Great Writing
A favorite novelist weighs in on scientific writing
Writing
Random
Science
Cormac McCarthy is a favorite author of mine. I find his direct, short, and almost terse style of writing to be engaging. Little did I know that he had actually weighed in on what it takes to do great scientific writing. He did!
Build and Test Analytics
Analytics
Product
Continuous Integration
Startup Ideas
One of the things I’ve been maintaining on the Quarto team is the GitHub actions that build installers, run tests, and so on. A few times over the last year, we’ve run into problems in our pipeline which didn’t appear as explicit failures, but instead showed up as significant changes in the duration of tasks or actions. For example, there was a stretch where Deno bundling was facing challeges, and this initially appeared to us as very slow bundling as a part of building the installer for Quarto.
Welcome to the Blog (2.0)
News
Years ago, I worked on a popular for authoring blogs, Windows Live Writer. That tool provided a WYSIWYG experience, giving users a Microsoft Word like experience for editing their blog. During this time period, if you manged to find my blog, you’d see only test posts associated with the latest features of Live Writer.
Ok, so it has been a while since I’ve posted an update of the App Store data. Since it’s been so long, I’m including a special bonus. But first, a couple of notes:
Radio Silence
iPhone
It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to say. That’s mostly because I have been busy working on Lose It! Things are going well on that front, but I’ve been spending every free moment on it, leaving me little to say about anything else. I’m taking a few minutes to throw this out, just so everyone knows I’m still here :). When I have bit more free time, I’ll try to document a bit more about what I’ve been up to. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of Lose It!, be sure to follow @loseitapp on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
Comparing App Store Categories
iPhone
One of the frustrations that I’ve had with the data from the App Store is the difficulty in comparing the various categories of application on the store. The popularity score appears to be related to the category, so you can’t effectively compare applications across categories. This makes it tough to do things like rank categories.
The App Store Model Business Model: Lite
iPhone
Since the beginning, figuring out the right way to monetize applications in the App Store has been confusing. Not only was the marketplace completely new and unlike any other software marketplace, but the App Store still itself was incredibly limiting. In addition, the price for applications trended downward while alternatives like advertising entered the market. The net of it was a lot of experimentation regarding how to make money on applications.
One Last Note on Trends
iPhone
News
Prompted by Nate’s comment, here are a couple more looks at application trends on the app Store. First, if you have a look at the distribution of applications by price over time, you can see the rise of $.99 and $1.99 apps, along with the corresponding fall in free applications. Applications priced $4.99-$9.99 also see a decline, while most other prices are essentially stable.
Down and To the Right By Design
iPhone
News
If you’re looking for market feedback on the value of applications, here it is. Using updated data to take a look a pricing trends confirms what I think everyone already knows. Each month, the average price of apps on the store just declines. For example, have a look at the average price of applications (excluding medical applications, whose high prices skew the results).
Apps for a Song
iPhone
If you take a look at the growth rates of the App Store by price, something that you may have already intuitively known starts to become clear. $.99 has become the default price of applications on the store. In face, more than 1 in 3 of the applications on the store now cost $.99.
5 months and 9,000 Applications Later
iPhone
The App Store has now been around for a little more than 5 months. And so, this afternoon I was curious about the state of the world in the App Store. After digging around on the net for some up to date analysis, I gave up and decided I’d do some analysis myself. (Most of the analysis, including my own previous analysis, only uses the top applications, which are available in an RSS feed. But that creates bias, since the analysis is exclusively based upon successful applications).
Brown Zune, Windows Live Writer, and My MacBook Pro
Technology
Random
I’m more than a month into my conversion to a Mac, and so far I’ve adjusted nicely. The largest issue for me was the fact that I didn’t know any shortcut keys, so I was using the mouse a lot more than I’m used to. I’m overcoming that, though I desparately miss ctrl+tab to switch between windows of the current application.
Hope for Expensive Apps iTunes
iPhone
One of the challenges that has faced developers of apps on the iTunes App Store has been how to price their applications. Early customers complained about applications with high (read: more than $9.99) prices. Since those early days, a competitive and crowded field of applications has conspired to push prices down as consumers faced more choices and application sought to claim a stop on the coveted ‘Top 25’ list.
App Store Comments Are Crappy, But Let’s Not Get All Draconian
iPhone
Everyone who has spent some time on the App Store realizes that there are a large number of pointless or even harmful comments. Whether the post simply says ‘first’, disses an application that the commenter has never used, or complains about an issue that was fixed in an updated version of the app, the comment system on the App Store isn’t adequate. It’s a rough situation since the App Store doesn’t allow trialing of apps. Comments, the application description, and the application screenshots are the only real way for an end user to assess an application, so filling 1/3 of the assessment with garbage really hurts.
Transition Part 1
iPhone
News
So I’m going through a bit of a transition in my life (more about this later). As a part of this transition, the focus of this blog is going to change. It remains my personal weblog, but rather than mostly playing around with features of Windows Live Writer, I’ll be doing a bit more writing about my current technical interests. Top of the list is the iPhone (I know, I should get in line).
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