iPhone App Developer Making $1M/month
Some software publishers just get it all right. Tapulous, who own the hit Tap Tap Revenge iPhone app, are reportedly pulling in $1M per month in app sales. That’s US$1,000,000. Per month. They currently have 20 employees and have raised nearly $3M in from investors. Consider, Apple has sold over 50M iPhones and Tap Tap Revenge has been installed over 20M times.
Tapulous is not the only iPhone app developer turning a healthy profit. There are others, though many more developers are making nothing at all or a negligible amount. CallStyle is currently engaged in market research on monetizing iPhone apps, and we’ll be publishing our findings in early 2010.
iPhone App Review: TimeLines
Update
My original review of the Timelines time logging app is below, but after a few more weeks of use, I’ve decided to write an update to this review.
As you’ll see in the original review below, I was very excited about Timelines, especially because I found the interface gorgeous and the graphical breakdown of time codes enough to satisfy my data visualization fetish. My disappointment was that the interface was not entirely intuitive. However, out of fairness, I have to admit that I used the app without really making much of an effort to more than browse the instructions and video primer. But now, after a few more weeks of use, I’m finding that I actually enjoy the Timelines app. It’s still quirky and “sticky” in funny ways, but other than that I get out of it what I want in a time logging tool.
Original Review
The TimeLines time logging app for the iPhone and iPod Touch looks fantastic and seems great in theory, but in actuality, it’s the first iPhone app I’ve paid for that I’ve been disappointed in and felt like I wasted my money. So far, I’ve found it difficult to use, lacking in instructions, difficult to correct.
That said, I love the visuals and the charting potential, but the unusual way of entering times and durations for project tasks/ activities is very awkward at first and “sticky” in a bad way. And if you need to change one task’s duration, it could have a domino effect on subsequent tasks in the timeline.
To improve this app and make it worth the US$4.99, a number of things have to be improved:
Foremost is the funny way the current vertical bar of color sits underneath the point you stop at. Take a look at the screensnap above. The final vertical bar for (task ‘Code 3′) ends 15 minutes below the point that the ‘break’ bar sits at. Visually, the break bar suggests that a task ends there, so why is it sitting 15 min above the task code bars bottom? But wait, it gets odder. If you leave the app and come back, there’ll be a ‘break’ bar at the bottom of the final task, but the break bar of 15 min earlier will still be there (see snap below). Instructions to this regard would help.
Another big issue I have is that if you define, say, 10 different task/time codes but a given day does not use them all, all the codes still show up on the left. That might mean you have to scroll down needlessly to see durations for various time codes. What happens if you have, say, 20 different time codes? To be a more efficient app, only the codes in use for the given day should be visible. Of course, the current screen makes it easier to enter durations for a given task code, but harder to view overall. So to facilitate the improved viewing of durations, Cronologic will have to change the way task codes are selected.
I really hope they improve this app. It looks like it has a lot of potential. (A free, basic version would have been nice, with maybe only 2 or 3 time codes allowed.) But for now, I’ll log my work tasks as I’ve been doing: in a Google spreadsheet.
Introducing the Sony Ericsson W380i Walkman Phone
Sony Ericsson today introduces 2 new mobile phones in its stable of Walkman phone, the W890 and W380i. Although the Sony Ericsson W890 is the high-end handset of the two, the Sony Ericsson W380i is worth noting because of its two innovative features which Sony Ericsson is introducing into the mobile market.
The W380i boosts of a cool gesture control technology and an external display that appears only when you need it for displaying the music track that is playing or to know who is calling you.
If you think that the iPhone’s touch screen feature is innovative, well Sony Ericsson will make you think again with its gesture control technology. W380i’s gesture control feature will let you mute calls or silence the phone alarm with a wave of your hands. It simply defines what “total handsfree” is all about. With the W380i’s gesture control, you will no longer to reach out for your phone while in the middle of a nice sleep when the alarm sounds off.
Aside from the innovative gesture control feature the W380i also has a cool external display that positions the phone’s music control on the surface of the phone. With a one touch button you can select tracks to display, skip on a track that you don’t want and find out what track is currently playing. Did I say that you don’t have to open the phone to do that? This is a handy feature especially since the W380 is a clamshell phone.
But of course, the W380i also comes with other Sony Ericsson Walkman phone features. This includes a Media Manager PC software that lets you easily transfer music, photos and videos from and to your PC and the W380i. The W380i is also loaded with SE Walkman phone’s Track ID feature. The Track ID feature will let you search for information about a particular song that you don’t recognize on the phone’s FM radio. With the W380i, you no longer have to search the web for information about a particular song that you heard. You can easily do it with the W380s Track ID feature.
The Sony Ericsson W380i is slated for Q1 2008 release together with two other Sony Ericsson mobile phones, the K660i and the W890i.
JAJAH Launches In-Call Advertising: Transforming Telephone Calls to Advertising Market Place
Innovative phone company, JAJAH is soon to turn the world’’s inventory of phone calls into an advertising market place. With its patent pending in-call advertising platform, JAJAH will change the way in-call advertising are currently being done. That is, instead of interrupting phone calls with voice advertisement, JAJAH’’s platform will instead overlay the advertisement above the ring tone just before the call starts. This way, callers will not be disturbed by the advertisement when making calls. JAJAH has been testing a method to overlay advertising content on phone calls which will both benefit consumers and the telecommunications companies as well.
Roman Scharf, JAJAH’’s co-founder said that JAJAH is aiming to change the way the advertising community sees telephony as an advertising media. “We spend more time on the phone than consuming all other types of media, TV, reading papers and radio included. However, advertisers spend very little budget advertising on telephone calls,” saysScharf.
JAJAH is gearing its in-call advertising platform as the Google Adwords of phones. JAJAH’’s in-call advertising will be made available to its users soon. And it will be offered to JAJAH users as an opt-in solution where they will hear and see targeted advertising content and eventually receive monthly credit for it.JAJAH will also give its users an incentive to earn back their phone bill or even make money while calling their friends or relatives.
JAJAH is also looking into increasing the reach of its in-call advertising to include telecommunication companies to use their platform in monetizing phone inventories. Telephone operations will later on be given the opportunity to use JAJAH’’s advertising appliance in their environments and to connect to JAJAH’’s platform.
The in-call advertising will also allow businesses to target their audience on any given scale. These businesses would be able to play their advertising messages to local communities ofJAJAH users. Hence, a more specific and audience targeted advertising campaigns will be carried out.To test this new service, JAJAH has partnered with advertising network Oridian, thus giving JAJAH instant access to a large number of companies which can try out JAJAH’’s in-call advertising.