I pay and have paid for apps. I enjoy doing it. I'd rather pay for an app than have it for free with ads. Since I am making my own app I'm trying to figure out what to charge for it.

$1 apps are impulse buys, $3 apps are pushing the impulse a bit, and $5 apps make me do research on the app before I buy it.

It seems silly because it's only $5. I spend way more in the "real world" on things I don't get much enjoyment from. If I don't hear good things about the app during my "research" then I won't buy it. I probably don't buy a $5 app more often than I buy one.

Here's the funny thing though, the apps I use the most are the ones I have paid the most for. It's seems like charging a higher price makes me think about what I'm buying and if I really need it. I'm better off not buying the cheaper apps, and putting that money towards the more "expensive" ones.

The problem I face is this, how many other people think about buying apps the way I do? Does the higher price scare people away, or does it make them interested to do more research? Is it smarter to charge a little higher than cheap but not too high to be expensive? Is there a sweet spot somewhere? I don't have any data on this so I have no idea. Maybe some company has shared this data and I haven't read it yet. 

One last thought, that apps that I use and enjoy the most have always come highly recommended by the people I follow on Twitter. Once a certain person recommended an app for a specific reason I felt comfortable enough trying the app out, regardless of price. So maybe price isn't the problem I have to solve, maybe I just have to make a great app that people will love, and charge enough to make a good profit to keep making new things.

​

I know how that may sound to you, so let me clear this up: I do not think I am Steve Jobs.

I love design. I love getting lost in a problem for hours, then coming back to reality with a great solution. I'm good at it too.

I don't love programming. I've tried to learn but nothing seems to stick and I have never enjoyed it. I suck at it.

I want to meet someone who can compliment my skills. Someone who loves tackling an engineering problem as much as I love tackling a design problem. Someone who gives a shit about the work they produce. A love of outer space is a plus too :)

I'm working on a new web browser for the iPad, and I'm looking for someone to create this with me.

If you are interested or know someone who may be, email me at shawn@yagglo.com.

PS - I have a demo video I can show

Dan Wineman calls it “unprecedented audacity” on Apple’s part. For people like me, who write and sell books, access to multiple markets is essential. But that’s prohibited:

Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented.

Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech.

via ZDnet

Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and Apple iWork are not comparable to iBooks Author. You have to PAY for all of that software. What that means is, you have to use MONEY to BUY it, therefore Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe will not restrict where you can use your created works.

iBooks Author is FREE, which means you do not have to PAY any MONEY. All Apple is asking is that IF you decide to sell your creation for MONEY, they get a cut too. I fail to see what is so evil about that.

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s voice recognition software Siri has prompted owners of the iPhone 4S to use almost twice as much data compared with the handset’s predecessor, placing greater pressure on operators, network firm Arieso said.

Via Bloomberg

Let's hope that the networks can keep up.

Update

After talking with Oz Lubling and doing some research I found this article from Ars Technica from November 2011, 2 months after Siri was introduced:

If you use Siri 2-3 times per day at an average of 63KB per instance, you might expect to use 126KB to 189KB per day, or 3.7 to 5.5MB per month. For 4-6 times a day, that might come out to 252KB to 378KB per day, or 7.4 to 11MB per month. If you use it 10-15 times per day, you might end up using 630KB to 945KB per day, or 18.5 to 27.7MB per month.

Even if you use Siri a lot, that's not very much data usage. Less than 30MB/month.

I would love to see the numbers that are being used to say that Siri is doubling data usage for iPhone users. Something seems off about this.

Christopher Hitchens has died from cancer. It sucks to lose such an honest voice. He was 62 years old. He are some quick thoughts:

- One of my favorite authors.

- Opened my mind to incredible things.

- Loved his honesty.

- One of the best debaters I have ever watched.

- He held back for no one.

- Occasionally he would be insanely rude.

- Always entertaining.

I will miss him.

I got the iPad 1 the first day it came out. The feeling I got when I first used it was great. It felt like I was using something from the future. It didn't seem possible that this big, thin piece of glass could be real.

There weren't many apps at first. I mostly just used it to browse the web, read kindle books and Instapaper. Fast forward, and now I use it for almost everything: email, web browsing, reading, writing (I wrote this on an iPad 2), Netflix, editing movies, blogging, Twitter, games, FaceTime, and on and on.

The point is, I use my iPad for almost everything. The only thing I use my Mac for is design work, Minecraft, and ripping DVDs to play on my iPad. I love it. I used to carry my MacBook with me everywhere, but now the iPad is the perfect fit all day long.

It seems like I'm not the only one either:

“The iPad is growing at an average of 170% y/y (average of two quarters) while the Windows PC market is growing at an average of 1.9% over the same period.”

via Asymco

The iPad is outselling Dell PCs and is set to over take HP soon too. Not bad for a device that came out two years ago.

The Amazon Fire has apps, music, movies, games, and books. These are offered from Amazon, not Google. Gmail, Google Maps, Marketplace, and all other Google apps are gone. Most people will not even know that the Kindle runs Android.

Advertising only works when the company or person selling it wants it too.

This is what Dan Benjamin does with 5by5, John Gruber with Daring Fireball, and a handful of others. The advertising they have is worthwhile. It feels like they believe in the product. They are very selective with their sponsors.

Compare this with the big media and news companies that jam banner ads, pop-overs, and all types of nonsense down my throat. It's disrespectful. They don't care about me. They just want me to accidentily click on something so they can track it on Google Analytics then tell their clients how great the interaction is. It doesn't matter what you sell, just be able to write a big check.

I know where I would rather spend my time.

Android is poor quality. Poor quality hardware, poor quality software. This makes for an unbearable experience.

The only Android phones of reasonable quality are made by HTC. Everyone else makes shit. Shitty shit. Cheap, plastic shit. Then they throw in gimmicks like 3D, Flash(not anymore), "4G", and bigger screens(Porn!). This not what people are looking for when buying a new phone. They are looking for simplicity and ease of use. This is something nerds need to understand.

Android devices tote the most powerful processor and memory you can get in any phone. And yet, it still lags. I can only equate this to poor software. The iPhone 3GS is over 2 years old and still scrolls smoother than any Android phone on the market. I guess having the best specs doesn't matter.

Scrolling is the first thing I check on every touch device I pick up. If they didn't get the scrolling right then it doesn't look good for the rest of the device.

Scrolling is the most important interaction with a touch screen. You scroll through apps, contacts, websites, music, etc. If those things are not simple and enjoyable, then how can I enjoy anything else?

This is why iOS is better. Apple makes the basic interations so easy and fun that everything else is just icing on the cake. And I love cake.

I've had a tough time finding high quality apps that you can only get on Android. iOS has Tweetbot, Instagram, Instapaper, Reeder, Verbs, and more. These apps are what makes using iOS even more fun. People buy iPhones just to use these apps. Android doesn't have that.

Quality may not matter to everyone. Some people think some things are good enough. That's ok. It's why some people drive an Audi and others drive a Honda. But if I could get an Audi for the price of a Honda, I'll take the Audi.

What an amazing life. I feel incredibly sad for him and his family. Family is the most important thing, and it's a shame that cancer ruins it for so many.

He is and always will be a huge inspiration in my life.

If someone asks me a question and I don't know the answer, I say I don't know.

I've noticed that a lot of people will just make something up. I don't know if it's because they are scared of looking stupid or they just like to talk.

It doesn't make anyone look stupid. No one expects you to know everything. If you don't know, then just say it.

Sophomore year, my high school started a computer science course. It was going to be during 8th period and only 3 times a week. I was heavy into sports at the time, but thought that it sounded pretty cool so I gave it a shot.

I loved it.

It was a small class of about 10 people and the very first day we built a computer. I can still remember how excited I was. The next few classes were great. I was learning more about how a computer worked and we even started learning about network setup. The one class we ran ethernet cables through the ceiling. The best part is we weren't just reading from a book, we were actually gettings our hands dirty.

Then out of no where they cancelled the class. They didn't give us any reason. They just killed it and told us we would not be getting credit for the classes we already attended.

I was pissed. Here I was in a catholic school finally learning something and they decide to stop it. It wouldn't be for another 5 years or so until I got back into computers.They are now a huge part of my life, but I always feel like I'm a little behind. What if I had kept learning more about computers in that 5 year gap? I would certainly know much more than I know today.

You are my boss.

You threaten me to do my job or something bad is going to happen to either me or you. You tell me it's not a threat, it's just reality.

Call it what you want. It's a threat.

So what now? Do I get scared and do exactly what you tell me? Do I try and make you happy even if I become unhappy?

Nope.

You obviously know nothing about me or the people who work for you. Threats don't make me respect you, they make me hate you. You would have done much better by first not being an asshole and treated me and the other employees like real people, not workers.

Remember, if we didn't work there you would have no one to manage.

Companies talk about how much customer service means to them. It's all about serving the customer. The people who are usually saying that are not the ones actually serving the customer. They are sitting in their office while their employees service the customer.

What about servicing the employee? Isn't that just as or more important than servicing the customer? If the employee is unhappy and not treated well, then how do you expect them to give great customer service?

I think companies should spend more time making their employees as happy as possible, and that happiness will transfer through to the customers.

Android fans don't want to pay for apps, music, movies, etc.

iOS fans will gladly pay for for apps, music, movies, etc.

If you are a developer, where would you prefer to be?

[Update - 6/7/11]

I've thought of a better analogy:

Android fans are looking for free shit

iOS fans are looking for good shit

Does the comma go before or after the quotations? How long is a run on sentence? Who or Whom? Can't or Cannot? does every sentence have to begin with a capital letter?

If the reader understands the message I am trying to communicate then does the punctuation really matter?

We seem to understand all the txt msgs being sent around all day. It seems to be only the grammer nerds that really care about punctuation.

I hope they are glad that I didn't call them grammer nazis.

Marco wrote a post about why apple will not make a TV.

"A bigger problem is that Apple prefers to offer fully integrated products, but a modern TV is just one component in a mess of electronics and service providers, most of which suck. Apple doesn’t want their beautiful, it-just-works TV to need to interact with Onkyo’s 7.1 HDMI-switching receiver, Sony’s 3D Blu-ray player, Microsoft’s game system, Comcast’s awful Scientific Atlanta HD DVR, Canon’s newest camcorder, the photos on your point-and-shoot’s SDHC card, and your Logitech universal remote. (The need for TVs to have a more complex remote than the Apple TV might be fatal alone.)"

Full Article

Here is one reason Apple will make a TV: Control. Apple has to control the whole experience.

It must be killing them that people have to hook their Apple TVs up to a Samsung, LG, Sony, etc. On the flipside, having a cheap little box is the easiest and cheapest way to test out their ideas.

Adding AirPlay, Netflix, MLB TV, and NBA TV is just the beginning. This is a huge area that Apple would love to control and they won't get there by making deals with cable companies. They have to provide their own content.

[Updated - 4/21/11]

The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes. Apple will make an actual TV, but they are waiting.

They are waiting because they want to replace cable. They are waiting until HBO, NFL, MTV, etc jump on the Apple TV train. Until that happens the Apple TV cannot replace cable for the average person.

Until then, their current $99 hobby is a great way to slide into the market.

So far it seems to be working, thanks to MLB and Netflix. Let's hope it keeps working.

Garage Band for the iPad is wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that I can easily see the iPad becoming an instrument for a lot of people. 

This may sound silly to people who currently have and play "real" instruments, but think about all the little kids who are growing up with a touch screen. They will take to this so easily.

You can easily play around on a certain instrument and actually record what you are doing, even your own voice. The home studio just got a lot better and more portable.

Soon you will see kids going to the local coffee shop on open mic night with only their iPad. Anyone who has carried heavy music gear can appreciate that thought.

I don't think the iPad will replace "real" instruments, but it is a very nice addition.

Some idiot tweeted this today:

"If Mom had given me an iPad instead of a Commodore 64, I never would have learned computers, math, or how to fix things myself."

Just because something is easy to use doesn't mean you can't learn anything from it.

My 2 year old niece LOVES my iPad. Literally every time she sees me, she asks for it. 

Here is what she is learning: the alphabet, hand-eye coordination, colors, and drawing, just to name a few. Remember, she is only 2 years old.

I can guarantee that if I put her infront of a Commodore 64, she couldn't learn half the things she is learning now.  The reason for that is the input device. She doesn't have to learn how to use a mouse or a keyboard. She just naturally touches what she sees on the screen.

I am only skimming the surface here because there are apps on the iPad that teach you math, history, and writing. You can even create and edit music and movies on them too. 

Kids are much better off today.

I hate the idea of unions. To me, it shows that there is no trust between two parties. This may sound stupid, but that makes me sad.

Unfortunatley, unions are necessary. The people at the top of corporations are just too damn greedy. If there were no unions, workers would be paid and treated as horribly as possible. That's not right.

So, instead of complaining about how unions are ruining our economy, think about why we even need them.