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The Top i phone Apps - What'ersus the Magic bullet of Their Success?
Earlier the new year, Apple released their own list of top iphone 3gs apps at the 1 billion download mark. Downloads just hit two billion, making Apple'utes "Just about all-Time" Top Apps point even sillier than it has been at the time -- but that aside, it's a very interesting list and there are a lot of good training to end up being learned coming from it.
We realize that developers of some top apps have earned from $350,000 (Grab God) to $800,000 (iShoot). Some have possibly earned a lot more. It'ersus difficult to estimate income even if the number of downloads will be known, because app pricing bounces around a lot. Koi Pond has been downloaded about 900,000 times and Enigmo over 800,000. Even at, say, a dollar a time, that's very good money.
How to get entry to this kind of giant funds cow? Follow this advice, based on our examination of Apple'ersus twenty top paid apps:
Get in early
The iPhone 3G arrived on the scene in July 2008. Almost half from the top apps had been released by August. The others were a lot of out by the conclusion of 2008, except one that arrived in January 2009.
Timing will be everything. Of course, some with this is truly just some sort of physical fact -- if you sell 5,000 apps every day for 100 days, that'ersus 5 hundred,000 sales; if you only have 5 times, you can only attain 25,000. But there'utes more to it than that. There are located so many apps right now (over 50,000) that it'ersus very difficult to become seen. Apps that arrived on the scene early, and gained traction, had a huge full advantage over competitors, and that kind of full advantage is often maintained long-term.
Amuse the masses
If you'd like to save the planet, enlighten humanity or improve people'ersus health, you'll get your success in heaven, but you won't have a winning iphone 4g app. Every 1 of the top paid apps is truly a toy of some kind. Fourteen are in the Games category, 4 Enjoyment and only two Music.
Interestingly, this enjoyment is generally not mindless. A lot of the games are complex, requesting skill and awareness, and a significant number of have many permutations or constant updates (Bank account God). Complex games include Wallet God, Fieldrunners, Texas Maintain'em Poker and Monopoly. The less difficult games, like the memory matching video game Bejeweled 2 or the skateboard app Touchgrind, still require skill and focus.
Only a handful of, like Koi Pond, require little mental effort, but even this kind of 1 seems to have many options and constant movement. Absolutely a lot of the apps have great graphics and plenty of movement.
There were only a couple of fully silly and pointless apps, namely the simulated beer app, iBeer, and the self-explanatory iFart Mobile.
There'utes a surprise in every package
Ocarina, the early flute simulation, will be a real surprise. Who would have thought a great obscure musical instrument would have ranked so high? The app developers are just while interesting -- a high-flying crowd of musicians and computer scientists coming from spots like Stanford and Princeton. Could it always be that there is still a place for real exceptional and innovation on the Internet? Happy thought.
Develop for the device
Using the accelerometer seems to increase a helpful app'utes chances of success. A lot of the top paid apps are accelerometer-intensive, or use other novel or unique i phone features.
The message right here is that successful app developers take benefit from the device's novel or exclusive functionality. The mobile phone is mobile, it offers a touchscreen, it has a helpful accelerometer. Develop for the device! Apps that act like though that they're on a regular desktop computer are probably to become less successful.
Have the right background
It really helps to end up being the experienced software program developer, preferably with a background in Internet games. Every one of the companies and individuals who distinguished themselves have a longer track record in this unique market. Sometimes, it was just just a few using the available business model and making the logical jump to i phone apps. In others, the app ended up being the start with the business and in other instances it could in addition become the end with the road.
Don'big t be considered a one-hit wonder
5 with the top paid apps were orphans or close, with only 1 to two apps per developer. A lot more common, though, were developers with stables of 3 to 15 apps. Only 1 developer had more than 15 apps. Successful developers leveraged available products and apps, building on one particular to make others - but adapting an app to make very comparable spin-offs (iBeer, iMilk, iSoda, Magic Wallet), while smart, seems a little as well opportunistic. The app developers that have developed several distinctive, compelling games are much more probable to have numerous successes.
In fact, 3 companies (Freeverse, Pangea Software package, Electronic Arts) each had a couple of top-twenty apps. Just about all 3 are big or biggish companies, implying that it takes significant resources to product or service a winning app.
Don'big t end up being way too hung upwards on price
The de facto standard iphone 3gs app price is $0.99. This level ended up being quickly established in the App Store like the place where most buyers felt happy. Perhaps it'utes due to the conventional cost of iTunes music.
In almost any case, almost all of the winning apps command better prices, with 13 with the 20 priced coming from $1.99 way up, and 4 of them commanding the majestic (for apple iphone apps) price of $4.99 on the entire day we did the review.
You don'testosterone need Lite or Free teaser apps
Below's a very interesting factoid. Only 2 of the top twenty apps (iHunt and iShoot) have a free or lite version, at least for the duration of writing. Both developers are individuals fairly than companies, and it'ersus interesting that the bigger outfits don'testosterone understand the need for teasers. The implication will be that if it'utes worth buying, people will pay for it.
The freebie iShoot Lite had 2.4 million downloads in January, and there were 320,000 paid downloads. So it's fairly probable that the free app drove sales in the paid app -- but it'utes also probable that there might have been far more paid downloads had the free app not been available.
You don't must be a huge company (though it helps)
Could it be that success in iphone 3gs apps depends on having enormous, sophisticated, expensive marketing strategies? Not necessarily.
There'utes no question that it helps to always be Internet savvy and have strong pockets, but the winning app developers were an encouraging mix of sizes and types.
Six in the 17 developers are big multinational companies -- Apple itself (Texas Keep'em), Electronic Arts (TETRIS, Monopoly), Activision (Crash Bandicoot) and SEGA (Super Monkey Ball). Then there are a bunch of mid-sized companies and, happily, additionally 7 tiny groups and 4 individuals.
iFart Mobile is truly an interesting story. It was developed by an internet based marketing guru who understood how to the job the system and get incredible publicity by producing a pointless app that he must have known would very easily produce controversy, laughter and awareness.
The Internet mythology of smart guys working evenings or saturdays and sundays, or out in the garage, and hitting the jackpot, lives on. The little guys in this kind of group are Bob Moffett (iHunt), Ethan Nicholas (iShoot) and, so far because we can explain to, Shinya Kasatani (Bank account Guitar). These guys might not become the next Steve Jobs, nonetheless they have been successful to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, just a dollar or two at a time. Pretty impressive.
Controversy is useful, but by no means important
iFart Mobile in particular, and to the lesser extent iBeer and iHunt, are rather controversial and almost certainly garnered a several publicity because of this. You can almost view the controversy in the ratings -- while nearly all of the 20 top apps have a dominant rating of 5 stars, gradually over time dropping down, these 3 controversial apps had large numbers of ratings for both 5 stars and 1 star. So this kind of distribution of rating might not hurt a helpful app, and might show a developer that the app has a lots of potential to create buzz.
The other top apps did not may seem to designed to attract controversy which obviously didn'big t hurt them.
Five-star ratings are neither essential nor achievable for top apps
You can'capital t please all the people most of the time -- so the a lot more ratings there are, the lower the odds of the 5 or even 4.5 star average. None in the top apps had 5 stars and most had 3 to 4 stars. iHunt had only two.5 stars, because a lots of people hated it.
It takes a Lots of downloads to produce a lots of ratings
Although almost certainly countless people collectively downloaded the 20 top apps, the highest number of ratings (Fieldrunners) has been 1,479 and the lowest (Bank account God) was 226. Most consumers don'n provide ratings, and even fewer write reviews.
Granted that people like to end up being part of the happy herd, it's almost certain that savvy developers actively promote positive ratings and reviews.
The theme doesn'testosterone must classic or familiar
Classics like Texas Keep'em, Monopoly and TETRIS (every single one developed by public companies) did characteristic in the 20 top apps. The other apps were occasionally familiar, at times not, but none of them really adapted a big-name, well-known sport. Wallet Guitar, of course, used a well-loved instrument with great success. But to balance that, Ocarina catapulted the obscure early flute to fame.
Leading counts
There are many, many, many i phone games with themes not dissimilar to the top games. There are dozens of guitar simulations. There are 5 other iFart apps. So just having a good thought isn'big t adequate.
The iFart apps are the interesting illustration. Almost uniformly, these people have not developed a following, and the comments are mainly bad -- not because they will're vulgar and silly, but because they will're not adequately executed and surfers don'big t like them.
Right now you understand some of the secrets. Happy programming!
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