iPhone Application Store – First to Market Will Win

People are scrambling to write applications for the new iPhone. The iPhone store model really appeals to a lot of people, and the platform for Devleoping seems really easy to use

The funny thing is, if I buy an instant messaging application for 5 dollars, will I pay another 5 dollars for one tiny new feature? Granted, there’s a lot of room to be creative, how else will people compete on feature sets and user-experience when the framework and more importantly – the amount of *useful* applications is going to be limited? If you’re the first person to roll out an application for a phone, how much will people want to pay to switch? How will they decide? The most popular applications will be the first ones in their category. Lets just take the Instant Messaging category as an example. If I can support 5 different IM services, and I’m the first to market I win. Because the next team is going to have to have 10 different services (that you WANT), a way better interface, be cheaper, and convinced you to switch based on those merits. There’s definitely a fine line between making money, and being ubiquitous – the best iPhone apps will do both.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://dalelarson.com/2008/06/apps-are-new-singles-betting-on.html Dale Larson

    I think apps will work more like music singles. First to market in a given genre will not be an overwhelming advantage. In fact, releases will be inspired by each other and build on each other. There will be no stigma to having a new favorite next week. Ratings from other listeners, as well as what your friends are listening to, reviewers are writing about, etc., will help you decide what to tune in to.

  • http://trevoro.ca Trevor

    That’s Interesting. I enjoyed reading your post, but I have to disagree based on price-point alone. A song is different from an application in that they’re unique. What makes an application different from another application is a set of features, and I don’t think that extra features are worth buying a new app over again and setting it up – for 10 dollars. If an application is cheap enough, then you eliminate that as barrier. The exception is *different* applications. I would have no problem buying a useful ssh client, a useful file uploader and a useful photo editor. But if my old photo editor does 90% of the things I want it to do, I wont spend more money to get one more feature.

    The only way around that is to offer a separate ‘upgrade’ price.

  • http://dalelarson.com/2008/06/apps-are-the-new-singles-betting-on/ Dale Larson » Blog Archive » Apps are the new Singles: Betting on AppStore Revenue

    [...] response to Apps First to Market will win?: I think apps will work more like music singles. First to market in a given genre will not be an [...]