
People buy the $999 iPhone app - st3fan
http://i35.tinypic.com/vfeo5.png
======
wvenable
While I was not 100% enthused about the idea of having every application go
through Apple's gatekeepers, I did think the concept had merit. Enforcing a
little quality control could be a good thing; especially with the large number
of users who've never owned a smartphone before.

But the quality of approved applications isn't any better than what's
available on the average Pocket PC software site. They're just rubber-stamping
applications. Some applications have horrible engrish descriptions. Approved
applications disappear and reappear depending on the whim this week. Updates
to applications take forever.

Apple has dropped the ball on almost everything related to iPhone apps, from
the app store to the f __king NDA.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Are you secretly Steve Jobs? :) Because your post does a lot to explain why
Apple's initial position on third-party apps was "no, thank you".

I don't think the gatekeepers' primary role is to keep apps out of the store.
It's to make sure there's an easy way to yank apps back off the market, and
issue a recall notice to every single affected user, after trouble strikes.
Kind of like what's happening to this app right now.

If Apple _weren't_ just rubber-stamping applications, the process would be
even slower, and we'd be hearing even more complaints from the long list of
people who are still waiting for their applications to go live.

As for the "horrible engrish descriptions"... can you imagine the firestorm if
Apple were to reject apps on the basis of the quality of their ad copy? Not
every iPhone developer writes fluent English, after all.

It is annoying that approved apps appear and disappear more than once. What
other examples of this are there, besides the tethering app?

(I can well imagine why the tethering app might appear and disappear... it
raises the question of whether Apple is allowed to sell an app which is
explicitly disallowed by some customers' service contracts, but perhaps not by
all of them. They've probably got AT&T lobbying on one side, the app's
authors, Apple's marketing department, and every self-respecting developer
lobbying on the other, and lawyers from several countries in the middle.
Perhaps the availability of the app depends on which of these parties is
shouting the loudest on any given day.)

~~~
wvenable
If the gatekeepers aren't keeping apps out of the store, then they're not
offering a useful service for users or developers. Instead, _all_ they're
doing is preventing users from getting at applications they might want and
preventing developers from getting their applications (and updates) out.

If they'd have a better approval process, they wouldn't have to yank
applications at all. It's one thing to simply not allow an application that
nobody has ever seen and it's entirely another to make them just disappear
after they've been bought. Which do you think is better for PR?

"can you imagine the firestorm if Apple were to reject apps on the basis of
the quality of their ad copy?"

Firestorm? From who? Apple is vetting the applications, so I expect a higher
quality experience. The ad copy might be written by the developer but it's
part of the store. You don't expect bad ad copy on Amazon or Dell and you
shouldn't expect it on Apple's store either. I'm _expecting_ Apple to reject
applications based on their quality. If users and developers have to jump
through hoops, there should be a real tangible benefit.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_You don't expect bad ad copy on Amazon or Dell_

You've never read bad ad copy on Amazon? You fortunate soul.

It's true, Apple could choose to run their platform more like Dell runs its
third-party outlet, or Sony runs Playstation: With a relative handful of very
strictly quality-controlled apps. We know they could do that if they wanted
to, because they did so _all last year_... and they were met by an army of
jailbreakers and lots of complaints from developers and advanced users. So now
Apple is trying something else.

Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's approval policy tightens
up in the future. Right now I believe they're still working through an
enormous backlog. The easiest way to get through the backlog is to release
apps unless there's an obvious reason not to.

In the meantime, why not develop a third-party rating service to pick out
quality iPhone apps? If such a service is as valuable as you believe it is,
and Apple's leaving that money on the table, why not pick it up?

~~~
wvenable
_"We know they could do that if they wanted to, because they did so all last
year..."_

How is Apple not allowing _any_ 3rd party applications like how Sony runs the
Playstation?

 _"they were met by an army of jailbreakers and lots of complaints from
developers and advanced users. So now Apple is trying something else."_

...And they're still met with an army of jailbreakers and lots of complaints
from developers and advanced users.

What we have now is the worst the both worlds: a closed platform without any
closed platform benefits. I'd be just as happy if they opened the whole thing
up. Or providing a tighter app store while opening the whole thing up.

And yes, they have enormous backlog but it's never going to go away because
every update of every application also needs to go through the process. Every
app that has been approved today will have to be approved again and again and
again.

------
darkxanthos
"...I... clicked 'buy'...and it really bought this app...the App Store...It's
not being run well...beware!!!" Does this make sense to anyone? Don't click
buy!

~~~
aneesh
> "..I... clicked 'buy'...and it really bought this app"

Gee really? What else is clicking "Buy" supposed to do?

~~~
jcl
While I haven't used the AppStore myself, I'd expect the Buy process to take
at least two user steps -- a good rule of thumb for an interface action with
permanent effects, to guard against accidental clicks.

Maybe the user was expecting one more level of confirmation than the AppStore
actually had?

~~~
ken
Does your email program have a confirmation step after its "Send" button?

Confirmation steps, in practice, don't really help. After a few uses, people
build up the muscle memory that "action, confirmation" _is_ the action. Then
the one time in a hundred they want to cancel, they don't realize until too
late.

One approach to try would be, for any purchase over $5, make a "confirmation
step" that looks like a restaurant bill, and require the user to sign it (with
their finger). Perhaps "sign name next to a big number" would be enough to jar
them.

But really, the solution is to make it undoable/refundable. No matter what
barriers you put up, somebody will do it by mistake (guaranteed), and is going
to want their money back. If I can return a $1000 jacket in real life, I
should be able to return a $1000 no-op app.

~~~
plusbryan
sending an email != charging your credit card

~~~
greyman
with $999.99

------
thomasmallen
"A fool and his money are soon parted." \- Thomas Tusser

------
alaskamiller
People try to use this excuse on eBay a lot too.

~~~
attack
No they don't. Ebay doesn't have one-click ordering that I'm aware of.

~~~
alaskamiller
You must not sell a lot. I get the "oh, I didn't realize Buy It Now means I
bought it" excuse a lot. eBay instituted a secondary screen explaining that
bidding is entering into a contract for a reason. I still get complaints when
I sell, everything from "oh, I entered the wrong price" to "oh, I didn't read
the item description".

The point is when he clicked that buy button he entered into a contract. The
one-click aspect is just his way of trying to weasel out of it.

------
geuis
This looks fake. Notice the AT&T logo in the top left. There _IS_ no AT&T logo
on the iPhone. It just says AT&T in caps on the phone, not lower case.

~~~
ashu
It could be a jailbroken phone.

~~~
donw
Or an ayePhone, which is quite popular among the Scottish demographic.

~~~
watmough
You're probably Scottish, would you pay $999 for a delicious 'Buttery' app,
which would display a picture of a fabulous Aberdeen rowie?

~~~
flipbrad
only if deep fried

~~~
watmough
Ahhh, they do deep fry very nicely, being made of primarrrily flour and lard.

------
radley
the app was pulled from the apple store yesterday. it was reported that no
sales went through, and if so will be canceled.

not hacker news.

~~~
huhtenberg
4 sales in 14 hours:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/06/the-worlds-first-
luxury...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/06/the-worlds-first-luxury-
iphone-app-99999-of-pure-bliss/#comment-2430421)

------
n1mr0d
morons...they get what they deserve.

------
bsaunder
I'm disappointed that they don't have a try-then-buy option. There are plenty
of sub $10 apps that I would love to try out and wouldn't mind paying for if
they are good. But I don't like payng the money first and then learning that I
don't like something about how they work. The "lite" version works, okay, but
I'd rather just one version that I could try for free for a week to see if it
sticks with me.

------
tlrobinson
This app would go nicely with one of these: <http://www.extraordinary-i-
phone.com/>

Though if you buy a $50,000 diamond studded iPhone you don't really need a
$1000 app to tell people you're rich...

------
sant0sk1
People is plural. This is one dumb guy. Small difference, but with big
implications.

------
gojomo
More alarming than the fact that someone bought the 'I Am Rich' app is that at
least 20 people here thought this possibly-fake and definitely-trivial issue
was 'Hacker News'.

------
incomethax
CNBC just reported that 8 people bought this app... That's just sad

------
mynameishere
Call up credit card company.

Say that you didn't make the order.

They fix it.

~~~
aneesh
While you should definitely report transactions you actually didn't make, I
don't recommend lying about transactions you actually made. You have to swear
in writing you didn't make the purchase. And the merchant has the opportunity
to prove you did actually do this.

~~~
attack
You are wrong. This may be the case if it is directly from a bank account, but
not from a credit card.

Regardless, the way that the Apple store tricked his muscle memory by not
having a confirmation page borders on fraudulent. If they would not reverse
this honest mistake when you present the situation to them, then I would have
no problem perusing this by other means.

~~~
alaskamiller
I hope I can use "honest mistake" more in court. That's the two magic words
people should put more faith into.

~~~
attack
Talk in proverbs much?

~~~
alaskamiller
Bullshit less next time?

