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I agree to a limited extent with his point of, "It is convenient for us amateur devs to be able to focus on development and let Apple take care of all the thing

I agree to a limited extent with his point of, "It is convenient for us amateur devs to be able to focus on development and let Apple take care of all the things we hate most: distribution, payment processing & a little marketing." Developers want people to use their stuff but the effort of marketing and selling it isn't fun. The complete truth is in the article as well where he mentions all of the ways they don't market your app for you (i.e. the buggy New Release page). So yes, Apple handles distribution and payment processing but don't count on them for marketing.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Although they could probably at least double their AppStore revenues by doing an in-store PPC ad network.
- c1sc0 17y ago
  That is something I never understood about the AppStore: there's no way to set up a decent sales funnel. Once you redirect the user to iTunes you lose all tracking capabilities. If they can't provide basics like that, I think PPC ads are a long way off.
  - wooster 17y ago
    Even some basic analytics would help: How are people finding my app? What are they searching for? What web sites did they come from? What languages do they speak? etc.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - DenisM 17y ago
    look into linkshare - it lets you track purchases with some precision.
dangrover 17y ago
This is a really silly reason for people to develop for the iPhone. Yes, you can use the App Store to your advantage if you work at it, but you really should think of it more as replacement to the "download" link you'd have on a desktop app site. It's best to market things like you would on any platform (web, desktop, or otherwise) and spread the word. Just because it's an iPhone doesn't make it magical.
- DenisM 17y ago
  It does drive down your costs compared to web site - you don't have to explain it to as many people, they do a reasonable job at copy protection and they handle billing.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago

Although they could probably at least double their AppStore revenues by doing an in-store PPC ad network.

c1sc0 17y ago
That is something I never understood about the AppStore: there's no way to set up a decent sales funnel. Once you redirect the user to iTunes you lose all tracking capabilities. If they can't provide basics like that, I think PPC ads are a long way off.
- wooster 17y ago
  Even some basic analytics would help: How are people finding my app? What are they searching for? What web sites did they come from? What languages do they speak? etc.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- DenisM 17y ago
  look into linkshare - it lets you track purchases with some precision.

dangrover 17y ago

This is a really silly reason for people to develop for the iPhone. Yes, you can use the App Store to your advantage if you work at it, but you really should think of it more as replacement to the "download" link you'd have on a desktop app site. It's best to market things like you would on any platform (web, desktop, or otherwise) and spread the word. Just because it's an iPhone doesn't make it magical.

DenisM 17y ago
It does drive down your costs compared to web site - you don't have to explain it to as many people, they do a reasonable job at copy protection and they handle billing.