iPhone. Doh! So sorry you didn't contact us for support. So sorry you don't understand you shot your foot off and we neither gave you the gun nor pulled the trigger.

iTunes App Store is basically an ongoing experiment. It's not clear that third party software developers can devise a business model on it which will make a profit.

not exactly

[Gary W. Longsine]

No, you have definitely got it wrong. Most of the iPhone developers I know are exactly the opposite of whiny. They are energetic, hard working, play by the Apple defined rules, and working really hard to justify their really expensive hobby of making cool software. They tend to do this because they have experience with lots of other technologies, and they like the Apple technologies better, they are more fun for developers, but they are, often, less profitable.

merit

[Gary W. Longsine]

My company, illumineX, makes a blogging client for the iPhone, iBlogger. There are a dozen competitors, most of them are free. We charge $9.99. We are told that it's one of the most expensive apps on the store. We're also told that it's one of the most complex (blogging client apps are surprising complex, if they support more than one blog type). Many of our customers used most or all of the other applications, first, and were happy to pay for iBlogger, because they feel it's worth the price. Are we making enough money to justify the work that it took to make the app? Not even close. Are we going to lower the price? Well, one of our few competitors who charged money lowered their price for a month. It went back up. Why? I'm gonna guess that sales didn't go up much, and tech support costs went way, way up.

Apple's long term success may not depend on complex apps being available. If it does, however, then there are serious problems with the iTunes App Store market.

As one of those overpaid developers ...

[Tjp($)pjT]

I have 4 programs for the iPhone on the App Store. They are $1.99 for all but one which is $0.99. I paid a graphics artist $1000 (actually a split of the first $5000 of sales, little did either of us guess) and I spent an average of about 3 weeks per app. The two word oriented games have huge dictionaries in Spanish, Russian and English. So far my net payments from Apple are no stellar, well under $1000. The reasons... 10,000 other apps. The jockeying for the current release spots. (we have had issues on 2 of the four that buried them 4 pages in on current releases so no great buzz...) and a whole bunch of imitators that follow on with limited functionality knock-offs for free or 99 cents. Not to mention the competitors who on day one would give a bad review which just kills sales. Even though they didn't buy a copy. That is corrected now. My competitors will at least have to pay all of $2 to say my app crashes on startup. (It won't get through Apple screening if it does that, well, anymore)...

So professional developers will just not be able, as the co-sympathizer over at Icon Factory notes, be able to put the effort into really feature-full apps. And they at least have a decent marketing engine behind them. They can get sales over 100,000 for each app. I am hoping to get something like 3-5000 in sales for each app.

Apple just makes it hard for me to have an independent sales effort as well. I had a major chain store's buyer interested in having my App(s) for sale in their store. I wrote Apple a nice letter pointing out the issues. And they acted on the portion suggesting a promo code so I could get reviews but have so far rejected things like selling me a code for the app at their cut of the purchase price, so I can do things like sell it myself to brick and mortar stores. Create my own storefront online to increase the sales of my App(s) without Apple recommending my competitors products at checkout, and so on. And on. And on.

So yes. Great for the iPhone user. There are a lot of applications that are free or well under $5 most hovering at either 99 cents or $1.99. And before you say anything derogatory about paid software will sell if its good and so on, people buying games will take a free version if it is just for minor diversions and live with the limitations instead of a paid version, and for some of us programming is not an avocation, its the way we pay rent and put food on the table.

Re:Non-sequitur?

[FishWithAHammer]

OpenMoko, Symbian, and Android seem to have much better terms for developers. If you have a killer app and someone will buy the phone for your app, why put yourself at Apples mercy?

The latter part of your "if" statement will revaluate as "false" the vast, vast majority of the time. You go where the market is, and that's Apple (whether we like it or not--I don't like it, but I also don't do handheld development).

Sarcasm is dead.

[Gary W. Longsine]

Uhm... "Flamebait" this was not. Using the exact same argument as its parent, applied on the flip side of the developer relationship (cost, rather than revenue) should have merited an Insightful mod. Alas, there is no "understands subtle arguments" requirement for moderators.

Re:Sarcasm is dead.

[poot_rootbeer]

Using the exact same argument as its parent, applied on the flip side of the developer relationship (cost, rather than revenue) should have merited an Insightful mod.

Except the parent poster intentionally tweaked the numbers to try to make the grandparent look foolish.

The grandparent's assertion was that for $100K, it should be possible to develop an iPhone app of any complexity, given the practical limits of the device. The parent's sarcastic job offer did not rebut this assertion, but rather argued a strawman that for $100K it should be possible to develop more than 8 iPhone apps of any complexity. Or, that for about $12K is should be possible to develop a single iPhone app.

What is Happening Here?

[Bob9113]

Hockenberry is a former developer turned business owner.

His complaints seem to stem from three things:
1. Developers are selling cheap straight to the customer.
2. Developers charge too much for him to be guaranteed a profit from their labor.
3. These cheap apps don't reflect his ideals of a good application.

Could this be a microcosmic view of a sea change that is at our doorstep? Software engineers, labor, can now sell directly to the customer - and the product reflects "scratching an itch" simplicity. Corporations like Hockenberry's take a share of the income and add a certain level of quality control and interface polish. The customer has the power of the purse - and is choosing the discount route buying directly from the developer.

There is an advantage to being the low-price competitor, but such is the free market. It seems a more fundamental question is being raised by this market demonstration: Is the corporation adding sufficient value to the products that software engineers create to justify its piece of the action?

Over the past 30 years, the wealth-creation potential of knowledge workers has exploded. No longer the single-buyer creations of the factory worker, 21st century labor creates infinitely reproducible information products. The products themselves have seen an unprecedented rate of advance from the black and white blobs and monospace text of 20 years ago to the fledgling storefront websites 10 years ago to today's globally connected life utilities.

During the same period, wealth has been concentrating with executive management (see income distribution, 1970 to present). The 90th to 95th percentile of income, largely the range software engineers occupy, has seen its income remain flat relative to GDP. Meanwhile, the top 0.1% has seen its share of GDP increase by about 6x (see Piketty Saez 2007).

Another point to consider is advertising. The corporation, which uses advertising to create a perception of value (sometimes justified, sometimes not), has not yet figured out this new market. The market is acting without the benefit of the siren song (for better and for worse).

Interesting data points, those:
1. Over the past 30 years, the wealth creation potential of knowledge workers has been on a meteoric climb.
2. In that same time, the income of the pay bracket those knowledge workers occupy has stagnated - while that of corporate senior officials has risen by a factor of 6.
3. The distorting effect of advertising has not yet reached this particular market.
4. Customers are foregoing corporate products in favor of buying direct from the software engineer at a discount price.
5. A representative of the corporation, the traditional bearer of risk in ventures, is complaining that he cannot be guaranteed a profit.

Seems to me there may be a force other than foolhardy consumers at play here.

It's UNIX! I Know This!

[SuperKendall]

Jeez, when will people accept that Macs are designed by people who themselves are designers and the OS is built around the typical workflow of designers and not that of code geeks and techies?

If you knew anything of the internals you'd know just how wrong you actually were. Who among the code geeks and "techies" would not appreciate a mainstream computer that comes with Bash, Apache, Perl, PHP and Ruby built right in? Or can appreciate upcoming things like OpenCL?

It's true there are ALSO a lot of great design oriented features added atop the very nice technical layer - but the technical innards are very much aimed squarely at the people you think have no interest.

Linux blasphemy

[SimHacker]

Linux is only free if your time is worthless.

-Don

Re:CMYK is not a legit need

[tsm_sf]

CMYK is device-dependent - it's all device dependent

and not orthagonal - get a modern browser w/ a built in spell checker

You have to convert anyway. You might as well work in a colorspace with tolerable math properties. - You don't work in CMYK

Conversion belongs in your printer driver or in the printer itself. - You really don't know what you're talking about

Direct editing of CMYK makes people feel special. They get to pretend they are all professional. - You don't know what I was talking about

It's pure idiocy. - and you're an asshole.

Trial versions

[sc00ch]

For me its inability for developers to offer trial versions of apps using the App store. I'm not going to pay more than a few bucks for something i cant try before i buy. Screenshots and reviews just dont cut it for me, so how about Apple allows developers to do x Day trials. I'm sure its possible!

Re:Trial versions

[FictionPimp]

A good work around for this is already being done. So developers offer a free version and a paid version. IM+ for example. They have a free version with a few key features removed. If you like it you can buy the paid version.

I didn't like it so I didn't buy it. A few games do the same thing. For example spore.

I still don't understand the argument however. Are they saying that apple should ban cheap software so they no longer need to compete? Or that people will not consider higher priced software even if there is no cheaper competitor simply because everything else is cheaper? Seems to me they just need to suck it up and compete.

Portability is the issue

[thepacketmaster]

Not many people are going to by a complex application for a platform that they may not choose to keep. Buying for a workstation is one thing, but people change cell phones a lot more than they choose their workstation. Also, the iPhone, for all its hype, has some severe limitations (no Java, no Flash, no cut-and-paste). Add to that the possibility that some new and sexier mobile phone is always around the corner and could have a completely different architecture that won't run these iPhone applications, and that leaves people with the idea that buying an expensive application might be a waste of time and money.

Knee-jerk misinterpretation of the original argume

[iElucidate]

I think most commenters are missing the primary focus of the author's rant. This is fair, because his letter is laden with subtext that is probably not obvious to people who aren't intimately familiar with the iPhone developer community. I believe that the primary thrust of his argument is not that he should be paid more, or that his apps can't stand on their merits, or that he is no longer in a position to play gatekeeper.

Rather, his primary complaints seem to be with the Apple-approved and required distribution mechanism for the iPhone, namely their App Store. The App Store severely limits how apps can be sold, promoted, and used. It does not allow for trial software, it does not allow for returns. There is no built-in help system or feedback mechanism. Ratings cannot be challenged. And the "top X apps" is segregated by "free" vs "pay" but not by different levels of pay. Therefore it is much easier to sell more copies of a $0.99 app and climb the charts, displacing potentially far better but more expensive apps that are naturally going to have fewer sales.

Hockenberry's letter seems aimed at encouraging or nudging in the direction of fixing many of these perceived App Store deficiencies. That is why it is addressed to Steve Jobs, and not to other developers. He isn't saying "stop selling your $0.99 apps," he's saying, give all app developers a fair playing field to encourage innovation and risk-taking.

Killer App?

[greg_barton]

...the iPhone may never get its killer app like the spreadsheet...

The app store IS the killer app.

There's no problem with AppStore

[caywen]

I'm days away from releasing my game on AppStore, and all the while during development, I watched prices plummet. Very disheartening and demotivating. This happens initially with any open market system, and the thing that needs to fundamentally change is not the system, but expectations. Too many iPhone developers go into this thinking they'll be the next Trism and Ocarina. That's fine, but you'll probably also dive deep into disappointment, which turns to anger, and then to finger pointing. Get your expectations straight, and you'll do yourself less emotional damage. Something developers are also missing is how many people out there actually have the right expectations. A lot of devs do their apps because it's cool and they are fascinated with making software, beyond the money aspect. That's where the $.99 toys come from. They are the stones that devs with dollar signs in their eyes are cast upon. Forget trying to make your living on AppStore alone. You'll always hear about the few who made it huge, and the rest of us who are satisfied that we made something cool and where the income is all extra. It sucks, but if you want a higher chance of making it rich, either join a startup with stock options, or be the best. In other words, from here on in, you'll only make your living on AppStore if you are absolutely phenomenal, or phenomenally lucky. Otherwise, be in it for the fun of it.

Missing the Point

[rising_hope]

People pay for good software. People pirate good software, too. Some people pirate good software in order to see if it's worth paying for good software. The iPhone is relatively pirate-free, due to it's DRM system, ensuring that more people are paying for apps than ever before. Unfortunately, without a trial-ware market, developers are forced to make lite versions of products, rather than demo-products that retain full functionality for a limited time, or whatnot. I think this actually creates a worse market for the iPhone, since many aren't willing to pay $20 for something that may or may not be decent. Mobile software, in general, is less complex than desktop version, and therefore, I think it's difficult to price any app higher than $20-30. Additionally, legal or not, many people in families buy one copy of a software program at home, and install several copies. Since this is not possible with the iPhone (at least out of the box), people aren't willing to buy an app for $30-50, and go around and buy another copy for the wife. This is really one of the first devices to feature such as large, DRM-hardware platform for developing software, so what we're really seeing is free-market economics and creative solutions for what will and won't sell. I paid $10 for spore, and it was a waste. I paid $10 for monkey ball, and it was a waste. I paid $15 for a voice dialer that was a waste. And then, a free one from Melodis just came out that was superior and free. It's not that I'm not willing to pay for apps. I've bought plenty of "high dollar" apps, and would have gladly paid more for them. But, the model of buy, even though you can't try, is what bugs me. But, more developers have been doing limited versions of apps, which has put me at ease. EA has a trial version of spore, and had I played that, I'd have gotten bored quickly, and not paid for the full version. But, pacman's one level demo rocked, so I bought it. Same thing with Reign of Swords. My point is, people are a lot more willing than you think to pay for apps; but you have to be willing to give away free demos in order to convince people to pony up for more spendy apps.

in comparsion to the gPhone %

[recharged95]

I wonder what would have happened if they charged for ActiveSync (as an App) similar to the Google Market (i.e. some 3rd party apps, i.e. for MS exchange, go for $30). That would have opened the door.

iphone apps are pretty much stuck with $0.99 since Apple users are loyal followers such that a. it's the same paradigm as the itunes store (0.99 songs), it's all managed through itunes, and the current thousands of apps are less than $3 so the bar has been set.

Clearly...

[roc97007]

Once again, the obvious solution is to forbid developers from working too cheaply. I mean, how can I demand a high price for my complex, quirky app when someone else has the audacity to produce a better app for 99 cents? Sowing "you get what you pay for" FUD only works so far.

I'm thinking a software developers union. The union bosses would set prices, and consumers would be forbidden from using non-union-approved apps, on penalty of high fines or, you know, getting your kneecaps busted. In no time prices would soar, and we'd all get the full benefit of our efforts. Minus union dues and other applicable fees, of course.

And another thing. Software development tools have become way too cheap. When any pimple-faced geek can download a complete development environment for free, it gives them the impression that anyone can write useful programs. Compilers, debuggers and editors should be expensive, dammit, just like they were in the old days. And have fiddly license requirements. Software development should hurt so everyone knows why we're getting paid top dollar to do it.

Consumers? Hell, if they can't afford $79.95 for a fuel efficiency calculator, they can jolly well do without. They should be happy that their phone works as a phone.

it's called competition

[glyph42]

I'm sorry, what? Are they complaining that it's hard to make money because there is competition? Hahahahaha. HAHAHAhahahahaha.