From what I hear, many of the apps are worth just about what they cost -- that is next to nothing. That is a major reason that I didn't get a Touch -- nothing interesting to put on it. I do have a classic iPod -- an 80 GB machine that is getting full with my growing music collection. Of course the Touch does not have nearly that much storage.
Bert Latamore
Freelance Editorial Consultant
________________________________
From: Jeff Mitchell <***@skeleton.org>
To: shadow-***@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 4:26:31 PM
Subject: Re: [shadow-discuss] Re: Further development on Windows?
On Thu, 12 Mar 2009, Bert Latamore wrote:
# For third party developers one big problem with the iPhone (and to a
# greater or lesser extent some of the other handheld platforms) is that
# the manufacturer, in this case Apple, maintains total control over what
# software can be sold for the platform. The only outlet is the iStore. A
# few months ago Aplple pulled an application that was already being sold
# through its store off the virtual shelves on the grounds that it
# competed with something that Apple was developing. This was a real
# eye-opener for third-party developers. It means that they can put months
# of work into a product for the iPhone and then find access to the market
# denied to them. CESD is very open that this was the deciding factor for
# him in producing Pimlical for other platforms rather than the iPhone. He
# is developing in Java, initially for Windows with the strategy of
# porting to other platforms. I would recommend that Jeff seriously
# consider a similar strategy if he decides to do a new
# version of Shadow, btw.
More to Apple and their 'monopoly' of their own store. You can
invest an enormous amount of development into an app, and they just decide
not to pass it at all. Period. Bam, you're done.. a lot of risk up front.
They can also muck around aribtrarily. . they're very busy, and a lot of
apps coming in. They review each release as well .. I know of a few apps
that got let through the gate with 1.0, and peopel found severe bugs. With
a one day fix applied they were resubmitted. . but weeks and weeks of
waiting for them to get cleared to go onto the store, meanwhile big
support and reputation problems causing irreperable damage, due to the
1.0. In some cases, the update might get rejected for artwork or who knows
what, despite being the same as a previous biuld which was passed. Its
just a bit of a mess these days..
Another thing of course is the rule of 'no VMs', which means
theres on one porting Java to it, and Apple hasn't really defined if
they're going to bring Java to it. The VM rule has been broken several
times and apparently is okay, but perhaps Apple just hasn't noticed or is
giving the eye to it to see how it goes.
Another thing .. if you develop an app using Apple SDK, and then
they reject it fro mthe iStore .. you are supposedly not able to then try
to sell it anywhere else. The contract to get into the Apple dev program
is that you admit you can sell an app on the store, and not anywhere else
_ever_, regardless if they skip you or not.
A lot of devs have taken this sort of contract and just refused to
pass step one (of many steps..) .. its roo risky to even go near it.
# I suspect that this situation explains the less than universal
# participation by third-party developers in the iPhone platform.
The larger issue is that theres a precedent of inexpensive
applications. . $1-$4 or $5 i norm, with even $5 being considered
'expensive'; a few $9.99 and more apps exist, but they're generally
regarded as far overpriced.
The assumption is that volume has to overcome that limitation, but
it presents another risk. It certainly limits the 'scope' of an
application up front.. you cannot risk an enormous investment in a fancy
application, when you're risking all of these and more issues. Hence the
prevalence of easy ports, or 'iFart' type apps. (And at the same time, the
super casual super cheap apps are doing really well, which discourages the
more serious heavy hitter apps. Its the same problem as Windows Mobile..
if MS bundles crappy office software in every device, theres almost no way
to convince peopel to buy somethign that is very good.)
Anyway, there is a lot going for the iStore as well -- with Palm
OS, which was fully open, the chaos of every dev for himself meant the
creation of the middleman, PalmGear, Handango, and others. Very few
middlemen, meant they very much controlled the sales portals, and didn't
really have to do a lot of work.. when we all started, PalmGear would eat
say 15% of sales price as their own piece, which was reasonable. Nowadays,
PG would be taking 50-65% or more sometimes, and its very difficult to
track due to how they do it (VAT and all that.) Further, any 'fees'
(random ones made up along the way usually) or 'sales' decided by the
stores woudl be taken out of the dev piece.. so you have frontends, who
discount massively from the dev portion, and yet also take random fees and
sales out of the dev piece, and push all dev and support costs to the
dev... it doesn't leave much. Apple instead is doing a lot of the work --
app installation and upgrading is all done via itunes, the portal is in
one place for the usersw ot find and works on-device and off, and they
take a flat 30% (currently, with no guarantee they will not raise it
arbitrarily. .)
Apple on the one hand has made an excellent overall service, just
with them holding all the cards.
"Fun" is the term for mobile development :)
jeff
--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.
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