Dumb iPhone Applications
No matter how you look at, 2008 was the year of the App Store: Launched July 11 in tandem with the release of Apple's iPhone 3G, the virtual retail storefront revolutionized the distribution and sale of mobile applications, with consumers downloading more than 60 million apps in the first month alone--a $21 million windfall for the computing giant's developer partners. In mid-October, the App Store reached the 200 million download benchmark, just over 100 days after it opened.
The App Store now boasts applications in 19 categories including Games, Navigation, and Music. What it doesn't offer is a category for overpaid, self-infatuated jackasses--Apple made sure of that in August when it removed I Am Rich, a $1,000 application created by German developer Armin Heinrich that does absolutely nothing except display a picture of a glowing ruby on the iPhone screen. That's right--it's an app that tells everyone unfortunate enough to cross your path "I am so painfully insecure and desperate for approval that I must waste a thousand bucks to show off my immense wealth instead of quietly donating that money to the charitable organization of my choice." Remarkably, eight iPhone subscribers shelled out a grand each for the I Am Rich app before Apple yanked it. Talk about turkeys.
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Posted by Pav | November 21, 2008 - 2:10am
I have to disagree with the esteemed Fierce Team on this one. We've all read more than one article about how evil the carriers, OEMs, etc. are for arbitrarily applying rules to content. Well, this is "open" everyone (albeit, mistakenly so).
If I can’t go back to my car dealer after forking over 10k over MSRP because I thought the contract was a joke, why should I be able to in wireless? Is it just me or does it seem we’re held to different standards?
