"Over $2 billion a year."
Apple has long maintained that they run their content stores (iTunes, App Store, etc) as essentially “break-even” businesses. As Horace Dediu points out with data, that’s likely no longer the case. Not even close.
Howdy, I'm MG Siegler. I’m a general partner at Google Ventures and a columnist for TechCrunch. This is where I collect things.
Some selected works. Some haikus. Some investments. Ask away.
Showing 11 posts tagged app store
Apple has long maintained that they run their content stores (iTunes, App Store, etc) as essentially “break-even” businesses. As Horace Dediu points out with data, that’s likely no longer the case. Not even close.
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Whoa! Our iPhone app has been chosen by Apple as an App Store Best of 2012.
We are truly honored. And we’ve still got some surprises this year. :)
Well deserved.

I first encountered 955 Dreams about a year ago when I came across a magical iPad app called The History of Jazz. When I sat down with co-founder Kiran Bellubbi to talk about the app for a TechCrunch story, it was immediately apparent that his vision extended far beyond just one beautiful app.
I kicked off my story with something he said to me: “The shallow experience for a user has to be very interesting. The deep experiences have to be profound.” In the app-crazy world we live in, it’s not uncommon to hear developers attempt to get philosophical. But with Bellubbi, I totally bought it.
And my instinct about Bellubbi and co-founder T.J. Zark proved correct. They followed up The History of Jazz with the equally brilliant On The Way To Woodstock. Both apps got Apple’s seal of approval in the form of App of the Week accolades.
A shitty title and an overall crap study/post. If the iPhone was as poor of an environment for game development as Android is, I suppose the title would be: Apps Are For Android, Apps Are For iPhone.
Point is: yes, games dominate the top apps in the App Store. But they would on Android Market as well if developers could make money the same way they do with games on iOS. But they can’t yet, so “Apps” (meaning: non-game apps) are the most popular apps.
Or maybe I’m wrong. As Dan Rowinski writes (in almost quasi-English):
To a certain extent, it makes sense that games are downloaded more on iOS. Game developers tend to go to the platform first hardware on iOS devices makes it very conducive to making great games. Android is not far behind in that field. There must be some sociological reason that games are much more popular with iOS users. Do they have more spare time? More prone to the groupthink and doing what everyone else is doing? More affluent? Bored?
There must be some sociological reason. Clearly. There’s no way it’s because game developers can make money on one platform and not the other. Or because they have better tools to develop for one platform over the other. It’s obvious that gaming is huge on iOS because of groupthink and because iOS users are generally bored.
Groundbreaking analysis.
Ha, Weird. Awesome.
Looks familiar…
And yet, shitty.
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Apple TV Will Remain A Hobby Until Someone Shows Apple The Money (Or Apps)
Verizon has a great network, but their operating systems, UI, etc, have all be awful over the years. I suspect this will be no different. And it will bomb.
Slick. As. Fuck.
The just-released Reeder Version 2.0 is awesome. Finally, a good Google Reader native app for the iPhone.
Find it here in the App Store ($2.99)
Update: My larger review of the app.