https://www.marco.org/2013/09/28/underscore-price-dynamics
I'm sure of one thing, though: the market for paid-up-front apps appealing to mass consumers is gone. If you have paid apps in the store, you've probably seen the writing on the wall for a while.
Yep. I've seen app sales decline drastically over the past couple of years — about a third of what they were two years ago. It just doesn't seem to be a viable business model anymore.
In-App Purchase (IAP) might be a solution — anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that, in a lot of cases, it can actually boost sales.
IAP comes with its own pitfalls, however. The main reason I dropped the free versions of Muud.io & EirText was that it reduced support queries for those apps, and allowed me to focus solely on the paid versions. If I were to implement IAP into those apps, it's right back to square one.
Add to that the one-star reviews from upset users who download a "free" app, expecting it to be free, and you've just moved from one set of problems to another. Not exactly an ideal solution.
I received an interesting support request recently regarding sending SMS via EirText using AppleScript. After mucking around with it for a few mins, it's actually quite easy to do:
For most accounts, the following will work:
do shell script "/Applications/EirText.app/Contents/MacOS/EirText -u086XXXXXXX -n O2.ie -r 086XXXXXXX -m "Message goes here.""
If you're using an account which has spaces or unusual characters in the name (e.g. "Three.ie (New Webtext)" is a tricky one), then you will need to double-escape those characters, as follows:
do shell script "/Applications/EirText.app/Contents/MacOS/EirText -u083XXXXXXX -n Three.ie (New Webtext) -r 083XXXXXXX -m "Messagegoes here.""
If you're scripting EirText in any cool or unusual ways, do let me know— I'd love to hear about it!
https://blog.random-ideas.net/?p=252
No, it's not easy running a sustainable business. It has not been easyin the past, and it probably won't be easy going forward. It has neverbeen easy making great products. It has never been easy gettingcustomers. You have been lulled into a false sense of security by thebubble of 2008 and 2009, and now it's time for you to put your big boypants on and figure out how you're going to adapt to this differentmarketplace.
Tough love, indeed. Can't say I disagree though. Time to quit whining and take our medicine?
https://floriankugler.com/blog/2013/9/30/worth-less-than-a-cup-of-coffee
We're in the business of creating products which offer very littlevalue to people. It's our choice if that's what we want to pursue.
The depressing truth about selling software to consumers in 2013.
Pace.fm is a distraction-free way to keep track ofyour current pace, while running, walking, or cycling. Pace.fm willincrease or decrease the tempo of your music, relative to your currentspeed.
I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for quite a while now. Finally got around to putting together a prototype over the past couple of weekends and it works really well. Sign up to be notified when it hits the store.
https://vombat.tumblr.com/post/60530544401/date-parsing-performance-on-ios-nsdateformatter-vs
Many web services choose to return dates in something other than aunix timestamp (unfortunately). […]Luckily for us, SQLite is quitegood at parsing some ISO-8601 dates and works blazingly fast.
Very handy tip. Works about "1400% faster" than NSDateFormatter, according to the tests in the post.
https://www.tannr.com/herp-derp-youtube-comments/
Spotted this browser extensionin my Twitter feed this morning. Makes visiting the Youtube site tolerable.
A small utility for fast access to your iPhone Simulator apps. Opensfolder in Finder, resets Library and Documents, and deletes theselected app.
So handy. Can't believe I went this long without it.
Both links featured in the Issue 97 of iOS Dev Weeklyby Dave Verwer— I definitely recommend you sign up to the newsletter if you haven't done so already.
https://ooomf.com/blog/the-recipe-to-make-apple-fall-in-love-with-you/
Transit was averaging 200 downloads per day. On the launch of iOS 6,Apple featured Transit […] driving over 18,000 downloads on that dayalone
Interesting & insightful interview with Sam Vermette about The Transit App for iOS.