I must say that this article kind of turns me off to iPhone development. They made a huge marketing push for that app. Somehow they got press coverage all over the web. They ran a laptop giveaway for people who retweeted the launch. Their website and blog had great marketing materials. It seemed like everyone clued into the web heard about Convert the day it came out. This all resulted in a big spike that quickly died off after earning them about $100k. Now that the app is about to drop off the Top 100 list and they're going to raise the price, I imagine that sales will plummet even further.
People in the comments mostly say things like "to be honest I don’t use it that much" and "I originally purchased convert to support great app design".
It really paints a picture of the App Store being about gimmicks or quick hits that grab a bunch of attention long enough to rake in some cash before they fade into the past and out of our collective memory.
I'd like to build something more lasting. I'd like my sales curve to look just like theirs, except flipped around the Y axis.
I get the feeling that we don't have the right vocabulary for thinking about iphone apps. They're a little more like albums or films then like software.
I have the hardest time convincing my software developer friends that just because I sell people software for $30 doesn't mean my customers expect me to be Best Friends Forever with them for life.
"But you don't have an explicit license term!"
My customers don't even know what that means. They'll use it until they don't feel like using it. Then, they'll stop. Its a fairly cheap consumer good for them, akin to a new toy for the kids, which might have a shelf life in weeks (or days) for the same price point.
This isn't totally a horse of a different color from iPhone apps, except the typical iPhone app is expected to last about as long as a frothy coffee creation from Starbucks.
The app is still selling at a reasonable clip. Presumably at the rate that people are actually interested in a conversion app. They managed to have a successful marketing blitz initially and earn some extra money, but that didn't actually create more demand for converting. My GPS app has been steadily increasing in sales since we launched. It's not a gimmick. And it's continuously getting more and more word of mouth advertising, on blogs and mailing lists as people find it and like it.
I don't think the parent is arguing this is impossible. I think he/she just thinks the environment is not very conducive to a gradually increasing user base. I'm sure that isn't a rule, web services tend to be gradual growers with spikes being mostly noise and there are plenty of exceptions (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/elfyourself.com/).
It's just that if you have no preconceived idea of whether you want to enter this market or another one, and you want the kind of business mrshoe does, maybe the iphone market is not the best choice.
I think there's a lot of variance in type of app, and how conducive they are to the app store. I also think that a conversion app would have made 0 dollars on any other platform.
Games aside, as that's a whole market of its own. I haven't heard of any complex, high quality apps being developed and completely ignored. Though some have done well for awhile, and then been rendered obsolete by features in newer iphones. A lot of people seem to write weekend, single feature apps that sell for a day or two and then get ignored, and they blame the app store for the fact that they wrote a program no one really wants to use.
That is true. The app store does have the distinction of being a market where users, even "consumers" exchange money for software. That is certainly a great feature.
That doesn't mean that the market isn't characterised by many projectiles.
In two months, they may have already earned back most of the cost of developing the app. It's an evergreen utility -- you buy it when you need it, then find it handy for occasional use. If it maintains a reputation as "the" conversion app, it will keep selling well for years, with only light maintenance costs. (New units of measure are introduced infrequently!)
As the iPhone platform grows -- eventually including free-with-contract units that can run the full app back catalog -- the 1,000th top-selling app may have higher absolute monthly volume than today's #1 app.
People in the comments mostly say things like "to be honest I don’t use it that much" and "I originally purchased convert to support great app design".
It really paints a picture of the App Store being about gimmicks or quick hits that grab a bunch of attention long enough to rake in some cash before they fade into the past and out of our collective memory.
I'd like to build something more lasting. I'd like my sales curve to look just like theirs, except flipped around the Y axis.