App Store Insiders: John Casasanta of Tap Tap Tap
Camera+ has had, even with it's many months off the App Store, over 11 million downloads and is the bulk of the 14 million downloads tap tap tap apps have seen.
148Apps: How has the App Store changed your professional life?
John Casasanta, Principal, Tap Tap Tap: Honestly, it hasn’t changed it that much. I’ve been creating software for much of my professional life. Before the App Store, it was for Mac. Now it's mainly for iOS. The devices are smaller, but the principles are pretty similar. The market is definitely a lot bigger and it’s usually nice creating things for a much wider audience.
148Apps: Has the response to Camera+ surprised you at all?
John Casasanta: Before we released the first version of Camera+, I was really happy with how it was turning out and I recall saying to the team that, “we’re gonna sell a million of these!” But I was off by an order of magnitude as we’ve already sold over 11 million copies so far. And there’s no sign of things letting up.
148Apps: In the five years since launch, the App Store has gone through considerable changes. The number of users has skyrocketed along with downloads, prices for paid apps has stabilized way lower than many expected, free to play has dominated the top grossing charts. If, knowing what you know about the App Store now, you could go back and influence your path five years ago, what would you say?
John Casasanta: I would’ve still taken the exact same path (well, I wouldn’t have done the Faces app :P). Even though “free to play, pay to not have your time wasted” is dominating the App Store, I have such a distaste for it that I still wouldn’t have gone in that direction. We do more than fine with paid apps and it’s the direction we’ll continue on.
148Apps: Has your success on the App Store lead to any odd real world encounters?
John Casasanta: Three words: APP STORE GROUPIES!Um, no, actually.
148Apps: What have you seen on the App Store, outside of apps published by you, that has surprised you most?
John Casasanta: Not exactly on the App Store, but resulting from it… Angry Birds Band-Aids.
148Apps: Any predictions on what the App Store will be like five years from now?
John Casasanta: If iOS 7 is anything like the steaming pile of shit that was previewed at WWDC, there’ll be no more iPhone or App Store in five years.But if the people running the show at Apple come to their senses and don’t actually screw-up the best mobile OS, then I predict that Mac will all but go away and just about everyone will be using their mobile devices as their main devices. Since I don’t do any of the programming on our apps anymore, my need for Mac has actually gone away and I’ve retired my Mac for just over a year. It’s all iPhone and iPad for me now. This means that we’ll likely see more robust apps as people will have more of a need to replace the apps they were dependent on on their desktop and laptop computers.
[ Photo Credit: Tap Tap Tap Flickr ]