Ep2: Companies Who Make Money: Armin Heinrich

Written on 7th September 2008                                                                                                              1 COMMENT
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

Recent buzz and hysteria surrounding overnight success stories of applications built for the iPhone seem to have been garnering almost more hype than that which surrounded those early Facebook applications (though those stories, were and still are about numbers of users not numbers of dollars).

Of all the ‘iPhone apps’ one stands out as a particularly interesting case. This app cost 1K USD did nothing and is probably the simplest and most elegant ‘app’ “ever” developed designed. It made the owner 5K in pure profit before Apple decided to pull it. Reasons for it being pulled amount to 2 pissed off buyers complaints who pressed ‘buy it’ by mistake ‘apparently’. I’d personally quote a saying me old man taught me ‘a deals a deal’.

This ‘app’ will gain no respect from the hardcore hackers who are proud of their ability to make the world dance from their command line, nor from those who have invested millions into developing complex offerings that flop at the box office. But why not? Why does something so simple and elegant not deserve respect in this field?

I am also guilty of “once” believing that if an application was built for a ‘fiver’ and over the weekend it was not worthy of any acclaim, but come on, isn’t that simply jealousy by an overzealous developer? What counts at the end of the day is what the market makes of it and in this case six rich bastards and two retards liked it enough to press that dangerous buy it button.

If this teaches us anything, it’s that what counts at the end of the day is not the technology used, nor the effort surmounted, but rather the idea and the idea alone.

Armin Heinrich, ep, i am rich, iphone, rainmakers, shiny object

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The $1000 iPhone app: lighten up bloggers, it’s only art

Written on 6th August 2008                                                                                                              6 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

While European techies were sleeping last night, the American ones discovered a rather absurd iPhone app. It’s called I Am Rich and has two remarkable characteristics. One: it only lets a red diamond glow on your screen – sometimes a secret mantra appears. Two: the price $999.99. Will developer Armin Heinrich make his fortune with this shiny app?

Whether he does or not, he DID get some tech bloggers angry. They think the I Am Rich app is provoking serious developers who don’t manage to get their app in the Apple app store. MG Siegler from VentureBeat calls on Apple to “wake up or grow up”. Dan Frommer from Silicon Alley Insider notes:

The upside for Apple: $300, or 30%, of all purchases. The downside: Good luck enforcing that “all sales final” policy on this scam.

Although I understand where these frustrations are coming from, I’d like to call on these bloggers to take it all a bit more light-heartedly. After all we’re talking about a company here of which the CEO once said experimenting with LSD was “one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life.” Experiments like I Am Rich keep Apple interesting. It’s a form of art, you can interpreter it however you want to.

See it as a protest against the lifestyle IT girls like Paris Hilton. A way to tone down the iPhone fuzz. Or.., it’s a genius parody on all these folks who have been using their iPhone in a somewhat too showy way – waiting for the utter satisfying experience of someone asking… “wow, is that an iPhone…?”

Update: TechCrunch has a confusing update on the story

app store, i am rich, iphone, iphone app, shiny object

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