The Genius in My Basement (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/24/genius-in-my-basement-review <comment><USER2> Did anyone here get to experience one of Norton's lectures? It seems "Cambridge failed to renew his contract... citing his eccentric lecturing style which they thought deterred students," so I am curious what they might have been like

[https://www.thejc.com/news/obituaries/obituary-simon- norton-...](https://www.thejc.com/news/obituaries/obituary-simon- norton-1.482207)

<comment><USER3> Luckily for us, one of his most important lectures was recorded and uploaded to youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0iyzYUTgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0iyzYUTgo)

Make sure you watch all of it, there's some bombshells in there.

<comment><USER2> Thank you. (For other readers, this is an interview about public transport issues)

It sounds like he had a relatively severe stutter. I hope the university didn't fail to renew his contract on that account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Once I read "public transport addict" in the blurb, I immediately knew it was Norton of Monstrous moonshine fame.

</comment><comment><USER3> I bought this book after reading about Simon Norton's passing early this year. It's nice to read about this quirky genius, but I did find the author's writing too over-done.

</comment><comment><USER5> When it comes to geniuses, the inability to hold down a job, eccentricity of style, rudeness, etc, are _features_ , not bugs. The potential benefit to society far outweighs the very real inconvenience they cause to the people around them. So how to accommodate? I would say: (1) identify by their record, (2) attract them, (3) give them a space and a budget, (4) no responsibilities and no position of authority, (5) answerable, informally, to just one person, say a vice-chancellor, (6) exempt from all questionnaires, committees, audits, compulsory teaching, form-filling, etc (7) leave them alone.

<comment><USER6> They are definitely bugs I am sorry. There might be easy work arounds, sure, but they are bugs nonetheless, in that these characteristics do not benefit their owner or anyone else.

<comment><USER5> It isn't nice, I know, but it comes down to: agreeable people tend to agree with other people. So they can't make significant original contributions.

<comment><USER7> There have been very few men in history nicer and more considerate than James Clerk Maxwell, and he made the biggest leap of genius in physics ever with electromagnetic field theory, the foundation of everything that is modern in physics. Well, there is statistical physics too, which he also was a founding father of.

<comment><USER8> Very true, and an interesting example. While it's true that many great scientists were agreeable, sometimes lack of agreeability can mean you provoke more interesting responses, and more heated debate. Two examples - Karl Marx and Andrew Kliman, as political economists, were/are known for being not only rude but provocative in rudeness - to the point where a response is provoked simply because of the language they used. Marx's _Capital_ , for example, got such a wide response not only because of the bold claims but also the rhetorical style it was written in (his contempt is shown in the famous preface to _The Poverty of Philosophy_ , a response to Proudhon's _The Philosophy of Poverty_ [0]). Kliman insists (and continues to insist) that his opponents don't understand him, that they haven't read the relevant litarture, and other things. He's even gone as far as accusing his opponents of having a psychological a-priori presumption against the theory he advocates[1].

On the other hand, Kliman is at the forefront of post-Samuelson heterodox economics today, and his extremely influential theories have spawned a great deal of debate. It's hard to imagine that debate happening if he were "quieter".

[0] "M. Proudhon has the misfortune of being peculiarly misunderstood in Europe. In France, he has the right to be a bad economist, because he is reputed to be a good German philosopher. In Germany, he has the right to be a bad philosopher, because he is reputed to be one of the ablest French economists. Being both German and economist at the same time, we desire to protest against this double error."

[1] "Mohun and Veneziani (2009: 278) state that we "conjecture that [his paper's logical and factual errors were] not apparent to Veneziani because of a psychological a priori commitment to the falsity of the TSSI, in turn founded on a psychological a priori commitment to the demonstration of the internal inconsistency [...]"

<comment><USER9> I genuinely cannot imagine a less consequential figure than Kliman, mainly because if they were less consequential I would never have heard of them. TSSI is when Marxist economics became what the philosopher Imre Lakatos called a "degenerating research program". People have a psychological a-prior presumption against the theory he advocates because he is transparently playing a game with words. It was well-understood the context in which Marx wrote, and everyone understood Marx in connection with that context. His contemporaries understood him that way, and everyone for the next hundred years understood him that way. Kliman now pretends that everyone between Marx' time and now read Marx wrong, and only he, Kliman, has uncovered the key to decode Marx. At the same time, his supposed key, the TSSI, is so arid and unrelated to any real-world activity that the response to more serious scholars (even serious Marxist economists) is repulsion.

It's clear that Marx mastered a certain rhetorical strategy that made him disproportionately influential -- the rhetorical strategy of the bully. People love the bully. Who doesn't want to be the bully, rather than the bullied? Freud used a similar strategy, to similar effect. I'm not surprised that Kliman has turned to the same strategy, but at least Marx was animated by the great events of his day, but all Kliman can hope for is to defeat his rivals in argument over interpreting Marx. As someone once pointed out, it is philosophers who interpret the world. The point is to change it.

<comment><USER8> > It was well-understood the context in which Marx wrote, and everyone > understood Marx in connection with that context.

Not really. Hilferding's reply to Bohm-Bawerk so early on showed that many of Marx's critics still misunderstood him, and Marxist economists have dealt with those criticisms time and time again, not only philosophical misunderstandings but on the transformation problem too. The most outrageous is the charge of inconsistency between Vol. 1 and Vol. 3 - luckily Marx isn't charged with such inconsistency any more (only the failure to transform values to prices in the specific context of competing capitals) but Kliman is partly responsible for that turn. Bohm-Bawerk's objections to Marx's value theory gain new life in fancy terminology (such as "Generalized Commodity Exploitation Theorem"). The degenerative research program actually seems to be in the responses of philosophers and economists to Marx[0].

>Kliman now pretends that everyone between Marx' time and now read Marx wrong, and only he, Kliman, has uncovered the key to decode Marx.

The idea of the TSSI was about before Kliman, and it'll be about after him; the point I was making is that he was the first one to be loud enough about it to attract attention. Kliman at least attempts to make a convincing case based on textual exegesis of Marx's works that shows misinterpretation, which is not unreasonable in a world dominated by equilibrium economics and thereby equilibrium responses to Marx. His only contention is that Marxian economists had surrendered too much ground. Further, in several places his claim is _not_ that Marx is correct, only that the charge of inconsistency is misplaced.

>that the response to more serious scholars (even serious Marxist economists) is repulsion.

That's not true; the TSSI is as popular as it is criticized. For every explicitly anti-TSSI scholar I can probably name a pro-TSSI one. I'm sure you'd agree that Marxists tend to like orthodoxy and established traditions just as much as anyone else, which shows in the responses (by Marxian economists) to the TSSI and _also_ to Okishio's theorem. There are plenty of good mathematical and philosophical objections to the TSSI on Marxist grounds, but very few claim it is as philosophically bankrupt and divorced from reality as you seem to make it out to be. Veneziani and Mohun's objections are mathematical, not "practical". The charge of a vacuous theory divorced from understanding the dynamics of capitalism usually falls on the New Interpretation rather than the TSSI.

>As someone once pointed out, it is philosophers who interpret the world. The point is to change it.

I agree! As it happens, so do Kliman's co-authors. From Alan Freeman:

>I conclude that it is a legitimate political and research project to attempt to understand capitalism on the basis of the Marx's own work. The persistent denial of its validity, on the false grounds that Marx's theory has been proven incoherent, should be resisted by the political movement. Whatever the personal motivations of individuals that subscribe to this view, its actual effect is to deny access to Marx's own economic views. To persist in promoting it now, above all, as is usually done, as an incontrovertible truth, must be treated as an unscientific act of censorship. Before beginning I want to lay before the audience the exact nature of the debate. First, it is not a scholastic debate. An audience of trade unionists, political activists, and professional intellectuals represents a genuine encounter, in Gramsci's words, between those who think because they suffer and those who suffer because they think. _It is a debate whose purpose is to change the world._

[0] [http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Marxism/Marxism%20As%20Science.p...](http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Marxism/Marxism%20As%20Science.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Bohm-Bawerk's notion of the contradiction was so potent because it was so hard for Marxists to answer. Hilferding's response didn't even convince many Marxists, which is why the transformation problem was the primary theoretical dispute within Marxist economics for most of the twentieth century.

After Samuelson's famous article on the transformation problem, most people concluded that Marx' system could not be rescued, and moved on with their lives. Up until the 70s Marxist economics was a vibrant field, but after that it's only a few dead-enders. Kliman himself laments this in an article that I can no longer find online. Philosophers and economists don't spend much time on Marx for the same reason chemists don't spend much time on phlogiston, and physicists don't spend much time on aether theory.

<comment><USER8> Samuelson's work is an odd one, because it attempted to fit Marx into a pre- defined model, and the model is convincing from a mathematical point of view. For whatever reason, Marxists (but especially analytical Marxists) decided this was enough to give up on the labour theory of value, or at least work in Samuelson's terms. The only proof of the redundancy of the theory of value Samuelson could offer was in the case of identical inputs and outputs, two homogenous goods, and we take labour as embodied and invariable[0]. Kliman and many others (especially those trained as economists rather than philosophers) accept this premise. Samuelson's other criticisms were repeats of Bohm- Bawerk's, and though it would take a few more years for better objections than Hilferding's to specifically reply to the critics and their criticisms, they got there eventually, and they're here today.

Your analogy would be more apt if it turned out that the refutations of phlogiston or the aether were flawed, both in the model used to construct the premises in the refutation _and_ the refutation didn't hold much (if any) water. As it turns out, scientific revolutions can be just as politically motivated as anything else. But even then, Kliman and others are more than happy to work given the premises constructed by Samuelson. Okishio, at least, admitted the imperfection of the model his theorem is based on. Samuelson, even after _contemporary_ early critiques from Paul Mattick, Geoffrey Kay, Ben Fine, and others never did. At some point Samuelson's conception of Marx's theory as one purely of prices and "proving" the notion of exploitation shows just how shallow the analysis goes. You can determine prices without reference to labour values (as Sraffa showed) and you can demonstrate exploitation in capitalist society without reference to the traditional (Marxian) labour theory of value (Nitzan & Bichler, Roemer, Veneziani & Yoshihara, Arthur DiQuattro, Hardt & Negri, even Bowels & Gintis). In fact, the only conclusion you really throw out is the falling rate of profit.

Even if nothing I said is true, the neoclassical paradigm was attacked just as much in the Cambridge capital controversy to the point where if we were to use the same standards you are using for Marxism, it would be just as dead. At best, neoclassical economics is the phlogiston, and Marxism is the aether. Sraffa would be happy, at least? Marxism as a mainstream question started dying while every other heterodox opinion was moribund too. Ironically, Marxist polecon is the only radical economics that still lives. That, at least, should show its resilience. What you said can be said three times over for Post-Keynesians, Sraffians, neo-Ricardians and pretty much everyone else on the sidelines.

[0] [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08969205155717...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0896920515571760)

<comment><USER9> The "reason" in "for whatever reason" is that Samuelson is right, and most people saw that pretty quickly. Samuelson never returned to the question (he did write a later New Palgrave entry on it) because he had more productive things to do with his time. Samuelson wrote more than 300 papers on macroeconomics, trade, finance, money, everything.

Your final paragraph has a basic misunderstanding of the Cambridge capital controversy that is surprisingly common among the heterodox. There was a primitive theory of capital to which the CCC applied. But modelling improved, and this theory was completely superseded by the 70s. But somehow the heterodox have inflated it into being the core proposition of all of mainstream economics. The modern theory of capital is completely immune to the arguments of the CCC.

<comment><USER8> >But somehow the heterodox have inflated it into being the core proposition of all of mainstream economics.

My argument wasn't that neoclassical economics should be discounted as a result of CCC, but rather the grounds upon which it took place, where Marxian (well, labour accounting) economics took just as much of a hit as neoclassical economics did. My argument was that if your proposition is that the status of a discipline should be counted based on what transpired between 1960 and 1980, Marxian economics would only be as poor today as neoclassical economics was. Neoclassical economics improved its models, and Marxian economics either attempted to salvage an orthodox interpretation of Marx or to move on to other research projects (Analytical Marxism, Rational Choice Marxism) that do away with his "mystical shell".

I suppose when one thinks of trying to salvage Marx as trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem (in fact, it is very much like that with the Fundamental Marxian Theorem), what Kliman et al. are doing given the models and notation set out by Samuelson and Leontief, or what Veneziani and Yoshihara are doing given neoclassical methods is a whole lot less objectionable. Neoclassical economics isn't dead because of Sraffa, and Marxian economics isn't dead because of the century-old presumption that Marx was an equilibrium theorist, or the presumption that he was a physicalist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is going on with the recent spate of "()" article titles?

<comment><USER11> That's a HN thing, to indicate the year in which the article was published. Typically only used for articles published before the current year.

<comment><USER10> When I posted that the title was literally just "()" without anything else. I've seen it a few times in recent days.</comment></comment></comment>


High performance libraries in Java - <AUTHOR> http://vanillajava.blogspot.com/2012/02/high-performance-libraries-in-java.html <comment><USER2> Colt has not been updated for eight years, yet the article refers to it in the present tense. Why? Because the article's section on Colt is lifted straight from Colt's website.

This appears to be blogspam.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't have a solid grasp on what exactly Java Chronicle is and does and what the use cases might be. (<https://github.com/peter-lawrey/Java-Chronicle>)

Can anybody elaborate?

<comment><USER4> I'm definitely not a knowledgeable Java dude but it seems to be just an mmap()'d file wrapped in a class. I don't understand how this fits the description the author provided. I also don't understand how he can call it an "in memory database" in the first paragraph and then say "can be much larger than your physical memory size (only limited by the size of your disk)". Any Java kids who have digested those couple code files want to help me understand?

<comment><USER5> i haven't looked at the code, but i have dabbled in some performance coding... if you can stream things in and out quickly, and in operations that themselves take as little as possible memory, then you can operate on very large files in mostly directly linear time with relation to the size of the file... so while the packet in the stream might be in memory at the time your code runs against it, it must seem to be saying that not only can you do that, but we can also stream files through this thing without having to read the file all at once into memory (which works great and fast on very small files, but can downright non functional for large files) .... just a guess... a lot of performance stuff i've been around is a hot-potato situation, so maybe they're trying to describe that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use the Colt (Java) matrix libraries for applied math and graphics applications, but it's still quite costly compared to optimized libraries like Intel's MKL. A singular value decomposition takes about eight times as long in Colt vs MKL.

<comment><USER7> I've used both Colt and apache commons math in a machine learning setting. It was mostly the better handling of sparse matrix ops that made apache a couple of times faster than colt (due to hash-based vs. sorted list vectors) It was pretty much the same on dense linear algebra. Intel MKL, eigen, uBlas can be better, but I haven't done the benchmarks to prove this either way.

<comment><USER6> While we're on the subject, I'm curious if you've played with matrix-toolkits- java / netlib-java. I'm considering switching to it. I've had good experiences with the Lawson-Hanson non-negative least squares that comes with netlib.

<comment><USER8> The netlib-java project is very convenient because it allows you to use optimized native netlib libs, and transparently fall back to the f2j (jvm bytecode) library when native libs are available.

The java version of netlib produced by f2j is unfortunately the unoptimized "reference implementation", so it's not terribly performant for large matrices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use the excellent fastutil for primitive collections - it has great integration with java.util collections, and has a more standard design than Trove in my opinion. Works great.

</comment><comment><USER10> Another borked Blogger template. Cache URL as a "permalink", for those who have Javascript disabled:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fvanillajava.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F02%2Fhigh- performance-libraries-in-java.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think missing from this list is akka <http://akka.io>

It's a concurrency framework that allows you to:

1) abstract threads into actors and messages

2) distribute processing with remote actors residing on different machines.

imo, it's way easier to use than traditional java concurrency

<comment><USER12> How is Akka compared to Hazelcast in term of distributed processing?

<comment><USER11> I don't know much about Hazelcast, but it seems to just be a group of distributed versions of constructs used for managing threads. That's the key difference. Akka abstracts thread management for you with an Actor model, which imo is much much easier to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The "serialization using ByteBuffers" should be clarified that it is "serialization using _direct_ ByteBuffers" -- as in they exist in the native OS memory space and not inside the JVM's heap.

Direct ByteBuffers are _excellent_ when you can make use of a long-lived, fixed-size buffer that you are using to communicate with a native resource (e.g. socket, file, etc.)

My own experience with using direct ByteBuffers is allocating read/write buffers to a running Redis process that I use to write commends to the server and read the results back. The difference in performance using a direct buffer instead of raw byte[] (basically a standard ByteBuffer) were astounding.

I have seen people argue against the use of direct buffers pointing out that at some point your calls and payload have to cross the JVM-native barrier and using a direct ByteBuffer simply moves the point of entry/exit which won't change the performance of the entire round-trip.

I can't argue with that, but I would point out that in my own work with Redis, having a native process input and output data to and from a native OS buffer that I can then pull into the JVM gave me at least an order of magnitude improvement in speed than sticking with raw byte[] in and out over a socket.

ASIDE: I attribute my success here to the fact that I was able to queue up out-bound commands as fast as possible inside the JVM, pushing them out into the native buffer space which streamed them into Redis; reading back the replies as quickly as possible in a separate thread. My understanding is that by moving the "blood-brain-barrier" to this point, I am allowing Redis to consume and produce as fast as possible as long as I keep the input buffer full and output buffer relatively empty. In other words Redis wasn't being blocked (for the most part) by waiting on me to push and pull data in and out of my running JVM on every single read/write.

ADDENDUM: Just had a fun impl thought for anyone that read this and thought it was interesting... a custom InputStream and OutputStream impl along the lines of the JDK's Buffered streams, but the input and output streams are actually backed by direct ByteBuffers.

The use-cases for the stream would need to be very specific and the underlying approach clearly spelled out in the Javadoc, but it would provide a nice bridge between standard JDK stream-based I/O and the NIO work without burdening the caller with knowing about how to use the NIO APIs.

For anyone interesting, I'll likely add a first-pass impl of this to the Universal Binary JSON Java libs[1] later today to compliment the re-usable ByteArray stream impls that are there already.

[1] <https://github.com/thebuzzmedia/universal-binary-json-java>

<comment><USER14> Be careful. The JVM will never unmap the underlying regions it uses to support direct ByteBuffers, so if you end up creating a lot of them (such as for reading/writing files) or even just resizing them (which creates an entirely new one), you can run out of virtual memory.

<comment><USER15> The excellent I/O library, Netty, deals with this by allocating a slab of direct memory, slicing it up and pooling the use of the memory.

It's the Java equivalent of writing your own alloc().

<comment><USER16> That's not exactly what Netty does. It does allocate large direct buffers and slices up pieces, but the pieces are not pooled because they are never returned to Netty. For this reason they also don't need to implement malloc in Java. All the slices reference the "parent" buffer, and once they are all collected, the parent can be collected as well. When there is no more room in the buffer, another one is allocated. (I just read that code last week because I wanted to know what was going on precisely because there was no way of returning a sliced buffer to the pool).

It is very easy (and efficient) to implement java.io input and output streams backed by a buffer (as long as the buffer doesn't have to grow).

<comment><USER15> Buffer pooling is still very much a WIP. (the first commit was 3 days ago!)

<https://github.com/netty/netty/tree/bufferpooling> <https://github.com/netty/netty/issues/62> [https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/c9968d6cbfa958f73a9868...](https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/c9968d6cbfa958f73a98688b6d71571f32a3086d)

<comment><USER16> Oh! Good to know!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I collect and use 50+ sources of my personal data - <AUTHOR> https://beepb00p.xyz/my-data.html <comment><USER2> All I read about on the internet when it comes to QS is "look at all the stuff I collect, isn't this fancy?". How come so incredibly few post "hey, you know all this data I collected? Here's how it has changed my life for the better/worse".

Who cares about data if you are not acting on it and reporting back on results/progress?</comment>


Mandrake Linux Founder Launches a Google-Free Android OS - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/290746744/eelo-a-mobile-os-and-web-services-in-the-public-in/description <comment><USER2> This just seems like a rebranded version of LineageOS.

<comment><USER3> I guess the difference is this aims to provide the associated cloud service ecosystem also

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm</comment>


Ask HN: Advice for getting funding without being plugged into a network? - <AUTHOR> One of the biggest mistakes I've made in my career is not building a network, ie thinking I can just build things and good things would come. I'm physically moving soon hoping to remedy this, but are there ways to accelerate the process?<p>I've heard of successful cold emails/dms. Accelerators are also obviously a thing but feel like they're even more of a black box considering how consistently I'm rejected without feedback. <comment><USER2> I could be wrong but when I hear a story like this usually the pitch is bad. Good pitch + bad network beats bad pitch + good network except under unusual conditions.

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes sense. I haven't done really any pitching (other than the idea to friends) because I've been presuming I need a network. Are you saying I should pitch to the people that I do know to and the quality of this pitch will determine my eventual success regardless of who they are or if they access to capital? I can see this being true.</comment></comment>


I upgraded my Pi cluster to Pi 4 model B - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQAo_hMDWk <comment><AUTHOR> I finally acquired enough Pi 4's (the 2GB RAM version—I can't find the 4GB version anywhere yet) to rebuild my Kubernetes cluster (www.pidramble.com) using the latest Pi.

So far my takeaways are:

1\. The official PoE HAT seems to work fine... but you can't shut down the Pi and keep it shut down—it seems to reboot if powered by the PoE HAT :/

2\. The Pi 4 feels slightly faster, but having double the RAM (I can't find 4 GB Pi 4's in stock anywhere) is reallllly nice for Kubernetes.

3\. Docker is annoying to get running on Raspbian 10/Buster, since the standard repo has a broken version, and Docker's repo only has listings for Raspbian 9/Stretch. Therefore you have to hack around the install script a tiny bit to get Docker installed.

I currently have Kubernetes running fine, but am having issues with the cluster networking (this seems to happen any time I make major changes to it either in hardware or software). You can follow along on the adventure here: [https://github.com/geerlingguy/raspberry-pi- dramble/issues/1...](https://github.com/geerlingguy/raspberry-pi- dramble/issues/156)

I'm going to also be doing some more performance testing and benchmarks and sharing more thoughts in some blog posts in the future, but for now, I'm happy to have a version of the cluster that has enough RAM per-device that I don't feel like Kubernetes is running by the skin of its teeth!

<comment><USER2> How does that work? I was under the impression that Raspbian was a 32-bit Linux distribution but Docker requires a 64-bit distribution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Docker publishes an armhf version for 32-bit Linux on ARM.</comment></comment></comment>


What are some simple programs you wrote for yourself? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/4zqubq/what_are_some_simple_programs_you_wrote_for/ <comment><USER2> These are some I currently use:

A _strong_ password generator

A web app to sync short notes between devices

An invoicing/crm app

A few web scrappers

A tiny script to capture and delete all Android notifications from Google apps (b/c I disabled all Google apps on my phone)

A script to send a url link to my e-business card via sms</comment>


Definitive markdown editor - <AUTHOR> https://stackedit.io/

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool! Seems like there are lots of features buried in there. What's the common use case?</comment>


App Store Pricing: Worth Less than a Cup of Coffee - <AUTHOR> http://floriankugler.com/blog/2013/9/30/worth-less-than-a-cup-of-coffee <comment><USER4> The whole problem comes from Apple not allowing trial apps.

I would easily pay $20 for Dark Sky, or Moves, or FitnessFast, InstaPaper, even ExitStrategy -- but I would _never_ pay $20 upfront. It takes a couple weeks using an app to see if it turns into an invaluable daily tool, or if you just delete it. (Which is why free software trials for desktop apps have existed for decades.)

I refuse to pay $1 or $2 for apps just to try them out, not because of the money, but because of the moral issue -- I don't want to be rewarding crappy spammy developers with their $1 or $2 just as much as the truly good app developers out there, because that's just contributing to the problem.

Marco Ament took down the Instapaper Free version. But I never would have downloaded the paid version if I hadn't been able to try the free version first.

<comment><USER5> Here's my logic - when customers have very limited information, and side-by- side pricing, they'll always minimise risk by getting the cheapest app. The cheapest app is free. And eyeballing statistics on sales, $1 apps don't do any better than $2 ones (depending on the platform and app - iPhone buyers can be very elastic). Many customers aren't so stingy they'll balk at paying an extra dollar, they simply flock to free apps because you can't beat free. Especially for an app which has lots of substitutes (todos, games).

If customers have good information (they are already using the app), and only one price (your IAP), or pricing you control (your IAP, with dummy prices - feature by feature unlocks, and maybe a premium feature or two), they'll spend be more likely to spend money.

The big money is in exploitive IAP. Skinner box games which use psychological tricks to goad big-spending "whales" (addicts) into spending more. But the small money is probably in IAP too - unlocking the demo.

There's no money (IMO) in $1 apps - they are too expensive (compared to free apps), and they sell themselves short.

<comment><USER6> True but not always true. Our application ([http://syncpadapp.com](http://syncpadapp.com)) is free to download and to use up to 3 simultaneous users. If you need more we offer a "pro" plan at $5 for up to 30 simultaneous people. You'd be surprised by how many people are asking me for a discount rate on a $5/mo plan for an app that they use daily...

<comment><USER7> If someone is paying you, that means they have 4 or more users. That's gotta be worth $15-30/month. Have you tested your conversion rate with other pricing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem is that the difference between $2 and $1 is not the same as the difference between $1 and $0 (i.e. free). Humans are not rational in this way, and the abundance of free apps kills it for everybody else in the market. If one company would start giving away really awful-quality chocolate (or any product) for free in every supermarket, the chocolate prices & industry would crash.

Dan Arielly did a couple of interesting experiments on this. He had people paying for products in a cashier line (i.e. people who had their wallet out anyway) choose between two really good offers: Hershey chocolate for $0.10 and Lind chocolate for $0.20 (or something like that, I forgot the detailed numbers, it may have been $1/$2 or $0.5/$1). In that case, most people choose the more expensive Lind chocolate as it was clearly the superior product (i.e. higher quality). When he repeated the experiment with $0.10 for the Lind and $0.0 (i.e. Free) for the Hershey's, the game changed. Everybody took the Hersheys. Even though the pricing didn't really change, they only both became cheaper, by the same amount.

The verdict, really, is that if there's something free around, we go nuts and quality doesn't matter much anymore, because it is free. If free apps, on the app store, would be at least $0.50, or even $0.10, I think it would totally change the game. (I.e. if Apple would change the Free Tier).

But as it is right now, I think the downward spiral will continue. The only way out is to create a high quality superior product (many features, etc) with a high price tag and hope that you get enough customers to survive. That also should lead to less support load.

<comment><USER9> Oh boy are you looking at this wrong. Only someone from a western country with a middle class wage could so utterly fail to distinguish between a choice between two costs in resources to a choice between a cost of resources and one of no resources.

Think of this another way. How many chocolates can you afford at a cost of $0.20 each? How many can you afford at a cost of $0.10 each? Now, how many can you afford at a cost of $0.00 each? The experiment artificially avoids this by manufacturing a situation in which purchasers only had a one-time choice, but the purchasers didn't necessarily know it was a on-time deal. For all they know, they may be faced with the same choice every time they go back to that store, even if it was advertised as a one-time deal. We get on-time offers pushed at us all the time these days.

So, is a marginal decrease in cost of $0.10 equivalent in both circumstances? Of course not. A cost in resources is always a cost. A cost of no resources is not a cost at all. Comparing two different costs is completely different to comparing a cost with no cost at all. To understand this, instead of adding costs together over a few transactions, try multiplying them by many decisions instead and you'll see that multiplying by zero has some very special advantages when it comes to resource preservation.

What I think is happening is that analyses like the above are considering only individual translations, but App store users download many apps. Multiplying costs over many purchases, even small costs balloon while free is always free no matter how outrageously you indulge your App store downloading habit.

That's without taking into account that not everybody considers buying a cup of coffee in Starbucks something that requires no thought or consideration. I certainly don't think that way for a start.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, but I found the parent's comment much more insightful, lucid and relevant to the point being discussed (why a large majority always seems to prefer free apps over paid ones) than yours.

And the utterly pointless ad hominem attack right at the beginning didn't help either.

You also seem to have mixed up "price" with "cost" at places. For instance I don't quite know what these lines mean:

> a choice between two costs in resources to a choice between a cost of > resources and one of no resources (what do you mean by _resources_? Whose > resources?)

> a marginal decrease in cost of $0.10 (the _cost_ of the chocolate is borne > by its manufacturer while a consumer pays the _price_ )

I'm sure you have a valid counterpoint in there somewhere, but it's not clear what it is.

<comment><USER11> >App store users download many apps. Multiplying costs over many purchases, even small costs balloon while free is always free

I had not thought about this one. But it is correct and explains the resoning of consumers.

<comment><USER12> To me it's about the stress of decision-making. I like simply saying "hey, let me check out _____ type of app" then doing a search and downloading up to a half dozen different ones just to try out.

On the other hand if I had to pay a few bucks for an app I'd probably spend a while reading the descriptions, reviews, weighing options, etc. It would turn into work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If your paid app can't compete against a free app... that's hardly the fault of the user or the app store. It's the fault of the app maker. What you're basically saying is "my app is so easy to make, that someone could make it without even caring to get paid for it".

It's competition. Yes, if someone can recreate your application for free, then your application wasn't as valuable as you think it was, by definition. Make a better app, or turn it into a service that generates revenue past app deployment.

I think many app developers have gotten spoiled by tales of people getting rich off of P.O.S. apps, and expecting that to happen to them. That happened back in the day because there was a scarcity of applications and app developers. That scarcity no longer exists. Most of the easy stuff has been done, and a lot of free versions have been made because, let's face it, most apps really aren't terribly complex.

So, make something big and hard to duplicate. Make it part of a service you provide with recurring charges and give away your app. It's a better model, anyway.

<comment><USER14> Couldn't agree more. It's not the users or Apple who are racing the app market to the bottom. It is the developers and the competition amongst them. And it's because creating an app is not that hard. Perhaps designing a great one one and creating and and building a market for it is quite hard. But cloning that exact app [even if it is inferior] and providing it for free or supported with IAP or ads is really not terrifically difficult or time consuming once the idea is proven. It is basically impossible to build a competitive moat.

Games are a bit different given how much art and content is often associated with the production, but users are looking for a fun distraction. Perhaps one should try to build a $2 game with a $50,000 art budget rather than a $500,000 art budget. The users don't really care. It sounds more profitable. Tiny Wings FTW.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "creating an app is not that hard"

How is this true at all? It depends on the programmer, what they are building and the tools they are using to build it. Apps are no different to building desktop or web software. In fact the constraints arguably make it more difficult.

<comment><USER15> I would say at least that it's much easier now than it was a few years ago.

XCode and iOs have improved tremendously in terms of usability and functionality, compared to the first releases, and I expect that the Android SDK has gone through a similar evolution.

In addition, you'll probably find a tutorial or a Stack Overflow answer for every problem or question you could possibly have, while at first it was largely undiscovered territory.

In short, barriers of entry have lowered tremendously.

<comment><USER16> For the raw coding part you are describing that is true, but the bar for what people consider a worthwhile app has also risen substantially in the same amount of time. I can build a native iOS app in a day, but I wouldn't consider it releasable to the app store without a good bit more work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people.

I'm not an app developer and I disagree that most apps provide next to no value (some apps, like everything else sure, but many of them do provide more value than their price).

For example there are many games priced $0.99 or $1.99 that people might play for hours and hours. Shouldn't that cost more?

The reason that the prices are low is not because people are not prepared to pay for them. It's because Google and Apple want it that way and also because developers are slashing prices to the extreme to compete.

Imagine if App store and Play store didn't exist and you'd have to individually find developers and buy/download their apps. That would certainly result in higher prices.

The bottom line is app developers have no one to blame but themselves for creating this perception about their apps and allowing this expectation of $0.99 apps to grow.

People also have no freaking clue how hard it is to make apps. For example most people think mobile apps are a lot easier to make than software/web apps, perhaps because mobile devices are 'small' so they tend to think of mobile apps as 'tiny' little widgets that someone pushes 20 buttons and it magically gets created.

If a large enough group of people start raising awareness and refusing to release their work for peanuts we'll see a shift in the market price towards more realistic numbers.

<comment><USER18> > It's because Google and Apple want it that way

I fail to see where they have had any influence. Apple at least has historically priced a number of their applications pretty high (not all of them though, basically "core feature" applications such as ibooks or podcasts were free, but iwork applications are $10 each, and garageband and imovie are $5)

> also because developers are slashing prices to the extreme to compete.

Mostly that one, from very early on there's been an insane tendency to price- dump and race to the bottom.

> That would certainly result in higher prices.

It would also result in extremely low sales, as known by anyone who developed for S60 or Blackberry back in the bad old days.

> If a large enough group of people start raising awareness and refusing to > release their work for peanuts we'll see a shift in the market price towards > more realistic numbers.

That's completely unrealistic. It would require a buy-in from every single developer.

<comment><USER19> > Apple at least has historically priced a number of their applications pretty > high

This is incorrect. Apple has historically priced their software very low, and their hardware very high. Their office suite is very inexpensive compared to MS Office, for instance. Their OS is also very inexpensive compare to Windows.

On the mobile side, their $5 and $10 price points make it hard for others to justify charging that much for less complex software (a point corresation has also made).

Their software pricing agrees with the points Spolsky made on [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html) .

Now of course they are giving away their mobile software, which I think helps both themselves and 3rd party developers, so I think it's one of the few steps they've taken to help 3rd party developers charge more. (Last time around it was the creation of a "premium" category.)

<comment><USER20> Final Cut Pro? Aperture?

Apple's consumer apps were cheap, not business apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What I find particularly messed up is the huge relative difference in the price of the mobile device and the apps that people install on it.

When it comes to buying the device, thousands of people line up outside Apple stores and pay - I don't know - $600 for their device.

Android devices are the same, many people easily spend ~$400-$600 on their device that they may only use for one year.

So a good chunk of mobile users are people with good income, living in rich countries and are well capable of paying $5-$10 for their apps that they run on their expensive/high-end devices.

Yet when it comes to paying for apps they struggle as if their monthly income is $10.

There are many factors involved but I think the most significant one is by far the psychological perception of the value of apps that has been created due to App store and Play store pricing.

There are also many people who are willing to release free and good-enough quality apps because it's their hobby or maybe they want to create a portfolio for themselves.

This reduces the perceived value of these apps.

In contrast people can't find other professional services/tools for free. I mean, say, lawyers, doctors, accountants, electrical engineers, etc... don't produce and provide their services/work for free where you can download a free health checkup from a doctor whose hobby is being a doctor.

So the perceived value remains high.

Software engineers are unique in this regard because they 'discount' their work constantly and justify it by saying 'i love doing this'.

<comment><USER15> Just as well: there are people spending thousands of dollars in cutting edge PCs or Home Theatre systems, and then playing only pirated games.

And in the Appstores case the free alternative is even legal!

<comment><USER21> One minor reason could be lack of physical media. In old days people received a bunch of disks or a dvd with nice cover art which they can put on a bookshelf.

Now it is all 1's and 0's coming over the wire(less). There is no sense of ownership. People are reluctant to pay for something that they don't touch or own.

<comment><USER22> One reason could be that consumers aren't technically owning anything, but merely being sold a license to use an application/movie/music for some random amount of time.

<comment><USER23> FWIW, how true that is does depend where you are.

Here in the EU, the CJEU rejected the 'it's only a licence' argument and characterised software downloads (that aren't explicitly limited to a fixed length of time) as normal sales, in _Oracle v Usedsoft_ \-- in particular, they're sales for the purposes of the First Sale Doctrine. So I could buy your app, use it, then extract the apk and sell it on to someone else, and you couldn't sue me for copyright infringement (as long as I remove the apk from my own phone, of course). (IANAL).

I'm not familiar with US law but my impression is that, on the whole, most states' legal systems are a whole lot less consumer-friendly than the EU, so presumably the same is not true over there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This idea that Apple does not allow trials is a total misconception.

I just released a subscription boating app that has a basic free version, and then a button to let you "Test Drive" the complete app. You can trial the paid version over and over.

Previously, I have released a product that had limited functionality, and prompted you to upgrade or buy the paid app.

People interpret the App Store guidelines very literally: Rule 2.9: "Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected" [https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid...](https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html)

This doesn't mean you can't set up an app to have a trial, it just means you can't submit garbage. You're best understanding that there is a certain twisted humanity to the app review process.

<comment><USER25> Some of us interpret the guidelines literally because we've been burned before. A couple of years ago, I spent months working on an app, including paying a designer, and I was really proud of the final product. After it got reviewed, Apple added a new rule to the guidelines and rejected the app. That was a seriously expensive lesson. Now I recommend interpreting the guidelines as strictly as possible... even if you know of other apps that squeak past the rule, it doesn't mean you won't get burned.

> Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected

It sure sounds like your app breaks this rule. I'd ask what your app is, but I don't want Apple to see this and reject you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is distorted based on the idea that most people pay more than $0.99 for a cup of coffee - which is not true.

I think the price of a "Cup of Coffee" needs to be defined here. Coffee can be made for $0.07/cup [ [http://thekrazycouponlady.com/finance/a-wake-up-call-a- price...](http://thekrazycouponlady.com/finance/a-wake-up-call-a-price- comparison-of-popular-coffee-options/) ].

People who buy coffee at Starbucks are buying a luxury version of a luxury item + they are buying time in a public venue. Does Starbucks actually outsell (in numbers) coffee made at home? seems very unlikely to me. In fact most people buy coffee in a supermarket, which is seems almost free when you actually make a cup (you don't pay everytime you make one).

<comment><USER27> A cup of coffee is like temporary marijuana to drown out the dreary feeling of going to work. To me, the value is much much greater than most apps, no question. Coffee to me is like having a shower. Sure, a shower is basically just splashing water to your body.. but it's also one of the few places where you can think to yourself with no distractions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have a somewhat different perspective on this. Apps cost people something much more valuable than the small amounts of money in question: attention. Most people find learning new software to be a chore. So every app they download has a cost in attention, in learning how to use it, however simple that might be, and some of them have a cost in money as well. If the app is free, they know they can abandon it instantly if it doesn't give them value right away, and lose almost nothing. If it costs money, they will feel obliged to get more value out of it, but that means committing to spend even more attention. When you buy a cup of coffee, you're getting attention _back_ because someone else is taking on the slightly fiddly business of making coffee, and once you have it, there is nothing to learn, you can just enjoy it.

Viewing software transactions as paying attention, rather than money, for value, makes a lot of these markets make more sense. Because if you offer something that will reduce the net amount of attention they have to pay, they'll often gladly give you money for it.

<comment><USER29> This is a great point. There is a useful free app that I use which has a 5 star rating. I looked at one of the 1 star reviews to see what they said out of curiosity. It said something along the lines of "I had to customize the settings and the user interface isn't standard."

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Do the smaller developers realize that the hardware manufactures pay development houses to do this? I've been paid by pretty much every AppStore provider to develop apps, which subsidizes me to undercut competition.

I feel like most app developers have a severe lack of business intelligence and the allure of easy money has kept them from thinking rationally about how to succeed in the market.

Provide a high quality cheap product at scale, while reducing risk of investment in every way possible. Companies like S2BB can replicate your cute app in days and provide it for free using carrier, oem, or AppStore provider subsidy.

I don't think smaller app devs even realize the uphill battle they are about to be playing.

<comment><USER31> A couple of reasons...

One, the casual developer. A lot of these apps are being developed by programmers sitting in their underwear watching ESPN Gameday on Saturday morning. Or teenagers with nothing better to do. If they make money... well, that'd be great... but they really have other motivations.

That alone would flood the App Stores with product.

The second point, is economics.

ie - it doesn't matter.

If you live in an agrarian society... most likely, you have to be a farmer. It's largely irrelevant how many other farmers there are... it's probably the only thing you can do.

I think there is a similar dynamic in the app world. There are an AWFUL lot of unemployed programmers... chances are... they are going to ... well ... program. What else are they going to do with their time? It's actually a pretty smart thing for them to do as well. Keeping the skills sharp and all that.

So... I think that's, most likely, where a lot of the apps are coming from. And those two groups will only grow in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> >The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people. They might say otherwise when asked about, but their actions speak pretty clearly: A cup of coffee is worth more than almost every app on the store.

Two things.

1\. That's probably true for a lot of apps, but I don't think it's fair to say "most." Perhaps "many". There are a lot of apps out there that provide huge amounts of value. Of course, I don't think a cup of coffee is worth anywhere close to the price of a cup of coffee and I make my living selling apps. I might be biased.

2\. Starbucks made 7.5 billion last year. Apple alone paid out 5 billion to devs for apps. If you include advertising revenue and Android revenue, I'd guess that people actually spent a similar amount on apps as they did coffee.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why is it emotionally easier to spend $5 on a coffee vs spending $5 on an app?

I have a theory on this - I think we price experiences differently from objects, and have a much higher bar for buying an object vs buying an experience. And I think the reason for that is ultimately loss aversion - <USER2> we buy a bad coffee it's gone and we can forget about it, whereas if we buy an object we're stuck with it, a constant reminder of how we made a bad choice and lost money.

<comment><USER34> A $5 coffee also buys you a place to sit down and use WiFi, and a bit of social interaction or "lifestyle". Nobody pays $5 per cup of coffee at a supermarket.

No app developers include "installed by a human" and the permission to go sit on a couch at their office for half an hour in the price!

<comment><USER29> My supermarket has a Starbucks inside, without seats or WiFi. It stays there because presumably people are buying $5 coffee from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >>That's a hard pill to swallow, but we should let it sink in. We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products.

Obviously not. A cup of coffee is worth $2, period. An app only worth $0.50 to a million people is worth $500k.

<comment><USER36> Author is saying a cup of coffee is worth $2 to the customer, but an app is not worth even the $0.50 to that same customer.

In this example, you seem to switch out this comparison where instead you compare the cup of coffee the customer buys, to the amount you could possibly make for a $0.50 app bought by a million people.

<comment><USER35> Agreed, but the point is that the "total worth" of an app is the total utility that it creates in the world across all its customer base.

Of course you're right that to each individual customer the worth remains less than a cup of coffee; if this affects the app writer psychologically, hopefully the size of his/her bank account will be a consolation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Here's a potential solution to this mess. We treat app store placement like it's a free resource right now since it doesn't take up any physical space. However, it does increase its users cognitive load. All apps that have ever been produced sit on the app store unless their creators explicitly choose to take them down. That's like a department store that houses every invention ever made no matter how antiquated or outdated. Apple could introduce a "property tax". If you want to take up shelf space, you've got to pay a yearly tax or make way for other apps that will more productively use that space.

<comment><USER38> This is an interesting thought, but history has already shown the outcome. Shelf space dominated by the big players and defacto price fixing.

A better approach would be for a few very high quality niche apps to get together an open their own app store. They sell only though their store and price the apps appropriately. Thus starting boutique markets. Could happen now with Android but currently not Apple.

<comment><USER39> Without needing to support sideloading, Apple could let users group apps on the store into their own collections, which other users could browse. They could even let the users theme them, somewhat like Apple's own decorated collections -- and give the "curator" a user ends up purchasing from a small cut (5-10%) of the sale price.

In other words, replicate the well-trodden player-vendor system from MMOs.

<comment><USER38> No ... a couple quick examples. Kids don't go to Walmart looking for the Abercrombie & Fitch department. They want the fantasy built around the brand and that means their own stores. Stihl when the dealer route because they wanted to differentiate their higher quality and provide a more personal customer relationship than Walmart would allow.

Gotta get Apple out of that lock-in in order to support true boutique shops.

<comment><USER39> I guess that depends on whether you see the App Store as a single shop, a department store, or a mall. There might not be Abercrombie & Fitch departments in Walmart, but there are certainly Apple-store-themed electronics sub-departments within Best Buy.

<comment><USER38> You got it. I think the sub-departments is exactly the wrong model. Completely separate stores with completely separate and unique identities. Apps not also sold in the app store. Boutique shops selling and supporting a very narrow vertical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess that, given the chioce, most people would opt for a free cup of coffee over a paid one, if quality was similar.

<comment><USER18> > most people would opt for a free cup of coffee over a paid one, if quality > was similar.

Quality does not enter the equation. Most people will opt for a free cup of coffee over a paid one if the paid cup is the best coffee in the world and the free one is barely a step over ground-up dried shit.

<comment><USER40> Ground-up dried shit is some of the most expensive coffee!

(Of course I'm talking about Kopi Luwak)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm just here to smirk at the old narrative - that the iOS customer doesn't balk at paying for stuff - being slowly whittled away as the march towards smartphone commoditization continues at pace.

<comment><USER39> The "iOS customer" of five years ago (the wealthy early adopter) didn't mind paying for stuff. Those customers are still there, and still buying iPhones (probably gold 5Ses now), and apps for them. But now there are way more, more price-sensitive consumers (the people buying those 5Cs, the people who still have an iPhone 4, etc.) and they have much the same buying behavior as (commodity) Android consumers.

In other words, there's still money in the market -- but it's a fixed supply of money (there are a fixed number of wealthy early adopters) vs. an ever- growing number of developers grabbing at it. The only way to get back to where we were would be to make a new app store that required new apps to be designed from scratch for the wealthy users to early-adopt all over again. (...and that's fairly clearly what iOS7 is trying to do, isn't it?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> "A cup of coffee is worth more than almost every app on the store."

That is a "hard pill to swallow," but it's true and poignant. The problem is not only systemic (i.e. Apple's fault). It's that many developers jump into creating apps withour conducting market research to prove that their products will have a long-lasting utility from a consumer's point of view.

I don't mean to be cynical or overgeneralize. To be fair, not all apps are created equal. But in my experience, the vast majority seek to provide a fleeting sense of entertainment (as opposed to utility). And the more practical apps are simply unimaginative iterations of existing solutions (e.g. fitness trackers and to-do lists).

We need to think differently about the purpose and expect more from them in the way of tangible impact on consumers. For instance, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation is using apps as part of nationwide campaigns to inprove childhood nutrition.

</comment><comment><USER43> "The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people."

This is completely wrong. The author of this article confuses price with value. Apps have tremendous value. But because of market dynamics, human nature, free alternatives, etc, they cannot sustain a high price. Price and value are different things altogether.

<comment><USER44> I agree. The problem to paid app sellers is that the _extra_ value they provide - the difference between the free app and theirs - is low, not the absolute value.

Even if your app solved half of my life problems, it'd still not be worth a lot if the free competitor solved 49% of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> >That's a hard pill to swallow, but we should let it sink in. We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products.

What a weird conclusion. For me, the take-home is rather "why don't I stop doing this and try to figure out something that is actually worth something to someone?"

<comment><USER46> I don't see those as incompatible end points.

<comment><USER47> The question becomes whether the meaning is that all smartphone apps are worthless, or that you should work on one that isn't

<comment><USER46> My goodness. What are we all doing. None of this is real :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> A cup of coffee can only be consumed by a person, or maybe another splitting it. A digital offering can be copied for almost no cost.

This is why Bill Gates is rich. You pay to write the software, then you sell it over and over and over again with little cost to you. You can't do that with coffee.

So I see the low price of apps to be more indicative of this advantage being shared with the buyers rather than it indicating the app is worth less to a person than a cup of coffee.

You can have a successful app business selling at very low prices because if it becomes a hit you will still make a lot. And being cheap helps you become a hit. So everyone does it and you have to compete with those people doing it.

<comment><USER20> Howard Schultz did pretty well selling coffee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Reading some of the comments here reminds me of the Adam Smith quote:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

</comment><comment><USER50> > the business of creating products which offer very little value to people

my view is it's not that most apps offer little value, but the consumers' perception of value is skewed. You can buy tools today for <$5 that would have cost $50, $100 or more a few years ago, and are miles better than their old counterparts. Also, in a way, Apple is forcing the _trial + buy_ model to become _free + in app purchase_ , so paid upfront becomes a huge negative.

</comment><comment><USER51> Here's my perspective as both a user and developer.

Most paid apps there are the equivalent of small side projects. They're simple things that should exist, and after enough time, someone will make them for free. The ones that are not free tend to have better visual design. Big whoop. I'll take my coffee please.

Here's an example of something that's worth more than a coffee: Shazam. It identifies music around you by doing some crazy audio processing and database magic. Aaaand I'm still using their free app (haven't had the need to upgrade yet). So if someone offering _that_ much value _still_ can't convert me to a paying customer, how will you?

I'm a developer as well. It's hard to create something worthwhile, I get it (I still haven't really). My theory is that if it's not technically defensible in some way, or doesn't get a network-growth lock-in effect quickly, then it's easily replicated as a free app.

Would love to hear counter-arguments to any of this. Frankly all I see is people complaining about everything except the intrinsic value of the apps, which is exactly what the article mentioned would happen. We live in an era of increasingly less low-hanging fruit.

</comment><comment><USER52> The author's argument is faulty. The value from being able to take notes / manage to-dos properly on a multitouch device may be rather great to many people.

However, the price is not determined by this. The price is the result of an equilibrium. There is a process of underbidding going on which lowers the price for the app very close to cost of producing it, until it is unattractive for new competitors to enter the market.

The magic thing about this is that it delivers these products to the world in great number at close-to-zero pricing and that's pretty nice for the world as a whole.

Think about it this way: It was worth buying mainframe computers at many million dollars a piece and with embarissingly low computing power back in the 70s to some people.

Obviously, when these people buy a computer with a million times the performance at 1/1000th of the price they get a great deal. So it's fair to say that the value of commodity computers is to some people much much higher than the market price. That does not change the fact that producing commodity computers is a cut-throat business with ultra slim margins.

So what I am trying to say is that this emotional / ethical notion of value needs to be seen as distinct from market pricing.

<comment><USER53> If you're making a todo/notetaking app, you're entering a really crowded marketplace. And from my experience, you're probably also doing it wrong.

I mean first things first: does your app sync with _anything_ standard or are you promising me your webservice? Because a quick glance through the non- existent featurelist from the app's website, and the only thing I see is "sync with iCloud".

So you know, worthless. To me and anyone else who has IMAP/WebDAV/Exchange accounts/CalDAV calendaring/Google calendars. Your apps are worthless because they're not that useful to start with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> While I agree with the people here saying that many apps are "worthless" due to the sheer number of free apps available, I can't help but compare this issue to starting a business (likely because that's what many app developers are trying to do). Most startups fail. That's just the way it goes. Starting and running a successful business requires success in a lot of areas: product dev, design, marketing, customer service, etc. I think the claim that apps are worth less than a cup of coffee is a bit narrow-minded. If you look at the (huge) number businesses that have incorporated over the last several years, and then compare that to the number of those same businesses that are currently "successful", those numbers will likely look a lot like the number of "successful" apps vs total apps. It's hard to create something that people love, whether that be a physical product or an app. I think there's still a market for well-designed, useful, paid apps. Just like it's still possible for a startup to be successful. It's just really damned difficult.

</comment><comment><USER55> Nothing like another example of a todo list app to illustrate the downward spiral of app store pricing. Creativity can still get a high price in app store. Find a niche, and develop a great app, and customer will pay. Case in point: Cubasis [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubasis/id583976519](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubasis/id583976519)

<comment><USER56> Absolutely agree. My coworker built a business app that sold very well for $120, until the company that provides the API crushed it with their own $10 app (bummer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> >> We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products... we're in the business of making products that provide very little value to people. <<

If you take nothing away from the article but that you've gained some insight.

If you take a way someone's smart phone with a handful of paid apps on it and give them a dumb phone they'll get by just fine. They will lose no significant advantage for either work or personal life.

To drive up the price of something with little value you introduce artificial scarcity. Nintendo does this well. If the Nintendo game platforms were open games would be priced like apps. But Nintendo gives their Seal of Approval to everything that goes on their platforms, and there is a high barrier to entry.

I doubt that the software development community would like that model, either. I'm not even sure it's more profitable. But it does seem to create more valuable software. Nothing on smart phones comes close to the quality and polish of a good Nintendo game.

</comment><comment><USER58> As someone who bought Clear I fully disagree with the premise of this post. All they had to do was recompile the app and potentially fix a few small bugs. You can't sit there and act like it was some monumental change that warranted screwing over your existing users. If they are unhappy with how much money they are making then they simply need to raise their prices.

<comment><USER59> I am the engineer behind both Clear for iPhone and Clear+. Your statement could not be further from the truth - it has taken a lot of effort to make the iPad component.

I'll give you a taste of some of the work that needed doing (completely describing everything would take ages). Here's a few examples:

\- With iOS7, we switched to using TextKit so that we can vary the text sizes (both internally and via Dynamic Text). This involved a significant refactoring as in the previous codebase, we had to hardcode offsets. Why was it all hardcoded? Anyone who's had to deal with the problem of editable inline text would know that there were no APIs to match the drawing of text and editing via UITextView (which was previously based on UIWebKit; while you could the drawing either via the convenience NSString methods or via CoreText; if you used CT, you'd end up with mismatched visuals when editing / displaying). Did you also notice that when completing items on iOS6, the strikethroughs extended beyond the text on items with more than 1 line? Not anymore, due to the new internals.

\- The architecture on the iPad is completely different vs the iPhone - on the iPhone, you have a single "list view" (custom implementation to be able to provide all the advanced gestures). On the iPad, you now have two view controllers that need to stay in sync, animate in sync, etc. It also meant that I had to do significant refactoring to abstract away all the controller logic as it had to be embedded in different controller hierarchies - <USER3> really don't want to duplicate all that logic.

\- List peeking on the iPad. This required adding support to both the list view and to the item views, again - something many people might not even use but it's extremely handy when you need it.

\- Drag and drop on the iPad. iOS does not provide a standard API to drag between views, so I had to implement my own which is fully animated and interactive. Try to dragging tasks to lists on the iPad - the feedback is immediate and you will see the 3D animations when items drop. These are all little details but they take a lot of effort to get right.

\- If you run the iPad app, you will see that it has a completely interactive tutorial. We spend significant amount of time on that, to make it feel super nice and provide the best way to acquaint users with the interface. Again, anyone who cares about details will tell you that the final 10% take a considerable amount of the total time.

\- You're also not seeing a significant amount of research and testing. We had experimental interactions that never made it to production. We've made many prototypes throughout the life of the app, none of them publicly available. We learn a lot from these but that's all invisible to our users.

The above points just scratch the surface on the work that was needed to bring Clear to the iPad. I hope it illustrates the point that it's not a simple job of just recompiling.

<comment><USER60> The majority of those changes aren't visible to users. As a corporate developer, I can tell you that it's extremely hard to get funding to make even the most necessary technical changes to an existing piece of software. Normally, the best you can do is sneak it in with a big redesign that has features worth paying for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Note to all my iphone app users: -Yes. I just tripled the price of my app. Why you may ask. Read on -You whined about missing features; I added them. You whined about in-app purchases. I removed them. You whined about a missing help section. I gave you videos & pics inside the app. You never saw them. Dont lie to me-I see all your clicks inside the app. -Oh yeah! You are threatening me with a 1-star review because you forgot to check your inbox for the result from the app. You are an app review terrorist. I just tripled the price of my app as insurance against such terror threats -You asked for a discount on the app when it was priced $2.99!! I am responding by tripling my app price. I HAVE read all my competitor's reviews. They priced it $0 for a reason.

ok...got to go catch my flight to Hawaii and relax. With your $$$ thanks

</comment><comment><USER62> What is the worth of something precious or valuable, if all around it that same precious and valuable thing (or a very close substitute) is available for no charge at unlimited quantity?

I wonder if Apple was aware the App Store would lead to basically infinite supply of (in many cases) beautiful and high quality apps for little to no cost.

With 200 million+ users, many of whom have a greater than average tendency to pay $$$ for apps than your average smartphone user, an outstanding Apple developer has some chance of making money on the App Store - (That old saw about capturing 1% of a very large market) - but I really pity the third and fourth tier platforms - they are going to struggle.

It's an IAP future.

</comment><comment><USER32> We get posts like this all the time, but it isn't actually what is playing out in the world. Apple paid out $5 billion to developers last year and that obviously doesn't include advertising revenue and Android profits. People ARE paying for apps. Developers ARE creating value. These things aren't worthless. I know because I sell lots of paid apps every day, and every month Apple and Google deposit money into my bank account.

My response to this article - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6471131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6471131)

</comment><comment><USER63> While I do agree that the App Store and the Play Store both trend toward the free apps being the most successful ones, I disagree with his mentality about the value of apps completely.

Yes, there are plenty of apps on my iPhone/iPad that I rarely use, but there are also a whole host that I use every single day.

The author cites Clear as an example in his article. I use it every day to make lists and keep track of things for work.

There are also apps like Downcast (a podcast player) and Comic Zeal (a comic reading app) that I have gotten 10x the value of what I paid for them, since I use them so frequently.

</comment><comment><USER64> You know how you can offer a free trial? By offering a free trial!

No seriously, make your users create an account and give them a time-limited trial. Offer them an IAP upgrade. It's doable.

The problem is to hit the mass market of millions, well you have to be free or have a good marketing/advertising strategy. Actually, you probably need to be a bit of both.

Anyway, it's dumb to complain about the pricing cuz it's been this way for what 3 or 4 years now. It's not a new phenomenon.

On Google Play, it's even harder to get people to pay for an app up front.

</comment><comment><USER65> All the time i did not understand why so many developer jump on the App-Train. Most of them did not make money with their apps. But thats another problem.

The real problem is, that everybody try to be cheaper than others and so all developer destroy their own markets.

Why did so many sell a good product for 99 Cent ? CRAZY !

If somebody likes your app and find it usefull, this person will pay more than 99 Cent (ONCE IN HIS LIFE).

Ok, admittedly, it exists millions of todo apps, so you have a special problem with many competitors, but this can't be the reason to be cheap.

</comment><comment><USER66> So, in comparison - would the same people who want prices on apps to be higher be willing to avoid using contest sites like 99 Designs? Seems like the same principle to me...being unwilling to pay someone 'the going rate' to design a logo because you're not sure about the value of the underlying process sounds a lot of like being unwilling to pay what developers consider a 'fair rate' for an app when you can pick a free one instead....

</comment><comment><USER67> The tagline for the post is assuming a cup of coffee, i.e a physical product has the same value of a virtual one.

To that end, is software value not dependent on the crowd which buys it? However, I cannot share your cup of coffee you buy from Starbucks.

My point only further raises the question: Do consumers see Apps as shared content? Or, Do they equate physical and virtual App products as being worth the same?

</comment><comment><USER68> That's an overly negative interpretation. An app can can be worth a lot more than a cup of coffee to someone, but if there's a free alternative, why would they pay?

The business impact is the same under either interpretation of course, and the conclusion would be: don't expect it to be easy to launch a business in a space where people offer free alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER46> Not what I expected but I completely agree.

Most productivity applications (anecdotally) are bought on a whim and oft are never used but at all.

</comment><comment><USER69> Comparing the Clear app to a cup of coffee is interesting, especially since I received the app for free from a Starbucks promotion.

I quickly stopped using it because that is my M.O. with all ToDo list apps. I've never found one to replace a folded up envelope in my back pocket.

</comment><comment><USER70> I happily pay $60/year for Strava. But I would never buy the app.

</comment><comment><USER71> >We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products... we're in the business of making products that provide very little value to people.

Yikes.

</comment><comment><USER72> It's not that your app doesn't have value. It's that the marginal value compared to a free app is small.

</comment><comment><USER73> Umm, no. A cup of coffee is worth about $0.1

</comment><comment><USER72> If something is worth $10,000 to me and I can get it for $0.99, I will not pay $10,000 for it.

</comment><comment><USER74> What justification does OP offer for calling mobile apps 'basically worthless' (followed by the condescending 'let it sink in', but let's ignore that)?

I'm confused: is this whole thing supposed to be sarcasm? Or does OP mean that apps are viewed by users as worthless because they are so cheap?

<comment><USER75> He's not trying to denigrate the amount of work or talent people put into making apps - he's saying that if no-one wants to pay for it (perhaps because they can use any one of a hundred free alternatives) then it is de-facto worthless.</comment></comment>


As thousands of new apartments open, Seattle's rental market weakens - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2015/11/bad-timingas-thousands-of-new-apartments-open.html?ana=twt <comment><USER2> I know it's typical to speak in those terms, but I still can't get over how value-laden a statement like, "rental market weakens" is. Clearly the market is weaker / less good if you have property to rent out, but I know a "weak market" is cause for celebration for many here in Seattle.

<comment><USER3> The headline should be "renters will have more of their income available to spend on other things, which will improve the local economy, diversify it, and make it more resilient". I've never understood the US obsession with increasing housing costs being a good thing. As a thought experiment it would be far better for them to go down by 8% a year than the 8% increases that keep being welcomed as in this article.

<comment><USER4> It's not that people want housing to be more expensive, but they do want that housing to be in demand. Housing is in demand when an area is desirable -- offering good schools, providing efficient social services, vibrant and diverse markets are contributing factors to a desirable area, so when housing prices increase it is a sign that the area is desirable. As an area becomes more desirable, the price of housing goes up as the result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good model of real estate development patterns is:

1\. A research firm studies a local market [and all real-estate markets are local, that's what makes it _real_ property, i.e. non-fungibility].

2\. The information is sold to first movers. Some act on the information and put projects in the pipeline. Local real-estate warms up.

3\. It becomes generally disseminated to those lower down the chain. Some act and they put projects in the pipeline. Local real-estate gets hot.

4\. First projects come online and do really well. Local real-estate gets white hot.

5\. Later projects come online and the market becomes overbuilt. The market cools.

6\. Delayed projects fold. The market goes cold.

For Seattle, imagine the market report said that there was demand for 20,000 units. 16 early moving developers look at building 2000 units each. 8 get built and there's still demand for 4000 units.

32 downstream developers look at the demand for 20,000 units and investigate building 2000 units each. 16 proceed, 8 get built and 8 fail and now there is a 12,000 unit surplus and 8 deals being floated. 4 of the deals get bought at pennies on the dollar, two get built and now there are 16,000 surplus units.

In twenty years those will be absorbed and the market will heat up again.

<comment><USER6> "32 downstream developers look at the demand for 20,000 units and investigate building 2000 units each. . . ."

I don't think it works like this. Surely their investigation would turn up the existence of the 16 early mover developers along with already-existing plans for 16k units?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amusingly, the author is complaining about "slowing rents". They mean "not increasing as fast", not "falling".

</comment><comment><USER8> > _The issue of slowing rents is most acute in Seattle neighborhoods that are > experiencing an unprecedented amount of development, according to Dupre + > Scott Apartment Advisors. The Seattle apartment tracking firm said that > rents rose 5.6 percent region-wide from March through September, and were up > 8.3 percent from a year prior._

How odd to think of housing as something that should always go up in price.

<comment><USER9> If it doesn't then there is almost no legitimate financial reason to buy a house. Nobody will buy a $200k house if chances are it will be worth $180-220k in 40 years before inflation.

<comment><USER10> The reason to buy a house would be the same as the reason to buy a car, or any other item: because you want to use it.

If housing prices are guaranteed to increase, it means owners of housing are extracting unearned rents from the economy. Houses decay over time and eventually need to be renovated/rebuilt, so you _should_ on average take a net loss from owning and occupying a house, just as you would a car.

<comment><USER11> The difference between a car and house is the house can't be replaced, a car can.

If someone wants to live in San Francisco, they can't just substitute it by living in Portland. If more people want to live in San Francisco, then the price goes up due to the limited supply.

<comment><USER12> The land itself cannot be replaced. The physical house that sits on the land can.

<comment><USER11> True, but most of the value is in the land. A derelict house in San Francisco is worth over $1M, but $800K+ is the land.

<comment><USER12> Yes, San Francisco is fairly unique in this regard.

<comment><USER13> Not really, it's the same thing here in Toronto.

Developers regularly buy tear-down bungalows on 50' x 120' lots for $1.2M and proceeds to put two tiny houses on the lot that sell for $1M each.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In a previous article about crazy rents in SF I argued that increasing supply of housing reduced the price of rent [1], aka, supply and demand. HN commenters went apoplectic. It amazes me how basic economics is so hard for many intelligent people to understand.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=seibelj&next=1018868...](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=seibelj&next=10188683#)

<comment><USER15> It's not that intelligent people can't understand basic economics, it's that basic economics isn't enough to explain the situation in San Francisco, so that refrain gets pretty tiresome. Take a look at the responses you got to your comment to understand why "just build more housing" does not get the round of applause you're expecting.

I also encourage you to consider the massive differences between Seattle and SF, geographically, politically, economically, and socially. With all of these factored in, I think you'll better understand why "basic economics" is not enough.

<comment><USER14> If you disagree with the sentiment that having 200k more units in SF would reduce prices, then you fail to understand basic economics.

Now, if you are saying that building 200k more units is impractical, I wouldn't disagree. I'm just saying that the solution boils down to 3 options: increasing supply, reducing demand, or both. That's all there is. You can warp natural economics and impose rent control, mandated affordable housing, etc. but nothing but those 3 options will make any real difference.

<comment><USER15> Everything you say is correct, but so lacking in complexity and detail that none of it bears repeating. Do you have any particular insights into how to overcome any of the challenges specific to San Francisco? "It's simple supply and demand" is so often repeated as the catch-all solution it's practically achieved meme status.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I do hope rents start falling. In this economic environment of prolonged super low interest rates we shouldn't have shortage of housing.

<comment><USER17> From what I understand (which is not much) the relationship is fairly complicated. For example, with interest rates this low, it changes whether investors want to buy bonds and instead move their money somewhere else... such as real estate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We need more development like that in bay area to weaken the rental market here. It's a bubble slowly getting bigger.

</comment><comment><USER19> Oh no! It will take longer for lower-income* renters to be priced out of the market.

* By lower income in Seattle I mean households making less than 50k a year... how awful that they might be able to continue to afford living in the city.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder how much of an impact this might have on the Vancouver housing market. Detached houses are fetching well north of 1M with no ceiling in sight. Perhaps a commute, with a NEXUS card could look attractive to some residents.

<comment><USER21> I wish it would. I'm Canadian and want better weather Vancouver is basically the only place for it. But I wouldn't even try at the state of the market.</comment></comment>


Bjork Brings Biophilia to Android With a Little Help From Apportable (YC W11) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/07/17/bjork-brings-biophilia-to-android-with-a-little-help-from-apportable/

<comment><USER2> This seems as good a place as any to dump thoughts about "app-albums" in general. One thing that I always try to remember is that we're living in the future, and it's foolish to assume that things from the past will work the same way in the future.

Hence, app albums. Album apps. Whatever. Point is, people have smartphones now. The music experience is changing because of that. I'm down with it. In fact, $13 for an album with all the extra app functionality seems pretty good, seeing as the standard iTunes album price is $10.

But the problem with creating this sort of future-music experience is that it leaves some people behind. It used to be simply an iPhone app, but now there's an android port. Guess what: my phone still can't get it, because my phone's version of android isn't supported by the app. I couldn't get the Magna Carta Holy Grail app either. Apps aren't a universal format like a record or a cd or an MP3. They therefore necessarily leave some people behind.

You could argue that every media shift does that. But when the album becomes a sort of multi-media experience, it's tragic that somebody would need a different device that in almost every other respect is functionally identical to their current device to experience it.

Which is what makes a service like apportable important: it's expanding the audience of this numedia album experience. I doubt there are many people who want to limit who has access to what art or information, but the problem with being so future is that you're imposing those limits in the pursuit of making something unique.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. But I hate feeling like I'm missing some part of the experience because I'm happy with the phone I have.

<comment><USER3> No, I don't think you're overthinking it. If anything, you're giving them too much credit.

App albums are totally lame IMO. Just like having apps for a small to medium retail/service business are generally lame. It's not worth the effort for most people to find and download this app.

Look at Bjork's iPhone app reviews. There are 763 ratings. From what I've read, you can multiply ratings x 30 to get a rough estimate of sales [1]. That would put sales at 22,890 units. At $12.99 that's a net (after Apple's cut) of roughly $208K. Maybe that covers Bjork's cost of developing the app, producing all the additional content, and her additional time needed. Maybe. But I'm skeptical.

Even if it was profitable for Bjork or Jay-Z, the problem is smaller artists are going to try and emulate this and it's going to fail miserably for them.

[1] [http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/27/estimate-sales-downloads- of-i...](http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/27/estimate-sales-downloads-of-ios- itunes-app-store-apps/)

<comment><USER4> App albums remind me of the trend in the late 90s to build a lame Win32 .exe wrapper around a website and ship it out on CD-ROMs. It made some sense as a response to slow internet connections, but in retrospect it was an obviously time-limited, user-limiting idea. App albums are similarly just a response to limited standard "interactive experience" capabilities. They'll go away in time.

The most use a Mac user could get out of one of these today is opening the HTML files directly in a browser, if the files can be accessed. Same deal with accessing any actual music/images/video/text in an app album on an "unsupported" phone (which, keep in mind, could be a new iPhone or Android a couple years from now).

<comment><USER5> My thoughts as well. This is just like the enhanced CD of old. It was a proprietary pain in the ass.

Meanwhile, I have mp3s from the 90s that play and sound just fine. Not sure if the Apple or Google stores will even exist in 20 years, but my mp3s will always play.

Also, it took them two years to make the android port. That tells me how little invested they are in future proofing this thing. What happens when the next couple of versions of iOS or android break it? I doubt they're going to be there to support it. So this is music as temporary gimmick. I can't say this is a good thing. This app is more like a game Bjork wrote the soundtrack to as opposed to an album with games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apportable blog post on the announcement with a more technical explanation on how Apportable works exactly: [http://blog.apportable.com/apportable- raises-2-dollars-dot-4...](http://blog.apportable.com/apportable- raises-2-dollars-dot-4m-led-by-google-ventures)

<comment><USER6> Collin is doing an IAMA on the story: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iiyxu/i_cofounded_app...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iiyxu/i_cofounded_apportable_and_helped_bj%C3%B6rk_convert/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they are able to get the UIKit framework up and running, then they will have the killer platform overall. I can see already the advantages for games that are mostly OpenGL but with UIKit it will be 'game over' :-)

<comment><USER6> We have something new coming down the pipe for UIKit soon. Stay tuned.

<comment><USER7> I am :-)... already signup for the free plan, and I can see the Indie plan has the "Advanced framework"

Suggestion: you may want to have somewhere a screencast showing a standard UIKit app demoed, may be the standard Widget catalog demo that's available with Apple SDK.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestion, we'll make sure to include UICatalog

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Side question, but... _why develop for a closed platform like iOS first, and then port to an open(ish) platform like Android?_ (now, I know some answers, but I really hope people don't start doing this for new projects, even if Apportable is as good as they say...)

<comment><USER9> Why not? It's basically the same as developing a desktop app for Mac first, then porting it to Windows. It makes much more sense than going the other way -- you'll never get a good Mac app if the platform wasn't considered from the start.

The more closed platform has a stricter standard for user experience. It makes sense to build around that standard, then port it to the "free-for-all" platforms with necessary adaptations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apportable looks like a fantastic product. Does anyone know if such a thing exists going in the other direction (Android to iOS)?

Anything to help with making it easier for developers to make reliable cross- platform apps is very valuable to the industry.

<comment><USER11> That seems like the direction that would be less vulnerable to copyright/patent claims. I could easily see Apple raising hell over the compatibility layer Apportable ships with their "ports". Android, itself being an open-source project, would be immune to that.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but Apple, being sometimes a little overeager to keep the apps they accept "of the right sort" \-- ideally fully native, really -- could see an compatibility layer and decide to simply refuse to approve any apps using the bundled Android layer.

<comment><USER11> They would have in the past. These days they do allow a variety of mechanisms that let not-exactly-native apps run in iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Apportable people are sitting on a goldmine.

<comment><USER14> Most likely, the cold truth about mobile development is that the guys selling middleware, trainings and even certifications are doing much more money than most app developers.

It is the usual story about selling shovels in any gold race.

<comment><USER15> Not even close. You think middleware and trainings are a 5 billion dollar market?

<comment><USER14> Which guys are getting 5 billion dollar from their apps?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> congrats Collin, Zac and others! Awesome technology, perfect for porting non- standard UI apps from iOs to Android

<comment><USER17> indeed.. wondering how this is done technically.

<comment><USER6> This is a video I gave at iOSDevCamp on how it all works: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHNq3D4ko74](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHNq3D4ko74)

and the slides: [https://slid.es/zacbowling/objective-c-for- android](https://slid.es/zacbowling/objective-c-for-android)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This couldn't have happened at a better time for the apps we're working on in the coming months! Congratulations on launching and all the best for the future :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm doing an IAmA about this story:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iiyxu/i_cofounded_app...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iiyxu/i_cofounded_apportable_and_helped_bj%C3%B6rk_convert/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope it doesn't come with the privacy intrusion of a Jay-Z.

</comment><comment><USER6> Original title was "YCW11 Objective-C for Android startup Apportable gets 2m led by Google Ventures".

More on that story: [http://pevc.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFVW00020130717e97haong...](http://pevc.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFVW00020130717e97haongz&cid=32135029&ctype=ts)</comment>