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iPhone SDK Reactions and Ongoing Questions
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I'm very excited about the native ePocrates. It's the only reason I still tote around my Palm, and the main reason I bought it. I can't wait tiil I can run this natively.
My thoughts exactly! I'm using an old Tungsten T3 and 90% of the use for it is for ePocrates. Per their site you can use the online version of it in the meantime, but I'm biding my time for the G3 iPhone and native application.
I'm 16 and iPhone/iPod Touch will be my first foray into software engineering, and what has seemed a lil unfair is the price of all this.
OK, so it's £50 ish pounds per year to get the dev certificate you need, then they get 30% of your proceeds. So, in a year (with programs priced at £5 and an average of 150 downloads), thats £1825 gross to you every year (£152/month). Then out of that comes the £50 hosting fee (£1,775) and Apple takes 30% of the remaining figure (so that's you £532.50 out of pocket) finally leaving you with £1,242.50 take home in a year (£103.54/month).
That seems to me a little bit greedy on Apple's part - surely the £50/year is enough for Apple considering the amount of people who will develop for the platform?? Or am I just too damn inexperienced and this is fact the norm??
Sorry if the maths is complicated
If you sell 150 apps a month that's 1800 apps a year at £5 each meaning apple takes £9000 off customers for your app. they keep 30% of this (£2700) and give you £6300 out of which you pay £50 leaving you £6250 (£520/month)
that in itself is not bad but to aim for only 150 downloads a month is very low. lets say by the end of 09 there are 25 million iphone/ipod touch users, if your app is decent then maybe 1%, hell let's say 0.5% of them get it that's 125,000 sales lets even call it $5 (£2.50) per app then you're looking at £218,750 NET.
clearly the incentives and potential for developers of all sizes is huge
Edit: ok you said 150 apps a year
so 150x£5=750 750-30%=£525 £525-£50=£475
but surely even a really crap app would get more than 150 downloads a year! 25 Millions users and only 150 people buy it? the hello world app would sell that many!
The problem is that developers on other mobile phone platforms get a larger revenue share. Since the beginning (all the way back in 2001), BREW developers gets a 80% revenue share.
http://wbt.sys-con.com/read/40914.htm
Sure it costs about $1000 for "True BREW Testing" and about $400 for a digital certificate --- but you would be still ahead in the end even with your 150 downloads per month (i.e. recovering your initial higher fixed costs).
If you reach the 125000 units target, that 10% difference amounts to 30,000 pound less money for your pocket.
To be helpful here, what are typical sales for an app or app class on BREW?
What it looks like here is that Apple is trading off a lower entry barrier for a larger slice of the pie if the application is a success (depending on what success is).
(On the other hand, how much is Apple willing to renegotiate fees for very big sellers? That might be interesting for folks to know).
This is a nonsense arguement without figures on BREW traffic.
Bottom line is that Apple is presenting developers with zero hassle exposure, sales, installation, updates and payment, to a market of EVERY SINGLE iPHONE AND TOUCH USER! Not to mention one that will actually allow low-skilled users to actually install the product. I've dealt with app installation on various phones and they're a nightmare. I've actually walked away from paid-for apps, unused, because they were not worth the hassle of installing.
I guarantee that no other distribution mechanism for any other mobile platform offers the potential return of this model for 'blue collar' developers.
I'm mass mailing all my developer friends and telling them to get an idea an code it NOW. This is a gold mine for developers who actually sit down and write something rather than just whine about it on a forum.
is the iPhone dev center still completely hosed?
I'd love to read some of the stuff on the iPhone dev center home page but I go there, it asks me to log in, I log in, it takes me to a page thanking me for registering and telling me there will be a mail with an SDK download link.
Click that link and it takes me back to a page asking me to log in, which takes me to the iPhone dev homepage (with no clickable links) and asks me to log in which takes me to the page thanking me for registering.
Is the iPhone dev center even up?
I'd love to read some of the stuff on the iPhone dev center home page but I go there, it asks me to log in, I log in, it takes me to a page thanking me for registering and telling me there will be a mail with an SDK download link.
Click that link and it takes me back to a page asking me to log in, which takes me to the iPhone dev homepage (with no clickable links) and asks me to log in which takes me to the page thanking me for registering.
Is the iPhone dev center even up?
Exchange ActiveSync / Blackberry Infrastructure ?
Why does RIM's Blackberry Push email require so much additional infrastructure such as the Blackberry enterprise server that connects to your Exchange server, and Blackberry network operations center to do the same thing that the Exchange server can (now) do natively?
Is this a new functionality introduced with the latest version of Exchange server and Blackberry's system was required before this new functionality?
Will new blackberry models have the same direct exchange connection as the iPhone? Does this mean that RIM will not need to run their operations center anymore and that companies won't need Blackberry enterprise servers anymore? What are the implications for RIM?
On a similar note, anyone know if direct exchange access with push email is available on current windows mobile devices? does it require v6.0?
Why does RIM's Blackberry Push email require so much additional infrastructure such as the Blackberry enterprise server that connects to your Exchange server, and Blackberry network operations center to do the same thing that the Exchange server can (now) do natively?
Is this a new functionality introduced with the latest version of Exchange server and Blackberry's system was required before this new functionality?
Will new blackberry models have the same direct exchange connection as the iPhone? Does this mean that RIM will not need to run their operations center anymore and that companies won't need Blackberry enterprise servers anymore? What are the implications for RIM?
On a similar note, anyone know if direct exchange access with push email is available on current windows mobile devices? does it require v6.0?
Gridlock...I had that screen all day, but finally broke through and got my download...and access to a great iTunes library on how to use the tool kit, etc.
I had the same problems as rols just before I finally broke through to the main page and downloaded the SDK.
SDK questions
a few questions regarding the SDK:
1) Obviously Itunes will be the official distribution point for commerical (and free) software. My questions is will you be able to load software that you download (binary or compiled source) from a website onto an iPhone through iTunes?
I assume you can, and if not, you'll be able to use the SDK to do so.
2) If you wish to develop a personal/internal/in-house application for your iPhone, do you need to become a $99 ADC member? And do you have to have received a digital certificate to load even personal apps?
a few questions regarding the SDK:
1) Obviously Itunes will be the official distribution point for commerical (and free) software. My questions is will you be able to load software that you download (binary or compiled source) from a website onto an iPhone through iTunes?
I assume you can, and if not, you'll be able to use the SDK to do so.
2) If you wish to develop a personal/internal/in-house application for your iPhone, do you need to become a $99 ADC member? And do you have to have received a digital certificate to load even personal apps?
Qualcomm has 500 million CDMA users worldwide. Since 2001, it has remitted over a billion dollars back to BREW developers.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Qual...enerates-Income-of-over-1-Billion-48702.shtml
Verizon Wireless gets a lot more people buying apps from Get It Now store than AT&T on a ARPU basis --- for a 60+ million user base. DoCoMo has 48 million imode users in Japan. Nokia has the Nokia Content Discoverer deck on all their S60 phones.
Every single iphone/ipod Touch user in the world is 5 million.
1) not sure
2) if you are a developer you will be able to load and test on your iPhone.
for sale or personal use. (With select developers getting an early beta release of 2.0)
All the details are sketchy. I'm still watching the shxtload of help videos.
Well then, I guess iPhone SDK developers have a lot to look forward to then.
Thanks for the numbers.
From my understanding Active Sync is new as of Exchange 2003. RIM became popular because originally Microsoft Exchange didn't do push email to devices. Current Windows Mobile devices can use Exchange Active Sync.
I don't think a whole lot is going to happen to RIM, I mean they will lose some market share, but for places that don't want their Exchange servers facing the outside world (think DoD/DoJ systems) RIM will always have a place.
I'm 16 and iPhone/iPod Touch will be my first foray into software engineering, and what has seemed a lil unfair is the price of all this.
OK, so it's £50 ish pounds per year to get the dev certificate you need, then they get 30% of your proceeds. So, in a year (with programs priced at £5 and an average of 150 downloads), thats £1825 gross to you every year (£152/month). Then out of that comes the £50 hosting fee (£1,775) and Apple takes 30% of the remaining figure (so that's you £532.50 out of pocket) finally leaving you with £1,242.50 take home in a year (£103.54/month).
That seems to me a little bit greedy on Apple's part - surely the £50/year is enough for Apple considering the amount of people who will develop for the platform?? Or am I just too damn inexperienced and this is fact the norm??
Sorry if the maths is complicated
150 DL is nothing. by the end of 2008 they will have 10,000,000 of these sold.
Just got it and started downloading. Had to login twice but everythings active now.
Got the program installed and am playing with it right now.
One odd thing though. I shut down my computer for awhile today and for some reason when I went to turn it back on my iMac wouldn't even turn on. Not even the screen. This seems to have happened only after I installed the SDK... because it's never done this before. Anyone else having problems like this?
On the plus side the SDK is pretty nice so far.
One odd thing though. I shut down my computer for awhile today and for some reason when I went to turn it back on my iMac wouldn't even turn on. Not even the screen. This seems to have happened only after I installed the SDK... because it's never done this before. Anyone else having problems like this?
On the plus side the SDK is pretty nice so far.
ok... that all makes sense. Another thing I read somewhere mentioned that the use of RIM's enterprise server and operations center gives the Blackberry better battery life than if it used Exchange Active Sync like the iPhone will? Any ideas on why that would be? Assuming it has something to do with the method of notifying the phone a new email has been received, how does this process work on Blackberry and on the iPhone? AFAIK, cell phones data connections aren't constantly connected, they are in like a standby mode until you request a connection/open a browser. So how does push email notification work?
I'm very excited about the native ePocrates. It's the only reason I still tote around my Palm, and the main reason I bought it. I can't wait tiil I can run this natively.
My girlfriend is a med student and has been wanting this since we each got our iPhones. I know several of her fellow students had put off getting the iPhone since ePocrates wasn't available, but are now getting it after the news on Thursday. I think Apple has opened a very large door for itself.
Just shows how much of a Padawan I am doesn't it?
Yeah on thinkin about it 150 is a lil lame.... but then I never said the quality of my app!See, I have no prior experience to base any of this on, I don't know how many downloads I should be getting per month/year. Before today I thought Apple was ripping people off with the 70:30 split and £50/year thing, but now I think it's quite reasonable for what you get (why did BREW develoers get 80% though? I bet they didn't market/promote/process it like Apple so could give more to devs).
I'm doing this really as a nice lil way of getting out of doing a part time job while in Sixth Form next year and hopefully earn enough to pay for my car insurance, and learning programming at the same time.
I'm wondering about this as well. How do you do iterative development without iTunes? Perhaps we'll be forced to release source to testers, who'll then compile/install on their iPhones. Doable, but a major pain, and makes it impossible to test on complete non-devs.
I really hope Apple has a program addressing this, I just can't get my head around how, though.
[Edit] Just thought of something: Maybe Apple hasn't thought about this at all. I mean, look at their own development cycle, hardware and software. They do it all in-house, or in small closed groups they have direct access to.
Finally!! The SDK IS DOWNLOADING!!!
10 hours........ oh. crap. Cursed 512kbps Broadband!!!!! Ah well more time to think of an app.
I am really impressed with the level of support you get on the iPhone Dev page - more vids, books and sample code than you can shake an iPhone at, so even I could make an app!
For me, Apple has set the benchmark in terms of dev support.
10 hours........ oh. crap. Cursed 512kbps Broadband!!!!! Ah well more time to think of an app.
I am really impressed with the level of support you get on the iPhone Dev page - more vids, books and sample code than you can shake an iPhone at, so even I could make an app!
For me, Apple has set the benchmark in terms of dev support.
you do iterative development from your desktop the moment you have a valid certificate. there are no sources sent to testers - they get either the pre-installed product, or install it from a complete distributive if apple will allow certificating multiple workstations, i.e. your testers would be able to install the app from their own desktop.
i'm puzzled what's there to be addressed? - the SDK is there (alas in beta), the device is available, by june only select developers will have ready apps, as only select devs have certificates now. the rest of us will be able to run code on the actual hw the moment apple open the gates to the certification program.
"....if apple will allow certificating multiple workstations...."
With our current level of knowledge that's a pretty big if. It will help, if true, but not help large faceless tests a la Omnifocus and the like.
Don't get me wrong, I'm nit-picking here. I'm generally extremely satisfied with the SDK, and got far, far more than I had hoped for.