Hackulous Shuts Down, Taking Down Popular Pirated App Source Installous

[Cod3rror]

I'll have a crack at justifying it.

There's the hours taken to plan the app. What features do you want? Which features are the most important and how will the app streamline routing the user through these features as easily as possible? Design of all the graphics, colours, fonts, following your company's house style so it's easily recognised as a Tapbots app. Programming the app. Testing. Bug fixing. Tweaks based on the usability testing. Technical support.

Producing an app isn't a small endeavour. If people are prepared to pay £10 for their app why shouldn't they charge that for it? I would.

People complaining about 69p app is what keeps me well away from bothering to develop any iPhone apps. I've got a couple of ideas but no way am I slogging my guts out for 69p a pop with the implication that it comes with technical support from now until the sun goes nova.

Good on them for charging a realistic price I say.

Sorry but what you just wrote is a bunch baloney.

It is exactly what 'The Verge' called the guy out for, the Mac app is a direct copy-paste of the iOS app, including the graphics and everything.

As for supporting the app, not all of them do. Take the Instacast developer, overprices the app, adds a bunch of in-app purchase nickel and dimming nonsense to it... then dumps it and releases Instacast 3, which you have to re-purchase again, at an, again, overpriced price... which he'll probably dump again when he releases Instacast 4.

Or why do iPad apps have to cost twice or three times more than the iPhone apps? Because the iPad is larger...

Sorry, but it's true. Some developers have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes, screw em! I'm not going to buy their garbage, I'm not going to pirate either.

I'm also really glad Google, Apple and others are releasing free GPS solution. GPS vendors have been ripping people off for a long time, now they're screwed, good. $200 for an iPhone, $100 for TomTom... GTFO!

But hey, you guys seem to be really happy and enjoy being bent over and ripped one. So I guess the increasing prices will continue to please you.

 

[lordofthereef]

For me, pirated apps filled a void missing on the AppStore; I was able to try the full version of an app before paying for it. Far too few devs do trial versions, and of those that do, far too many remove certain features from the trial. I can honestly say that I always replace the app with the paid version OR delete it completely within 24 hours. Often times we see people complaining that an app is crashing on their device. As difficult as it is to get a refund in the AppStore, I feel downloading and trying before you buy is also a legitimate want. If Apple wants to curb piracy, I feel it would be wise to allow for returns within a reasonable time frame; something that they have never done. This would give users no legitimate reason to pirate apps at all.

 

[TheKnowledgeGuy]

Slightly missed. Just got a device which can run iOS 6 so not much of a problem. No need to jailbreak anymore either.

Helped with school though, I got WolframAlpha from it. I can probably afford it now, though. Or use Siri's WolframAlpha.

 

[softypolimer]

lol I just restore my jail-broken iPhone and updated to iOS6 a few days ago (after Google Map came up).

I used to be a fan of Installous mainly for "try before buying each apps" but that was years ago I don't event have them in my repo for a year.

RIP hackulous

 

[pacov2]

I use crack apps as a preview before I buy...

I use crack apps to preview them before I buy... I belive its Korea who gave Apple a hard time in allowing the iphone to enter the market under the basis that a consumer should have the right to trial an app before purchase. Apple actullay gave in and allowed such practice. I use Insatllous for the same reason, down load it, preview it and if it suits my needs then i buy it. If not, than i do not become a disgruntled app buyer. I have tried to soley in downloading crack apps but its a pain in the ass to update them all, especillay if there isn't an update available. Seeing the number badge on the apps icon irritates the hell out of me.

 

[sikkinixx]

I was talking about the iOS app.

How about Clear though? Can you justify his price? Even 'The Verge' criticized it.

The iOS app is what... $3? Oh goodness me, however can they sleep at night for charging a whole $2 more than the LOWEST price they can charge? It's kind of pathetic you think that way.

And with the Clear thing, which I have no idea what it is, EVEN IF the app is a crap cut-paste job, thinking that gives someone the right to pirate it is backwards.

 

[newagemac]

Actually, this isn't true. Those who are engaging in piracy on iOS devices are violating a contract they voluntarily entered. This is a violation of the Apple iOS ToS and the iTunes ToS, both of which are contracts they agreed to in the process of acquiring and setting up their iOS device, and both of which they are violating by jailbreaking and installing pirated apps.

One can argue about the morality of jailbreaking, but not piracy, and you can't claim that either aren't a violation of a contract that the pirates voluntarily entered into.

I agree fully with what you're saying. You just completely misread my post.

 

[SenorVvangIstMoi]

The End of jailbreak = The End of Apple .. seriously, 60% of the iDevice purchase is because of jailbreaking. Now, the rise of Google; Android.
P.S. my next phone is Samsung.

 

[H2SO4]

The End of jailbreak = The End of Apple .. seriously, 60% of the iDevice purchase is because of jailbreaking. Now, the rise of Google; Android.
P.S. my next phone is Samsung.

Rubbish. All of it.

 

[thewitt]

The End of jailbreak = The End of Apple .. seriously, 60% of the iDevice purchase is because of jailbreaking. Now, the rise of Google; Android.
P.S. my next phone is Samsung.

Less than one half of one percent of all iOS devices have been jail broken. Enjoy your Samsung phone.

 

[Cod3rror]

The iOS app is what... €2.21 ($3)? Oh goodness me, however can they sleep at night for charging a whole €1.47 ($2) more than the LOWEST price they can charge? It's kind of pathetic you think that way.

And with the Clear thing, which I have no idea what it is, EVEN IF the app is a crap cut-paste job, thinking that gives someone the right to pirate it is backwards.

It's all about the perspective. In terms of App Store prices, it is expensive.

And like I said, they are slowly sneaking up the prices, so don't be surprised if you're paying 19.99 for apps in couple of years.

 

[sitsonthefence]

The End of jailbreak = The End of Apple .. seriously, 60% of the iDevice purchase is because of jailbreaking. Now, the rise of Google; Android.
P.S. my next phone is Samsung.

Really? 60% of purchases are because of jail breaking? I bow to your superior knowledge(?)

I like the new samsungs btw, but won't move until they / google can create as tight an ecosystem as apples. For all its faults, apples ecosystem works mostly out of the box, is easy to use and probably the best thing about apple at the moment...

 

[Chazz08]

I just want to jailbreak my phone so I can transfer files over bluetooth. I moved to a different country and they all have Samsung phones that can do this. They are always sharing videos, pictures, etc. I've never stolen an app because I believe in supporting the developers, but jailbreaking can be good for some things.

 

[m00min]

Sorry but what you just wrote is a bunch baloney.

It is exactly what 'The Verge' called the guy out for, the Mac app is a direct copy-paste of the iOS app, including the graphics and everything.

Or why do iPad apps have to cost twice or three times more than the iPhone apps? Because the iPad is larger...

You obviously understand nothing about running a business or building anything code based. After everything I listed there is still the marketing angle: you charge what the market will bare. Tapbots have sold a lot of copies of Tweetbot, therefore the price is set correctly.

Simply put, if a company sells an app for $10 and sells 10 copies that's often better than setting the price at $1 and selling 100 copies. Market share isn't the be all and end all.

Sorry, but it's true. Some developers have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes, screw em! I'm not going to buy their garbage, I'm not going to pirate either.

Just LOL.

I'm also really glad Google, Apple and others are releasing free GPS solution. GPS vendors have been ripping people off for a long time, now they're screwed, good. $200 for an iPhone, $100 for TomTom... GTFO!

But hey, you guys seem to be really happy and enjoy being bent over and ripped one. So I guess the increasing prices will continue to please you.

Enjoy your "free" app hope you don't mind paying for it with your data, or that you don't expect any kind of consistent, long term service. If either company decides they no longer wish to supply their service they are perfectly entitled to just kill it. Look at Google's latest culls of some of its services for an example.

Not that your random GPS rant has anything to do with the thread but frequently the GPS unit in a standalone product is better than the small thing squashed into an iPhone. Also, there's no reliance on a data connection for maps.

 

[Peterkro]

I create it. I own all rights to it. I determine the price and I sell it.

You have it on your device, and you did not purchase it.

You stole it - call it anything you want, it's just semantics.

You "created" this work out of nothing yes ? no help from the millions of people who went before.As Picasso said "good artists copy,great artists steal" this applies to software as much as any other human endeavour.

 

[Cloudane]

I'm surprised in the cases where developers are claiming 90% loss of income to piracy. If they're just going by seeing it being launched once, it may be a bit misleading - pirates tend to download masses of apps and games (because they can), won't use most of them beyond a quick peek, and wouldn't have bought most of them in the first place. If anything it's more a sign of "no one wanted to buy your game, but a few downloaded it for kicks because it was free"

In reality I'd be surprised if all but a hardcore few bother to pirate iOS apps, and the fact that Hackulous has closed down due to being a "ghost town" seems to back that up. Legit apps and games are cheap (with the exception of things like Tomtom), up to date and from a trusted source. Jailbreaking iOS devices is a massive, massive pain with the constant cat-and-mouse game with updates (not to mention having to wait ~4 months for one in the first place, and Apple's ever increasing security demonstrated by things like the Apple TV 3 being impossible to jailbreak), it's basically about 100x more convenient to just pay up.

 

[Bawstun]

It was always an expensive app. Twitter tokens is just an excuse.

And it's greedy since everyone else had apps for 0.99c and this guy thought "hmm, I'll price mine higher."

Speaking solely for myself here as a legitimate user of Tweetbot - I bought the app because it is about 15x better than any other Twitter app, free or paid, in the App Store.

If he worked hardest, developed the best app with features people want...who says he has to charge $1? Which btw Apple takes what, 30% of? Or is it more now? Either way - he's charging pennies for something that is a great convenience over time.

 

[spcurtis81]

Couldn't agree more with many of the comments here. I am not an app developer but something I can recognise is that app development is not just the arena of the massive software developer. Many developers work in small teams and put a large amount of effort and personal time into producing a product they wish to be rewarded for. Installous effectively robbed from these people and as far as I am concerned will not be missed. 69p (99 cents) is not a big ask in the grand scheme of things so why feel the need to steal. I doubt it will change apple's stance on jail breaking which is a real shame as I love the work of the talented modders out there who are creating ios features apple have yet to build. Here's to a change in that attitude though.

 

[macingman]

Screw developers, is what the pirateers say.

"Charge a fair price and I'll buy it. My max is $1 for iPhone/iPad games/apps - if higher, I'll pirate it. Blu-ray/DVD max ill pay is 14.99 - if higher I'll pirate it. Once an app I pirate goes on sale for a dollar I buy it. I have purchased more apps than most of you and my DVD/bluray collection is second to none. I'm not paying for any companies mismanagement or poor planning or forecasting. Give me a fair price and I'll buy it."

Says the pirates.

*I in no way condone pirating apps or movies

Quite funny, because using that logic if you couldn't afford an item in a shop you would just take it and if the price drops to an acceptable level you would go and pay the shopkeeper months later. But no, it was the shopkeepers fault.

But the closing down certainly is very interesting showing the changing of iOS users behaviour over the years. I remember my first iPhone didn't even have an app store or official third party apps and to be able to use it in my country it HAD to be jailbroken and unlocked. Crazy when you think about it, just 6 years and such a big change.

 

[CodeJingle]

I like to F U to certain callers. iPhone still does not support blocking numbers for call & txt. There is always a demographic for jailbreaking until Apple adds this support. When someone tries to call me that I don't want, they won't be able to get ahold of me (busy signal), they can't leave a voicemail, and their txt messages are instantly deleted. And there is no history on my phone that they ever attempted to contact me. Sweet ignorant bliss.

 

[Detrias]

If too many people adopt the same attitude, you don't think the economy would suffer? There would be no incentive for anybody to produce any goods and services. So, why would they?

Problem is thats a big "If". So far piracy (which been around since the beginning) have become more popular as you have mentioned, yet software companies make more money year by year.

If all my customers have the same attitude as you, that less compensation becomes no compensation.

A bigger "If" than the previous one. Society shuns on things like piracy for example, this alone makes sure that a huge percentage of the population, no matter how easily available the content is, they will opt for the legitimate way mostly because of "what will others think of me if..."

Pricing things cheaper does not guarantee that enough people will buy it to ensure a profit. Basic economics.

Well of course nothing can ever be guaranteed, however as basic economics dictate there will be a higher demand at a lower price point. Seeing how the marginal cost of software is extremely low, I would say is a good bet to give this sales model a try.

 

[Detrias]

You really have no clue how much developer time is worth do you? How much do you think our time is worth per hour? Give you a hint developers time is not very cheap. We cost a lot of money and our time is not cheap.

I also work on a product on mobile device that charges a pretty hefty monthly fee per user. Our time is not cheap.

Well first of all I don't get how from my previous comment you come to the conclusion that I undervalue a developer's time but i'l bite. First of all why do you think a developers shouldn't be average? You don't even need a formal education to be able to be a developer, and pretty much anyone who is smart enough to be able to self learn things can become one...so why the entitlement to a high salary?

Either way, if developers and studios weren't so shortsighted they would have realized that a lower price = more people willing to buy it, more word of mouth (increasing both brand value and awareness) and less piracy, which if the product is worthy would translate to a higher revenue in most scenarios.

 

[Gizmotoy]

As an iPhone developer myself, I generally disliked Installous. When my first game launched back in late 2009/early 2010, I had 50,000 users my first weekend... but just 45 sales. Unfortunately, I'm not joking. I got disillusioned with the process and never made another app. I finally let my dev profile expire last month. By the end of its run, my game's user base was about 5% paid, 95% pirated. Perhaps most painful were the stats I was getting back: The average time the pirated versions were played was well over 2 hours (nearly as high as the paid average of 2.5 hours), and my game was priced at $.99. When someone gets a couple hours of enjoyment out of a game you spent months developing and won't give you a measly dollar, it hurts.

On the other hand, I've benefited from Installous at least once. I was hesitant to pay $20 for a niche app that appeared to do what I needed, but it wasn't obvious. The developer was very slow to respond, and it had no trial version. With Installous I found that app did what I needed, so I purchased it in the store. Everyone was happy.

So if anything, I have mixed feelings. I suspect the loss of this will reduce the demand for jailbreaking, which I enjoy for other reasons (BiteSMS is perhaps the single greatest app available for the iPhone, IMO). That's a bad thing.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Well first of all I don't get how from my previous comment you come to the conclusion that I undervalue a developer's time but i'l bite. First of all why do you think a developers shouldn't be average? You don't even need a formal education to be able to be a developer, and pretty much anyone who is smart enough to be able to self learn things can become one...so why the entitlement to a high salary?

Either way, if developers and studios weren't so shortsighted they would have realized that a lower price = more people willing to buy it, more word of mouth (increasing both brand value and awareness) and less piracy, which if the product is worthy would translate to a higher revenue in most scenarios.

Did I say anything about schooling? You are right you do not need a formal education to be a developer but at the same token I can generally spot the ones who lack the formal education and having to deal with maintaining their code is a best in and of it self. It generally does not do things correctly or in best practices. Poorly name things, they have things in code were they do not belong and so on but that is besides the point.
Relatively few people have even the raw skills (self taught or other wise).

I am pointing out what the going rate is in industry. Devs are not cheap.

Also cheap prices does not mean more money in the long run. Yeah you might get more sells but if the market is not big enough more sells does not mean more profit. Plus you have other increased cost dealing with it (support cost go up. Time lost dealing with emails from extra install plus if you have server load that increase as well)

If it is a smaller market for example I sell the app for $10. If dropping it to 1 dollar I might get 5 sells for ever 1 I was getting at $10. So I get less revenue and my other cost go up. It really depends on the market. Nicht markets are just that. They are smaller so you need to have your cost higher.

 

[charlieegan3]

Good. The rest need to go with them and hopefully in iOS7 there will be some improvements to help stop pirated apps.

Any attempts to block piracy seem to fail - look at pirate bay. Patching Piracy will never stop it - you can't. There are other ways to fix it, these tend to result in less profit though.