Apple's bait: Application developers swarm to iPhone

This article was a great read for anyone interested in upcoming iPhone App Store business.  Of course, a lot of it is rampant speculation but it probably represents the best of the rampant speculation that we have.  Also, check out the Digg.com comments for this article - it is very telling what the attitudes among future users and current developers are.

These are exciting times to be in mobile development and I think we can expect a lot of drama in the next five years.  Is it going to be making millionaires or will the App Store be a billion dollar a year business?  Or is Apple simply courting developers to their platforms so the rapidly defecting Windows crowd will have shiny new desktop applications waiting for them on the Mac?

Well, That's About It for WWDC

Great conference, I feel like I learned a lot but at this point my brain is over saturated with the stuff.  It pretty exciting and I think that the people at this year's conference are going to be influencing what happens in iPhone development over the next few years; by extension what happens with iPhone over the next few years will be influencing the mobile market as a whole.

It will be very interesting to see what happens in July when the App Store comes online and when the NDA is lifted (so developers can talk about what they are doing).  From what I can see, the developers are sniffing out an opportunity fast.

For me, I can not wait to resume serious work on my own product.  But, right now this traveling has worn down my cognitive abilities (hence writing out a blog instead of coding).  I'm quite happy that they will be releasing videos of the content since its rapidly leaking from my brain as I type.

At any rate, I got a real sense that a future is being created in a way that will impact us in a big way.  Its pretty exciting to be a part of it.

Finally, to the Content!

Ok, now that the massive press of people has passed by after the keynote we can get on with the business of learning this stuff.  My first session today is at 9 and will be an introduction to iPhone development.  Of course, I have already been introduced but each time I heard the iPhone story I seem to pick up something new.  What I am really looking forward to are the detailed sessions of "Views and Controllers", "Table Views", and interoperating with other iPhone systems such as contacts and the camera.

WWDC

On Sunday I am taking a trip to California and making the biggest investment into my business so far. I am going to the Apple Developer's Conference (WWDC) - a massive gathering/training session for people who write programs for the various Apple platforms. After all is said and done I will have spent about $3000 which is about what I expect to pay for 1 week "bootcamp" seminars.

What I plan on learning is all the basics about working on the platform (everything related to what they refer to as "UIKit"). Of course, I do have some knowledge already of Objective-C and Cocoa (the main development tools), but what I really want is to spend some focused time in the most cost/time effective way I can on learning this stuff.

Networking will also be a priority and I have printed up some business cards to that end. This perhaps will be a harder skill for me to acquire, but absolutely necessary.

By the end of this conference I expect to have the skills I need to finish developing my first product. Specially, I want this:
-More familiarity with Objective-C/Cocoa
-Understanding of delegation
-How to use Camera, Mail, and UI components

The iPhone Registration Has Arrived!

I will not get into the gritty details (more on that after the beta period), but my Apple registration has finally come through!  This is very exciting news for me since I have spent a considerable amount of time learning the Objective-C ropes.  Now, I can let go of the nagging feeling at the back of my head that I am wasting my time. 

It is very nice to see my own apps running on my phone and I am very excited about the apps that will soon be available from the App Store.

As a side note, I am not with a big company and even though I am a programmer I do not have any special ties to Apple or any particular certification other than applying for the program.  For everyone else out there like me I have to assume your certification is in the mail as we speak.  Good luck and hunting.

What this means for me is that I can focus on the iPhone internet business first.  I have about three apps in mind and one in the prototype stage that I hope to have ready by the end of the summer.  This is very good news for me, now I can't wait to do to next week's conference and see if I can't get some learning on!

Will the iPhone Developer Registration Ever Come?

Well, I have been hacking away at the iPhone SDK and while I cannot talk about it I do like playing around. But, I am getting a bit impatient - how long should I wait until I get "blessed" by Apple and will be able to actually put my apps on my phone. Got to admit that I am getting impatient - on one hand I just want to see the new shiny apps for the shear fun.

All this time invested in learning the Mac software could all be totally wasted if Apple just decides to withhold their blessing. It is a risk in this game and I could be spending this time on other business opportunities. So, this is the Fear and Uncertainity post...

Well, once this thing comes out of beta I will be expecting the registration but for now I think I will start to focus on other internet business ideas - at least until the conference on the 9th.

Is $4.99 the magical price point for the iPhone AppStore programs?

I have been thinking about this for some time now; I want to buy iPhone apps (Spore!) and I would like to turn my own programming projects into a business. After doing some research I found a site that sells mobile phone applications right now for Windows mobile and Blackberry. The site's name is Handango and you can buy programs on that service for as low as $7.99 to about $199 (ignoring developer packages). The existence of services like Handango proves that a market does exist even though I have a hard time contemplating spending $50, $30, or even $20 on the products I saw there.

The iPhone may well be different because the iPhone is a fun device that people just want to play with and the apps just look good. Plus, the iPhone will have its store in front of every iPhone user’s eyeballs. That is 5.7 million as of today and some people think that number will reach 14 million by the end of the year (arstechina). These numbers are compelling and developers only need to reach a small slice of this market to create a sustainable niche product.

So, I have been playing with numbers to see what a fair price would be for this type of product. The price point I think is the best bet is $4.99. Now, I am not involved in marketing so take it with a huge grain of salt; but, this price is low enough that as a consumer I wouldn’t spend much time worrying about the purchase decision.

I estimate that a developer will see about $2.49 of $4.99 after the Apple cut and taxes. So, if you can reach .5% of today’s iPhone market you would earn about $70,000 after taxes. Over the year, this amounts to about one person’s salary. In terms of units sold, you would need to sell 2,375 copies each month to be sustainable.

After considering all this, I think it is a safe bet that something will happen with the AppStore and independent developers could benefit. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months as this market develops.

Edit: Since last posting this I have found another blog post about iPhone pricing: http://www.marco.org/288. This developer things that $10-$15 is a better price range. We shall see what happens in June...