An App Store For iPhone Software 531
Steve Jobs demonstrated a new "App Store" that will be pushed out to all iPhones in June. It's available now in beta. This will be the exclusive avenue developers will use to get their iPhone apps, written to the newly released SDK, to customers. Developers will get 70% of the proceeds from sales of their goods on the App store, with no further charges for hosting, credit-card processing, etc. Jobs called this "the best deal going to distribute applications in the mobile space."
Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... now I'm excited
Good deal, how about version control? (Score:2, Insightful)
Testing only through the simulator? (Score:1, Insightful)
Marginally sweet... (Score:5, Insightful)
IT sounds like the limitations on the SDK are not as drastic as I feared, but I strongly suspect that apple will limit ichat type clients though. Those would kill the golden goose that is SMS.
The more limiting the SDK is, the more vibrant the jailbroken app community will be.
I'm waiting for the Apple servers to recover from the melt-down and I'll be downloading the SDK. Looks like a geeky evening for me.
Apps the iPhone needs:
MMS: WTF apple? This was obvious...
A Calculator that doesn't suck: RPN and trig functions etc. No more Dollar store Calc.
Chat client that uses wifi AND wireless data.
Sheldon
Re:except direct sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I didn't read the details so maybe apple will prevent developers from selling their apps direct AND going through the App store
It's kind of like the Record Labels and Recording Artists. The only difference being that recording artists don't get to keep 70% of their sales and they usually take huge cash advances to record their albums that they have to pay back with absolutely no guarantee that they'll sell enough records to pay it back plus they're in a contract that promises the label X number of further records.
No I don't have a problem with Apple's App store as long as they're providing a valuable service for the developers and on the surface it appears that they are. When they take the majority of the sales and lock the developers into contracts promising exclusive deals with the App store for years to come THEN I'll say the developers are better going solo. To me this seems like the high-exposure radio station of indie software marketing.
Re:except direct sales (Score:5, Insightful)
If you sell via the web, you have hosting costs, bandwidth isn't free, web site development costs money and time, managing updates requires atleast half a clue. You also have to do marketing if you expect it to get popular, just putting up a page doesn't mean people will buy your stuff, reguardless of how great it is, they have to find it first. So that means some form of advertising, sometimes all you need is to have Google index your site, if people are looking for something that only you offer. But its unlikely you are the first, and certainly not the most popular with your brand new software, so you aren't going to be near the top of the list without some Google bombing, which isn't free since it requires work at the very least.
In this case, your 30% taken by Apple puts you on the definative list of iPhone software, and it makes you somewhat trusted, since Apple hasn't banned you yet. So if you think web distribution is closer to 100% then I say that you get 100% free marketing with the AppStore.
Pick any other form of distribution and you'll find that its never anywhere close to 100%.
30% is high. The company I work for distributes portable applications for U3 devices, on the U3 website, they charge 25% at the lost volume of sales. Of course, the also aren't Apple so its not suprising.
If you want to bitch that Apple is charging too much, fine that argument I'll listen to. Claiming that direct sales is going to be close to 100%, thats just silly once you consider all the real costs that go into doing it.
Re:Free (Score:2, Insightful)
Wake me up when I can just give users a download, from my website, either directly to their iPhone or through iTunes.
Re:You couldn't be more wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about free apps? (Score:1, Insightful)
For Free Apps: 30% of nothing is still nothing.
I suggest you write a shareware application to subsidize your obsession with free app writing. It will help pay your bills and also show you can work in both market spaces.
Re:Should we submit the source code or the binary? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cost of putting actual eyeballs on code is so high that they would never do it. But some profiling tools would be cheap to use.
Sheldon
Re:Distribution costs $99 (Score:3, Insightful)
The source is always more important than the tools.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Distribution costs $99 (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats a price thats easy to make back up with ads, etc, on the "application" website.
Re:except direct sales (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than that, I can see how some coders with a stick-it-to-the-man mentality might not be hot on the idea, but then again, I can't really see those people as big Apple developers in the first place.
Re:Free (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't write them. I'm not interested in your Quality of Service guarantees when your app breaks or has backdoors that allow nasty viral apps to slip through. Are you going to enjoy being in court?
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, that's right, just like we had to pay an upgrade fee when we got the first version of iTunes with the iTMS, and then a year or so ago had to pay an upgrade fee for a version of iTunes that had a built-in movie store.
I have to admit that I doubt the "obscure accounting rule" explanation has ever been true. It certainly isn't true when Apple is pushing something they're making revenues from like a music, movie, and now software, store. But I don't think it's true for goodwill type freebies either. I think the truth is Apple is cheap. This is the same Apple that was charging $20 for "Quicktime Pro" for all those years. This is about revenue generation, not about accounting.
And exactly how much did you pay for iTunes? $100? $50? $20?
It was, and is, available as a free download from Apple. Since Apple didn't generate any revenue for giving you iTunes they don't have to charge you to give you a new/updated version. It's as simple as that.
Before someone brings this up, the fact that iTunes is used to sync to iPods, iPhone and iPod Touch is completely irrelevant. It's entirely possible to use iTunes without buying anything from Apple. Sure you won't be able to take your music or videos with you, but they work just dandy on your computer.
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sooo - let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess you don't realize this, but most Windows uninstallers do nothing more than reverse the install process; files created by the application after it was installed (preferences, cache, etc.) are not removed by the uninstaller. In other words, the net effect of Windows uninstall is the same as dragging an application to the trash.
Windows could use a tool like App Zapper (and I think there are a few).
Re:Why is that a problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, if I can develop custom apps for my phone or DL GPL source from sf (or equivalent: is iphonesource.com avaliable?) and compile it and load it, what use do I have of going through iTunes?
Re:What about free apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Developer: "Look, I give you this application for free, you just need to use xxxxx hack to install it"
User: "I didn't see your application on iTunes, go away you haxor!"
BTW, is this the same slashdot where trolltech was repeatedly accused for being "evil" trying to sell their SDK to commercial/closed source (some billion dollar) vendors? Are those people writing those comments taking a holiday or not very interested? Or if you are Apple dictating $100 even to freeware/opensource, 30% Soprano commission from a single store, dictating the _CPU_ and the OS to develop apps is OK?
re: chat clients don't kill SMS though (Score:3, Insightful)
With instant messaging, delivery is far less reliable. Typically, I see things like the IM client itself offering an option to "attempt to redeliver when receiver comes back online", but that means if the SENDER'S computer is powered off (or they quit their IM software) before the receiver comes back, then the message STILL doesn't get delivered.
Additionally, cellphones tend to go in and out of areas where they can receive digital data reliably. This can happen very rapidly and often. (At my office, for example, I get a weak signal indoors and it varies from room to room as I walk around the building.) I'm no expert on SMS, but it seems to support some type of acknowledgment protocol. If an SMS is sent to my phone and it only receives part of it before losing signal, it seems to be discarded. Then the carrier retries, not having received confirmation from my phone that it was delivered successfully. IM clients don't seem to have this functionality. (I've often had people tell me they never got the last thing I typed, and I had to copy/paste it to manually re-send it to them.)
Triple dipping into the jar might hurt Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
a) The hardware - some pretty sweet margins b) A nice cut (~15 to 25%) on the montly fees 3) A 30% cut on all software sold (except of course the free apps)
Contrast this to a Windows mobile phone. Microsoft gets paid a fixed license amount on each device sold and makes nothing on the hardware, the monthly fee, and any software sold to run on their OS. This helps companies compete on hardware, apps etc. I think Apple is gonna miss out on small companies(where the most innovation lies) which cannot afford the 30% overhead for their software sales. Also Apple being the gatekeeper of the software will hurt apps(even free ones) that try to fundamentally interact with the hardware in a non-approved Apple way. The iPhone is aimed at the casual consumers, most of whom don't read long forum threads dedicated to jailbreaking it.
As of now, this looks like a rerun of the 80s microcomputer war and we all know how that turned out to be. It's all about 'Developers, Developers and Developers'. Microsoft gets that and ships excellent development tools with no restrictions at all. Right now, Windows Mobile phones may suck, but heavy competition between handset manufacturers is going to make them better and Windows Mobile OS(look at 6.1 and upcoming 7.0) is heading towards being 'good enough'(like DOS and Windows 3.11). Already we see devices like the Sony Xperia (video ad) [youtube.com] coming out which will give Apple a run for their money. Remember what IBM, Dell, Gateway, HP, Compaq did to Apple back in the 80s? Will Sony, Samsung, Nokia be their equivalent in this round?
I think Apple is missing the bandwagon again in their spirit to make money immediately and are killing the gold egg laying goose for their short term benefit.Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:4, Insightful)
On the bright side for developers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Triple dipping into the jar might hurt Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Suspicions are worng (Score:1, Insightful)
It would be extremely annoying for the friends of the mobile customers if it weren't implemented that way since you'd be getting drop-reconnect events almost constantly.
Difference is scale, and platform (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's a per app fee, and no no offense to Verizon but who the hell actually uses the Get It Now store? And then what are you developing an app for, a tiny screen with pitiful graphics capabilities and the most primitive of input options at hand.
With the iPhone you only pay once and can develop a billion applications. Then you are distributing them on a platform that people have actually shown make use of the network and browser (via Google and online banking metrics).
I had looked into doing J2ME development (some free stuff, some commercial), but for the ideas I had the infrastructure and framework was just not advanced enough for what I want to do. Now, we have something that can offer a great UI and realy make it easy for users to find applications they like.
You are going to see a TON of free apps right out of the gate.
Re:Following the leader won't make you a leader (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no idea if Apple's signing program will have any of the problems you lay out. Furthermore, for most applications why on earth would you want or need to run as root?
As a developer myself, I am THRILLED with what was demonstrated is it went far beyond what I thought they would have right out of the gate. Why would you want or need XCode to run ON the iPhone when you can run an app on the iPhone and debug it remotely (along with monitoring performance) from your desktop? That is the perfect development setup for small devices. The emulator is nice as well for quick things, but really running your trial app on the phone is key and Apple allows for that. As for how you could do pinch - I don't know how the emulator works but it should be just as easy as selecting a gesture to apply and clicking the mouse on the simulator screen (though again, you can just test on your real phone).
I too would like to see a bluetooth keyboard driver, but that's a totally separate issue from the dev kit stuff. Unhappy you can't do system work on the phone? You are by far in the minority on this, because most people just want to be able to write applications.
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Your conspiracy theory aside, this behavior is described in Revenue Recognition GAAP. I'm not an accountant, but I can google (look up SEC SAB 104)... It seems likely that Apple recognizes the iPod Touch revenue on a sales basis (alternatives being: percentage of completion, cost recovery (no $ til everything is done & finished), and installment). This isn't a new SarOx thing, but SarOx clarifies auditing standards & makes businesses more (easily?)liable for financial irregularities.
So I'd love to hear if you have any evidence for your theory, other than pure speculation.
-Ted
Re:Why is that a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. If only there were a way to know the answers to these questions. Apple really should have said whether or or not you could debug and test on your iphone in the development kit. Ideally, they would have covered this around 10:30 am and had a 6 foot tall slide to accompany it.
I know that's a little bit unnecessarily sarky, but you're asking questions that were answered at the event and on every website reporting on the event and then drawing a conclusion based on your assumption of what those answers are without even a superficial attempt to find out if they are correct.
If you questions had been "can the sdk be used to compile and install apps for general use on the phone? do apps installed via the sdk work normally when not plugged into a mac for development?" you would have had good questions that aren't definitively answered already (at least, i don't remember there being anything about that).
Would Apple allow a single organization with a single cert to proxy for an unknown set of developers?
You mean like a corporation?
Seems like that woudl kind of defeat the purpose of signing the apps. Presumably it is to provide security and accountability, no?
I would say it provides the same security and accountability. If you publish an app under your cert and it is a problem, they'll probably revoke your cert and all of the applications under your cert will probably be removed from the store. I suspect all of the developers publishing through you will hold you accountable for that.
There's fundamentally no way for the store to know that your publishing organisation isn't publishing applications it created or were created by its employees or contractors if you don't tell them.
I bet we'll continue to see hacks to open up the devices to free software.
I also have no doubt that this will continue.
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free (Score:4, Insightful)
Here, go read. [apple.com] Find me a newer one if you like, but I can pretty much guarantee it's going to have something like Section 6 and Section 7.
The only difference is, with Apple, it's very likely you'll have to pay for it, or have advertising served by it, as I can't even submit an app (which they can still refuse) without paying something.
Re:Why is that a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've not gotten that far yet (still trying to figure out how to submit a cert so that I can get the app deployed to the phone) but what you say here is very unlikely. Think of how much work it would be to build a whole application that would forward every possible input from the iPhone, including all sensor data, back to an application really running on your computer?
Given that GDB has been doing remote debugging for decades now I find it way more likely that it pushes the app to the phone. I would rather they not remove the app after you've deployed, I hope that's not the case if you've compiled a release version and you want a longer field test...
Re:It's an accounting thing (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the cost itself shouldn't be that big of a deal if you're in it for the money.
Re:Triple dipping into the jar might hurt Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of iPhone applications, Apple's handling the advertising, the promotion, the packaging (well, it's not necessary anymore, but you get the idea), the retail markup and credit card fees. It's a solid deal - neither a ripoff for them nor a freebee for developers, but a good honest deal benefitting both sides.
I strongly suspect that if there was TurboTax(tm) for iPhone(tm) that was sold for a similar price to TurboTax for Mac or PC, Intuit would make about the same overall margin for it.
So I have now concluded, reasonably in my view, that Apple's proposed monopoly is fair - they are not abusing their position by charging above market for their services. Now, we address the question of why we couldn't simply have unfettered freedom to develop phone software.
I am one of the few Slashdotters who has witnessed the painful effects of a phone virus. It's no joke since phone software can make calls on your behalf to high-toll numbers or send expensive text messages. The virus I encountered [f-secure.com] sent MMS messages continuously to everyone in the phone owner's address book. My friend, who got it on her phone in the Philippines, was faced with a $300 phone bill when it was all over - and being a middle class person in a very poor country, that would be like a $3,000 phone bill for us -- just impossible to pay.
This situation is not the RIAA. The analogy would be if someone created a song designed to destroy your stereo, so you would have to buy a new one, or that would sneak advertisements in your music stream and cause your stereo to crash. As far as I know, nobody has yet created a song that would do either of those things, and so there is no reason to censor songs in order to protect your stereo equipment. But people have, and will, created software that will do very similar things to this example, and so Apple has to step in to make sure its customers are protected. In practice, it's not unlike including anti-virus software in the OS, except that anti-virus software is horribly ineffective, so the focus is on keeping evil software out of your phone in the first place.
So I can see both sides. As a developer, of course I don't want to pay for the certificate. But from the point of view of a phone maker who needs to protect his brand, It's genuinely necessary for any submitted software to be checked before it goes on a phone. This is a very small price to pay to avoid harmful software, which does exist. Nokia, the maker of my friend's phone, fixed this problem by requiring developer certificates in the same way Apple is, and so you don't hear much about harmful phone software. But without the certificates and other precautions, there's the real possibility of bad problems ahead.
Apple's system protects everyone involved and ensures a dynamic, powerful market for phone software. We have to sacrifice a little freedom because we are being allowed to tamper with people's phones, which are their lives. If you think otherwise, OpenMoko and Android beckon.
D