$30 Million in App Store Sales in One Month, Confirms Kill Switch

[sebimeyer]

That does indeed translate into a huge market that was created by Apple litterally overninght...

Scratch that. It was created by developers who rose to the challenge of creating for a device that wasn't even in stores yet. Ask Sony and Nintendo and they will attest that this is not always the case. So the props should go to the Developers.

The same developers are also demanding that the NDA, that made sense before the 3G officially hit the streets, should now be lifted because it litterally forbids them to discuss or trade code with ANYONE. That includes other developers.

Now, I am no expert, but a community in which the individuals are not allowed to talk to each others, is not much of a community.

Apple needs to fix this mistake, ASAP, or they risk putting the brakes on their new market by both alienating developers and actively hampering developers from helping each other.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

My guess is sales flatten out. I bought 2 apps for $20 and couldn;t see myself buying more of that crap on impulse again. One of those was netshare just because it was put back on the store and I had to have it. Now I have it but never in fact used it but at least I have it right? Yay for me!

 

[Zer0]

Looking at the numbers, the apps are overpriced!!

 

[asphyxiafeeling]

i only hope this means they use some of the profits to improve the app store... in particular the rating/review system could use an overhaul, as well as support for developers.

concerning the reviews, it's absolutely disgusting seeing certain developers "attack" others in the form of negative reviews, or to see people make fake accounts just to give positive ratings to certain apps.

concerning developer support; well, it seems that just about every non big-time dev is getting screwed by apple in the support end. whether this is just apple being too busy or apple not caring remains to be seen

 

[queshy]

Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!

 

[bobbleheadbob]

Hopefully this means that developers will actually be getting checks soon...

Actually, I believe that they are being paid in iTunes gifts cards.

 

[ltcol266845]

"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull"

Not really sure how I feel about this yet. I understand what he is saying, but if Apple is already going through such a closed system, the way I see it, they would be irresponsible for letting any program they would have to disable remotely into the App Store to begin with. I also don't like the idea of one day waking in the morning to find one of my programs gone, especially if I had paid for it at one point.

What I would probably accept is that if a program arose like this, that a notification would come up, warning me about the offending program with a link to more information about why they are reccomending the program be pulled. Then, a simple link that would then remove the afformentioned program.

Who knows where it could lead, if Apple attempts to actually use this "power". But I don't like the idea at all.

Just my $.02

 

[Stella]

Very impressive. Well done iPhone / Touch devs.

 

[Hattig]

Clearly, the iPhone represents a new REVOLUTION. The shame is that it does NOT allow to do what many other Windows-based smart phones have been doing for YEARS now:

http://www.impatica.com/showmate

Hopefully, in the next revision... Meanwhile we will wait or just switch to Windows. Sadly.

None of those mobile devices can provide a decent presentation environment anyway. Even the best have VGA 640x480 output resolution. You'd be better off with carrying an EeePC for your presentation, still small but at least it can do decent resolutions over its video output.

If you really needed it, you could attach a video transmitting dongle to the video out of the iPhone anyway in much the same way as the device above. It just needs someone to develop it. Or Apple to productise their solution which they use for iPhone display showing for presentations in their keynotes.

 

[Rhalliwell1]

As the app store is meant to be non profit making and these figures are certainly suggesting otherwise i really hope apple re-invest the profits into the iPhone, iPod Touch and App store.

Clearly, the iPhone represents a new REVOLUTION. The shame is that it does NOT allow to do what many other Windows-based smart phones have been doing for YEARS now:

http://www.impatica.com/showmate

Hopefully, in the next revision... Meanwhile we will wait or just switch to Windows. Sadly.

It is possible, Apple have used it on many occasions. There is just no publicly available solution as of yet...

 

[entropys]

My guess is sales flatten out. I bought 2 apps for $20 and couldn;t see myself buying more of that crap on impulse again. One of those was netshare just because it was put back on the store and I had to have it. Now I have it but never in fact used it but at least I have it right? Yay for me!

You forget that not many people have an iphone - yet. On August 22 there will be a whole stack of new countries where people will have the privilege of lining up and waiting for an iphone. And then there are still a heap of people waiting for the iphone they ordered in July. And others waiting for the queues to die down before they go in to buy. And the second thing all these people will do (after activation) is go to the app store.....

 

[iOrlando]

i have only gotten free apps so far. the only cost being getting 2.0 for the touch. Thus far, i am pretty pleased with them.

 

[.:R2theT]

Looking at the numbers, the apps are overpriced!!

That's retarded. Look at it correctly. For an app. like SMB or Crash or some other $9.99 app. the developer gets $7 for every download. Not much really. And how much do Nintendo DS games run...$20, $30, $50? Prices actually seem quite reasonable to me.

On another front. I believe Apple can continue to have great sales with the App. store. My main concern is how to keep the good apps. from getting lost in a sea of crap apps.(cr-apps?)? When ever I search the store based on arrival I see a ton of apps. that I have already been seeing for what ever reason(updates?). I think that will be a developers biggest problem. No different than the WWW. You can put your website out there, but who will see it and how do they get there in the first place?

 

[iOrlando]

You forget that not many people have an iphone - yet. On August 22 there will be a whole stack of new countries where people will have the privilege of lining up and waiting for an iphone. And then there are still a heap of people waiting for the iphone they ordered in July. And others waiting for the queues to die down before they go in to buy. And the second thing all these people will do (after activation) is go to the app store.....

will the apps still be priced in equivalent "dollars" because of these countries where the iphone is being released wont qualify for high living wages. A monkey ball app priced at 9.99 would be equal to about a week of work for some of these countries..

Free is the way to go with apps. Cant see myself payign 9.99 for something. They have to get alot more advanced.

 

[sjo]

will the apps still be priced in equivalent "dollars" because of these countries where the iphone is being released wont qualify for high living wages. A monkey ball app priced at 9.99 would be equal to about a week of work for some of these countries..

the people who earn $9.99/week probably won't buy a phone for $200 and pay $70 monthly to use it to begin with...

 

[.:R2theT]

Free is the way to go with apps. Cant see myself payign 9.99 for something. They have to get alot more advanced.

More advanced than what? Super Monkey Ball is terrific and hard as hell. There are some great apps. available, I can't wait and see what the first 6 months are going to produce. I just can't understand people complaining about the price of these applications. I have actually found the apps. that I have picked up for free are worth nothing compared to the ones I have purchased. There are some exceptions for sure. But really, some of you people are being a bit cheap!

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

Another tidbit from the article:

Mr. Jobs said developers' share of iPhone application sales in the first month was about $21 million, of which the top 10 developers earned roughly $9 million.

arn

I'd certainly like to be on the receiving end of one of those $9 million checks.

These are great results.

 

[Fabio_gsilva]

will the apps still be priced in equivalent "dollars" because of these countries where the iphone is being released wont qualify for high living wages. A monkey ball app priced at 9.99 would be equal to about a week of work for some of these countries..

Free is the way to go with apps. Cant see myself payign 9.99 for something. They have to get alot more advanced.

Well, while your first sentence carry some truth in it, the iPhone is decidedly not aimed at people who earns 9.99 a week. Not even at people who earns 99.90 either.

iPhone primary focus is on people that earn a lot more than that, and despite the overall poor condition of life of some of the population, there is indeed a lot of people willing to spend some money on cool cell phones, specially the coolest of them all, iPhone.

And, I truly don't mind paying 9.99 to a cool app that I want or need. If they keep this equivalence that you mentioned with US dollars, 9.99 will not be expensive by any means.

To have free apps to download is cool. To have amazing apps to download by a small fee is way cooler.

 

[DipDog3]

I can't wait till I get that check for my share of that $21 million!

 

[Harley05]

will the apps still be priced in equivalent "dollars" because of these countries where the iphone is being released wont qualify for high living wages. A monkey ball app priced at 9.99 would be equal to about a week of work for some of these countries..

Free is the way to go with apps. Cant see myself payign 9.99 for something. They have to get alot more advanced.

So.. some how these poor souls can afford a Iphone at $200 or $300 US? Which by your example would be about half a years pay but not a $9.99 app? Might wanna rethink buying that iphone if they are that poor.

Free is great for the consumer, bad for the developers. Why would they work to give you quality apps if they make zero dollars? I don't work for free, I don't expect the developers to work for free either.

Bottom line, just like the people that complain about what the iphone "can't do", the people complaining about the app pricing are a very small percentage (obviuosly with $30m in sales).

The people complaining about the pricing are like a buddy of mine that purchased a BMW motorcycle for $24k then bitched everyday because it was nearly $900 for an oil change/maintenance. I just laughed at him for being stupid enough to not research what he was buying ahead of time. If you can't afford the damn thing, don't buy it.

The majority of the iphone owners WANT quality apps and WILL PAY for them. Keep it up Devs!

 

[tgildred]

That's appears to be pretty impressive. I hope to migrate to an iPod Touch soon, so I'm sure I'll be contributing to those numbers sometime soon.

Oh man. I was going to point out the misspelling of judgment, but it Dictionary says it is acceptable. When did this happen? I know a journalism professor who's rolling in her grave right now. Or, you know, would be if she weren't still alive.

 

[BenRoethig]

That's retarded. Look at it correctly. For an app. like SMB or Crash or some other $9.99 app. the developer gets $7 for every download. Not much really. And how much do Nintendo DS games run...$20, $30, $50? Prices actually seem quite reasonable to me.

Between production, shipping, and retail there are a lot middlemen and a lot of cost. These are also ports which cost less than designing a new game. Still, at $10-$20 bucks, Sega is probably making more money per copy than they would on the DS.

 

[Stella]

Looking at the numbers, the apps are overpriced!!

Compare prices to other smartphone platforms, and you'll find iPhone apps on average, slightly cheaper.

 

[JML42691]

The number of Super Monkey Ball downloads amazes me, especially for an application that is not that great in my eyes. The developers for it have made over $2,000,000 for themselves. That is amazing, no wonder we haven't seen any updates to the app that would make it easy to use, they've already got all the money they want or need.

And on the I am Rich announcement, I (personally) have to agree with Apple on their judgement call, and app like that would only be mocking the app store of it's true purpose, and I am sure that if they had left it on the store, then we soon would be seeing other pointless apps like it that would be flooding all areas of the app store.

 

[danielchow]

Pull the lever, Kronk.

Finally, Jobs confirms the ability to remotely disable an application:

"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull"

Article Link

I couldn't help but recall my favorite scene from Disney's The Emperor's New Groove where Yzma and Kronk were about to enter the secret lab which became a running gag:

Yzma: Pull the lever, Kronk. (Kronk does so and sends her falling through the wrong hole)
Yzma: (while falling) Wrong lever!
Yzma: (walks back, soaking wet) Why do we even have that lever?​