Pirates Beat Buyers 3 to 1 on iPhone Apps

The saga continues. Another report of Pirates vs. Developers just made it on VentureBeat (read below) just today. Pretty much this numbers are outrageous, and i realllllly believe that devs just like to bitch and whine and blow the numbers out of proportions BUT in the same time this is really really sad. As you know FSMdotCOM provides cracks from time to time, but NOT trying to influence people on engaging in illegal activities by any means.FSMdotCOM only tries to offer you a “test drive” so you can buy the app.

In the same time, developers really start to piss me off. They think they are on a “get rich quick” path with this iPhone appstore phenomenon but they are disappointed when their app is cracked and not sold. Well , my fellow devs, please use your precious family time and create a useful app or create a really wicked game and guess what, your shit will be sold and told. It really amaze me how fast people can start to whine and bitch about something they dont even own – THE GAME!

First of all you should really learn the game. Just learning the iPhone SDK and how to code for mac or iPhone ( or anything in general ) wont cut it. You should really bring something useful to the game with a hella nice wicked UI. Being a family , which every sunday after church start to code , just is not enough. People wont buy your shit even if its 99 cents. And guess what, free app developers are rich. You know why? They pretty much study the game and learn the rules before they jump head front into it. Dont need to trust me, you can read here how they make between $400 and $5000 A DAY from their free apps. Learn how to turn pirates into customers , how to be a succesfull iPhone dev and here are some tips for you ( this last one can be a little harsh and not coherent at all, because i was pretty pissed off at the time, dont remember why tho). And as a bonus, because im a good guy, here are some tips and tricks on how to build the next killer iPhone app

It’s easy to sermonize that Hollywood fatcats should learn to live with the fact that 95% of online media are bootlegs, according to a Digital Hollywood panel last week, and focus on monetizing the remaining 5% of non-copyright-infringing copies. But what about standalone iPhone app developers? Should they turn the other cheek to pirates, too?


Ow My Balls is a real iPhone app. Developer Josh Michaels emailed with a shocking stat: For every copy he sells, three copies are downloaded from pirate app sites such as Appulo.us. “It was up there within about 12 hours of it going live in the App Store,” Michaels said.

Another developer, James Bossert, blogged the same ratio: 196 buyers, 615 stealers. He emailed one of the pirates and got this reply:

i only want to give public the change to try out your game before spending their money. I at first did not crack any games but after i purchased a few games which were not as good as the description let me believe i wanted to help others not to waste their money on something which even has no return policy.

Would a trial period for apps cut down on bootlegging or, more importantly, raise app sales? Apple continually declines to comment on the matter, but it seems worth a small trial program.