Developers, On the App Store
Aug 17, 09:54 PMI’ve been trying to reconcile the App Store with my beliefs on “how things should be” ever since the SDK was announced. After all this time, I still can’t make it all line up. I can’t question that it’s probably the best mobile application distribution method yet created, but every time I use it, a little piece of my soul dies. And we don’t even have anything for sale on there yet.
If all of this wasn’t depressing enough for developers, I’ll leave you with my biggest disappointment: reviews are a one way street. I’m not one to feed the trolls, but many of the reviews I’m seeing would benefit from a “Just try this…” or “We’re working on that…” type of response. There’s not even a link to our support on the reviews page.
Which is why I’m more than a little bit at sea with the iPhone development experience. Getting beta testers is a technical and legal challenge. And I’m used to having hundreds, not just a few. Discussing development and design issues with other developers is usually a valuable thing, but there’s an NDA in the way.
It would have been a great joy to have my applications in the App Store on day one, but looking on the bright side, it will be somewhat easier to finish developing them and to release them in a known context. It’s becoming clearer by the day what people are looking for in the store, and the wealth of applications makes it easier to experience what works and what doesn’t work on this new platform.
Here’s the other crazy part… Apple is doing most of our marketing for us. This has cost us almost nothing from a marketing perspective. … This is really incredible when you think about it and calculate the margins. I don’t know if things will stay at these levels, but at least for now it was great to be one of the first companies out the gate with iPhone apps in the App Store.
And finally, Daniel Jalkut again:
How about we make shitloads of money at 70% and ask questions later.
