Topics

App Stores

  • Promotion in the App Store

    Two interesting articles last week, better together. First came TheInformation’s1 maiden piece about How Apple Gives Some Apps an Edge (subscription required): Being featured [in the App Store] can be a developer’s jackpot. Developers say that it could cost them between $100,000 and $300,000 in marketing to buy as many downloads as they receive from […]


  • Open Source Apps

    I’m a bit late to the most recent flareup around app store pricing – it’s been a busy week of traveling – but it’s worth noting that the trend towards free is basically inevitable and the expected result in a functioning market. To put it another way, apps want to be free just like apples […]


  • The App Store Rainbow

    Postulate: The greatest differentiator for iOS is the quality of its apps. That’s the position taken by Benedict Evans in a must-read piece: If total Android engagement moves decisively above iOS, the fact that iOS will remain big will be beside the point – it will move from first to first-equal and then perhaps second […]


  • Apple Celebrates 5 Years of App Store With Free App Promotion

    Macstories: Ahead of the App Store’s fifth anniversary on Wednesday, July 10, Apple has launched a new promotion that includes five “groundbreaking” iOS apps and five “landmark” iOS games; these apps will be available for free for a limited time to celebrate the first five years of App Store. Apple has posted an official page […]


  • Why Doesn’t Apple Enable Sustainable Businesses on the App Store?

    This series of posts is about enabling sustainable businesses on the App Store. In Part 1, I discuss why Paper and other productivity apps may not be doing as well as you might think. Part 2 explores why casual games, in contrast, are a sustainable business, but not a differentiator for platforms (I added a […]


  • Additional Notes on Casual Games

    This series of posts is about enabling sustainable businesses on the App Store. In Part 1, I discuss why Paper and other productivity apps may not be doing as well as you might think. Part 2 explores why casual games, in contrast, are a sustainable business, but not a differentiator for platforms (I added a […]


  • Casual Gaming is a Sustainable Business, but Not a Platform Differentiator

    This series of posts is about enabling sustainable businesses on the App Store. In Part 1, I discuss why Paper and other productivity apps may not be doing as well as you might think. Part 2 explores why casual games, in contrast, are a sustainable business, but not a differentiator for platforms (I added a […]


  • Papering Over App Store Problems

    This series of posts is about enabling sustainable businesses on the App Store. In Part 1, I discuss why Paper and other productivity apps may not be doing as well as you might think. Part 2 explores why casual games, in contrast, are a sustainable business, but not a differentiator for platforms (I added a […]


  • The Android Detour

    Google is at its best when its product focus follows its business model; for too long Android was a detour.


  • Change for Change’s Sake

    iPhone OS was, but for copy-and-paste, a perfect OS (bear with me here – assume this is true). It handled every function the iPhone was expected to do in an incredibly elegant and polished way, and it’s not an accident that much of the core functionality has gone unchanged for six years. The tech press […]