Ipad's new retina screen means 16GB verso is almost obsolete

New iPad's flagship feature, its 2048-by-1536 pixel display, looks exquisite. The screen sports four times as many pixels as its predecessors, so for Retina display support apps need new images that are twice as wide and twice as tall as before. As already seen with the iPhone 4's release, a massive bump in screen resolution means that plenty of apps need to be updated to fully take advantage of all those extra pixels. And that means bigger apps. In fact, much bigger apps - and eventually the much improved screen may severely limit how you use the tablet.

How big are updated apps?

Some of Apple’s own and updated iPad apps give a clue. It’s not a perfect comparison, since Apple also added some features to the apps it updated with Retina compatibility, but it’s still informative:

Keynote went from 115MB to 327MB; Numbers increased from 109MB to 283MB, and Pages went from 95MB to 269MB.
In other words, these apps increased their file sizes by a factor between 2.5 and 3. A smaller app like Tweetbot, for example, will reportedly grow from 8.8MB to 24.6MB. Larger, graphically intense games that weigh in between 300MB and 500MB today will likely require 750MB to 1.5GB once they update their art assets.

Not only this is worrying for owners of new iPad 16GB model, but the most worrying effect of the new iPad’s Retina display is its impact on older owners of both iPads and iPhones. As apps are universal across iPad / iPhone space, your updated apps will become much larger even if you don’t own a Retina-display iPad. And we get no choice. Key take: forger to buy 16 GB iPhone / iPad. You'll run out of space.

See also related story at MacWorld.

TestFlight being acquired

PandoDaily reports that TestFlight ("iOS beta testing on the fly") is in the process of being acquired by Burstly ("The Leading App Monetization Tools").

"That deal went down in Q4 of last year, but they kept it quiet until now. The reason is that the two teams had a plan for where they wanted to take TestFlight, and that’s ready to be unveiled today: TestFlight Live.

Now, before every iOS app developer freaks out, let’s be clear: the TestFlight you know and love will continue to exist in its current (and free) form. TestFlight Live is a new product. This is a smart play by both sides, because it completes the circle between TestFlight (app testing) and Burstly (app monetization).

TestFlight Live is a real-time dashboard for iOS apps, sort of like Chartbeat for app data. It shows live engagement, revenue, audience, and stability information on one website. It allows developers to see how their apps are selling, and how well their in-app purchases are doing. It also allows them to see how well their in-app ads are doing, though this isn’t exclusively tied to Burstly at all. It even shows the all-important Revenue Per User (RPU)."

Samwer brothers, art of copy and execution

Bloomberg Businessweek reported some time ago an interesting story in regard to Oliver, Marc, and Alexander Samwer, a trio of German brothers who have a wildly successful business model: Find a promising Internet business, in the U.S., and clone it internationally. Since starting their first dot-clone in 1999, a German version of EBay, they’ve duplicated Airbnb, eHarmony, Pinterest, and other high-profile businesses. In total, they’ve launched more than 100 companies. Their Zappos clone, Zalando, now dominates six European markets and is estimated to be worth $1 billion by Financial Times Deutschland. Through their venture capital firm, the European Founders Fund, they also invested in European knockoffs of Facebook and YouTube (GOOG), which sold for $112 million and $36 million, respectively.

The Samwers’ base of operations is a startup accelerator in Berlin called Rocket Internet. Rocket launches companies, hires staff, and provides marketing, design, search engine optimization, and day-to-day management until the startup can fend for itself. Rocket’s executives won’t disclose revenue, but a former high-level employee estimates the company is worth at least $1 billion. Oliver Samwer, the middle brother and de facto head of the operation, says the firm has offices in at least 20 countries and has created 20,000 jobs over the years.

The App Store has reached 25 billion downloads

Apple's put out lists of the all time most popular for iPhone and iPad.

All-Time Top Free iPhone Apps

1. Facebook
2. Pandora Radio
3. Words with Friends Free
4. Skype
5. The Weather Channel ®
6. Google Search
7. Google Earth
8. Angry Birds Free
9. Shazam
10. Netflix

All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Doodle Jump
4. Cut the Rope
5. Angry Birds Seasons
6. Words with Friends
7. Tiny Wings
8. Angry Birds Rio
9. Pocket God
10. Camera+

All-Time Top Free iPad Apps

1. Angry Birds HD Free
2. The Weather Channel® for iPad
3. Netflix
4. Skype for iPad
5. Kindle
6. ABC Player
7. Pandora Radio
8. Angry Birds Rip HD Free
9. CNN App for iPad
10. Words with Friends HD Free

All-Time Top Paid iPad Apps

1. Pages
2. Angry Birds HD
3. Angry Birds Seasons HD
4. Penultimate
5. Scrabble for iPad
6. Fruit Ninja HD
7. GarageBand
8. GoodReader for iPad
9. Angry Birds Rio HD
10. Cut the Rope HD

Apple Appstore stats

Asymco reported some interesting stats in regard to Apple's Appstore. According to company's CEO, Tim Cook, Apple paid in 4Q2011 some $700 million quarterly payout to Apps developers. The total payment to date stand at $4 billion. Remember that Apple retails 30% of Apps sales and reports the rest 70% back to developers. The story has some other interesting data points of iTunes ecosystem.

• Sometime in February 2012 Apple will report 25 billion total apps downloaded.
• Apple reported nearly $7 billion in iTunes stores revenue (the apps were only counted for the 30% agency fee) during 2011.
• If gross revenues were measured, the iTunes economy was about $10 billion in 2011.
• Payments to content publishers were in the vicinity of $7 billion of which $2.1bn was paid to developers.
• Since iOS devices started shipping, there have been over 335 million units sold. As 25 billion apps have been downloaded into them then about 75 apps were downloaded for each unit sold. Since we know the average price (23c) and the payout ratio (70%) then all this boils down to the fact that each iOS device generates $17 of iTunes income from Apps alone.

Check out the whole story, it's worth of it.

Interest-Based Social Networks

I read from TechCrunch intriguing article concerning interest based social networks. With the pending IPO of Facebook one might say “social is done,” Facebook is all the social media anyone would ever want or need. With its one billion accounts, "in the solar system of social media, Facebook is the Sun — the gravitational center around which everything social revolves". However users clearly haven’t gotten the memo. Instead, users are rapidly adopting new interest-based social networks such as Pinterest, Instagram, Thumb, and Foodspotting. The article states: "What accounts for the fast growth of these interest-based social networks, and what does it mean for Facebook’s future?

Interest-based social networks have a markedly different focus and approach than Facebook. The Pinterest, Thumb and Foodspottings of the world enable users to focus and organize around their interests first, whereas Facebook focuses on a user’s personal relationships. Facebook offers us a social utility to deepen social connectivity with our existing social graphs, while these new interest-based social networks enable users to express their interests in new, engaging ways and offer authentic, high value connectivity with new people we don’t already know."
Furthermore, "There are opportunities to establish differentiated, sustainable social media brands with large, passionate audiences. Much like the modern day media disrupters (e.g. ESPN or HBO or CNN), these services can establish new social media networks that are differentiated and unique, protecting them from the inevitable concern that they get squashed by Facebook. The traditional “Big 3 networks” (NBC, ABC, and CBS) used to be the only properties that really mattered, similar to how some view Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in today’s social media landscape. Emerging networks will be the new media brands and properties that augment social networking and media."

Facebook's IPO valuation

If you don't follow Bill Gurley's blog, this analysis of Facebook's valuation between $70-$100 billion is just a one example how he thinks.

Chez Benchmark Capital where he works they have created the following framework:

"We also created a list of 10 factors that public investors consider when trying to qualify if a company is deserved of such a prestigious and lofty valuation.

On a roll, these factors are:

1. Sustainable Competitive Advantage – how big is the competitive Moat?
2. Presence of Network Effects – does the model tip to a single vendor?
3. Visibility/Predictability – is the revenue consistent
4. Customer Lock-in / High Switching Costs – is it expensive to leave?
5. Gross margin levels – How much leverage exists is the business?
6. Marginal Profitability Calculation – is the leverage still expanding?
7. Customer Concentration – are there key dependencies?
8. Major Partner Dependencies – are there key dependencies here as well?
9. Organic Demand vs. Marketing Spend – is customer acquisition expensive?
10. Growth – how big will the future be? "

Conclusion: "The bottom line is that the banker range looks right to me. Of course, overt and ecstatic demand for the hottest IPO of the past 10 years could easily lead to much higher speculative valuations. But it’s hard to argue that the $70-100B range is wrong. Feels quite right to me."