Six reasons not to worry about the 100 million dollar iPhone iFund

[Henry Koren]

1. Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in
order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their
users to purchase all software through microsoft.com. Imagine if
windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware? Would this strategy
have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?

2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they
debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues.
They finally arrived at 30 percent. As one involved with software
sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high
considering the exclusivity Apple demands.

3. Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital.
Prize capital allows the winner to retain 100% of the company, while
venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You
will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling
stake of your company (>50%), and will be looking to get acquired, go
public, or liquidate their interest within 3-5 years. Furthermore,
100 million is a drop in the pool of total VC fund money out there
looking to invest in this space, and nothing will stop you from
getting your android project funded that way. This makes the" iFund"
announcement about as significant as breaking news about the
omnipresence of DiHydrogen monoxide in the environment.

4. So after this you still want to be an iPhone/iFund developer.
Let's do a little "new math". So after Apple takes 30% of your
revenue, the VCs take 51% of your company, you are left with 19% of
what you started with. Invalid equations aside... the moral of the
story is that if you choose to go this route, you will be, so to say
"Owned". Look how happy musicians are about the pennies on the
dollar they get for their sales on the ITunes music store... Should we
not be itching to join their ranks?

5. What about free software? If only official apple-authorize
software sold through the apple software store is allowed to be
installed on your device, then there leaves no room whatsoever for
Free/Open Source software to exist on Apple's platform. Sorry
GNUbies!

6. What if Apple/AT&T doesn't want you to erode the sales of their
content streaming services? They just stamp your software as
"Bandwidth hogging", and tell you to politely go fuck yourself (and
this means you slingMedia!). You have now officially become a victim
of the absence of openness and network neutrality. They probably
don't even offer a refund on the $99 you wasted buying their SDK.

It's time to seriously ask yourself, Are you, as a developer, willing
to subjugate yourself in such a way?

[Allen]

Henry,

How can I help you get the products we really want like serving tray
convertable web browsers with screens 6" X18"

Cheers,
Al

[Muthu Ramadoss]

It boils down to 3 things..

1. Are you a Microsoft fanboy?
- Dig Windows Mobile.

2. Are you a Apple fanboy?
- Dig Iphone.

3. Are you an Opensource fanboy?
- Dig Android.

--
Thanks.

Muthu Ramadoss
http://www.intellibitz.com
http://groups.google.com/group/android-chennai
http://www.slideshare.net/intellibitz
+91 44 22476750

We develop innovative solutions for mobile handsets, using Android.

[jtaylor]

Android is cheaper.


- Juan

> Muthu Ramadosshttp://www.intellibitz.comhttp://groups.google.com/group/android-chennaihttp://www.slideshare.net/intellibitz

[Green_Wave]

The concept should be where do i get a product from recycled materials
that serve my personal information needs. Milk jugs, water containers
and other plastics are available by the ton. Let us create some bling
that is inexpensive to manufacture.

On Mar 8, 12:08 am, Muthu Ramadoss <muthu.ramad...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Muthu Ramadosshttp://www.intellibitz.comhttp://groups.google.com/group/android-chennaihttp://www.slideshare.net/intellibitz

[Incognito]

F**CK the iFund. They want to take the best part of a great idea.
Screw them. Is better to build your company on your own so that
you can take the biggest chunk. Then when investors start coming in
just give them a small chunk, which they will take if your idea is
really that good. Proof, Microsoft invested around 200 million into
FaceBook for a small chunk of the whole.

On Mar 7, 3:57 pm, Henry Koren <henryko...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in
> order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their
> users to purchase all software through microsoft.com.  Imagine if
> windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware?  Would this strategy
> have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?
>
> 2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they
> debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues.
> They finally arrived at 30 percent.  As one involved with software
> sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high
> considering the exclusivity Apple demands.
>
> 3. Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital.

> Prize capital allows the winner to retain100% of the company, while

> venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You
> will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling
> stake of your company (>50%), and will be looking to get acquired, go

> public, or liquidate their interest within 3-5 years.   Furthermore,100millionis a drop in the pool of total VC fund money out there

[Joa]

On Mar 7, 12:57 pm, Henry Koren <henryko...@gmail.com> wrote:
> They finally arrived at 30 percent.

That's akin to getting your taxes done walking out of the shop with 50
bucks in your hand no matter what your return would actually be...

At least with taxes one gets to chose.

It will be an interesting to see how many independents and companies
will be willing to get pimped out in the app store that way. I am
certain it can be done for way less than 30%. Using Amazon's EC2 to
host and easily scale the download of apps comes to mind. I honestly
hope my fellow developers are smarter than the consumer base who don't
mind getting DRM and the iTunes shop shoved down their throats.

[Joa]

Ough where's the edit button. Clarification in case you guys can't
follow my train of thought... I'm talking about the tax preparation
outfits (H&R Block etc.)

[Kornelius Tuggerson]

Just jumping on board the "Apple execs are too stupid to breathe"
train. If you have a good mobile app idea and even a little bit of
common sense won't give away 30% of your potential income, using
windows compact, j2me and android are all relatively free, and there
are devices on the market right now based on those platforms that can
compete with the iphone. Plus it is always wise to test out the waters
for a mobile app idea with a light weight shareware version, in order
to get some feedback and do a proof of concept. Apple's draconian
pricing policy puts a lid on that,

[Incognito]

The IFund s**cks but the 30%/70% deal is not bad at all. Most other
mobile operators want to take away more than 30%. Also, the mere fact
that not one applications will be special, i.e. they will all be in
the same portal, is HUGE. I for one will be porting my applications
to the IPhone. But first I need to win the 25K from the Android
Challenge so that I can buy a 3K mac computer so that I can develope
applications. :)

On Mar 9, 7:33 pm, Kornelius Tuggerson <victor.seme...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > > mind getting DRM and the iTunes shop shoved down their throats.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Pierre Neihouser]

You can develop on a 600$ Mac as well... And keep 2.4K for better use.

[Gil]

1) I'm not as negative as some of you on it because I had to deal with
the commercial aspect of selling J2ME applications. That was nearly
impossible for a small company. The iPhone model takes 30% of the
revenue but it promises a very simple model to sell your application.
Developers don't need to deal with wireless operators! One nice aspect
of selling an app through Apple's "Apps Store" is that the app will be
available for all the users of iPhone regardless of wireless operator
used. Do we know today how applications will be distributed for the
Android platform?

2) It is true that Apple will have to "certify" your application and I
hope that it will do so based on technical merits rather than
"marketing" or any other criteria. If you look at the technical
reasons why they have to certify it you'll understand: battery life,
bandwidth usage, etc. Do we know if the wireless operators will impose
restrictions on certain Android applications? We need to see how
Android will perform in real life.

3) I don't like the fact that on the iPhone you cannot write
applications which run in the background. That is pretty limiting.

4) I don't like the fact that on the iPhone you have to write code in
Objective C/C++.

5) I do like the fact that iPhone is already out in the market, it
works well and users like it. There is room for improvement ... but
lets compare Apple to Android: ... can't do that yet can we? Lets wait
for all the facts: real Android phones, an application distribution
model, phone prices and a user base. Lets wait another year before we
compare them head to head.

[trollswagen]

this has to be the best post ever!

one thing i would like to add. consider that for the past 5 years,
Microsoft, Palm and various manufacturers have had complete reign over
user interfaces, software and usability of mobile phone software. how
much innovation have we had? we're working with virtually the same
phone software technology, with small incremental advances, and very
limited competition (unless you count ringtones!).

Apple has just innovated their way into this industry. They haven't
created a new industry, and they don't intend to. From now on,
progress on the IPhone will be slow and will only respond to outside
pressure (read: Android) to extend their functionality. In order to
squeeze every last dime out of customers, they'll control the rate of
innovation.

As developers we need to come up with ways to make income from the
Android platform. I don't think this can be in terms of software
units sold (although there can be some revenue there), but services
offered.

[Incognito]

@trollswagen
I agree with most of what you said except this part:

"From now on,
progress on the IPhone will be slow and will only respond to outside
pressure (read: Android) to extend their functionality."

Why will the IPhone progress be slow from now on? It seems to me that
inovation on the IPhone is picking up. There will be thousands of new
legitimate applications developed for the IPhone and the mere fact
that they are able to bipass the operator (AT&T in this case) to sell
the applications will draw even more developers to theIPhone. As Gil
mentioned above, for small software companies trying to sell J2ME
applicaitons through the operators is a nightmare. I expect that soon
other smartphone manufactures will adapt the new IPhone model, at
least to some degree.

> > to subjugate yourself in such a way?- Hide quoted text -

[ian]

I do not think Android comes up with anything new compared with other
platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian, iPhone, Blackberry). What will the
consumers buy an Android phone for? I guess that's the reason why
Google opens the Challenge without a real device on market.

Android is free to hardware vendors which is attractive.

What I dislike the most about Android so far is backward
compatibility. The apk of mc3 cannot be run at mc5.

[Gil]

Ian,

I totally agree with you regarding the SDK versions. Transitioning to
m5 was a pain and I still cannot get back where I was with the m3
release because Google broke new things in m5 (MediaPlayer in
particular). Hopefully once the APIs are stable such changes will not
be made.

Here are my Android thoughts:

1) They say it is an Open Platform. Why don't they let developers help
coding the Android Platform itself? Why can't we see the source code
now? Google is controlling the software for now. We have very little
to say about the APIs. We can provide input but that is not what an
Open Platform should be. I know they will open it up later...

2) Google (or the Alliance) has NOT done a good job explaining to
developers how their applications will be distributed. Someone needs
to give us the big picture.

3) How is security (features requested in the manifest) enforced? Are
the apps going to be signed by the wireless operator? I hope not.

4) Wireless operators are very concerned about rogue applications
(bandwidth hogs or buggy apps which trigger calls to tech support). I
don't believe that they will allow any app to run on Android while
strictly controlling all other apps on all other phones.

[flowctrl]

The problem with your complaints about the iFund, VC and the App Store
is that none of them are compulsory. They are optional. Anyone is
free to develop and distribute applications for the iPhone, using the
SDK, as they see fit... with the exception of apps that violate their
policies concerning legality and "objectionable content". The App
Store just provides a huge audience via iTunes and bundling on the
device; it doesn't have to be your *only* means of distribution.

As for #5, FOSS is explicitly allowed in the App Store, free, as long
as you don't break any FOSS license terms.

You can download the SDK for free at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/details.html

If you've got a great idea for a mobile app, there is nothing stopping
you from developing for both iPhone and for Android.

[Muthu Ramadoss]

Agreed. At the end of the day it doesn't make sense to have twitter for
example running only on an iPhone or Android. Apps need to be running on
all of the wideley used mobile systems. I'm sure Microsoft kind of
monopoly on Mobile is not possible, although Google is *secretly* hoping
for the same with Android ;)

--
Thanks.

Muthu Ramadoss
http://intellibitz.com
http://groups.google.com/group/android-chennai
http://slideshare.net/intellibitz

[Muthu Ramadoss]

The device manufacturers and the wireless operators now rule the roost.
I don't know the Android plan on changing this, but it better be good.
Otherwise we are stuck in the same old rut for ever..