Jonathan Deamer

I’ve had a really interesting time recently talking to some of my favourite iPhone developers, carrying out a survey into app purchasing habits and generally thinking about cool mobile bits and pieces for the just-published “Winning iPhone Strategies” report that I co-wrote with a colleague.

Commissioned by regional development agency Northwest Vision and Media, it’s available to read online via Scribd, where I’m chuffed to say it’s received a good few thousand views in the handful of days it’s been available so far.  I won’t go into huge depth about the report’s findings here – it’s a fairly easy read, so rather than me repeating its contents you might as well just go and have a look, or download it in PDF format

There’s been some nice coverage of the report, notably a PocketGamer.biz article that focuses on the £2.99 “pricing sweet spot” that our survey highlighted, and a somewhat tongue-in-cheek piece on The Register hilariously titled “North England to replace satanic mills with iPhone app factories”.  Needless to say, that wasn’t quite our conclusion…but their angle did prompt some fantastic comments.

I massively enjoyed writing my previous research paper into podcast business models, so was really pleased to get involved in “Winning iPhone Strategies”.  I love being able to talk to smart people, think deeply about things I love and write up thoughts that’ll hopefully be useful to other people.  Additional cool things about writing the report were:

• chatting to interesting people making games in Finland and Holland.
• hearing the well-informed views of Apple-fan Marco Arment, who makes two of my favourite Internet things: Instapaper (iPhone app) and Tumblr.
• learning an amazing rags-to-riches tale of a first time developer who hit it big with an app based on BBC comedy “I’m Alan Partridge“.
• talking to the design brain behind my fave iPhone game, Ramp Champ (Gedeon Maheux at Iconfactory).