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So is it end days for the app economy? I quit developing mobile apps (J2ME) when it became clear that to make money you had to be endorsed by operators. And ope

by Tichy 16y ago

So is it end days for the app economy? I quit developing mobile apps (J2ME) when it became clear that to make money you had to be endorsed by operators. And operators wouldn't even talk to you if you weren't a multi-million Euro company. Maybe it is inevitable that any market turns into that after a while. So good-bye to the idea of the indie app developer...

loewenskind 16y ago
Don't give up so soon. There are more potential indie developers than there are mega companies. If mega companies block us from reaching our users we'll find a way to route around them.
- Tichy 16y ago
  It didn't work out so well for J2ME, though.
nl 16y ago
You might be excited to hear about this new platform from a small computer company called Apple. They have now released a mobile phone, and let you write applications for it without carrier approval. What is more, they only take 30% of the purchase price (unlike the carrier fee of 70%), and the approval process - while slower and more annoying than many would like - doesn't require you to setup meetings with carriers business development group. There is also a web based platform called Facebook where you can deploy apps. The approval process for that is usually so straight forward that a guy did a blog post when he had to rely on personal connections in order to get his application enabled! ;)
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Or better yet, you could create an app for this totally free system called the web, you wouldn't need anybodys approval and every level of supplier you would need (from domain registration to hosting to software to run your servers) are a commodity market or open source and so are actually beholden to their customers more so than Apple and facebook are. Even better there is nobody who can tell you what kind of technology stuff you have to work with, nor is anybody going to demand 30% of your income (except the taxman - set of an offshore account before you start to make money).

by Tichy 16y ago

loewenskind 16y ago

Don't give up so soon. There are more potential indie developers than there are mega companies. If mega companies block us from reaching our users we'll find a way to route around them.

Tichy 16y ago
It didn't work out so well for J2ME, though.

nl 16y ago

You might be excited to hear about this new platform from a small computer company called Apple. They have now released a mobile phone, and let you write applications for it without carrier approval. What is more, they only take 30% of the purchase price (unlike the carrier fee of 70%), and the approval process - while slower and more annoying than many would like - doesn't require you to setup meetings with carriers business development group. There is also a web based platform called Facebook where you can deploy apps. The approval process for that is usually so straight forward that a guy did a blog post when he had to rely on personal connections in order to get his application enabled! ;)

tomjen3 16y ago
Or better yet, you could create an app for this totally free system called the web, you wouldn't need anybodys approval and every level of supplier you would need (from domain registration to hosting to software to run your servers) are a commodity market or open source and so are actually beholden to their customers more so than Apple and facebook are. Even better there is nobody who can tell you what kind of technology stuff you have to work with, nor is anybody going to demand 30% of your income (except the taxman - set of an offshore account before you start to make money).