App Store Sees Record-Breaking Numbers

Apple has announced that its App Store had a fantastic run in 2017, especially during the holiday season leading up to the new year.

App Store customers around the world made apps and games a bigger part of their holiday season in 2017 than ever before, culminating in $300 million in purchases made on New Year’s Day 2018. During the week starting on Christmas Eve, a record number of customers made purchases or downloaded apps from the App Store, spending over $890 million in that seven-day period.

Apple says that it paid out $26.5 Billion to iOS developers, an increase of over 30 percent compared to 2016. Since its launch in 2008, the App Store has made $86 Billion for iOS developers around the world.

The new App Store introduced in iOS 11 got a lot of things right, and Apple knocked it out of the park with their approach. I’m loving the curation on the US App Store — I just wish I had landed that App Store Editor job I had applied for at Apple India.

January 5, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Apple Increases Pricing of Apps on the App Store in India

iOS App Store

Apple has today sent out an email to iOS developers notifying them of upcoming changes to the pricing on the App Store. According to the email, the pricing of apps and in-app purchases (IAPs) will increase in India, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Apple mentions that this price change is due to change in tax laws in the India, Romania and Russia, but it doesn’t mention why the pricing is changing in the UK. It’s likely that Apple is merely adjusting the pricing to be in line with the falling value of the Pound Sterling against the US Dollar.

If you’re in India, here’s what the pricing change means and how it’ll affect you.

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January 17, 2017 ✚ Permalink

The 2015 Panic Report

Panic‘s Cabel Sasser has a wonderful rundown of how the year 2015 was for them as a team and for their apps, as well as what 2016 is poised to be like.

In 2015, we watched our processes and systems improve dramatically as our talented team took ownership of parts of our puzzle that suited them best. We got an all-in crash-course on the business and creative challenges of developing a cross-platform video game, something we’ve always wanted to attempt. We saw some experimental notions get put on hold, while others expanded. And we shipped a couple of great new apps and stretched our creativity. It was, all told, a great year.

Coda 2 for iOS and Status Board 2 were incredible updates to the already stellar apps and it’s quite interested to read about how much effort was put into their apps, including QnA.

This might bake your noodle: we shipped 35 updates across all six Mac and iOS apps by the end of 2015.

However, this following bit was really disheartening to read:

iOS Revenue. I brought this up last year and we still haven’t licked it. We had a change of heart — well, an experimental change of heart — and reduced the price of our iOS apps in 2015 to normalize them at $9.99 or less, thinking that was the upper limit and/or sweet spot for iOS app pricing. But it didn’t have a meaningful impact on sales.

More and more I’m beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS — we made professional tools that aren’t really “in demand” on that platform — and that price isn’t our problem, but interest is.

I’m a big fan of their apps. Panic’s apps are “pro” apps that help you get serious work done. Coda for iOS was $10 at launch, but I’d have gladly paid upwards of $50 for it, simply because it helps me earn and/or save far more than that. The unfortunate thing about it is that there are very few people like me out there — essentially the demand isn’t as much as Panic would like.

January 28, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Whisper’s Release Notes

Tell me those aren’t the best release notes you’ve seen for any app on the App Store.

June 14, 2013 ✚ Permalink

Unclutter App

I just stumbled across Unclutter App while browsing the Mac App Store today and instantly realized what a great little utility it was. Often when I’m working on something with a lot of apps open, I end up saving files directly on the Desktop so that they’re easier to access during the course of the project and also easy to remember. Over time, these files start piling up on the Desktop, making it untidy and messy. If you’ve ever wished for a way to not get into that mess, Unclutter is here to help you.

Unclutter is a tiny Menubar utility that opens a tray from the top of the Desktop, revealing three little windows called ‘cards’. You invoke the tray by moving the mouse to the top of the menubar. There is a ‘Files’ card, a ‘Notes’ card and one that shows the contents of your Clipboard. Let’s say you want to quickly jot down someone’s phone number of Address — simply invoke Unclutter and type in the number in the Notes card. Ended up downloading a file on the Desktop? No problem, just move it into the Files card. The Clipboard window shows you any text or image you currently have in your CLipboard. These cards can also be turned into individual floating windows by simply dragging them out onto your Desktop, so you can stack them next to the app you’re working with.

Unclutter comes from the developers of DaisyDisk, which is a fantastic app that visualizes the disk usage on your Mac and helps you clear up space. You can buy Unclutter from the Mac App Store for just $1.99 until Feb 7th, after which the regular price would be $2.99.

February 2, 2013 ✚ Permalink

Rockmate for iPad is FREE for a Few Hours

From the makers of the DM1 — The Drum Machine app, Rockmate is a brilliant iPad app that turns the screen into a complete music studio, letting you produce your own albums. It comes with a drumset, two guitars and a keyboard along with a host of other features.

It’s free for the next 48 hours, so there’s no reason NOT to grab this one.

November 8, 2012 ✚ Permalink

Evernote 5.0 for iOS

Completely revamped User Interface, easier access to Notes and Notebooks and a whole lot of other lovely changes. This, along with the upcoming changes to the Mac app, are turning Evernote into a truly solid app suite. If you aren’t already using it, you should.

November 8, 2012 ✚ Permalink

Fantastical for iPhone is Coming Soon

Fantastical for Mac is already one of my favorite apps, so it’d be great to have it on the iPhone as well. I almost never ever launch the Calendar app on my Mac thanks to Fantastical.

And look at that icon. I’d get it just for that gorgeous icon.

November 8, 2012 ✚ Permalink