iPhone helping developers stay afloat in 2008
No credit crunch in the iEconomy
Over on our sister site, PocketGamer.biz, Stu's been looking at a couple of fascinating stories about the amount of money floating around the iPhone-o-sphere that really brings home what a great (half) year it's been for developers who got onboard the Apple train.
The first story revolves around Smule's US$10,000 worth of prize money being given to users of its Ocarina app who upload videos of themselves playing it on YouTube. Smule is apparently set to clock up an impressive US$1 million from its four sub-$1 apps, which goes to show what a bit of wry entertainment can do to capture the imagination (and money) of bored iPhoners.
Pangea has Smule beat, however, as it's on course to raise an enormous US$5 million from its App Store products (including Cro-Mag Rally, Enigmo and Antimatter), according to boss man Brian Greenstone:
"It's crazy. It's like lottery money. In the last four and a half months we've made as much money off the retail sales of iPhone apps as we've made with retail sales of all of the apps that we've made in the past 21 years – combined."
The economy might be suffering everywhere else, and Woolies is probably wishing it had a way to sell iPhone apps, but it seems the Apple phenomenon is only just getting started in 2008. Imagine what these companies will do with a full year of iPhone sales in 2009...
