I am the author of several iPhone applications, two of them access an online documentation. So basically every time somebody reads the in-app help it shows up in my webserver's statistics.
A few months ago I released Xewton Music Studio, an app for composing and performing music, which my team and I have spent over one year to develop. In the first week the help loads were pretty much what I expected from the number of copies sold. But as soon as this app appeared on ***** (various file hosting websites) the help loads exploded!
From my personal experience I bet that at least 90% of the users of my apps have indeed a pirated version. I understand of course that a pirated copy is not always a lost "sale", but the sales dropped immediately after the pirated versions showed up on the web. It's a pity that Apple seems to have little interest in preventing piracy on the iPhone.
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I am the author of several iPhone applications, two of them access an online documentation. So basically every time somebody reads the in-app help it shows up in my webserver's statistics. A few months ago I released Xewton Music Studio, an app for composing and performing music, which my team and I have spent over one year to develop. In the first week the help loads were pretty much what I expected from the number of copies sold. But as soon as this app appeared on ***** (various file hosting websites) the help loads exploded! From my personal experience I bet that at least 90% of the users of my apps have indeed a pirated version. I understand of course that a pirated copy is not always a lost "sale", but the sales dropped immediately after the pirated versions showed up on the web. It's a pity that Apple seems to have little interest in preventing piracy on the iPhone.