Mobile Apps that are Money Making Machines
MM Team on January 31st, 2011 in Android Apps, Android Development, Android News, Android Tips & Tricks, Apple News, Gallery, Mobile News, Uncategorized, iphone apps
While Robert Nay recently made headlines for developing a chart-topping iPhone app, the 14-year-old from Spanish Fork, Utah will need to create a paid or advertising-supported follow-up to his Bubble Ball puzzle game in order to make any money.
Since Apple opened the iTunes App Store in July 2008, independent developers have created tens of thousands of titles with the hopes of striking it rich through paid downloads (where they keep up to 70 percent of the sales) and more recently via advertising or premium upgrades.
With increased competition from major game developers and globally recognized brands, however, most independents lose money on their smartphone applications that are now also created for Google’s Android mobile operating system.
Yet it is still possible to get rich right away developing iPhone apps. Just look at how some of the top app makers to come out of nowhere did it.
New and noteworthy app all-stars
Zeptolab/Cut the Rope
Ten days after this addictive puzzle-solving game debuted for 99 cents on the iTunes App Store last October, Cut the Rope was downloaded more than one million times. Ten days later, another million copies were sold. By year-end, this Moscow-based development company founded by two 28-year-old brothers had an absolute blockbuster with the sale of more than five million apps.
Co-founder Semyon Voinov, who previously worked as an artist with Helskini-based mobile development firm Digital Chocolate before joining forces with his brother full-time last spring, recently told us that independent developers can still thrive making iPhone apps because “there is no need to have a big team or business connections.”
That didn’t stop major game publishers from taking notice. Zeptolab’s first app, the 99-cent slingshot game Parachute Ninja, sold a respectable 300,000 copies with New York City publisher Freeverse. Last June, Zeptolab scored a publishing contract with Chillingo – the UK-based behemoth behind Angry Birds and other iconic titles. Chillingo, which markets games for an undisclosed cut of the action, was impressed with Zeptolab’s production values and chart-topping potential.
“We saw the great talent ZeptoLab had and the innovative gameplay design they had created,” said Chillingo co-founder Chris Byatte. “We realized that with even more polish, the game would have massive consumer appeal and we’re proud to see all the success we’ve helped them achieve.”
Venture capitalists are paying more attention to iPhone app developers, including this San Francisco-based startup that was founded in September 2009. Stanford University MBA student Daniel Terry, who briefly worked in the product department of large mobile app developer Tapjoy, saw the success of freemium games on Facebook.
Freemium games like Zynga’s FarmVille cost nothing to download but hit players up for premium gameplay along the way. Before Zynga launched the official FarmVille app for the iPhone, Pocket Gems earlier last year scored a nice success with the similar game Tap Farm. With five titles in the App Store, Pocket Gems last month raised $5 million from Sequoia Capital, a backer of Google, Yahoo! and other groundbreaking companies.
First-mover successes
Steve Demeter/Trism
The poster child for overnight success developing iPhone apps, Steve Demeter boasted of making more than $250,000 in profit only two months after his color-matching game Trism debuted in the App Store in the summer of 2008.
“The key is to make an application that instantly proves its value,” Demeter explained when we interviewed him a year later.
The San Francisco-based Demeter, who was 30-years-old when Trism started selling for $4.99 a download, predicted early on that that the game would generate more than $2 million in profit. It’s estimated that Trism cleared $1 million, but increased competition in the App Store apparently killed its trajectory and there has been no major follow-up since. While he acknowledges that creating one of the first blockbuster hits for the iPhone changed his life, Demeter learned to keep his financials closer to the vest.
“Talking about numbers made me realize why people don’t talk about numbers,” he said. “You get people asking for loans, and (in meetings) that can become a stumbling block.”
Demeter said he expects to come out with Trism 2 in the coming months.
Ethan Nicolas/Ishoot
This former Sun Microsystems engineer literally quit his day job shortly after reportedly making more than $600,000 in only one month (including $37,000 in a single day) in late 2008. Legend has it that Nicholas, based in Wake Forest, North Carolina, programmed much of iShoot with his 1-year-old son on his lap during his off hours.
After a sluggish beginning trying to sell the shooter game out of the gate at $4.99 per download, Nicholas struck gold while giving away a “lite” version of the game for free. Thereafter, iShoot shot to number one on the free charts. Of the nearly 2.5 million consumers who downloaded the game in those opening weeks, more than 300,000 ended up shelling out a discounted three bucks for the complete game.
iShoot continued to gross hundreds of thousands of dollars thereafter. Naughty Bits, the iPhone app development company Nicholas formed, also enjoys modest success with the 99-cent Rhumb Line board game app.
GreatApps/iSteam
Not every million dollar iPhone app is a game. To date, this 99-cent novelty app – which makes your iPhone look like a steamy mirror after a hot shower – has been downloaded more than three million times.
The London-based, twenty-something developers behind GreatApps – who modestly claim to be just “three Greek guys playing with a Mac” – came together in November 2008. The company is now marketing technology that detects how firmly users tap touchscreen devices so that different responses can be programmed based on the amount of force applied.
Other GreatApps iPhone apps include the free titles Zen Piano, GoSanta!, and CometBuster that use the company’s TapForce technology.
Read the rest of this article »
Get your mark, get set, go!…. Tablet race started! ASUS on board with Android and Windows Mobile.
MM Team on August 18th, 2010 in Android Apps, Android News, Gallery, Mobile News
By Matthew DeCarlo, TechSpot.com
Published: August 13, 2010, 11:50 AM EST
The foretold tablet apocalypse has yet to fall upon us, but the touchscreen slates are coming. Asus promises. The company plans to launch its first tablet in December or January, which will be a 12-inch, $1,000 Windows Embedded Compact-based behemoth that ships with a docking station that transforms it into a laptop, according to CEO Jerry Shen.
Read the rest of this article »
Hate to say we said so..Android starting to take over!
MM Team on August 3rd, 2010 in Android News, Android Resources, Gallery, Google News, Mobile News
We all know that Android has done a remarkable job growing and expanding in the past year. However, I do not think any of us could have predicted just how much the maturing operating system has grown. Canalys, a research firm, is reporting today that Android OS has grown a whopping 886% year-over-year in the second quarter!
That is ridiculous growth for any product and shows just how popular Android is becoming worldwide. Here are some of the interesting statistics Canalys has gathered:
- Symbian OS took 38% market share worldwide in Q2 (41% year-on-year growth)
- Android had 23% market share (884% year-on-year growth)
- BlackBerry OS took 18% share (41% year-on-year growth)
- iOS came in with 13% share (61% year-on-year growth)
Apple’s iOS displayed the second-best growth numbers, but as you can see, came nowhere near Android, which blew everybody else out of the water.
Android did just as well in the US with 34% market share during Q2, which is a growth rate of 851%. The enormous growth can be attributable to the large number of handset makers that have embraced Android, such as Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG and Sony.
The momentum is with Android at the moment and it has shown no signs of slowing. With more manufacturers entering the game, the operating system looks to have a bright future.
