iPhone developer – "I’m not sure if you still want to be in the App Store."
Dutch developer Vincent Verweij from Makayama, speaking at the iCE Amsterdam conference, has joined others in expressing reservations about the iPhone AppStore.
“I’m not sure if you still want to be in the App Store." he said.
His company develops mobile application, including for the Appstore, and his biggest success has been the Television app, which aggregates 72 international TV broadcast and spent two and half months in the highest position in the App Store.
Vincent complained that of the intense competition in the app store, with applications being widely copied and then sold for cheaper by hobbyists who code in the evening.
“Shortly after the release of the App Store was it possible for a voice control application to sell for 10 euros. A month later there was a competitor with a similar application for 99 cents, the month after there was a free app. You can not compete with free," says Verweij.
Additionally the influx of big brands like EA and others has meant smaller developers are less likely to get the attention they need to sell apps.
The answer, Vincent felt, was to turn to other application stores.
"We try now to (sell) applications in other stores. For example in the Nokia Ovi Store also Windows Marketplace. The sale of applications that he has this app stores are a lot of draws,” says Verweij.
An additional advantage is that there are not many developers focussing on these alternatives to the App Store.
Verweij has great expectations of the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7.
Co-founder of Twitter and iPhone developer Dom Sagolla added "Apple’s market share is so large that they can only lose."
Source: Webwereld.nl via Allaboutphones.nl
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This trend of copy & mark down is very unfortunate. I believe quality also suffers.
This makes me appreciate WM software. Less noise, more quality
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I don't know how this problem can be solved as every app store will have it when it gets big enough. it basically comes down to having a better product and having it at a competitive price. unfortunately the app stores don't do a great job at advertising all options equally and the competitive price is probably going to be too low to cover the cost of keeping the product ahead of the others. this is bad for everyone because it then means companies can't afford to make great products.
I think one solution could be for Microsoft to put the apps in certain categories depending on what they do and set a minimum cost. there would also be an option to give them away for free no matter what they are so companies can use ads or whatever. so things like a fart app would have no limit but a more useful app like weather would be limited to something like £3.
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@furryface Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
No offence but that's just stupid… Have you never heard of impulse buying? It's the primary reason why Apple's AppStore has such low cost apps… I previously bought a number of apps for my Omnia, through a twitter deal with Trinket Software, got all the apps for 99c each. I can honestly say it was a no-brainer purchase, now if they were $10 each… I'd have to think about it long and hard.
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Foamy Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
the developers can't be sustained by impulse buys. the limitations wouldn't be extremely high. for example an app which took a couple of days to make wouldn't be limited by much if at all. however an app which took a team of people a few months would be set at a point where the company can make some profits (assuming there is demand for the product). i can't think of many apps worth more than $10 but i can understand why developers don't want to be selling their complex apps at the same price as some thing which took one guy a few hours.
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RezxerT Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Well, Microsoft are already putting apps in categories depending on what they do, so that is current unnecessary. Regarding a minimum cost, I honestly do not like the sound of that. Of course, as a consumer, it's natural for me to feel that way, but I would imagine developers, especially smaller independent ones, may also have reservations as a minimum cost may prevent them from achieving greater quantity of sales or being more competitively.
To be honest, I agree with your first paragraph: It comes down to a better product at a competitive price. If hobbyists are recreating developers' apps so easily that they can release it for cheaper or for free, perhaps there is something the developers can do to improve their products?
Just to be an example, I myself use Microsoft Office 2003 and Tomtom GPS. As an alternative, I could easily use OpenOffice or Bing/Google Maps, but I don't. Why? Simple. Even those they cost much, much more, I continue using MSOffice and Tomtom because I consider them to be superior products with features that the free alternatives have not gotten yet or have not implemented them nearly as well.
I absolutely think developers should receive compensation for their work, but you also have to understand the consumer side of things. They're not going to get your product if they can get something else they consider 'good enough'.
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So… to summarize… a developer is whining about a competition driven marketplace for an industry-standard device, the iPhone. This rather insignificant event is being editorialized by a Windows Mobile specific site as if it is somehow a demerit against the iPhone. Hmmm… go figure
There will always be enough market share left over for alternate, fringe-OS devices — but, Microsoft long ago lost all chance of becoming any sort of standard in this arena…
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Foamy Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
it is interesting because any successful marketplace is going to have this problem if they operate like the iphone app store. you cannot run a marketplace where no one makes any money. this problem is worrying to everyone with some sense no matter who they support. the reason WM isn't a popular as the iphone is because it has some serious problems.
looking at the iphone to see how to do certain things is good for the OS. This also includes looking at how not to do things. it is obvious to anyone that the iphone app store has some big problems and it would be stupid for Microsoft to make all the same mistakes.
[Reply]
Stanul Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I agree- this looks like The Fox and the Grapes
Fox was hungry.
“I must rush home,” he said. “I must have lunch.”
Then something made him stop. Sniff, sniff, went Fox.
“What is that I smell?” Sniff, sniff. “I smell ripe grapes!”
Fox opened the gate and went in. A bunch of ripe
grapes hung from a thick vine. “I’ll just snatch that
bunch of grapes,” Fox said with a grin. Snap, snap, went
his mouth. Click, click, went his teeth. Fox tried and
tried, but he could not reach the grapes.
Fox had a plan. He said, “I’ll shake the vine. Then I’ll
pick up the grapes that fall!” Shake, shake, went Fox.
Swing, swing, went the grapes. Fox tried and tried, but
not one grape fell.
“I can’t spend any more time here!” said Fox. “Those
grapes aren’t so good anyway. They may smell fine, but
I think they’re bad. I don’t want them at all!”
Moral: It is easy to dislike what you can’t have.
[Reply]
OK, so WM's strength is to have really bad conditions for hobby programmers (expensive development tools with bad and outdated APIs, bad documentation, maketplace conditions, bad user experience, few users).
Now that's clearly a reason to use it…
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Max Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
WM development tools aren't expensive. VS2008 Professional, necessary to develop for WM costs $800. Now, maybe it is unreasonable for a hobbyist, but for a serious professional developer it is a reasonable price, and a natural barrier to entry to block the frivolous apps from reaching the Marketplace.
Outdated API? What are you smoking? WM has compact .NET 3.5, DirectX Mobile, which are powerful platforms, no? Documentation is fine, there are tons of resources, both on MSDN and third-party, hundreds of books, MVPs, and so on.
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@furryface Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
$800 is an acceptable barrier! Are you serious?
Microsoft know they need to lower the barrier (cost of tools), they have shown this with the Express Editions… Why is the Mobile platform different? Only VS2008 Pro can create apps for CF.Net. Where is the Express Edition?
Knowledge is no longer the barrier to entry, it's the tools.
Bottom line, if your worried your going to be shown up by amateurs, design and develop better applications.
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Max Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 2:54 am
You really want 50K fart apps on WinMo? Just get the Studio, don't be a cheapskate, it only costs $800, a reasonable price for an awesome tool of such caliber. If you plan to do mobile development for a LIVING, say making comfortably 100G a year, $800 is nothing.
To develop for the iPhone you need to buy a freaking Mac for $1500-$2000, and here you are complaining.
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Parrotlover77 Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Attend a Visual Studio launch event. Free Visual Studio. Problem solved. –OR– Get one of the many free/reduced MSDN memberships (Visual Studio included) for small/startup/student developers. Getting a single free (or greatly reduced) legal VS copy for hobby development is not hard. This is why XDA is absolutely chock full of hobby developers.
[Reply]
Parrotlover77 Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 6:48 am
P.S. But that said, I should mention that I’m a huge advocate of a “Express” edition for mobile developer. I’m just saying that the cost barrier is not very big if you are the least bit resourceful.
l3v5y Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
There are a lot of free development environments for WM, the documentation is brilliant (MSDN etc, and the massive number of articles that apply to Windows desktop development often apply to WM). WM development has clearly grown even without a marketplace, and the UX really isn't bad. It may not be what you want, but it's very functional and if you've used a windows PC, pretty intuitive. It also sold many times the number of license as the iPhone has. Few users? Think again.
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Dear WMPowerUser, I don’t think we should get too cocky about iPhone’s “race to the bottom” for their marketplace. That’s basically just a symptom of its great success. If a year from now Microsoft’s has any measure of similar success, the same thing could (probably would) happen. I don’t know the solution…
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So basically according to this guy the App Store sucks because hobby programmers are making more money than him, and big companies are making more money than him.
Maybe the problem isn't with the app store…
(welcome to the free market)
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wmpoweruser Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Actually if you read more closely, hobby programmers are ripping of his ideas and giving it away for free.
Sent from my Sony Ericsson XPERIA™ X1.
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I agree- this looks like The Fox and the Grapes
Fox was hungry.
“I must rush home,” he said. “I must have lunch.”
Then something made him stop. Sniff, sniff, went Fox.
“What is that I smell?” Sniff, sniff. “I smell ripe grapes!”
Fox opened the gate and went in. A bunch of ripe
grapes hung from a thick vine. “I’ll just snatch that
bunch of grapes,” Fox said with a grin. Snap, snap, went
his mouth. Click, click, went his teeth. Fox tried and
tried, but he could not reach the grapes.
Fox had a plan. He said, “I’ll shake the vine. Then I’ll
pick up the grapes that fall!” Shake, shake, went Fox.
Swing, swing, went the grapes. Fox tried and tried, but
not one grape fell.
“I can’t spend any more time here!” said Fox. “Those
grapes aren’t so good anyway. They may smell fine, but
I think they’re bad. I don’t want them at all!”
Moral: It is easy to dislike what you can’t have.
[Reply]