The iPhone gold rush

17 April 2009 | 8:02 - By Stefano Boscutti

Is there a good way to nail down a steady income? In this economy? Try writing a successful program for the iPhone.

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Ethan Nicholas and his wife, Nicole were having trouble making their mortgage payments. Medical bills from the birth of their younger son were piling up. Then he remembered reading about the guy who had made a quarter-million dollars in a hurry by writing a video game called Trism for the iPhone.  Although he had years of programming experience, Mr. Nicholas had never built a game in Objective-C, the coding language of the iPhone. So he searched the internet for tips and informal guides, and used them to figure out the iPhone software development kit that Apple puts out. Because he grew up playing shoot-em-up computer games, he decided to write an artillery game. He sketched out some graphics and bought inexpensive stock photos and audio files.  Six weeks of coding hell and he was ready to release iShoot (good name, that) at the online Apple store. When he checked his account with Apple to see how many copies the game had sold, Mr. Nicholas’s jaw dropped: On its first day, iShoot sold enough copies at $4.99 each to net him $1,000. The second day, his portion of the day’s sales was about $2,000. It only gets better.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/fashion/05iphone.html

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About this Blog

New New Media looks at how our mediascape is exploding to bits. How the latest technology and the internet are changing the way we live, work and play. How the latest media is shaping us all.

Stefano Boscutti is an executive creative director and strategist. He's like a better looking version of Todd Sampson. He also has an abiding faith that stories and wordplay (and not powerpoint presentations) will change the world.

 
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