After working with several clients to upload and submit their iPhone applications for approval via the iTunes Connect system (the required submission point for all iPhone Apps), I quickly realised after a few painful iterations, that getting all the information organised into one document prior to loading would prove a massive help – speeding the loading process and ensuring clients included all required information (such as SKU Number, Keywords, App Overview, Support URLs, etc) in one place at one time.
To that end, I quickly created this App Loading Worksheet which has proven extremely useful in getting all necessary information organised and ready for submission. It’s definitely not rocket science, but could be helpful to anyone out there confused about what information they will need to submit to Apple when loading their iPhone/iPod Touch Apps. I have also clipped the various pricing tiers into the document to make that handy during the process as well. Enjoy!
While I am guilty of almost immediately filtering any and all Apple Developer announcements directly into my e-mail archive, I must say I was more than a bit surprised by the subtle e-mail that trickled in innocently from Apple this past week. You know, the one about Free iPhone/iPod Touch apps now allowing In-App Purchases?
Sure Apple has been guilty of the odd stringent denial or two during the development of major products (see iPhone, Macbook Air, etc) – but in coining and constantly reiterating a now accepted industry definition of the App Store’s free apps – the notorious ‘free for life’ moniker, it is more than a bit strange to reverse course this quickly. After all, this isn’t about improving product speed (iPhone 2.5G>iPhone 3G), or even processor type (PPC>Intel), this is a shift of business model that forces us to ask the question – why change the basic Apple App Store tenants (which if you speak to some Apple employees can be likened to church dogma) so quickly and with little notice to the thousands of business creating apps with nominal download fees to fit into the previous In-App purchase rulebook?
Suspending for a moment our cherished belief that Apple is making a benevolent move to provide Developers increased methods for monetising their apps (just for a moment, mind), then what is Apple up to? After participating in a number of client sessions, breakfasts, and personal meetings with Apple and App Store Senior Managers where ‘free for life’ was an unassailable mantra, a few probable scenarios for enacting this paradigm shift come to light:
1) As Apple App Store reviewers (most located in Cupertino) are absolutely inundated with App review quotas (some reports putting as much as 250 reviews/day/reviewer on their shoulders), and with a large number of developers submitting multiple apps (a free/Lite version and a premium/download-fee version), Apple could be attempting to dramatically reduce the number of total apps submitted. Indeed, last week’s e-mail announcement specifically points out that the move allows Developers to “simplify … development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase.”
2) Free apps simply garner more downloads – plain and simple. Is the App Store perhaps less profitable than most of us are led to believe? As pointed out in a previous post, the top performing 0.4% of all apps account for almost 15% of the total App Store revenue – meaning the thousands upon thousands of $.99/£.59 apps priced low ‘to move’ are barely breaking even. A move to free apps (by far the most downloaded of all apps) with subsequent monetising ability quite simply increases the number of downloaded apps capable of making money. Downloads are not the problem (as Apple happily announces week after week) – but monetisation is. Apple may well be ‘tweaking’ the App Store to observed user download habits and attempting a radical move to align revenue reality to the ongoing hype.
Or perhaps this is all just a natural evolution of a nascent content channel that has grown beyond all expectations – perhaps even by Apple itself.
Regardless, it forces us to question how companies and Developers are making money from the Apple App Store, what billing models are really proving the most successful, and keeps the ‘parlour game’ of app store revenue analysis well in play for the moment. With Apple changing the playbook for free apps so abruptly, it is important to remember just how experimental this revenue channel still is.
By enacting this radical change in business model it is clear Apple has found ‘free for life’ apps unrealistic. In planning and preparing for new iPhone app deployments, content owners and Developers must therefore ask why.
Another post about a post I’m afraid – but one that deserves a read nonetheless. Robert Passikoff of Marketing Daily has written the first truly exceptional brand-focused critique on what to expect from 2010 based on Brand Keys predictive loyalty metrics. Brand and Marketing Managers listen up!
Check out the full post here, but below is a quick clip of the 10 trends to note:
1) Value is the new black
2) Brands are increasingly a surrogate for “value”
3) Brand differentiation is Brand Value
4) “Because I Said So” is so over
5) Consumer expectations are growing
6) Old tricks don’t work/won’t work anymore
7) They won’t need to know you to love you
8) It’s not just buzz
9) They’re talking to each other before talking to the brand
10) Engagement is not a fad; it’s the way today’s consumers do business
So what does it all mean? As I’ve no doubt blogged on and on about in the past, it’s about attention not transactions. Or perhaps better put – attention is the new transaction, and it’s simply amazing to see how glacial this concept is diffusing among the digital marketplace. Sadly companies still believe in their own hype, creating products and services based on their perceived brand values rather than taking cues from the discussion taking place all around them.
Hey, things have already changed – they’re not just changing. For more essential ‘shake yourself’ reading, check out Umair Haque’s Awesomeness Manifesto, another required serving of digital and business reality already upon us in 2009.
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