App developers often share promo codes with reviewers, forums, etc. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't provide a way to track which codes have been used, resulting in wasted promotions. Fortunately, Kam, the developer of Walkabout, explains how to determine if a code is still available via iTunes.

We're pleased that you want to invest your talents and time to develop applications for iOS. It has been a rewarding experience - both professionally and financially - for tens of thousands of developers and we want to help you join this successful group. We have published our App Store Review Guidelines in the hope that they will help you steer clear of issues as you develop your app and speed you through the approval process when you submit it.

A web application is designed to look and behave in a way similar to a native application—for example, it is scaled to fit the entire screen on iOS. You can tailor your web application for Safari on iOS even further, by making it appear like a native application when the user adds it to the Home screen. You do this by using settings for iOS that are ignored by other platforms.

For example, you can specify an icon for your web application used to represent it when added to the Home screen on iOS, as described in “Specifying a Webpage Icon for Web Clip.” You can also minimize the Safari on iOS user interface, as described in “Changing the Status Bar Appearance” and “Hiding Safari User Interface Components,” when your web application is launched from the Home screen. These are all optional settings that when added to your web content are ignored by other platforms.

Read “Viewport Settings for Web Applications” for how to set the viewport for web applications on iOS.

Adhering to Guidelines on Third-Party Marketing Services from Apple Developer News http://developer.apple.com/news/

Apple Reports First Quarter Results from Apple, Inc. Press Releases http://www.apple.com/pr/

Apple Reports Highest Quarterly Revenue and Earnings Ever from Apple Hot News http://www.apple.com/hotnews/

There have been 3 billion downloads of App Store applications designed specifically for Apple’s iPad, representing 19 percent of all iOS App Store downloads, a new study has found. ABI Research announced in a press release on Wednesday that it has estimated 3 billion applications have been cumulatively downloaded since the iPad first launched in [...]

The last week of the year, from December 25 through December 31, sees more iOS and Android device activations compared to any other week of the year.   Starting with Christmas Day, the largest single device activation day of the year, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is filled with significantly elevated device activations and app downloads.  For application makers, this holiday “power week” is far more important than the run-up to Christmas itself.  This report reveals that the last week of 2011 was the largest week for device activations and app downloads in iOS and Android history. 

In this article, I will present all of the post-mortems and figures I’ve found interesting, and I will also explain how SQUIDS fits into the overall picture. But first, I would like to quickly give my opinion on few of the App Store myths you may believe if you’re not an experienced iOS developer. There are plenty of ways to view the App Store, but my point is that you might be a bit surprised by what the App Store really means in terms of money.

App Annie's vision is to utilize data, statistics and technology to help companies do business on app stores. It's much harder for a business to analyze macro trends on app stores than on the web, simply because they are by their very nature less open forms of distribution.

“Smartphone users overwhelmingly prefer free apps to paid apps, as we estimate 96 percent of all smartphone apps were downloaded for free in 2011,” noted Jack Kent, senior analyst, mobile media for IHS. “In 2012, it will become increasingly difficult for app stores and developers to justify charging an upfront fee for their products when faced with competition from a plethora of free content. Instead, the apps industry must fully embrace the freemium model and monetize content through in-app purchases.”

In-app purchases are the way to profits for developers, according to a report released today by IHS, which estimates that in-app purchases will rise to account for 64 percent of total market revenue in 2015, up from 39 percent in 2011.

The IHS Screen Digest Mobile Media Intelligence Service at information and analysis provider IHS projects that revenue from in-app purchases will increase to $5.6 billion in 2015, up from $970 million in 2011.

Apple only releases data about the App Store when it serves its interest -- like last week's press release trumpeting the 15th billion download. So to take the store's temperature, Munster had to build his own model for how it works. We've pasted a copy his updated spreadsheet below the fold. The highlights:

While developing AppClix, we have did extensive research and testing of our competitors applications. In order to really understand these products, we also developed a number of iPhone applications that are now live in the iTunes App Store. Each of these apps have both AppClix and oe competitors analytics installed.

By actually creating mobile apps, and by being actual users of our own product, we learned far more than any of our competitors have about what the frustrations are that exist in the mobile app world. We used that experience to build the best solution available and are very proud of it.

The following is a simple comparison between AppClix and the 2 leading products Flurry and Pinch Media. These two companies have recently merged and are assumed to be integrating the two products together.

Visit our Pricing page for details of the different versions and options we have available.

Here at Joystick Labs, we’re constantly doing whatever we can to help our teams succeed in the iOS market. One of our latest projects has been trying to research and develop a market thesis on the state of the market for iOS shooters. Unfortunately, the iTunes App Store fails to note one incredibly important set of information; number of downloads. Without download numbers it’s impossible to produce a revenue projection or even assess the success of games that are already in the market. So we pooled our resources (and our interns) and embarked on a quest to find the missing app data.

The key challenge is that developers lack the tools to bring traffic back to their app, post-download.  And, therefore, the industry has a traffic acquisition problem, not a discovery problem.  Only when compelling ways of connecting with existing app users are established, that allow the easy re-launch of an app, can app makers address retention through marketing, and fully control their own traffic acquisition.

AdMob has just issued a report with some very interesting data on the app store, and one of their claims is that the app store market is worth about US$200M per month.

This is disputed as being an unreasonably high estimate by some commentators. However, with data I have gathered from my own app sales, I am in a position to make my own estimate too. So what is it? Well there are four steps.

In an earlier post I showed a graph of Oz Weather’s daily sales levels versus its ranking in the Australian iTunes app store, and then extrapolated the findings to get a very rough estimate of global sales versus iTunes US app store rankings.

The makers of Ocarina recently revealed that it sold close to 400,000 copies in a single month, which equates to over 13,000 copies per day. Ocarina is one of the most viral apps so far, and may be a unique case, but I’ve seen other numbers that confirm that the top apps in the App Store are selling around 10,000 a day. I’ve heard from other developers that app #50 sells between 500-1000 copies per day, and from my own experience I know that app #100 sells 200-300 copies per day. Here’s what that looks like:

Oz Weather has now been selling for long enough, and over a large enough range of iTunes app store rankings to enable me to get a good handle on what level of sales you need to achieve a particular ranking – or conversely, what ranking you would achieve from a given level of sales.

Everybody talks about the top apps in the iOS app store. But there's still a story to be told about the other 90%+ of apps. The story is that Apple is likely paying 100's of millions of dollars per year to these developers, but with that revenue spread incredibly thinly though a very long tail.

Your starting point for entertainment discovery.

This is where Fanhattan is tracking it's press mentions. Probably not a bad idea.

At the core of the app is Fanhattan's content database. A search will call up the desired content and then display through which media source it is available. Additional information such as cast, reviews, genre and even links to Facebook is available. Clicking on a source will then redirect the viewer to the appropriate website or media player.

iPad users' video options extend well beyond iTunes. Mainstream video providers like Hulu, Netflix and ABC have launched their own apps for streaming content. Fanhattan tackles the problem of finding out exactly what's available where. It's an aggregator of iPad video content. It lists content from four channels now, though the app could go from convenient to essential by listing content from smaller video apps as well.

Fanhattan is your starting point for entertainment discovery. Find movies and TV shows (top hits to Hollywood classics) from across the most popular digital media services -- ABC, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu. Immerse yourself in a world of related content to help you discover the entertainment you'll love. Available now on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, Fanhattan is coming soon to more connected devices in the living room, on the web, and on the go.

This week’s pick is Fanhattan for iPad – a superb app that helps you find the best movies and TV shows to enjoy. Or, as its App Store intro goes …

Fanhattan is your starting point for entertainment discovery on the iPad across Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Vudu, and ABC. … Fanhattan is your starting point for simplifying entertainment discovery across an increasing number of digital on demand services.

While I was developing River of News I looked around for any discussion I could find where developers revealed their sales or the relation of ratings to sales. I found several sources independently say that about 1 in 30 buyers of a paid app will rate it in the store. I now have two apps in the store and that ratio has held up remarkably well.

I'm sure there are exceptions and my information is far from comprehensive, but I have enough evidence to believe that multiplying the number of ratings in the U.S. App Store by 30 will give you a ballpark estimate of the sales of an app.

I'm curious to hear from other developers if this ratio is accurate for their products.

Getting specific information about iTunes & iOS App Store downloads is notoriously difficult, very few developers are candid enough to share download counts and the majority of developers guard download data for competitive reasons. If you’re curious how well a specific app in the iOS iTunes Store is selling, try using this quick and dirty formula to get a rough estimate of sales numbers:

Number of Ratings * 30 = Sales Estimate

This unscientific formula comes from the developer of River of News, a Google Reader app for iPad, who confirms the formula is reasonably accurate:

I found several sources independently say that about 1 in 30 buyers of a paid app will rate it in the store. I now have two apps in the store and that ratio has held up remarkably well.

iPhone app developers know that using social media outlets to market their app is imperative. “One of the most important is Facebook because users are one click away from downloading your app,” says iPhone app marketer Scott Lorenz. “Using Facebook for iPhone app marketing is both effective and practically free. What’s not to like?” Lorenz has created a six step method to simplify the process. “Follow these steps,” says Lorenz, “and you’ll be well on your way to more downloads.”

Fanhattan is led by a team of experienced executives, designers, and engineers from TiVo, Netflix, Vudu, Disney, MTV, MGM, Apple, Best Buy, E!, eBay, Yahoo!, and WebTV. The company is backed by blue-chip venture capital firms including NEA, Redpoint Ventures, Greycroft Partners, BV Capital, LA angel investor Jarl Mohn, and independent investors from the entertainment and technology industries.

The purpose of this book is to present the ever-evolving DJ world with a fresh approach towards the redefinition of what it means to be a "DJ". Powerful computing combined with innovative design has provided the modern DJ with branching options for creative expression. Through description and example, readers are presented with fundamental tutorials as well as various creative performance configurations for three of the more popular audio software applications: Traktor Pro, Serato and Ableton Live.

Because it’s doing so well, the OmniGroup has plans to use Omni Sync with their other products as well. For now, though, they are fine tuning the cloud service. Although they don’t seem to be certain whether or not they’ll stick to that or try to set their products up with iCloud eventually. I think iCloud would be the smart way to go, given most other applications are implementing it, but we’ll see what they have in store for us in the future.

I'm aware of at least two companies that are out in front on this effort to adapt the tools and techniques of traditional inbound marketing to the app store world:

MobileDevHQ (disclosure: I'm an investor) is currently in private beta on a suite of app store optimization tools, including app store search rankings, keyword analysis and competitive benchmarking for app store performance. Ian Sefferman, the company's founder, has embarked on a campaign of "radical transparency" to share the company's own experiences in the app store and how they're using the tools they've developed in-house to drive organic demand.
Smore (disclosure: they're a TechStars Seattle 2011 company, I'm a mentor) is "Tumblr for products, services and events", a lightweight publishing platform that makes it trivially easy to build, publish, promote and analyze beautifully-designed online flyers. Mobile app developers are a core audience for the platform -- Smore is building a really smart set of tools designed to showcase apps in ways the app stores don't allow, and to drive and measure demand to a marketing platform 100% controlled by the publisher, not the app store.
Are there other companies out there pioneering the discipline of inbound marketing for mobile apps? Sound off in the comments and let's start Fred's #OccupyAppStore revolution!

When I think about App Store Optimization, I think about three main factors: rankings, sharing, and press. These are the three main factors that I believe drive organic app downloads. In this post I’ll explain each of these briefly and then I’ll dive into each of them further in future posts.

Track your rankings
Follow your progress in Top Apps rankings with easy-to-understand graphs.

Optimize search keywords
Identify your position in important search keyword results within your app store.

Monitor and beat your competition
Compare your progress versus your competition in order to crush them.

Supports iPhone and Android
Fully supporting iTunes App Store and Android Market, with more to come.

iOS Developer Program members must follow these guidelines when promoting
an affliation with the App Store on websites, advertising, and other marketing
communications.

This is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.

Is there an easy way to distribute same iOS (iPad, iPhone) app to multiple enterprise clients? We develop custom “Enterprise apps” that can be utilized by various clients. These apps get linked directly to client’s servers; but is there a way that we, as a third party, could find a solution to distribute/manage apps for our clients?

Total Apps Approved: 698950
Total Available Apps: 535004
Total Available iPhone Apps: 472409
Total Available iPad Apps: 178026
Total Available Mac Apps: 8956

Windows: If you use multiple OSes or just prefer using an Apple keyboard you'll know that many keys such as print screen, volume control, and eject do not work in Windows. Apple Wireless Keyboard Helper is a free executable program that restores many of these key combinations.

iOS Developer Program members must follow these guidelines when promoting
an a∑liation with the App Store on websites, advertising, and other marketing
communications.

Find details on everything you need to know about distributing your app on the App Store — from how to prepare for app submission to managing your app once it's been posted.