Machabits | Mac

iPhone and iPad Changing People’s Reading Habits

Graham Spencer — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 06:41:31 +0000

Read It Later, the Instapaper-esque service for saving articles for later consumption has released some fascinating information on how users of the service, depending on the device used, have very different reading habits. Posted on their blog they reveal that content is encountered pretty much constantly throughout the day, with only a slight drop after [...]

How the iPad and iPhone shift reading habits

Mike Schramm — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Read It Later is an Instapaper-style platform for saving and tracking various things to read online, and they recently released some interesting information about iPad and iPhone reading over on their blog. The line for when people save articles is pr...

Daily Deeds: A Habit Manager for iPhone

Brandon Pittman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:15 +0000

I talk a lot about task managers. Some of you like to give me guff about it too. This time however, I have something a little different to introduce you: a habit managers. There are some things you do (almost) everyday. You wash the dishes, do some laundry, take out the trash (if you live [...]

Touchpad - Transform your iPhone or iPod touch to remotely control your computer through WiFi. Extended keyboard, Multi-Touch Trackpad and Apple Remote.

Tune Runner rises to the top on a wave of free

Mike Schramm — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Freeware, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store

There's been some interesting discussion in our comments section lately about Ngmoco's freemium model -- first they made headlines by endorsing it even to the detriment of one of their most popular games, and then they bought Freeverse and the conversation started up again. But while customers don't seem to like the freemium model very much, there's a growing number of examples that go the other way, and here's another: Appy Entertainment is a company that's been doing fairly well with a game called FaceFighter, but last weekend, they decided to drop the price of that game to free, and use the giveaway to promote their newest game, Tune Runner. And the plan worked extremely well -- after just a week, their original music game is rivaling Rock Band and Tap Tap Revenge for downloads.

FaceFighter hadn't been doing badly, but offering it up for free not only increased its downloads to several hundred thousand (which sounds like a lot for Appy), but put the new game in front of a whole bunch of people who otherwise might not have heard about it. And Tune Runner is a "freemium" app -- you get the first hit for free, and can buy more premium content inside the app. With an example like this, why would a developer not go with a freemium model? As Freeverse's CEO told us, customers may complain about the model, but assuming your game has the quality to support it, it's the best way to monetize the App Store's huge audience.

That's not to say that the paid model should be abandoned for good -- even Appy says they plan to release a paid version of their app with the in-app purchase content already unlocked. But for all of the murmuring about the freemium model, it certainly seems that customers' actions are different than words on the App Store.

TUAW Tune Runner rises to the top on a wave of free originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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