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Apple Now Accepting iPad Apps, Planning “Grand Opening” of iPad App Store

Apple is now accepting iPad apps for a “grand opening” of the iPad App Store, according to an email just sent to registered developers.
“iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today,” the email says.
There’s no details about when the store’s grand [...]

Security Expert: “Mac OS X Is Safer, But Less Secure”

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Tech site H-Online has an interesting story today, quoting security expert Charlie Miller about his forthcoming talk at the CanSecWest conference next week.
He says OS X is full of security holes. There are lots more than in Windows, he claims.
And yet: OS X is a safer system to use. Why? Because, in the words [...]

Apple Devotes Entire Home Page To Jerome York Obituary

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If ever you needed a sign that Apple was a different kind of technology company, this is it.
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This is one of those “Here’s to the [...]

Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

Fake Steve creator Dan Lyons just signed a deal to bring Steve Jobs to another small screen near you.
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Study: Free iPhone Apps Quickly Gather Dust

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A new study highlights what could be the iPhone version of attention-deficit disorder. A day after a free iPhone app is downloaded, there’s only a 20 percent chance it will used.

Possibly more disconcerting for Apple and iPhone developers: just 5 percent of free apps are used one month after downloaded – and nearly no free app is used after three months , according to data compiled by Pinch Media.

The tracking data was announced at an iPhone Developers Meetup in New York by Pinch Media CEO Greg Yardley.

Paid applications have an advantage over free applications, according to Yardley’s talk.

Free ad-supported iPhone apps need to earn $8.75 per thousand to equal the revenue from paid apps. However, such free iPhone apps garner between $0.50 and $2 per CPM, according to Pinch Media.

“Unless there’s something inherent about the app that screems ‘free,’ sell it,” Yardley said.

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

Email the author | Read more posts by Ed Sutherland.

5 comments

    The sentence “just 5 percent of free apps are used one month after downloaded – and nearly no free app is used after three months” isn’t quite accurate.

    What that slide shows is the percentage of people who use an application X days after their initial download. So you could say “just 5 percent of users use a free app on the date one month after their initial download.” An entirely different 5 percent of users might use the app on the date one month and a day after their initial download.

    The falloff is still pretty dramatic – it definitely surprised me.

    In the case of many free apps, the lack of use clearly underlines why it was free in the first place: Its a piece of junk. There are a lot of ‘cool’ apps out there that get downloaded purely because they are free ex. iBeers. However I personally like to download free apps mainly on a trial basis, and if I happen to find it useful I will keep it but otherwise its deleted. This is a great way to find new apps that you might not have otherwise discovered and unlock new functionality in your iPhone. Here is a list of free apps that I use daily:

    -VNC lite
    -TwitterFon
    -WiFinder (Wifi checker)
    -Google Earth
    -Aerolite Free
    -Cooliris
    -AIM

    Exactly. The store is filled with crap, if something is free then people will try it, but if its junk people will just discard it. The age old saying still applies:
    ‘You get what you pay for’.

    I’m not sure where else to place this comment, but here goes…

    I’m intrigued by the considerable disparity between the ethos that has long underlaid much Mac sofware development; a kind of benevolent idealism that we might perceive in freeware apps such as NetNewsWire, Skim etc., and the rcrass ‘make-a-quick-buck’ or ‘promote your brand the trendy iPhone way’ culture that has very quickly grown up around the App Store…

    They’re like polar opposites… much of the latter leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

    I can’t see much of the old ‘Think Different’ spirit here:

    http://www.tuaw.com/2009/02/20/first-look-shooter/#comments

    Something for you guys to ponder maybe?

    Peace,

    Belengazi

    Agreed,

    this also reflects on the standards apple applies to apps when they are allowed to be sold on the app store. There are a lot of useful apps not getting in, and the majority of what is getting in is garbage.

    Apple firstly needs to reduce restrictions on apps, and secondly make a category in the app store labeled: ‘16 and Under’ or ‘Waste of Memory/time’

    This is one of the reasons ive decided to jailbreak my itouch, to get some of those good apps.

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