How Much Money Does A News App Make?→

How Much Money Does A News App Make?

According to the top grossing stats Writer and WIRED generate a similar amount of revenue in the US app store. Which is around $1,200-2,000 or 300-500 downloads per day. It’s hard to say how that translates into global sales, but according to our own stats the US is by far the strongest revenue market (about 75% of Writer’s sales) and as such a good indicator.

Now, what if, as some might argue, the real economical value of iPad apps comes from the ads you can plug into a news app? (Which is the classic anti-paywall position). Well, if so, why not publish the app for free, so you can reach much more readers and become a truly attractive ad platform?

Oliver Reichenstein makes a good argument. For an indie developer, $2000 per day isn’t too bad. But for someone like Wired? Perhaps advertisement is the only option, but with a free app.

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Air Video Update: Retina Graphics, Multitasking - Still A Must-Have

Air Video is one of our favorite iOS apps here at MacStories. Not only does the app come with a nice icon and polished interface, the real deal’s about the functionality: Air Video allows you to effortlessly stream any video from your computer to the iPhone or iPad – even with live conversion. No matter the format, no matter how big the file is (seriously, you can try with music videos or 3GB movie files), Air Video will stream to iOS just fine.

An update to the app was released yesterday, and it’s a pretty sweet update: Air Video 2.4.2 now comes with Retina Display-ready graphics, support for iOS 4.2 multitasking, performance improvements and enhanced file sorting capabilities.

An already must-have app basically got a lot better with these new features, so if you still don’t own Air Video, go buy it right now in the App Store at $2.99. Also, check out a video below of Erica Sadun from TUAW demoing a custom version of Air Video with AirPlay support. We can’t wait for Apple to open up its APIs and allow third-party apps like Air Video to stream to the Apple TV. Read more

Fruit Ninja HD: Now With Online Multiplayer and Game Center Support

One of my favorite iPad games to date, and the reason why I basically can’t use the iPad over the weekend (my friends regularly come to my place to grab it and play), was updated yesterday to include full Game Center support and online multiplayer.

Fruit Ninja HD, the massive hit by Halfbrick Studios which consists in slicing fruits with your fingers, now allows you to play online with a friend – all you have to do is avoid your opponent’s fruit. Sounds like fun, can’t wait to try it. The new update also brings Game Center support with Leaderboards and Achievements.

Fruit Ninja HD is available at $4.99 in the App Store and it’s totally worth your money. Version 1.1.1 changelog embedded below. Read more

This Is How An iPad Goes Crazy

Spotted by 9to5mac and still in development by conradev over at Hackthatifone, Graviboard will basically kill “gravity” on your iPad Springboard. Install it, assign an activation gesture to it and boom – icons will start floating around. You can tilt the device to move the icons, and even drag them around.

We’re not sure if there’s a way back, though. Ok, there is a way back to a normal Springboard, but you don’t have to tell your friend who think his iPad is dead – right? So just watch the video below, and think about the look on your friend’s face when he will see something like this.

Magical.

Apple Confirms: No Demos In The Mac App Store

Following last night’s seeding of a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.6, Apple updated its Developer News portal with a few tips for developers to consider before trying to submit their Mac apps for approval. Among these tips (which include file system usage and custom graphical controls), Apple confirmed what many developers feared since the Mac App Store was announced: Apple won’t accept any kind of demo, trial or beta version in the new Store.

Apple is, in fact, suggesting developers to host demos on their own websites, as the Mac App Store only accepts retail versions of apps:

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

We don’t know yet if Apple will provide a way to better showcase links to developers’ website in the App Store description pages (right now, the iOS App Store features two links buried under an app’s description, right above screenshots) but sure this is bad news for many developers who were hoping Apple would announce the possibility to release demo versions in the Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store opening isn’t too far away now, so we’ll know more about the whole process in the upcoming weeks.

New OS X 10.6.6 Build Seeded To Developers, Public Release Soon?

(image via 9to5mac)

As noted by MacRumors, a few hours ago Apple seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 to developers. Build number is 10J537, and it comes 21 days after the public release of OS X 10.6.5. A first build of 10.6.6 was seeded before the actual release of 10.6.5.

The new build is apparently listed as GM (“golden master”) for the developers having access to it through the Mac App Store development program. Other registered Mac developers, as also reported by MacRumors, don’t see the build being listed as GM. Listing an OS update as golden master makes us think that Apple might be willing to release it soon, although it is quite curious that some developers haven’t been notified of the change.

Apple is set to open the Mac App Store in late January 2011, and we’re hearing there’s a deadline going on now for Mac developers to submit their apps for approval before the grand opening. This build of 10.6.6 provides “developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts” and Apple has explicitly asked developers to test fixes in Dock, Bonjour, Spotlight, OpenGL and Printing. Does that “printing” sound a lot like “support for shared printers in AirPrint” to you as much as it does to us?

Could Apple release OS X 10.6.6 and catch the popular two birds with one stone by delivering AirPrint fixes and Mac App Store in the same OS update? We sure hope so. After all, Jobs promised more on AirPrint is coming. Plus, the clock’s ticking on the Mac App Store.

What’s for sure is, exciting times are ahead for Mac users.

Apple Now Featuring “Holiday Apps & Games” In The App Store Homepage

With Christmas just around the corner, Apple decided it was about time to start featuring holiday-related apps and games in the App Store. After all, they’ve been doing this for music and movies in the iTunes Store for a few weeks now, promoting apps sounded like the next most obvious step. So here they are, grouped together in a nice section Apple is featuring with a simple and elegant in the iPhone and iPad App Store homepages.

This is a direct link to the new section. As of right now, apps such as Angry Birds Seasons, Christmas Sudoku HD and Talking Santa for iPad are included.

We’re pretty sure more will come in the next weeks, and we think it’s a very nice way to put apps parents and kids will find interesting in this time of the year under Apple’s spotlight.

White iPhone Spotted In A Bar

Following in the footsteps of Gizmodo, we have our own bar stories to share with the general public. Or at least some spy shots of Apple’s unicorn-status white iPhone 4. While there aren’t any scandalous stories about sex and espionage (I wish there was), we do have some sexy finger photos after the break.

Read more

There’s A New Minecraft Clone In The App Store

Fans of popular indie sandbox game for Mac and PC Minecraft have been asking for a native iOS porting for months now. While it looks like they won’t be getting an official iPhone or iPad version anytime soon, clones approved by Apple are here to help.

After a brief appearance of “Minecrafted for iPhone” two weeks ago, there’s a new app in the App Store called “Eden - World Builder” which looks and behaves a lot like the original Minecraft. The app is available now here, and it’s priced at $4.99. Although the app’s name doesn’t carry the Minecraft brand, the description on iTunes says:

Explore a vast pristine world of infinite possibility. Build your own personal Eden. Eden brings the creative block building genre, pioneered by games like Minecraft, Infiniminer, and Blockland, to the touch screen.

Whatever. From what I can see in the app, though, looks like you can break any block with 1 hit, and I haven’t seen monsters around. Perhaps I just need to play more.

Anyway, grab the app before Apple pulls it, it’s available here.