View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/08/04/realities.of.app.store.biz/

Monday, Aug 04, 2008 9:55am

Where To developers expose ...

A creator of the popular iPhone app Where To has exposed some of the realities in developing for the App Store. tap tap tap's John Casasanta notes, for instance, that while the company expected to have full sales records from the App Store by now, Apple has so far only shared information dating back to July 28th. In the week of information available, Where To sold about 3,193 downloads at a price of $2.99, leading to $9,547 in net sales.

Because Apple gets to claim 30 percent, TTT's revenue for the week amounts to approximately $6,928 when combined with results from another app; if multiplied by 52 would generate slightly over $360,000 for the entire year. Although selling for a lower price, Where To is said to be beating out any of the company's desktop software.

Casasanta comments though that reasonable income may be dependent on high popularity. Although the other TTT app, Tipulator, is 99 cents and within the top 10 in the App Store's Finance category, only 353 downloads were sold during the recorded period. Unlike Where To, media exposure also failed to boost Tipulator income.

The upside is said to be marketing costs, as the company has spent just $2,000 so far, versus the $250,000 needed to sell the MacHeist II bundle. $1,250 of the iPhone money went to pay for a Daring Fireball ad, while $200 went towards a mail-out, and $300 was used to get reviewers free copies of the apps.

Casasanta says he is extremely optimistic about the App Store as a whole, and that TTT is working on two more programs, Groceries and I'm Here.