The Business of Software

I said I'd report back here, so as promised:

Yesterday Apple finally released for sale in the iTunes App Store the first of my series of Word of the Day iPhone applications (after a software review period of about 2 weeks). The contract clearance process also took about one month.

These apps are extremely simple: One word of the day with audio delivered to your iPhone/iTouch each day. And priced appropriately at 99 cents for a one year subscription. So far three languages are available in the App store: Japanese, French and Chinese. Another five languages are still in Apple's review queue.

In the past 12 hours I have sold 60 copies, for a grand total profit of $42!

Now to start development of an iPhone version of our Audio FlashCards software….

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Ethan
Declan Software

Congrats and thanks for the update. I have a couple of questions about your process and business model.

First, you mention a one month contract review process. Is this an additional step all iPhone developers go through or is this just another way to say "being accepted into the iPhone Developer Program"?

Second, your product description mentions a yearly subscription for the $0.99 price. I'll assume that you have a way to keep track of when a user starts and is scheduled to end the service. I'll also assume you have a mechanism for automatically stopping service. My question is about the price of the application. What factors went into the decision to charge $0.99? Is this enough money to cover your ongoing product delivery costs to each customer?

Finally, do you plan on doing any additional marketing of the product?

I think these answers would be beneficial to this community and help us better understand this newer mISV opportunity. More specifically, there are several here who are or will be iPhone developers and they may appreciate your thoughts and experience.

Did you come by this price any other way than (almost) all other applications being 99 ct? Are there subscription-based applications that go for 99 ct? I'd say you could have just as easily charged 4.99 and made five times the profit...

Is this just a fun project or are you hoping to make any real money on this?

I too am curious about that 1 month time period for the contract. I'm currently in the review process for my app, and I have completed everything dealing with the paid application contract.

I hope this is not what you're talking about. It already took two weeks to get enrollment approval...and an estimated two weeks for the app approval.

Every update to your app has to go through the review process as well. I have two apps in the app store and both have updates waiting for Apples review. This really sucks as it's averaging 10 days per review.

Given the sheer number of applications in the store and presumably in the pipeline, as well as Apple's seemingly arbitrary standards for accepting or rejecting applications, I do believe that anything we develop, needs to be developed as if they were meant for consoles.

In other words, don't plan on being able to deliver updates.

Congratulations to those who have made it though.