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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Apple Looks the Other Way for iMafia’s Revenue Model

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Apple apparently looked the other way when the iMafia app for iPhone came through the AppStore gates. The game from PlayMesh allows users to buy additional premium content and packages games from outside developers together with the premium content, making iMafia the first app with an approved in-game microtransaction system, according to a report at Gizmodo.

The system allows developers to monetize free apps without advertising, and companies profit by selling in-game bonus material. Apple retains its usual cut from any apps sold within iMafia, but then PlayMesh will take an additional (still undisclosed) cut from those developers working with them. Is it possible everyone wins in this scenario?

If Apple continues to approve apps with such a revenue and promotion model, it could turn out to be one cure for the “race to the bottom” that some developers have complained about.

According to Play Mesh founder Charles Ju, in the two days this system has been live, iMafia has pushed two other games into the top 100 of overall paid iPhone games. iMafia, which is free, currently ranks seventh among the iPhone’s most popular games.

About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

Email the author | Read more posts by Lonnie Lazar.

One comment

    iMafia wasn’t the first app to do this. iMob has been doing this for a while now. The two games are very, very similar in almost every aspect.

    Having played both, I can guarantee that iMob did this revenue model prior to iMafia.

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