This weekend, Washington, DC area internet developer Viget Labs hosted iPhoneDevCampDC, an unconference about all things iPhone Apps (full photo set here). I went expressly to understand the latest hot, shiny object from a communicator’s perspective. How does this tactic fit into the mix?
One thing that’s important to note off the bat: It’s not a cheap thing to become universally available with your application. An iPhone app is operating system specific. It will not work well on Symbian, or Blackberry, or Windows Mobile, or any other operating system.
From a budgetary standpoint this is crucial: An Iphone App may cost $30,000 to develop, and the accompanying Blackberry App — even though it’s the exact same app with the same function and similar art — must be completely reprogrammed. That means it, too, will cost additional tens of thousands of dollars.
In turn, those who don’t have a wide ranging mobile interactive budget will need to select the platform that best serves its customer base. Enterprise users will slant towards Blackberry, consumer iPhone, international companies will want to consider Symbian, and who knows how Android will impact the market.
Generally speaking there are many reasons to deploy an application, iPhone or not:
- To make money (warning, a highly competitive marketplace with low $ sales).
- Ensuring your content, social network or services is easily accessible on a mobile platform.
- To effectively market your product using a popular application.
- Because the executive is demanding it. Unfortunately, shiny object syndrome seems to be an increasingly common reason, said several of the developers.
The iPhone app store itself is a highly competitive marketplace with tens of thousands of apps. You can no longer simply launch an application and expect it garner attention. Instead, you should be prepared to market it. To help, MobileCrunch’s Gagan Biyani gave a primer on pitching the press. In addition, pricing strategies are critical, with many developers relying a strong free app to attract paid purchases of higher dollar ($1.99 or more), feature-rich versions.
Some interesting statistics where given by TapMetrics’s Chris Brown:
- English (94%) is used for the majority of iphone apps, followed by German, French, and Japanese.
- 26% of apps are free, 41% of apps are $.99, 33% of apps are $1.99.
- One person has 2024 apps in the store, or 3.15% of the iPhone app store.
Lastly, don’t be cheap on development. A flurry of negative user ratings can sink your application right out the door. In a competitive marketplace, you don’t have a lot of time to iron out bugs.
Thanks for sharing some of the goods you learned from the unconference.
I was talking mobile with one of our interactive producers a couple months ago and that’s when I found out that you basically have to budget and produce individual app versions for each phone, as well as the price tag that comes with it. Definitely two key things to know before you get colleagues or clients excited by saying “we’re going to have an app for that!”
Good stuff, Geoff. Very interesting to learn about the challenges for creating an app for various phones. That explains why the iPhone has so many more apps than the Blackberry! Thanks for the info!
Can’t agree more. $30K is a low end number consider the competitive market. Great article, Geoff