In Support of Tweetie: The Case for Upgrade Charges

As some of you know, there was quite a bit of discussion over at the Just Another blogs (Just Another Mobile Monday and Just Another iPhone Blog) over Tweetie’s decision to charge for their latest iPhone application upgrade. They did this by creating a new application and charging for it, rather than upgrading the existing one.

Despite the fact that Tweetie had to do something kind of hacky due to the limits of the App Store, the reality is that they did what they had to. Upgrades cost money - sometimes a LOT of money - and that money has to come from somewhere.

To that end, I wrote an article dealing with this issue and talking about the situation from a developer POV. If you’d like to get the full story, check out my post over here at JAMM. It’s also my first contribution as the “Developer Perspective” author for JAMM which is kind of exciting. Also, let me know how you’d like me to handle these posts in the future - do you mind visiting JAMM to read them? Or would you rather I dual post them here and over there as well? Let me know!

An Honest App Store Article

If you’ve been reading our blog, nothing that you find in this Newsweek article will surprise you. What is refreshing is to see some honest-to-god journalism going on, and from a major news outlet no less. The article highlights just what a great thing the Apple App Store can be. At the same time, they take a very realistic approach to this, talking about what the reality of the App Store is for the majority of developers and highlighting what it is becoming.

The most interesting point in this area is the admission that the big boys have finally decided that mobile devices are worth their time and that they are forcing out a lot of those indie developers that dominated the top 10 lists early on.

You can read the full article here.

So this password manager walks into a bar...

Okay - I don’t typically post jokes but I actually heard a joke about passwords today. Considering that there are like four jokes about passwords in the entire world, I thought I’d send this one along. :)

During a recent password audit, it was found that a was using the following password for her computer:

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofy

When the auditor asked why she had such a big password, she said, “Hellllooooooooo! The tech support guy said that it had to be at least eight characters long.”

During a recent password audit, it was found that one of the denser employees was using the following password for his computer:

VaderLukeLeiaHanYodaBobaWinduJabba

When the auditor asked why he had such a big password, the employee answered, “Dude! The IT guy said that it had to be at least eight characters long.”

Ba-da-dump! :)

Windows Mobile Marketplace: Coming Soon

Ellen wrote last week about how Apple changed the mobile world with the iTunes App Store. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of the Microsoft mobile software store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which is scheduled for release on October 6.

First of all, I’m very hopeful that it will be a big success. Microsoft will be including it on all the new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, as well as making it available for download on WM 6.0 and 6.1 units. I believe that’s the single most important factor in an app store’s success.

I’m very pleased to see that Microsoft is allowing developers to submit trial versions of their software to Marketplace. Letting users run demo versions of applications before they buy is not only important to them, but can also make a big difference in the quality of the apps available, and the price they sell for. I know that people don’t object to paying reasonable prices for software - we wouldn’t be here if they did. But I also know that it’s much harder for someone to pay for an application if they haven’t had the chance to try it first. Allowing trials in the Marketplace will undoubtedly help prevent the “race to the bottom” that plagues iTunes.

I know the Windows Mobile Marketplace won’t initially have the number of apps that iTunes does, but I don’t think that’s a problem, either as a developer or an end-user. As a developer, I’m frustrated by how hard it is for our apps to be seen among 75,000 apps; as a user, I’m frustrated by how hard it is to find what I’m looking for. Of course Microsoft needs enough apps to appeal to the wide variety of their users, and I hope the developer community will provide them. The ideal scenario would be that the Windows Mobile Marketplace gets the magic number that makes the store compelling without being overwhelming. I think there’s a good chance of that happening.

Like Apple, Microsoft is reviewing all apps submitted to the Windows Mobile Marketplace, and apps have to be approved before they’ll appear. And like with Apple, there have been problems in the review and approval process. The good news is that Microsoft is improving their process, and implementing changes suggested by developers. Once again, I’m optimistic. This doesn’t seem like the old Microsoft.

As Ellen wrote in her earlier post, mobile developers no longer have the problem of users not knowing they can buy software for their smartphones. Everyone knows “there’s an app for that”, and we’ve seen proof that users of every smartphone want apps for their phones. I think the Windows Mobile Marketplace button on the new Windows Mobile phones has the potential to get a lot of attention. And that will help us all.

The Apple Difference

I recently found some notes and tasks from March 2008 - 18 months ago - and it really brought home to me how Apple has changed the mobile software world.

Our biggest problem at that time was that people didn’t know they could buy programs for their smartphone or PDA. Apple’s fixed that one - even people who don’t own a mobile device know “there’s an app for that”.

Availablility of apps is a huge factor in how new mobile devices or operating systems are judged. When the Pre was released, the sparse app catalog was mentioned in nearly every review. Same for the Zune HD. Imagine - if you can - a review mentioning “not many apps” in a review for a new device two years ago. It just wouldn’t have happened.

New mobile platforms and devices are big news. And any changes to the iPhone, iPod Touch or iTunes are huge news.

Mobile app developers are now a market by themselves. There are literally dozens of sites with iTunes App Store ranking tracking, tools and stats plug-ins. There are several providers of paid, in-app, mobile ads. Mobile developers’ blogs - at least some of them - get attention from major sites. There’s even a book coming out called Starting an iPhone Application Business For Dummies. (Don’t believe me? Here it is).

I used to spend about 20 minutes each morning reading enough mobile sites to keep up with any news and changes. Now it’s more like 90 minutes, and I’m sure I’m not reading half of what I should be.

We’re selling software for prices that we wouldn’t have even considered 18 months ago. While desktop app prices haven’t changed, the “99 Cent” pricing model of the App Store places mobile app prices at about 5% of what they used to be.

I am inundated with calls and emails from people who want us to put our apps in their stores, outsource our development to them, or buy ads on their sites. (Guys, here’s a hint. If you send me an email and I say I don’t want a phone call, I mean it. If you leave me alone, I’ll keep your info on file. If you call anyway, I’ll toss it.)

Mobile developers’ expectations of software distribution have completely changed as well. While we used to accept a distributor taking a commission of 60% of an app’s price (not happily, but we did accept that, having no good alternatives), 30% is now a de facto standard. And audience numbers that would have made us pretty excited in the past now seem pretty minor.

New mobile operating system and hardware releases are coming - and expected - at a much faster pace than ever before. What used to be considered a reasonable amount of time between hardware and OS upgrades is no longer acceptable.

Did all these changes happen because of Apple, and the success of the iTunes App Store? I think so. I can’t prove it, but we’ve been doing mobile software development - successfully - for over 12 years. The changes in the mobile world over last 14 months are nothing like anything that happened in the past.

Am I fan of every change? Of course not. But overall, I know that we as mobile developers have many more options than we ever have before. There’s a lot more potential for success, though I know that means that there’s also a lot more potential for failure.

What Apple’s changes have put in motion isn’t going to go away. I fully expect the next year will bring more and more demands on mobile developers, and more and more changes - big ones - in the mobile market. I expect we’ll see some of the established big companies fail, and some new ones succeed. Being smart and lucky won’t be nearly enough.

I predict interesting times.

eWallet for iPhone with Copy!

eWallet for iPhone now lets you Copy your passwords and other information directly from the card face and FlexView. With this new update, you can tap and hold on any Card Face or FlexView text, and eWallet will pop up a Copy button. Click the button and the information from that field gets copied to the clipboard.

From there you can paste the information into Safari, Contacts, other cards, or any other application on the device that supports copy and paste!

You can get the new version by checking for updates under Applications in iTunes on your desktop or from the App Store on your iPhone and iPod touch!