I swear I wrote about Release Dates here once before, but based on some of the comments and questions, I feel like I need to address the topic again. My personal feeling is that unless a product is completely finished and ready for release, software and release dates just don’t mix.
Read on after the jump to learn more about my philosophy on Release Dates…
Just a quick update on eWallet for Mac. Contrary to what I’ve seen posted in some of the blog comments, we are in fact making eWallet for Mac. As a matter of fact, we’ve ALWAYS planned to make eWallet for Mac at some point. This is something we’ve had in the works for a few years – pre-iPhone even. If you want to know more about eWallet for Mac, check out the rest of the post after the jump!
Good news, everyone! eWallet for iPhone with search is out! You can get the update from the AppStore today! I think you’ll like it a lot. It works like a charm. It also includes a few tweaks and fixes. Here is the full list:
So, there you go! Let us know how you like it!
Which mobile platform is the best? It’s a war that rages on and on. Vocal supporters of every desktop and mobile platform mount vigorous assaults in defense of their favored system. And yet, I think that’s not the right approach.
Read on after the jump for my take on the debate about “Which Device is the Best?”
This is the first of a series of posts designed to answer a long list of questions folks asked in my last blog post. I started to write it as one post but the thing got so dang long it was getting silly. If I don’t answer your question or address your favored topic today, don’t worry…I’ll get to it over the next couple of days!
[Read more…] about Windows vs iPhone vs BlackBerry vs Palm vs …
There is a perception out there that iPhone users are Mac users. Now before I say more, let me make it clear right now that this is NOT a “Which OS is best?” article. From a business perspective, the quality of the OS doesn’t matter to me as much as how many users of a particular OS are out there, and whether they will buy our software. I PREFER a high-quality OS because of the cool stuff we can do with it, but in the end its about which OS will pay the bills.
O.K., Disclaimer complete!
I’m still looking for a solid study on this, but from everything I’ve seen so far (based largely on our own sales information) it just isn’t true that iPhone User = Mac User. I think part of the reason for this is that according to one estimate, the total number of Mac users in the world (adjusting for recent increases in market share) is around 22,750,000. This doesn’t adjust down for the number of these Macs that are sitting on desks in computer labs of schools. So the number is probably lower. We’ll go with it though.
The total number of iPhones expected to be sold by end of this year is at least 14,000,000. This doesn’t account for the fact that a lot of the 3G sales were 1st gen users replacing their old phones. Still, like the 22m number, we’ll go with it.
So, what is a reasonable estimate for the number of Mac users who are buying iPhones? 20%? I’m betting this is high, based on what I know about smartphone ownership in general, but let’s go with this as a conservative number. I say conservative because 20% is 2 to 3 times the marketshare (depending on the estimate you use) of Mac in the computing market. So with 20% adoption rate I’m suggesting that Mac users are 3X more likely to buy an iPhone than a Windows user.
So, even at 20% adoption rate among Mac owners, this means that only 4.5 million of the 14 million iPhone users have Macs. That means that twice as many iPhone users have PCs. Throw in the fact that we also have a VERY big Windows Mobile market, and you can see why Windows has to be our first priority. To put it simply, Windows iPhone users are (at the moment) still where the money is.
At the same time, we absolutely see the value of Mac as a platform for our products. (I just saw a new build of eWallet for Mac the other day and it’s really coming along.) The reality though is that Mac isn’t a “core” platform yet. It falls into the “emerging” category. Of course as you all know, we don’t ignore emerging markets. Where you go, we go. It’s just that most folks aren’t there yet.
I hope that this article will help folks who say “Seriously, dude. Why on Earth do you have an iPhone version but no Mac version?” to better understand the numbers behind our decision making process.
I just wanted to share a great Kings Corners review from Doug over at JAMM. He really captures what is fun about the game and as always, does a very thorough review of the app. I especially like his “just one more try” comment, since I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve said that! I also really like his timer idea. Playing in a speed mode would be very fun. After playing hundreds of games, I put a lot of thought into my moves now and a timer would add a cool element of excitement. (Puttin’ that one on my list. 🙂 )
You can check out the entire review here.
