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Apple Now Telling Developers How Many People Download Their App
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 7:20 AM on August 1, 2008
We reported in our massive feature on the SDK and App Store's shortcomings that Apple didn't even tell devs how many times their app is downloaded. I guess they realised devs might wanna know, 'cause now they're offering daily download statistics to registered devs. One brick at a time. [Mac Rumors]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Jeffrey903
Posted 7:47 AM 1/8/08
No. The reason it says zero is so people can't figure out how much developers are earning from their apps (for example, Super Monkey Ball costs $9.99 - the developers get 70% of the price or $6.99 per app sold, so if you multiply $6.99 by the number of downloads you know exactly how much they are making).
Jeffrey903
justinpe
Posted 7:43 AM 1/8/08
Does this mean they are also going to list the number of downloads in the app store? Last time I looked all of the apps have "0 downloads"
justinpe
dogcow
Posted 8:23 AM 1/8/08
I'm guessing Apple did notify devs with paid apps about downloads, to pay them.
But now its all devs? Or did all devs get weekly/monthly totals only before?
Regardless, it was quite voyeuristically fun to see the numbers out here-a shame (if understandable) they removed that feature.
dogcow
justinpe
Posted 8:21 AM 1/8/08
@Jeffrey903:
So why would Apple include the number of downloads in the app store only to never update the numbers? If they didn't want people knowing the number of downloads, they could have easily left this out.
justinpe
Y2KGTP
Posted 8:05 AM 1/8/08
I wonder if they will be able to determine the number of times it has been downloaded, to the number of devices it is installed on.
Y2KGTP
b33g33
Posted 8:47 AM 1/8/08
Hallelujah! Apple invents another trend setting practice ... oh wait.
b33g33
tarlen
Posted 9:33 AM 1/8/08
@dogcow: previously there was no notification, but there was supposed to be an end-of-month report. Since the end of the first month has only just been reached, that means nothing yet.
Even now it's a bit flawed, only showing you daily for the past few days, and the weekly report doesn't seem to work. ie - the full numbers still aren't readily available, but it's a big step in the right direction.
tarlen
dogcow
Posted 11:08 AM 1/8/08
@tarlen:
cool, thanks for the info. Glad to see devs are finally getting some feedback on their users.
dogcow
ChristianD
Posted 1:49 AM 2/8/08
Just asking, but what's to keep Apple from shorting the numbers and those royalty checks. Considering they're the only source of the download data, how does one really know hom many times somone purchased their Application and account for the revenue. Don't you have to report those earnings to the IRS. Lets say you shorted the Government a couple grand, can you say Apple gave me faulty numbers and not avoid a Tax fraud case.
ChristianD
tarlen
Posted 9:04 AM 2/8/08
@ChristianD:
There are a number of apps that make calls back to web services, Aurora Feint as an example. Using this, devs can have their own count. If Apple did try shorting the numbers, people would find out pretty quickly.
tarlen