Christmas Holiday Boosts App Store Sales, iFart Mobile Triples Sales

[MacRumors]

iFart Mobile developer reveals that sales of his iFart Mobile application were boosted over 3x over the course of Christmas eve and Christmas day. MacRumors had previously reported the sales numbers for the #1 spot had topped out at 13,274 units on December 22nd.

The developer reveals that on Christmas eve sales jumped to 19,520 units and on Christmas day sales shot up to 38,927. After Apple's cut, that represents $27,249 in net revenue for Christmas day alone.

App Store Link: iFart Mobile, $0.99

Article Link: Christmas Holiday Boosts App Store Sales, iFart Mobile Triples Sales

[iParis]

Geeze.
I bet it's because a bunch of people got iPod touch's and started downloading needless amounts of apps.

[Zincous]

Holy crap that is crazy

[nickspohn]

He got EXTREMELY lucky. Nothing better than having the top paid app, for a cheap price, when everyone clicks on their new app store icon for the first time.

More power to him though, because he is bringing in some serious money.

[Harpo]

It is a little depressing that this is the top app, isn't it?

Oh, well. I suppose the developer has brought smiles to many faces.

[DipDog3]

We were already discussing this in another thread before it hit the frontpage:

The total sales so far for iFart Mobile is 113,885 units in JUST TWO WEEKS! That translates into about $73,000. If Joel can keep up this pace, he could bring in TWO MILLION DOLLARS in just one year!

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=623661

[bobbleheadbob]

I've been enjoying this app for a week or so. I particularly enjoy letting one rip on the train.

[Solitaire City]

I've seen sales of Solitaire City increase 3x to 4x on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and double in the two days leading up to Christmas and other devs are reporting a similar boost in sales so you don't have to be #1 to enjoy a surprise Christmas present from Apple (although iFart's sales blew me away, no pun intended).

[IlanaSense]

Originally Posted by bobbleheadbob

I've been enjoying this app for a week or so. I particularly enjoy letting one rip on the train.

Ahh.. so you're the target consumer!

Couldnt figure out for the life of me who was downloading farty stuff.

[BornAgainMac]

I wonder if the U.S. auto workers should learn to program instead of what they do now. No unions, it will be weird for them at first. Just a thought.

[Maxington]

Sounds like the long tail of programming. Selling to unique and small markets

[swagi]

where the hell are iBurp, iPiss and iBlowUpFrogs ???

It's definitely time to reassess my image of the 'typical Apple user'.

[igazza]

i can see Steve shaking his head in disbelief

[zacman]

CrapStore

[yoman]

How long will iFart's reign last? Obviously this rate of sales will not keep up.

[kas23]

Originally Posted by igazza

i can see Steve shaking his head in disbelief

Yes, but with a huge grin on his face, as he looks at his bank account.

[cloudnine]

Originally Posted by swagi

where the hell are iBurp, iPiss and iBlowUpFrogs ???

It's definitely time to reassess my image of the 'typical Apple user'.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at things), the typical iPhone user doesn't necessarily represent the typical Apple user. However, it's definitely a "gateway drug", if you will... and will lead people into the Apple "lifestyle". Be prepared to welcome some douchebags into the elitist computing circle.

[Chundles]

I set it to go off in 5 seconds, put it next to my sister and waited for the fart sound to come then I pointed at her and said "eew, you farted" and laughed.

Definitely worth the $1.19.

[CocoaPuffs]

The popularity of this app is the reflection of our society.

[admanimal]

Originally Posted by oldwatery

Sorry...but I have to agree with Cloudnine and CocoaPuffs.
This is a real indictment of our society.
The word that comes to mind is "pathetic".

Someone needs to lighten up. Fart jokes have been popular as long as people have been farting.

[agentkow]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77a Safari/525.20)

Politics aside, this guy made an app, did it the best, and deserves the money from it. He's not the thousands of people buying it, he probably didn't waste an incredible amount of time on it, and now he can go on to bigger and better things.

And as for the value of the app, when was the last time you walked past the dollar store and saw a whoopie cushion that was small, compact, installable on something you already own and carry around with you, doesn't even require contact with your victim, has a multitude of different sounds, and was still only 99 cents?

[mainstreetmark]

Originally Posted by CocoaPuffs

The popularity of this app is the reflection of our society.

I don't know. Farting is a member of an extremely small subset of topics on which every person on earth is involved in, to some intimate degree. Additionally, farts create emotional and physical results in others, which also makes it universally personal, as *everyone* has some sort of connection or memory associated with a fart. That gives it a trait not shared with every other universal topics, such as breathing or rain. Most of the other things in the app store, such as cards or color matching or tower defense or music tuners do not have a connection with every person on the planet.

But, to say I am overwhelmed with jealousy is an understatement. But, at least I'm not "Pull My Finger", who did the legwork to get fart apps in the store in the first place. He must be terribly upset that iFart made it to the top and he did not.


edit: the real spyglass on society here is that there's soon going to be a whole category of fart apps. Search the app store for fart, and behold!

[ndheah]

Originally Posted by IlanaSense

Ahh.. so you're the target consumer!

Couldnt figure out for the life of me who was downloading farty stuff.

My wife, one of the most urban, girly girls I know downloaded the free whoopie cusion app for her iPhone, she deleted after a few minutes of walking behind people farting.

Was a good laugh, but would I(or she) spend money, even $1 on this? Nah.

[happydude]

and not only does the developer make a killing by selling a worthless farting app, apple takes home a fair share as well. hopefully this will help apple loosen up on their app controls and let the market, no matter how stupid or worthless something might seem, decide what should be up for sale and what shouldn't.

[mrmma]

Of course, typical to silicon valley, because of the success of iFart Apple will simply incorporate the farting capability into its phones at the next software update, adding that final inscentive to purchase an iPhone.