Apalon, our game development and animation arm is definitely having a busy week launching several projects at a time. There were more then 100 online news and review publications about those projects during this week so I’m going to list major news here:

It started on Monday with the release of Drunk Sniper iPhone Application which was released last weekend and immediately started generating buzz online:

http://www.venturebeat.com/2009/05/11/drunk-sniper-an-unofficial-sequel-to-those-iphone-beer-apps/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/may/13/ifart-iphone-applications-apps-apple

http://www.digg.com/apple/iPhone_App_Turns_iPhone_into_a_Penis

http://www.appleiphoneapps.com/2009/05/drunk-sniper-realistic-beer-relieving-experience-on-your-iphone/

http://www.iphonesavior.com/2009/05/drunk-sniper-the-ultimate-iphone-pissing-game.html

Tuesday – browser based animated MMORPG Disciple released together with Resistor Productions LLC and MMORPG.COM. Disciple had 12.000 preregistered users and during 4 days it raised to 15.000+ :

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/disciple-is-a-real-time-player-to-player-fantasy-battlefield-for-adults/

http://www.venturebeat.com/2009/05/12/resistor-productions-launches-a-bloody-browser-based-game-for-adults/

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/405/feature/3030

http://www.digg.com/playable_web_games/New_MMO_lets_gamers_hack_people_s_heads_off

Wednesday – Sparta – iPhone Game developed for Pockey Monkey Games is released and becomes popular the same day. I see it in TOP50 Games USA and TOP100 overall while writing this post.

Looks like half of Apalon folks was working day and night this week – me for sure. Luckily the weekend is here and we can take some rest now.

Tags: apalon, iphone application development, mmorpg development
Posted in cool links, corporate events, flash, game development, internet marketing, iphone development, management | No Comments »

Everyone releasing iPhone application should submit URL for the application web site along with the other app data. While we were just adding extra page dedicated to the app description to our customer’s web sites in the past it might be time to consider creating stand alone web sites now. There are 30.000+ apps on the AppStore now and hoving another ’stand out of the crowd’ factor will definitely be useful. The question is to what degree. If you have opinions – please comment.

Developers has already started it, but it’s still hard to find the best sample. Folks from WebDesignerDepot has come up with the collection of 40 best-looking iPhone Application Websites up to date.

Also I would be interested to hear other developer’s thoughts on traffic that AppStore is bringing to the web site and other useful stats on the subject.

Tags: iphone application development, iphone application websites
Posted in iphone development | 1 Comment »

As an iPhone developer or a publisher you are eager to know the sales stats for a certain applications on Apple AppStore.

We noticed that it’s possible to guess the sales of a particular app by looking at the number of reviews of application in the AppStore. Sure, this is very relative guess and can give the results which differ up to several times but still it’s good for a guess. Knowing if an app made 1.000, 10.000, 50.000, 100.000 or 500.000 sales can really help with understanding the preferences of iPhone users. Please note – we talk about paid Apps with no specific geo-targeting placed in USA AppStore since it’s the biggest one. Generally this is the case for 95% of Apps out there.

Let’s compare the sales numbers published online vs number of reviews those Applications have and come up with the ratio:

- Ocarina, reports $1MLM in revenue on Dec 13th, 2008 with price changing from $1.99 to $0.99. Rough guess: 700.000 units sold by now with 1255 reviews. Ratio: 550:1

- iFart Mobile. Is at 300.000 units right now based their twitter post and on the sales data they published when the app was in TOP1 of all categories. Has 769 reviews. Ratio: 400:1

- Trism reported 250k in sales with the price being $4.99 and ultimetly dropping to $2.99. Our guess the guy made 200.000 unit sales. There 545 reviews now. Ratio: 350:1

- Wooble sold about 10.000 units for one week and has 50 reviews. Ratio: 200:1

And the last piece of info: calculate sales of the apps which have at lest 30 reviews. Smaller number of reviews could get irrelevant sales figures for many reasons, e.g. the first reviews could be made by friends and family of the Application Developer.

We welcome you to post sales data vs number of reviews other applications in comments and will be updating this post accordingly.

Tags: iphone application development, iphone development, iphone sales data, iphone sales figures
Posted in iphone development, management | 13 Comments »

Everyone is excited about Iphone platform these days. With about 15 MLN devices sold so far it makes a huge new audience to target. A great deal of our customers and partners is coming up with the ideas for the Iphone Applications. I love talking to people about their ideas – being a business development person in nature it makes a good part of my day. All the Iphone-related requests can be divided into three categories according to my experience:

- Make another kick-ass application that will hit TOP10 AppStore. With stories like that popping up the internet every day there is a bunch of folks out there that think they have another great idea for the app. And I’m sure some of those will hit the jackpot!

- Port existing application or web service to the Iphone Platform. This is very wise move typically! Literally there is a wholly new audience waiting for the service which you provide on the web and not yet on Iphone. Be the first and gain competitive advantage over competitors. Now I heard the stories from CEO’s telling that they not only managed to increase the audience for the main service they provide but to earn some extra buck from the Iphone App sales.

- Update the web sites so they are displayed correctly on the Iphones. That is the simplest but smart move as well. With adoption of Iphones people started using Internet more heavily on mobile devices. So yes, it’s time to update your web site if you still didn’t do so.

Now the funniest thing about all Iphone-development buzz is that experienced app developers charge up to $150-250 per hour and some are booked up for the coming months. There are lots of talks about Interactive Agencies rejecting <$30k Iphone development projects because of the gap between the demand and available experienced developers on the market. MoveYourWeb is here to help as always! We have enough talent pool onsite and keep charging at a fraction of the rates mentioned above. Even after one of our apps was featured by Apple team.

Tags: iphone, iphone application development, iphones
Posted in iphone development, outsourcing, web development | No Comments »

After the recent successful launch of Atomic Checkers Iphone Game we do not reject the leads for Iphone game development any more. Previously Iphone Application Development wasn’t our focus because of the lack of expertise and we stepped into this market finally.

For those of you wishing to learn this science too – here is the nice link to the course prepared by Stanford.

Tags: game development, iphone application development, iphone development
Posted in cool links, game development, iphone development | 1 Comment »