Apple’s Favorite Strategy Game Is a Financial Disaster | Game|Life | Wired.com: “What Stewart doesn’t understand, he says, is why the game was only downloaded half a million times. Half a million people playing your game would be great news for any app developer. In the free-to-play world, it’s death. Stewart says he needs 3 million players to break even.” (Via. wired) Fascinating story about a freemium game that has been featured by Apple several times and is still a financial flop. As I said in my…

Dissecting the New AppStore – Adapt and Redesign your Shelf Space! | Mobile Evolution: “All said, the new AppStore design should be embraced as a big improvement and step in the right direction for both Discovery and an appealing Shelf Space design.” (Via. creativealgorithms) I’ve been highly critical of the changes in iOS 6’s App Store app. My friend Justine Pratt over at Creative Algorithms has written a comprehensive review of most of the changes and offers a much more positive perspective. Kudos to her for putting in the work…

I had a blast speaking at this year’s 360iDev. As I promised my audience at the end of the talk, here are some of the articles I found while doing research over the past few months. Some great writers took the time to share their thoughts and helped shape mine on the subject. I owe them my gratitude. Making money in a crowded App Store: it’s dog eat dog and Spy vs Spy Richard Gaywood Death of the Free Web Cap Watkins. Screenwriters react to new Final Draft…

Making money in a crowded App Store: it’s dog eat dog and Spy vs Spy: And if you’re Apple? Well, Apple benefits from a crowded App Store marketplace where developers cut prices to the bone in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. Every single app uploaded to the App Store adds value to every iOS device in existence; every single app a customer buys is another reason for them not to migrate away from iOS in the future. Apple is certainly motivated to keep the App…

On Fremium Apps: And that’s exactly what we’ve seen in the App Store. People have no problem paying 99¢ for a gimmick, and don’t mind risking 99¢ on an app whose value is unproven, but trying to make the boxed software model work at 99¢ a pop is a fool’s errand. Sure, gimmicks and mass market apps like Camera+ seem to prove the opposite, but they are the outliers. The vast majority of apps are financial flops even though they deliver tremendous value to their niche.…