sales posts

Last night on the Talkcast, we talked about the big news last week that Psystar seemed to be down for the count, and the consensus was that we'd heard the last of them. But not so fast: their lawyer now says that they're not calling it quits just yet. The company that has gotten pummeled by Apple for selling Mac clones apparently "does not intend to shut down permanently," according to K. A. D. Camera of legal firm Camera & Sibley. According to him, they're still working on selling their Rebel EFI product (also currently entangled in legal problems), and they're planning on pushing forward on their antitrust case against Apple (which has already been thrown out once). We're not sure where they'll get the money for all of this legal action after already being ordered to give a couple million dollars to Apple, but maybe those 768 computers they sold made more than we thought.

There is one bright point in all of this: while Rebel EFI is still listed as out of stock on their website, they are selling official Psystar t-shirts for $15 which they say will also include a Rebel EFI authorization code later on and now those appear to be gone too! I don't know about you (and I don't really want to give these guys any credit card information), but one of those shirts would look great sitting under my tree later this week. If this whole installing-OS X-on-unauthorized-hardware-in-violation-of-Apple's-EULA thing doesn't work out for Psystar, maybe they can have a second life as a merch vendor.

TriplePoint PR's site has a post on their blog about Orbital [iTunes Link], an iPhone game released a while back that I presume is one of their clients. Obviously, they've done their job: we're talking about the game, which is $.99US or available in a lite free version [iTunes Link]. But they've also provided us with a little insight into just how things are going in the app's release, and the picture they paint says "not well." Oh, sure, it's been reviewed well, there's a little bit of buzz about it, and the game itself, says the firm, is good (trust them at your own risk, but they sound like they really do enjoy it). So what's the problem? It's not selling.

To be fair, it is selling. They've sold less than 100,000 units, they say, and even half of that is a nice chunk of sales. But apparently that's not a success, and they're wondering why. Piracy is their first guess -- we've heard before that piracy can be a huge issue, even on cheap apps. They say the game had an 80% piracy rate in the first week, which has since dropped down to 24%. I'm not convinced piracy can be blamed completely -- there's no guaranteeing that all pirates would have bought a real copy anyway.

But certainly there's something going on here -- you can have a terrific app that's well-reviewed and buzzworthy, and if it doesn't end up in the right place at the right time, it still won't be successful (or at least as successful as you want). Everyone is still working to unlock success in the App Store, but with over 100,000 products on the shelves, it has become increasingly more difficult for the good apps to stand apart.

There's probably a number of reasons why this might have happened (and we're sure you can come up with more than we can), but nevertheless, here you go: overall Mac sales are up by 21 percent in October and November since last year at the same time, according to Gene Munster (not pictured), analyst at Piper Jaffray. Desktop Mac sales are especially huge, with the rise as high as 74%, which seems like a typo next to MacBook and MacBook Pro increases of just five percent. In fact, those gigantic desktop sales, some reason, might actually be the reason behind the recent iMac delays.

At any rate, no matter why, Apple is making a boatload on Macs this quarter already. Even without the bulk of the holiday season, the desktops were already flying off the shelves in huge numbers compared to last year.

Amid claims of poor iPhone sales, Dow Jones reports that China Unicom (CU) has sold 100,000 iPhones since the official launch in October of this year. While this represents a pickup in sales numbers -- CU reported selling just 5,000 units in the first 4 days -- it isn't incredibly impressive. China is the world's largest wireless market by subscriber accounts, and CU is the country's 2nd-largest carrier (China Mobile is first), representing some 144 million users as of October of 2009, according to Paul Wuh, an analyst covering China Unicom for Samsung Securities.

"iPhone sales have been disappointing," Wuh said. "For China Unicom, with 144 million subscribers, 100,000 iPhone users aren't going to do anything for their revenue."

What's behind all of it? As we've said before, the lack of Wi-Fi, strong black market and high prices are hindrances. Back in August of this year, China Unicom and Apple announced a 3-year deal. CU buys the handsets from Apple on a wholesale basis and does not participate in revenue sharing. China Unicom hopes that this deal will give them a leg-up on industry leader China Mobile.

[Via Macsimum News]

While it's no big deal for a free game or social networking app to reach a million downloads from the App Store, it is definitely news when a brand-name productivity app sells 100,000 copies. Bento for iPhone / iPod touch [US$4.99, iTunes Link] reached that milestone today, according to a press release from FileMaker, Inc.

Bento works very well as a standalone iPhone app, and becomes even more powerful when synced with the desktop version of the app (2.0v5 or 3.0 for Mac). The app comes with 25 pre-defined templates that can be customized to your needs, or you can create your own databases (Bento calls them "libraries") by opening a blank template and adding your choice from a selection of fifteen different field types. I've personally found the standalone app to be a lifesaver when I need to create a custom database for storing information on my iPhone.

The FileMaker announcement should come as welcome news for developers who are working on more mainstream or enterprise-oriented apps for the iPhone / iPod touch platform.

EA has announced that they're bringing Mirror's Edge, the inventive "first-person jumper" title that intrigued gamers last year, to the iPhone and iPod touch via the App Store. I was disappointed to see that it's not actually just a straight port (it would be interesting to see how the topsy-turvy platformer would fare with some gesture and accelerometer input), but instead it's more of an isometric platformer. In fact, the screenshots kind of remind me of Canabalt, though this will probably be more complex, with occasional combat and a story.

Looks like it'll be fun, especially for Mirror's Edge fans looking for a little extra gameplay before the eventual sequel comes out. The game boasts 14 levels run by the game's original protagonist, Faith, and while there's no price mentioned yet, I'm guessing EA will start it out around $6.99, and then probably bring it back down to $4.99 once sales level off.

iPhone sales are up more than 4% from a year ago, while the leading smartphone seller, Nokia, is down 3% from a year ago. That's the word from Gartner Research today as they survey 3rd quarter sales.

According to Gartner research:

Apple's worldwide smartphone share reached 17 per cent as iPhone sales totalled 7 million units in the third quarter of 2009 following the continued rollout of the iPhone 3GS in new countries. Its ASP (average selling price) is holding steady and sales in the fourth quarter should be even stronger as Apple starts selling in China, through one additional carrier in the UK, and in an additional 16 countries.

Sales of Windows smartphones had another quarterly decline, with Windows Mobile 6.5 appearing too late to factor into the accounting.

For a company that was dismissed two years ago for not having any experience in building phones, Apple seems to doing more than just OK. By the same token, the competition from the new Droid from Verizon should keep Apple innovating.

It seems to be back to status quo ante now, and we're not sure exactly what was going on, but something apparently slipped off the crazy shelf and whacked the App Store firmly in the noggin. Multiple users and developers emailed to let us know that the Top Paid rankings in the store were completely jumbled up, with unfamiliar apps taking over the rankings from long-standing champs. iGlowStickPro? 301+ Short Stories? That ain't right.

The US store was definitely fritzy, but other tipsters report that the Australian store was affected as well. Now that things seem to be returning to normal, it's interesting to note how quickly everyone reacted to send a heads-up about the problem... when your monthly revenues depend on that Top Paid ranking slot, even a few minutes of confusion will get your attention in a hurry.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

It's like Econ 101 with the iPhone lately, says our old friend Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Demand is high, supplies are low, and so shortages are apparently expected. Especially in international markets, there just aren't enough iPhones to go around -- Munster cites a fellow analyst's report that 3 Italia, the Italian company charged with selling Apple's smartphone in that country, is selling 20K iPhones, but could be selling many more if they had the stock to do so.

Of course, they probably don't need to -- iPhone sales are already holding the company up above expectations, and Apple may even be figuring that a little demand never hurt anybody. Why sell a ton of phones when you're already selling more than you expected to? I doubt it's as mysterious as that (they probably expected to sell a certain number and it turns out there are more iPhone fans than they counted on overseas), but even if shortages happen, no one's going to be second guessing Apple's strategy. As far as straight results go for the iPhone, they haven't done anything wrong yet.

[via 9to5Mac]

Amidst the ongoing macroeconomic malaise (is it over yet? Can we come out from under the covers?), the PC industry's sales have been suffering as big corporations and cash-strapped consumers postpone those discretionary purchases of shiny new gear. The expectation, based on 2008's results, was that this quarter would be tough sledding.

Results from analysts Gartner and IDC, however, both show an uptick in unit sales across the PC market year-over-year (2.3% higher globally per IDC, 0.5% higher per Gartner). Any pickup in sales comes as a surprise to Gartner, which had predicted a 5.6% decline in unit shipments.

For Apple specifically, the news is also good: both firms predict a boost in unit sales and share percentage for Apple's CPU shipments, with US numbers up from 8.6% to 8.8% share (Gartner) or a blazing 9.4% share (IDC). For the unvarnished results, you can tune in this coming Monday, 10/19 at 2pm PT to hear Apple's quarterly earnings call.

[via BrainstormTech]

The iPhone is selling well in Australia. Research firm IDC reports that the iPhone has taken 21% of the Australian smartphone market share in the past 12 months, putting Apple in 2nd place behind Nokia and just ahead of Blackberry.

What's most interesting here is how the iPhone has increased overall smartphone shipments to Australia. Specifically, other manufacturers have had to keep up with customer demands for features similar to the iPhone's, and as a result customer interest and overall smartphone sales have "...intensified of the past couple of years," said IDC telecommunications analyst Mark Novosel. He expects Australia's smartphone market to grow steadily over the next five years.

Australia's first Apple retail store opened in July of 2008, and the iPhone was released shortly thereafter.

[Via MacDailyNews]

PocketGamer.biz has an interesting interview up with Pangea, makers of the iPhone physics puzzle game Enigmo, and they say that so far, their experience with in-app purchases has been pretty lukewarm. The software itself has sold over a million copies, but only a very small number of those customers are going for the in-app purchases -- about 25 per day, according to Pangea's Brian Greenstone. 25 per day may not be bad for a smaller developer, but Greenstone says he "was expecting hundreds."

Why aren't the microtransactions doing so hot? It's going to take time, first of all -- customers need to learn the value of picking up content piece by piece, and developers need to learn exactly how to price and plan the stuff out. On an established download service like Xbox Live, add-ons and content packs have become de rigueur, though some of those battles are still being fought. But on the App Store, not only are prices still up in the air, but in-app purchases are hard to find, and they're all over the map in terms of value versus investment.

Greenstone seems to believe what I'd tend to agree with: that after all of the dust has settled, customers will pay for content that's worth paying for -- he's just given up on worrying about pricing, and is focused on delivering content that's worth whatever he wants to charge. Eventually, both devs and customers will settle on a fair price, and when that happens, I'm sure we'll see some major in-app purchase sales.

Chris Foresman over at Ars Technica has an interesting pronouncement: A rule governed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, that's been heavily lobbied for by Apple and other electronics companies, may be enough to lift the charge that iPod touch owners have had to pay for updates of significant features to their devices. It's complicated, but it all has to do with "subscription accounting" -- devices that gain "significant new functionality" after their sale, like the iPhone, have to be reported over a series of years rather than all at the same time (presumably because the revenues associated with the product were the result of a series of updates, not just one lump sum).

For the iPhone, it's fine -- they have subscription charges associated with them over two years anyway. But the iPod touch is different -- because Apple doesn't want to report the sales of those devices over a period of time, they've had to charge minimum fees for updates -- the $10 (and more recently, $5) that iPod touch owners have paid for the firmware updates. But if the new rule goes in (it still requires FASB approval), then Apple would be able to report sales of the iPod touch all together without having to worry about charging for updates, as well as the dual GAAP and non-GAAP reporting we've heard on their conference calls.

Plus, as Foresman says, it would help Apple's stock price (seeing all of the iPhone's sales at once would boost investor confidence), and it would help developers who are asking all users of both the iPhone and iPod touch to update right away -- they wouldn't have to wait for iPod touch owners to find a few bucks in their couch. With the weight of Apple behind this one, we can probably expect to see the rule approved (even if they have to make some concessions). And so while iPod touch owners will probably have to still keep waiting for a camera, they at least won't have to pay for more software updates.

Here's yet another interesting take on the burgeoning App Store environment. A company called Gendai Games has a game creator IDE/app called Gamesalad, designed to let you put together rapid prototype-style games for the Mac. They've been doing this for a while, and they even let you export your games out to the 'net using an online portal. But here's the kicker: they're also planning to let you take those games right out to the iPhone.

Their roadmap page talks about downloading to a test iPhone straight from a Mac, but presumably, they'd either have their own app on the App Store in which you could play your games, or even output it to some sort of wrapper app that you could then release on the App Store yourself. Their press release says they will allow for games "to be sold and marketed on the App Store," and that seems to us like there's compensation involved somehow, either through their portal, or through Apple's setup.

Very interesting. Unfortunately, most of this is forthcoming -- their development environment is available for a free download right now, so you could start working on creating your masterpiece right away if you want, but you'd have to wait until sometime "in the next few weeks" to see what iPhone features they have planned. Part of the iPhone's draw as a programmer's platform is that it's relatively easy to develop for, and an environment like this promises to make it even easier and more accessible. Whenever you have a low barrier of entry to development, release, and sales, you end up with two things: a market possibly flooded with junk, but on the other end, lots and lots of creativity.