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Apple Provides iPhone Developers with Daily Download Stats

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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30,847


Apple is now offering registered iPhone developers with daily download statistics on how well their applications are doing in the App Store.

Before today, most developers had been left in the dark about their applications performance, and had to wait until monthly reports. Apple had originally posted download numbers publicly but quickly removed this feature once it became clear that you could easily estimate a particular developer's revenue. Registered iPhone developers can find their daily stats at iTunes Connect.

Daily reports may help developers more quickly find proper price points. Larger developers must have already had access to their download stats, as Sega's president said that he expected that Sega would sell 1 million downloads for Super Monkey Ball, though no time-frame was given.

Other developers have already been making pricing adjustments due to the high level of competition in the App Store. Most recently, Pangea Software dropped the price of their Cro-Mag Rally racing game from $9.99 to $5.99.

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/31/apple-provides-iphone-developers-with-daily-download-stats/
Sayer

Sayer

macrumors 6502a
Jan 4, 2002
981
0
Austin, TX
Who knew free-market principles of supply & demand and good old fashioned unrestricted competition would actually drive prices DOWN. Take that you Marxists!

This is such a crazy idea they should apply it to other things.
 
krye

krye

macrumors 68000
Aug 21, 2007
1,606
1
USA
Good. I'm glad to see people are starting to drop prices to stay competitive. I don't care how "full featured" people claim an iPhone game can be. The fact remains that it is limited. I know it's not a "mobile app", but it's sure not a desktop app either. I just can't see the $9.99 price point sticking. As we've just seen, $5.99 sounds better for an "almost" full featured game. Who wants to pay $10 for a game you beat in 2 hours and never play again? Applications may be a different story sine they are used over and over and over again.
 
KindredMAC

KindredMAC

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2003
975
218
Developers are going to learn real quick that $4.99 might just be the most that people will pay for an iPhone app.

Still find it funny that iBeer is still going for $2.99 while iPint is FREE. Really iBeer.... you can't lower the price to $0.99 to compete with iPint?

There are some apps out there that I would love to have but I am not going to pay $9.99 for them.
 
A

admanimal

macrumors 68040
Apr 22, 2005
3,531
2
zenspeaks said:
Not really the kind of control that developers want.
But OK...something to console them.
:D
Click to expand...

Actually this is exactly what I wanted, at least in terms of statistics.

KindredMAC said:
Still find it funny that iBeer is still going for $2.99 while iPint is FREE. Really iBeer.... you can't lower the price to $0.99 to compete with iPint?
Click to expand...

I think it's ridiculous that people pay $2.99 for iBeer too...but what incentive does the developer have to lower the price? It's been near the top of the paid downloads list since the store opened. It makes me want to both laugh and cry when I think of how much that guy is making for that stupid app.
 
/dev/toaster

/dev/toaster

macrumors 68020
Feb 23, 2006
2,478
249
San Francisco, CA
There are still far too many applications that are way overpriced. The chances of me buying a $0.99 -> $3.99 app are very high. Anything beyond that, it needs to be something very ultra special before I will even consider it.

However, at the same time there are too many developers selling small silly apps for $0.99. You have to provide me with some value before I purchase it.
 
dasikes

dasikes

macrumors 6502a
Jul 10, 2008
654
0
Alabama
admanimal said:
I think it's ridiculous that people pay $2.99 for iBeer too...but what incentive does the developer have to lower the price? It's been near the top of the paid downloads list since the store opened. It makes me want to both laugh and cry when I think of how much that guy is making for that stupid app.
Click to expand...

I'll bet it has something to do with the simple purchasing process of the App Store leading to "influenced" buyers :D :D :D
 
Small White Car

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
/dev/toaster said:
However, at the same time there are too many developers selling small silly apps for $0.99. You have to provide me with some value before I purchase it.
Click to expand...

I paid $9.99 for Galcon and don't regret it one bit. But as you note, there are a ton of $0.99 apps that I'd feel dumb if I bought.

So it's all a matter of value. I would love to see MORE $10 apps if they're, you know, actually worth it. Not too many are, yet.
 
gcmexico

gcmexico

macrumors 6502a
Dec 22, 2007
965
209
Littleton, CO
KindredMAC said:
Developers are going to learn real quick that $4.99 might just be the most that people will pay for an iPhone app.

Still find it funny that iBeer is still going for $2.99 while iPint is FREE. Really iBeer.... you can't lower the price to $0.99 to compete with iPint?

There are some apps out there that I would love to have but I am not going to pay $9.99 for them.
Click to expand...
*
exactly...you buy 4 games you're dropping 40 bucks!!! I'd rather pay 20 for the 4 games, that sounds more reasonable...can't wait for more prices to drop
 
J

jshbckr

macrumors 6502
Apr 20, 2007
421
1
Minneapolis, MN
This counts unique downloads, right?

I've installed Band 4 times because it keeps crashing on launch. This wouldn't count as 4 downloads for them, would it?
 
T

teme

macrumors 6502
Jan 8, 2004
320
44
Some iPhone games can be compared to Nintendo DS games, and in those cases even the higher price point (9.99) is quite cheap (Super Monkey Ball for DS costs 19.99 dollars). When developers get more time to develop more complicated games, I think there will be games costing over 10 dollars and I think it's okay.

However, charging 10 dollars for a simple puzzle game is too much (Bejeweled / Tetris cost 9.99 for iPhone & same game for iPod costs 4.99... stupid).
 
K

kornyboy

macrumors 68000
Sep 27, 2004
1,529
0
Knoxville, TN (USA)
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

I'm all for price drops since I'm pretty cheap. I do, however, find value in some of the more expensive Apps, particularly the ones that are not games. I really could care less about having a bunch of games on my iPhone.
 
E

elistan

macrumors 6502a
Jun 30, 2007
997
443
Denver/Boulder, CO
Huh. New iPhone business model:

1) Find some app you can replicate with your own program.
2) Offer it for $1.00 less.
3) Profit!

Now we REALLY get to see what the free software movement is capable of. I think it'll be a year or so before things really settle down and we know the future of iPhone apps. FREE vs $1 vs $10 vs $45 vs $350... Commercial vs home-grown. Predetory pricing. IP infringement.

All this exists outside the iPhone, but with a centralized, searchable, easily accessed database of apps, the energy in the system is way, way up there. Things should happen quickly.
 
G

grayskies

macrumors regular
Nov 9, 2006
135
45
overpriced

I think most apps are overpriced so I'm glad to see competition causing a pricing change. I've only paid for one app and it was $10....too much but I still purchased. It is easier for me to rationalize purchase in the sub $5 range.
 
Virgil-TB2

Virgil-TB2

macrumors 65816
Aug 3, 2007
1,143
1
KindredMAC said:
Developers are going to learn real quick that $4.99 might just be the most that people will pay for an iPhone app.

Still find it funny that iBeer is still going for $2.99 while iPint is FREE. Really iBeer.... you can't lower the price to $0.99 to compete with iPint?

There are some apps out there that I would love to have but I am not going to pay $9.99 for them.
Click to expand...
The really funny thing here is that iPint is not only FREE, it's by far the better app. It includes a game and is more realistic than iBeer.

So "take that!" you filthy Capitalists!

A free market does not always lead to the consumer getting the lowest price, nor does it always reward the best product with the most profits. Seriously though, the people that make iBeer have a completely absent moral compass IMO.

Developer 1: "Hey, our **** app is still selling even though there's a better one for free!"

Developer 2: "Go figure, oh well, as long as we are making money we might as well keep going."

??? :confused: ????
 
L

LloydBraun89

macrumors member
Jun 27, 2007
66
0
admanimal said:
Actually this is exactly what I wanted, at least in terms of statistics.



I think it's ridiculous that people pay $2.99 for iBeer too...but what incentive does the developer have to lower the price? It's been near the top of the paid downloads list since the store opened. It makes me want to both laugh and cry when I think of how much that guy is making for that stupid app.
Click to expand...

yeah its crazy. i dont know how much he has sold but lets say hes had 50,000 downloads. thats like over $100,000!
 
Virgil-TB2

Virgil-TB2

macrumors 65816
Aug 3, 2007
1,143
1
elistan said:
Huh. New iPhone business model:

1) Find some app you can replicate with your own program.
2) Offer it for $1.00 less.
3) Profit!

Now we REALLY get to see what the free software movement is capable of. I think it'll be a year or so before things really settle down and we know the future of iPhone apps. FREE vs $1 vs $10 vs $45 vs $350... Commercial vs home-grown. Predetory pricing. IP infringement.

All this exists outside the iPhone, but with a centralized, searchable, easily accessed database of apps, the energy in the system is way, way up there. Things should happen quickly.
Click to expand...
This occurred to me also.

The $.99 app is the one I don't understand at all, unless as you say, they are intentional rip-offs.

There are so many of them, and they all suck, or are basically of the same quality as the free ones.

  1. If it isn't worth even two dollars, then it should just be free IMO.
  2. If the developer thinks it's a good app, why is it only $.99?

It's like the developers are saying right up front that it's a POS or possibly unfinished app, they don't feel good enough about making anyone pay for it, but could you pay them a dollar anyway? Crazy.

I would gladly pay up to $40.00 or so for an app that's worth it and does something worthwhile, but I won't pay even $.99 for someone's ripped off sudoku code, wrapped in a lime green UI.
 
S

Sander

macrumors 6502a
Apr 24, 2008
521
67
Virgil-TB2 said:
Seriously though, the people that make iBeer have a completely absent moral compass IMO.

Developer 1: "Hey, our **** app is still selling even though there's a better one for free!"

Developer 2: "Go figure, oh well, as long as we are making money we might as well keep going."

??? :confused: ????
Click to expand...

I don't understand your reasoning here. You would rather have this:

Developer 1: "Hey, someone wrote an app that's better than ours, and it's free!"

Developer 2: "Oh dang, well it was nice while it lasted. Let's pull ours off the app store."

Developer 1: "Actually, we're still selling 1000 copies a day. We could leave it up there while we work on something else."

Developer 2: "No - that would be immoral. Just take it down."

??? :confused: ??? indeed.
 
A

admanimal

macrumors 68040
Apr 22, 2005
3,531
2
Virgil-TB2 said:
This occurred to me also.

The $.99 app is the one I don't understand at all, unless as you say, they are intentional rip-offs.

There are so many of them, and they all suck, or are basically of the same quality as the free ones.

  1. If it isn't worth even two dollars, then it should just be free IMO.
  2. If the developer thinks it's a good app, why is it only $.99?

It's like the developers are saying right up front that it's a POS or possibly unfinished app, they don't feel good enough about making anyone pay for it, but could you pay them a dollar anyway? Crazy.
Click to expand...

I think you need to open your mind and consider the fact that there might be some small developers out there that make good software but decided to charge 99 cents because

a)they are working on this as a second job/hobby and don't need to rely on it for income but still want/deserve compensation for their effort

b)know that a good way for a no-name developer to get noticed is to have a cheap app that is still good.

I have an app in the store for 99 that is not groundbreaking but I have received enough positive feedback to know that it definitely doesn't suck.

I think people need to get over the idea that having to pay a little for decent iPhone software is some horrible travesty. Paying for an app that just displays a donkey or elephant is one thing, but anything a bit more complicated than that does actually take time and effort to create and support, and you shouldn't just assume someone will be willing to do this for free.
 
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