Two huge disclaimers:

1. It’s early. iPhone 2.0 and the App Store are just hours old. Everything below is pure conjecture.
2. “A living” is subjective.

Where’s the market?

Pinch Media just released an initial price distribution chart for the initial 500 or so iPhone apps in the App Store.

There are always going to be lots of free apps, but what’s telling is the initial distribution of prices. Most are $10 or less with the bulk at under $5. If that’s where the market settles out, developers who planned on making a living selling iPhone software may be in for market whiplash.

It is certainly possible to make money selling software at $5 or $10 a pop, but you have to do significant volume to make it pay. $20-$49/pop can add up pretty quickly (as many successful shareware authors can attest to), but $5-$10/pop requires real volume.

OmniFocus Outlier

So far OmiFocus is the only app priced higher than $10 in the top 35 downloaded iPhone apps. There are only four other apps in the top 100 that are priced at higher than $9.99.

However, a closer look at OmniFocus shows that the entry price for the desktop app is already $79 so their customers are used to paying higher prices for their software. It will be very interesting to see how many new players without established products will be able to command prices over $9.99. I suspect there may be some seriously vertical apps (like ForeFlight that will command top dollar.

Are iPhone apps just supporting cast members?

It’s way too early to tell, but besides games, might the big winners be the hybridizers? Salesforce.com makes their money selling web-based software — the iPhone app is just a gateway to their core service. OmniFocus will make the bulk of their money on their desktop app. Will iPhone-only developers build profitable companies or will a combination strategy (web, desktop, or both) be required to justify developing for the platform?

Of course an ad supported model is a possibility too. Twitterific, for example, already runs ads from The Deck (or you can pay $10-15 to get rid of the ads).

Another option is the Tap Tap Tap model which is to release a pile of apps for $2.99 each and make the dollars on aggregate volume.

Time will tell

I’m bullish on the iPhone and App Store. I still believe the iTouch platform will ultimately dominate the mobile space for the next 20 years. The next 3 months should set the market for iPhone app prices. I wonder where it will all settle out and where people’s pricing expectations will settle in.

Some iPhone apps we’ve been discussing in our Campfire chat room:

Mobile AIM lets you chat via your phone.

TypePad for iPhone lets you blog directly from your iPhone.

PayPal lets you check your PayPal balance, send money or request payment.

Continued…

When Gruber first linked the TripLog/1040 UI by Stevens Creek, I wasn’t kind either. Bright colors, controls seemingly placed at random. It was the opposite of what designers strive for in our circles. A mess. Soon the Flickr page was a schoolyard of insults. And then something interesting happened. TripLog’s designer Steve Patt posted a comment amidst the bile to share the rationale behind his design. The many who chose not to listen to him won’t learn anything, but the rest of us may find fruit in Mr. Patt’s thoughtful explanation and twenty years of software experience.

The first charge against TripLog is “clutter,” that there’s too much on the screen at once. We’ll get to clutter, but first we have to talk about speed. Patt explains that the #1 purpose of TripLog is to help people track their deductible or reimbursable mileage. If people can’t enter their trips very quickly, the friction of entering data will overpower the motivation to track. For customers, untracked data means miles that aren’t reimbursed. So speed is Patt’s top priority.

What does speed have to do with clutter? I once saw Tufte give a workshop in Chicago where he introduced a valuable concept. He said information may be displayed adjacent in space or stacked in time. Take a book for example. If two dots are on the same spread, they are adjacent in space. All it takes to switch between them is movement of your eye. Compare that to a dot on one page stacked above a dot on another page. You can’t see them at once. You have to flip back and forth between pages to see one dot versus the other.

The trade-offs between elements adjacent in space versus stacked in time are always in the mind of a UI designer. Placing many elements on the same screen reduces the need for navigation and gives users a comprehensive feeling of “it’s all at my command.” Moving focus from one element to another is instant and seamless. On the flip side, separating elements onto different screens slows things down with navigation while increasing clarity. There is more room for explanation and luxurious space when fewer elements occupy the page. The eye has less to filter through. The course of action is more obvious.

So did Patt put too many elements adjacent in space on one screen when he should have separated them out in time? Is his UI “cluttered?”

Continued…

Programming/Tech Jobs

Shopify is looking for a Senior System Administrator in Ottawa, Canada (or telecommute from anywhere).

CloudRaker is looking for a Web developer in Montreal, Canada.

LinkedIn is looking for a Sr. Software Engineer in Mountain View, CA.

Naughty America is looking for a Rails developer in San Diego, CA.

Janus Health, Inc. is looking for a Quality Assurance Cowboy in San Diego, CA.

Airlock is looking for a Creative developer in London, UK.

Goldstar is looking for a Rails Developer With RJS, AJAX focus in Pasadena, CA (or telecommute from anywhere).

Gx5 is looking for a Support/QA Guru located anywhere.

Houseparty is looking for a Junior Web Developer located anywhere.

Auburn Quad, Inc. is looking for a Web Engineer in Cambridge, MA.

Check out all the Programming Jobs currently available on the Job Board.

Design Jobs

Digital Publishing Startup is looking for a Creative Director in Los Angeles, CA (Venice).

massify is looking for a Senior Designer in New York, NY.

The Open Planning Project is looking for a Standards-aware Web Designer in New York, NY.

Usable Security Systems is looking for a Lead Front-End Developer / Web Developer in San Francisco, CA (near South Park).

New York University is looking for a Web Administrator in New York, NY.

DailyStrength is looking for a Senior Designer in Santa Cruz, CA.

The University of Iowa is looking for a Web Designer in Iowa City, IA.

Fork Unstable Media GmbH is looking for a Senior Web Designer in Hamburg, Germany.

Lockheed Martin is looking for an Information Architect/User Experience Specialist (IA/UX) in Rockville, MD.

Check out all the Design Jobs currently available on the Job Board.

More jobs!

The Job Board is flush with great programmer and designer jobs all over the country (and the world). The Gig Board is the place to find contract jobs.

More on why Pixar’s movies are so much better than the competition: According to “Pixar Rules — Secrets of a Blockbuster Company,” the company has created an incredible work environment that keeps employees happy and fulfilled. The result: “A tightknit company of long-term collaborators who stick together, learn from one another, and strive to improve with every production.”

At the heart of this effort is Pixar University:

The operation has more than 110 courses: a complete filmmaking curriculum, classes on painting, drawing, sculpting and creative writing. “We offer the equivalent of an undergraduate education in fine arts and the art of filmmaking,” [Randy Nelson, dean of Pixar University,] said. Every employee — whether an animator, technician, production assistant, accountant, marketer, or security guard — is encouraged to devote up to four hours a week, every week, to his or her education.

Randy Nelson is adamant: these classes are not just a break from the office routine. “This is part of everyone’s work,” he said. “We’re all filmmakers here. We all have access to the same curriculum. In class, people from every level sit right next to our directors and the president of the company.” [...]

Thanks to Pixar University, employees learn to see the company’s work (and their colleagues) in a new light. “The skills we develop are skills we need everywhere in the organization,” Nelson said. “Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There’s no company on earth that wouldn’t benefit from having people become more observant.”

That helps to explain why the Pixar University crest bears the Latin inscription, Alienus Non Diutius. Translation: alone no longer. “It’s the heart of our model,” Randy Nelson says, “giving people opportunities to fail together and to recover from mistakes together.”

Nice to see that creative courses aren’t limited to “creatives.”

Continued…

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Basecamp
ProofHQ and Basecamp: Offer your project team richer review and approval tools
“ProofHQ integration with Basecamp” explains how to add ProofHQ proofs to your Basecamp projects. (ProofHQ is a web-based design collaboration, proofing and approval tool for brands, agencies, designers, print and production.)

Backpack
One of our favorite uses for Backpack: “How to” pages
One way we love to use Backpack is for “how to” pages that guide us through confusing tech waters. These tutorial pages mean we don’t have to waste time relearning processes from scratch.

Continued…

This story is hilariously, beautifully, far-fetchedly awesome and heart warming. See also the MeFi thread.

Pixar proves it’s one of those great companies that is run by unabashedly human people, and it’s no wonder why their work is so personal and touching. When you engage yourself with your customers and your audience on a level that reminds them you are the same, the experience is far greater than just using a product or just seeing a movie. Humanity is desperately missing in our age of megacorporations and big box stores.

People love robots, but they’ll love you if you’re human, too.

Are you exhausting all your potential revenue streams?

We stalled launching our Job Board for a while because we felt we had bigger fish to fry. Once we got around to it, we couldn’t believe we had waited so long. It was easy to set up, a great resource for our community, and has generated lots of cash for the company.

There’s more than one way to skin the revenue cat:

If you sell web software, you can also write a book. Or put on a conference.

If you’re a design firm, you can also sell jewel case packaging. Or start an ad network.

If you’re a site that collects funny videos, you can also sell tee shirts.

If you’re a popular local blog, you can operate a flea market.

If you’re a computer company, you can reinvent the music business.

Etc.

Your self-imposed limitations on how to make money are often just that: self-imposed. Seek out other routes to your destination.

It’s one of the big advantages that small, agile companies have. They can experiment and change directions quickly. Plus, multiple revenue streams help you diversify so all your eggs aren’t in one basket.

Do you have an example of a company that has come up with an interesting or unorthodox way to make money on the side? Tell us about it in the comments.

So somebody else built a successful business on that idea you had three years ago. What does that mean? That if you would just have pursued that idea, you would now automatically be enjoying their spoils? Sorry to burst your bubble, but I really don’t think so.

Ideas on their own are just not that important. It’s incredibly rare that someone comes up with an idea so unique, so protectable that the success story writes itself. Most ideas are nothing without execution.

Just because you thought of a site to share photos with friends wouldn’t have made you Flickr.

But I can see how fooling yourself into thinking otherwise is attractive. When someone else is having success with an idea similar to yours, it’s almost like you’re having that success, if only you would have pulled the trigger on it. It inflates the sense that your brilliant idea really was brilliant and that success was just a binary switch away (pursue/don’t).

On the other hand, it means that you don’t need divine inspiration to start a successful business. Doing well is not restricted only to those who can have paradigm-shifting ideas. You just need to do it better, or actually merely even good enough, to please enough paying customers that income can exceed expense and you’re off to a great start.

You’re probably too young to wear nostalgia gracefully, anyway.

The classic argument for enduring 80 to 100 hour work weeks for years on end — sacrificing relationships, hobbies, and anything else that doesn’t progress the mission — is that at the end of the rainbow lies early retirement. The reward for risking it all on a crazy startup idea. This wonderful place is filled with anything you want it to be. Never a dull moment again, all the flexibility and freedom in the world.

I’m Jack’s sense of utter disbelief.

Why does the idea of work have to be so bad that you want to sacrifice year’s worth of prime living to get away from it forever? The answer is that it doesn’t. Finding something you to love to work on seems to be a much more fruitful pursuit than trying to get away from the notion of work altogether.

It’s much easier too! The likelihood that you’ll strike gold after year’s of death-march living is still pretty low. The chance of finding something you love doing? So much more achievable. Millions of dollars not required.

If you come to the realization that work in itself isn’t evil, you can stop living your life as a waterfall-planned software project too. No need to divide your timeline on earth into the false dichotomies of Sucky Work Era and Blissful Retirement Era. Instead, you can just fill your life with a balanced mix of activities that you can sustain for decades.