APPLE’S APPSTORE has just passed the one billion downloads of software applications that run on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Thousands of developers have created software for the service contributing over 15,000 free and paid-for applications, including EyeSpyFX, a Derry-based start-up run by Anthony Hutton, a senior lecturer at the University of Ulster.
Over a decade ago Mr Hutton was working on a web-based robotics programme that slowly evolved into the webcam application that has found commercial success thanks to Apple.
The software turns the iPhone into a monitor for viewing streaming video images over a 3G connection. Used for home security or baby and pet monitoring, the user can pan and tilt the webcam remotely to change the view. EyeSpyFX has sold thousands of copies at $4.99 (€3.76) a download, sometimes hundreds in a day.
After a thorough vetting process, Apple offers developers a shopfront on iTunes, with a 70/30 split in the developer’s favour. Many apps are free – like the Carlsberg iPint which depicts a disappearing jar of lager when the iPhone is tilted – while the rest are typically priced between 75c and €5.
“It’s been a revolution,” said Mr Hutton. “Up until AppsStore, mobile phone companies more or less controlled the content that was on the phone and suppliers like us had nowhere to go except through a very circuitous route. Then along came Apple and turned the mobile industry upside down.”
True to the Apple tradition, the store sells applications that are simple to download and easy to use. And because Apple refused to relinquish control of iPhone content to mobile operators it has been able to create a “walled garden” for wide-ranging content that has caught the imagination of consumers and developers.
Chart-topping applications, listed on iTunes, gain their own momentum and good reviews are also important, according to Mr Hutton. “You spend all your time being scared stiff of bad comments. Very often they are unfair or something has been misunderstood, but you have to live with it.”
He said it can be a lucrative and direct route to market for developers but played down the idea that it creates overnight millionaires, pointing out that the developer of iFart, a range of flatulence audio samples that made nearly $10,000 a day at its peak, was working on the idea for many years before he struck gold.
“People don’t come out of nowhere with these ideas; the guy behind that one had a long legacy in farting,” he said.
Such has been Apple’s success that that Nokia Ovi, Android Market from Google and apps stores from Microsoft and BlackBerry will all hope to grab a piece of a fast emerging business.
