idsoftware's John Carmack on iPhone App Distribution

[IlluminatedSage]

for purchasing software and downloading without 3G bandwidth speeds. its better to force purchases onto a pc via itunes.

my bet is later on when infrastructre is there wirelessly, you will get this function

 

[mr_flibble]

Of course, you're right. I'd forgotten this. As has been mentioned, you'll likely be able to download app directly to your iPod Touch directly- so hopefully having an iTunes store won't be necessary.

I hear what people are saying, and it sucks that all Apple products and services aren't available world-wide right now. But I wish people would quit thinking this is Apple's fault. The world is fractured into hundreds of regions that have their own legal and distribution walls that Apple must leap over. I'm sure they wish they could just have iTunes Global, and the Apple store worldwide offering products to everyone everywhere- how could they NOT want to? But it's just not gonna happen.

Living in Canada, I have no iPhone, limited TV shows, no movie rentals or sales-- and we're SO CLOSE! Damn borders!

That is why Apple is not an option for 90% of potential users. If you are not in US, Apple is not interested. I understand why but it is never ending circle: A lot of European countries mean too small market for Apple to care so Apple has no distribution there and prices are too high to be competitive. Also market is too small even to localize and support OS X to the local language! So customers don't see Apple products as an option because they can use M$ products instead w/o waiting and waiting and wondering which service will be for US only and which not, don't have to pay extreme prices for HW & SW and they have all their software provided by M$ localized because M$ can do that but Apple can't. That is why customers go and buy M$ product, market for Apple will stay niche again and Apple won't invest to such a small market and so it will never improve.

 

[gnasher729]

John Carmack of id Software posted some of his thoughts on the new iTunes App Store and Apple's distribution model:
Carmack is a well known programmer who cofounded id Software and was the lead programmer of the popular Doom and Quake software titles.

Article Link

What is important about this: The only person so far who is developing software, making money with it, and posting under his own full name, is absolutely positive about the iPhone app store sales model.

No complaints about having to own an Intel Macintosh, no complaints about having to pay $99, no complaints about Apple taking 30 percent of the revenue, no complaints about iPhone apps not being available everywhere in the world (when they are available everywhere where iPhones are sold).

 

[cnorth3]

Also market is too small even to localize and support OS X to the local language!

Maybe if your market is in an area where ppl don't use any of the *18* languages OS X is localized in ...

 

[Eraserhead]

Maybe if your market is in an area where ppl don't use any of the *18* languages OS X is localized in ...

Come on, there are way more languages than that.

English
French
Dutch
German
Italian
Spanish
Portuguese
Polish
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Finnish
Hungarian
Slovenian
Welsh
Russian
Turkish
Greek
Ukrainian

Which is 19, and that's just in Europe.

You set up a country based system in the top 20-30 countries or so, and then setup a worldwide store you pay in US dollars (or possibly euros) for the rest of the world.

 

[szark]

OK, what the heck does this part of Carmack's statement mean?

"with more than a dozen character deck name"

This is just a guess, but maybe it refers to a limitation on application names for other mobile platforms?

 

[AlphaBob]

Won't they be charging the 99$ listing fee in such cases anyway?

That $99 isn't a "listing fee". It is an annual membership fee the developer pays to get the right to post as many applications as they want on the store. The $99 pays Apple's expenses and associates a secure key with the user.

Pretty darned fair in my opinion.

So for $99 I can post a thousand applications and a hundred of them can be free.

 

[whooleytoo]

OK, what the heck does this part of Carmack's statement mean?

"with more than a dozen character deck name"

My guess, he means that each app is well presented on the store. I.e. it's not just a name on a list, but screenshots, synopsis, user reviews, etc.