One could spend a lot of time pondering whether Apple’s success and momentum over the past decade are due purely to their own decisions and directions or whether this success was greatly enabled by the Apple community. I know for myself, back when I was still a Windows only user, I was intrigued by the user community that embraced this company and its operating system/platform. I fondly remember my college years, spending a few hours in the Mac lab, vainly trying to simply launch an app and spending hours reading “Cult of Mac” pieces on Wired magazine.
After four years of being a Mac user, I can still say that as much as I love Apple and (almost) everything they do, it’s still the community that gets me excited every time I sit down in front of my computer. I have so much respect and gratitude for the developers who have taken this platform and elevated it to heights Apple could not do themselves.
As mentioned before, one of the visions behind Fusion was to enable the ‘little guy’. Rather than focus on the big dollars of the big corporations like Adobe and such, we wanted to make sure smaller indie developers would be able to afford our ads. That’s why we’ve tried to keep our prices under a grand. It’s a small way in furthering the community that we love so much.
In a way, our timing was perfect. With the launch of the app store last year, there are suddenly gads of small developers trying to make a living creating apps for this new platform. It makes sense then that a lot of the interest in our service has come from iPhone developers. With the prices for iPhone apps being what they are, these guys can only afford to pay so much to advertise their products.
Which brings me to the point of this article. We’ve all heard the issues surrounding the App store; absurd rejections, long waits, and little to no communication. In a small way, we also experience the pain the developers feel. Case in point: just today I had a conversation with a developer who was booking an ad with Fusion. After reserving a spot, his first thought was this:
Now calling Apple every ten minutes to be sure my app gets published in time.
This is a common occurrence for me. Developers are so unsure of the timing and availability of their app, that they are hesitant about booking ad spots for fear of the app not being available when people start clicking on their ad. We try to do all we can to accommodate any sudden changes but we are fairly limited in what we can do.
As good as things have gone for Apple, the App store has not reached its potential. To put it simply, the current state of the App store is hard on business. It’s hard on the developers, and it’s hard on downstream businesses like Fusion. When are customers are hesitant to spend money because of App store uncertainty, we suffer.
Despite these issues, we do have to take this all with a grain of salt. Developers are making money. Apple is making money. Fusion is making money. Overall, it’s a healthy ecosystem.
But it could be so much better.
