Thanks to the incredibly successful Instapaper, the Apple App Store has become Marco Arment’s bread and butter. But that means he’s at the mercy of Apple’s stringent guidelines and app review process, which have given thousands of developers including Mr. Arment and, more severely, his friends at Readbility, trouble in the past. Read More
Marco Arment delivered his diatribe on the death of Instapaper’s free app today. It’s amazing just how different his approach to business is from his former employer, Tumblr.
Because Instapaper is an ongoing service, as opposed to a game you download once that doesn’t require updates, users represent a continued cost to Arment. Even over time, he doesn’t feel most would add up to $3.50 worth of ad impressions. Read More
Instapaper developer Marco Arment has been battling against what he sees as the unhealthy business of offering apps for free.
Back in the beginning of March he wrote a post about avoiding venture capital funding. His customers, wrote Arment, are his investors.
He even offered up a subscription service, which didn’t offer much Read More
There has been an interesting little debate going on between two New York heavyweights over which mobile operating system is the best platform on which to build a new business. The dispute reveals the dichotomy between different poles in the tech industry when it comes to the future of mobile. Read More
Apple rejected the New York-based Readability’s app, which strips ads from content, on the grounds that it refreshes content without adhering to the new Apple rules seemingly designed for subscription-based content providers such as magazines and Hulu.
Not fair, Readability cried, loudly, in an open letter yesterday that said the new Read More
Marco Arment of Tumblr, Instapaper and Build and Analyze fame had been holding out on us until yesterday.
Since quitting Tumblr, his main project has been Instapaper, the killer “read it later” iPhone and iPad app so beloved by New Yorkers who ride the subway. There’s a free version and a paid Read More
Google’s “automatic approval” policy for the Chrome Web Store and Android App Market is great for growing the number of available apps. But the low barrier to entry also means developers can sneak in with apps that are malicious or buggy.
It also means developers can coast on someone else’s good name. Read More
