A group of independent iPhone app developers have gotten together to try another method for increasing their app sales. They are, as a group, putting their apps on sale and promoting them together. It’s the latest in a series of inventive ways that small application developers have tried in the increasingly packed iTunes App Store to get some attention for their apps.
Starting 12/31, some apps and games from some great indie developers will all go on sale for 48 hours. The promotion, titled New Year’s App Blowout will see apps discounted from 50% - 80%.
Some of the apps that will be on sale include:
* Pinch n’ Pop ($0.99 price drop from $3.99 - iTunes Link)
* BurnBall ($0.99 price drop from $1.99 - iTunes Link)
* ScribBall ($0.99 price drop from $3.99 - iTunes Link)
* Mouse House ($0.99 price drop from $4.99 - iTunes Link)
* DuckDuckDuck (FREE price drop from $0.99 - iTunes Link)
* Blackbeard’s Assault ($0.99 price drop from $1.99 - iTunes Link)
Currently there are 16 apps listed on the page, but more are expected to be added before the new year. I suggest you bookmark the site and return on 12/31 to see the updated list.
It’s great to see independent developers teaming up to try to solve one of the greatest downsides to the app store — getting some attention in a sea of 13,000 apps.
[Source: New Year's App Blowout]
Correction: the app Chopper was on sale during the holidays, and continues to be on sale. The app is regularly priced at $4.99 but is on sale for $0.99. Sales figures updated below.
Many developers are seeing their iTunes sales reports for the first time after iTunes Connect opened back up after Apple closed it for the Christmas rush, and those sales numbers are amazing. With many apps showing 2-4x normal sales of their paid apps on Christmas day and increased sales continuing in the days following. Free app download number showing up to 5x normal rate as well. Could this be all the new iPhone and iPod Touch owners looking for apps to fill up their devices or most likely people with newly gifted iTunes gift cards to burn.
David Frampton of Majic Software, the developer of Chopper (iTunes Link), the number 2 paid game and number 3 paid app overall, reported sales 3x normal on 12/25 with sales in the days following still much higher than normal, but dropping off by about 30% on the 26th and another 10%/day on the 27th. The Chopper developer pulled in sales of over 50,000 copies of his $4.99 app (on sale for $0.99 during the holidays) for the 4 day period of 12/24 - 12/27 with around half of those sales coming on Christmas day. That’s nearly $25,000 in sales in one day, 12/25, alone.
Another developer we talked with, Mark Johnson, reported sales of over four times normal on Christmas day. Hit Tennis (iTunes Link) the $1.99 tennis game, currently number 55 in the top 100 paid iPhone Sports games, had sales of nearly 200 on 12/25 with normal daily sales in the 40s.
Gabriel Pasqualini from Portengo, developers of Cartoonize Me (iTunes Link), the top 15 app on the Entertainment paid app list showed sales 3x normal on the 25th with sales on the 26th being about 90% of what they were on the 25th.
Other stories are similar in nature with most developers of apps on iTunes top 100 lists showing sales 2-4 times normal. Other developers of apps not in any of the top 100 lists also reported much higher than normal sales, though not 4x.
Tim Haines, developer of Burn Ball (iTunes Link) which is not currently in the top 100 paid games reported a similar 3x normal sales on 12/25. He also reported that the free version of his game, Burn Ball Lite (iTunes Link), had download numbers 5x normal on 12/25.
No one knows how long the increased sales will continue, but this is a much deserved present for these independent developers.
We’re just starting out for the mad rush of travel back home for the holidays. Whether you are stuck in the airport for what seems like days-on-end — or just need a little break from the loved-ones, we’ve got you covered. We’re going to look for some great apps to help you survive the trip home and back.
This isn’t going to be a wrap-up of holiday titles. No, we’re looking for those apps that can provide both hours and hours a entertainment while stuck in the airport — and just a few minutes of fun while you avoid try to avoid the visiting uncle quacks when he walks.
148apps.com is proud to announce the launch of the 2008 Best App Ever Awards. A new site to allow you to nominate the apps and games you best love for over 30 awards including the title Best App Ever. We want to honor the best in iPhone apps and games, not just the best selling.
The awards are now open to receive nominations for apps and games. Nominations end on December 30th.
Once all nominations are totaled, verified, and calculated, we’ll take the top 5 nominated from the site and combine those with 5 nominations from the list of bloggers, developers, and industry people we have been contacting about these awards. That will give us 10 nominations for each category. In addition, the 10 apps that get the most votes across all categories will compete for the title of Best App Ever.
On December 31st we’ll post the nominees for all categories and voting will start. Winners will be announced on January 7th, 2009 at the MacWorld Expo.
Head on over to http://bestappever.com to nominate your favorite apps.
Pricing of applications and games in particular, have been in a free fall for while now. When a new game by anyone other than the top tier of multi-platform game development companies is released, you can almost guarantee that the price will drop within a few days. Sykhronics is trying things a little differently.
Their approach has been to take their well reviewed Smiles game (we gave it 4.5 stars) and rather than dropping the price, split the game up into multiple applications priced. Those smaller applications are priced at less than the original, but the user gets a discount by buying the main app over buying both of the smaller games.
Continue reading Sykhronics Entertainment Thinks Different on App Pricing »
Apple finally catches up and announces that there are 10,000 apps in the app store. You’re welcome, Apple, for the heads up earlier this week. They also announced a number that is truly staggering.
There have been 300,000,000 app downloads thus far. That’s over over 2 million per day average since the app store went live in July. That just leaves me awe struck.
Truly the iPhone is now the predominant mobile platform for application developers. Over 12 million headsets wordwide and the number 1 selling smartphone last quarter.
With the continued amazing growth we’ve seen, when do you think the app store will hit it’s 1 billionth app download? My guess is August 22, 2009 and the app will be a flashlight app :). If the app store continues to grow the way it has, it should be next year.
Looks like a bunch of iPhone software developers that didn’t get in on the fun last weekend have decided to make this a Black Friday Part 2. Lots of apps and games on sale. Check out our Price Drops page for the full list. Below are a few of the more notable ones. Just like last week, we’ll update this if more pop in and send a notification on our Twitter stream.
[Updated 12/6/2008 2:30pm Pacific]
Read on for our picks of the best sale apps today.
It looks like app developers have decided to participate in Black Friday sales and have started early. There are a bunch of really great games and apps on sale in the iTunes App Store right now with more being added every time we check out our price drops page. We’ll keep the list of the top tier apps here and send out a message on our Twitter stream when we update this page.
[Last Updated: 11/28 2:00pm Pacific]
Read on for the list.
Continue reading Black Friday Comes Early to the App Store »
Tap Tap Tap, developer of a couple of the most popular and beautifully designed applications like Where To? (4.5 stars), Tipluator (3.5 stars) has imploded over differences in direction between it’s founders. It’s a theme we’ve seen before in iPhone developer Tapulous.
In this corporate divorce, most of the software has gone to Sophia Teutschler and will go under her Sophiestication Software name. This includes Tipulator, Groceries (unreleased), and Where Am I? (unreleased). The one odd ball, Where To? will be sold off by Tap Tap Tap and has already been removed from the App Store.
Tap Tap Tap has a few other projects in the works, though no details have been released.
For more info on this, see the latest Tap Tap Tap blog post here.
An odd thing happened last night. Our list of New App Store Applications picked up 5 applications, all nearly the same, all approved at the same time. These apps had been waiting in queue for a while — some as far back as 8/25.
Sideways - $1.99 - 8/27 - http://148apps.com/app/289146621
Lettera - $1.99 - 8/25 - http://148apps.com/app/289247074
Wide Email - $1.99 - 8/25 - http://148apps.com/app/289274499
Touch Type (Landscape Email) - $0.99 - 9/4 - http://148apps.com/app/288916937
Compose - $4.99 - 9/11 - http://148apps.com/app/290987348
It looks like someone at Apple made the decision, finally, that these applications were OK and didn’t duplicate the functionality of Apple apps.
We once again sent Santa Steve a note asking for the latest and greatest, and all we got was a lump of coal. Oh, and DRM free music.
