iPhone developers focus on quality after 'anything goes' era

IPhone developers, who flocked to Apple Inc.’s App Store in search of a quick profit, are finding it’s getting more difficult to come up with breakout hits.

With more than 35,000 applications now available for the iPhone, consumers are more discerning about what applications they download. “A new version of the iPhone operating system due for release in the next few months will have users clamoring for even more sophisticated programs,” said Chris James, who runs SnapDat Networks Inc., an iPhone app company in New York.

“The early apps that came out had a distinct advantage because there weren’t a lot of them to compete for attention,” said James, a former Wall Street trader. Now, “you better have a high-quality app or don’t even try.”

Sales of mobile programs industrywide may exceed $25 billion by 2014, with games being the largest category, according to a report this week from Juniper Research in Basingstoke, England. Apple has sold more than 37 million units of the iPhone and iPod Touch, which also runs iPhone apps. The company doesn’t break out sales from the App Store.

For developers, Apple serves as a gatekeeper, reviewing every program before including it on the App Store and deciding which ones to promote. Developers get a 70 per cent cut of each program sold, with Apple retaining 30 per cent. Free programs are distributed at no cost.

“Anything goes right now,” said Sean Lyons, whose Los Angeles-based startup, HK Apps, created a $2.99 program that delivers jokes that start with the words ‘Yo Mama.’ Creating a future hit may not be so easy as users demand more features, he said.

Apple’s vetting process for apps fueled debate last week after the store began selling ‘Baby Shaker,’ a 99-cent program that let users vent their frustration by shaking on-screen infants.

The company removed the program after a child-welfare group, the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, called it “horrific.” Apple apologized, saying the application was “deeply offensive” and should never have been offered.

More than 800,000 developers have downloaded the kit needed to write programs for the iPhone, and users have downloaded more than 1 billion programs.

Apple doesn’t provide many details about the vetting process. In March, when it unveiled a software upgrade for the iPhone, the company said 96 per cent of programs get approved. Of those, 98 per cent are accepted in seven days or less.

Lyons, 23, spent a week recording 320 jokes for his “Yo Mama Extreme: Voice Edition.” The program reads jokes aloud when people shake the iPhone.

Among the offerings: “Yo Mama has so much hair on her upper lip, she braids it!”

Users have downloaded thousands of copies of “Yo Mama Extreme” since its release in March -- even though six other developers began selling similar programs at the same time, Lyons said. Sales have been brisk enough to convince Lyons and his partner that creating iPhone apps could be a full-time job.

Still, he knows that creating a future hit may not be so easy. “We’re working on more complicated applications,” Lyons said.