iPhone App Market – Next Bubble to Burst?
The NY Times recently had an article entitled “The iPhone Gold Rush”. In the article they feature the story of developers who have made ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ by quitting their day jobs and developing an iPhone App. The way this is written you would think there’s a leprechaun on every corner just waiting to show you how to get your pot of gold. How many times are major news outlets going to cover only one side of this story? Though this article tries to be objective by throwing in a sentence or two about how much of a long shot it is to ‘make millions’ with iPhone App development, it still reeks of irresponsible journalism. Why not feature additional viewpoints on the growing number of developers who have spent thousands creating an iPhone App only to see a few hundred dollars in return? Or the iPhone app developer who is still waiting for a few more sales to get his first $250 check? A quick Google search will pull up legions of disillusioned developers who are finding that there really isn’t a pot ‘o’ gold at the end of the iPhone App rainbow.
The iPhone App store is already overflowing with 30,000 iPhone Apps and battered with an average of 250 submissions a DAY! Making matters worse are the growing number of iPhone Apps that would work just fine as iPhone optimized websites. Maybe I’m in the minority but this whole iPhone App market screams out “Bubble Burst” more than Gold Rush to me. In fact, with the Blackberry App Store now open and Palm Pre App store opening soon, I think the whole App Market itself is in for a much needed “quality before quantity” reality check. Developers seeking to make a quick buck should do their due diligence. Or you can always try to find your lucky Leprechaun.
Tags: Blackberry, iphone, iPhone App, mobile marketing, Palm Pre
Interesting read, and I agree that a marketplace full of excellent content is generally a good thing. But I’d argue that bad apps and games do serve a purpose for the greater good of the buying public. So I personally don’t mind the huge flood of applications/games available on the App Store.
Is there a lot of crap, no question, but that’s been the story for any gaming platform that has ever been available. Do good games get shafted with poor sales, no doubt, but that isn’t exclusive to the iPhone platform. Having a flood of games/choices on the App Store increases competition, lowers prices, and puts the consumer in the drivers seat like they deserve. With a variety of resources to see reviews/impressions all over the net, the consumer can only blame themselves if they purchase junk.
Regarding the Dapple scenario, I want to give them props for developing an original iPhone application. But I’ve reviewed the Dapple case study, and a 6 month dev cycle paired with a 32K budget for a game that looks like a Bejeweled derivative seems off to me. The reality of the gameplay experience may totally be the freshest and greatest thing ever, but the look of the game doesn’t strike me as being different. It also appears that developer didn’t map out a marketing strategy to generate demand for his game. It’s almost as if they expected Apple to do their marketing for them. Last point, a $5 dollar pricepoint (with no free “lite” version) at launch is suicide relative to the other stiff competition being put out there by exemplary developers like ngmoco, Gameloft, and Konami.
With respect to the App Store’s bubble popping, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. The 3.0 software will open up the platform to support a slew of new features (e.g. push notifications, VOIP for in-game chat, custom soundtracks, paid DLC, etc) So I expect even gaudier numbers once the proverbial turkeys are out of their 3.0 SDK ovens. If there is a bubble to be popped, it’ll be from shovelware developers realizing the 50th version of iFart isn’t going to be the next breakthrough.
On a side note, I’ll be curious to see how Apple mitigates the plethora of issues that will surely crop up from the “premium” store. I have concerns over how Apple will handle that distinction and the real threat of one store being perceived as THE App Store while the other could be relegated to “crap store” status.
We’ll see…
April 10th, 2009 at 7:37 am