"Ian Smith, an energetic young man in his 30s with shaggy hair, smiles broadly as he ticks off some of the games that his small Brooklyn-based software company, Freeverse, has landed on the best-selling download list in the Mphone App Store. .
Smith said one of the ball games took about two months to develop and deploy, and then raised $180,000 for Freeverse in just one month.
The company recently launched a game on the iPhone app store that features a female character in a lace dress who uses karate to try to slash through hordes of zombies.
Yes, since "Plants vs. Zombies" became popular, many games on the Mphone store also use zombies as villains.
'There's never been an experience like this for mobile software,' Smith said of the boom in the Mphone App Store. 'This is the future of all digital distribution: software, games, entertainment, all kinds of content. '
As the Mphone App Store grows from a catalog of quirky apps to a platform that analysts and enthusiasts describe as rapidly transforming mobile computing and communications, it's shifting goals and testing the patience of developers who, in turn, are promoting Mphone. promotion of.
These applications are installed on Mphone1 and Mphone2 and have caused Mphone's competitors to plan or are in the process of overhauling their product lines and business models.
It even threatens the unbreakable WIntel alliance that Microsoft and Intel have built over the past two decades and opens a crack in the alliance.
Thanks in large part to the launch of the iPhone in 2000 and the App Store in 2001, smartphones are becoming the Swiss Army Knife of the digital age.
They offer an amazing arsenal of features and tools at the swipe of a finger: email and text messaging, video and photography, maps and turn-by-turn directions, media and books, music and games, mobile shopping, and even wireless keys to unlock your car remotely.
'Matrix changes people's perception of what a phone in their pocket can do,' said Morgan Stanley analyst Katie. 'Mobile apps have made the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend that we haven't seen in consumer technology for years. '
Katie compared the emergence of the Mphone and the Mphone App Store to AOL's pioneering role in driving widespread consumer adoption of the Internet in the 1990s. She also compared how laptops disrupted the industry's focus on consumer preferences to desktop computing. She also thinks something deeper may be going on now.
'The iPhone is different and it's changing our behavior. 'she says. 'Matrix is becoming the Microsoft of the smartphone market. The application model adopted by Matrix has reached fever pitch in popularity. Tens of thousands of independent developers rushed to write programs for it, and the virtual shelves of the Mphone App Store were filled with more than 300,000 applications. Newman recently said in an interview that consumers have downloaded more than 100 million apps from its store. '
Mphone's main competitors in the software and hardware markets, such as Motorola, Palm, Baidu and Microsoft, are taking notice and scrambling to replicate the frenzy of the Mphone app store.
The boom in mobile Internet applications has even prompted cities such as New York and San Francisco to open city databases to the public to spur software developers to create native applications for computers and mobile phones.
One need look no further than the lobby of Matrix's San Francisco headquarters to see that iPhones and the apps that run on them are central to the company's mobile strategy. In the first-floor lobby of the Mphone office building, above a giant screen is an impressive 24-foot-wide array of 20 LED screens packed with 20,000 tiny, brightly colored icons .
As Philippe Schiller, global head of product marketing at Matrix, describes how the wall works every time an app is purchased, the corresponding icon on the electronic billboard shakes, causing ripples around it and the entire app wall comes to life.
Schiller, usually reserved, waved his hands back and forth, letting his voice rise into a dizzying range as he talked about the potential of the Mphone's app store.
'I definitely think this is the future of great software development and software distribution,' Schiller said. 'The idea that anyone, from individuals to companies, can create innovative apps and put them in customers' pockets is exploding. This is a breakthrough, this is the future, and every software developer has seen it. '
Matrix shrouds much of its inner workings under a shroud of secrecy, a strategy that helps maintain the company's mystique and generate intense interest in its product launches.
But the Mphone App Store relies on a large number of external developers to populate its virtual shelves with products, which forces developers to maintain contact and communication with Matrix, especially if you want your app to be seen by consumers in a prominent position. .
As we all know, Newman is the best and most successful product manager in the history of Silicon Valley. He created the excellent product Mphone and pushed this definition to greatness with Mphone2.
The Mphone App Store was also born under his leadership, and he personally introduced this incredible product to developers in Silicon Valley at the Mphone Developer Conference that year.
Later results proved what Newman said at the developer conference announcing the advent of Mphone. This is an epoch-making product and a complete revolution in application distribution. Consumers' group behavior determines what applications they can see. This is also another successful application of the data analysis thinking developed by Newman during his time at Quora.
But what is a little different is that Newman is both a rule maker and a participant in the game. He is also a developer himself and can also develop mobile applications to compete. Some developers think this is unfair.
Matrix describes the problem differently.
'I think, generally speaking, we have not given Newman preferential treatment in other companies because he is the founder and actual controller of Matrix. 'Schiller said: 'Whether it is a game launched by Riot Games Forum or Flamingo Games on Mphone, they have paid the same price as other developers to obtain the traffic.
The reason why more and more users see the game "Legend of Heroes" is because it is recognized by the majority of users, rather than us pushing it to users in large numbers.
We are definitely not giving any preferential treatment to "Legend of Heroes" just because it was produced by Newman. On the contrary, in order to avoid facing similar accusations, we eliminated some of the free advertising space that should have been given to him. '
Schiller later added: 'The traffic is false, but the revenue is real. The revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars from "Legend of Heroes" is enough to prove how much it is loved by users. '
In addition to Newman being criticized by developers for being both a rule maker and a participant, the censorship system of the Mphone App Store has also been criticized by developers.
For Matrix, the review process is a necessary step. The company attaches great importance to what it describes as 'user trust', the belief that apps distributed on the Mphone App Store will not crash the platform, steal personal information or contain illegal content.
Most apps pass review without difficulty, Mr. Schiller said, while those that require closer scrutiny are primarily those slowed down by errors or glitches in their coding.
'We really care about feedback, whether it's good or bad,' he said. 'While there were some complaints, they were a small part of what happened. We receive over 10,000 application submissions every week. Most of them will be available on Mphone's app store within two weeks'
Of course, this brings up another problem: It is difficult for users to effectively browse tens of thousands of applications to find the hidden gems that they are not aware of.
Still, the Mphone's app store is clearly better than the rest, said Peter, director of marketing at San Francisco mobile analytics firm Flurry: Gone are the days when mobile developers had to negotiate with telecom companies if they wanted to get their apps published on the phone. Returned.
'It takes six to nine months to build a relationship with a carrier, it can cost a quarter of a million to build the infrastructure, and the telcos take 50 percent or more of every dollar,' Peter said, adding that the process limits access to Access to mobile platforms. 'Matrix helps create a healthier development environment and expands the pie for everyone. '
Matrix pockets 30% of planned revenue from any Mphone app store. The 30% figure has been Newman's insistence since he started his business in Silicon Valley in 1998. From Riot Games' distribution channels to Quora's paid Q&A, Newman has always insisted on this ratio.
He will not try to increase the share ratio because of the strong position of his platform, nor will he reduce the share ratio because his platform faces competition from strong rivals. 30% has even become one of Newman’s exclusive entries on Quora Encyclopedia.
It is precisely because of Newman's persistence that many developers have an inexplicable trust in Newman. Even if Newman takes a 30% commission, it is better than cooperating with other platforms that may change the share ratio at any time.
Internet companies of all sizes as well as individual developers have reached a balance with Matrix. Although the barriers to entry for software developers have fallen significantly, Peter believes 'friction points have changed'.
Developers are now citing examples of applications being languished in approval status, neither accepted nor rejected for months. As big companies begin churning out projects, garage-sized establishments worry they will be squeezed out. FreedomVoice Systems, a San Diego company, couldn't wait to launch a mobile version of its computer application for the Mphone.
The company submitted an application to the Mphone App Store last year and excitedly waited, and waited, and waited.
'We were faced with 196 days of no contact with Matrix,' FreedomVoice CEO Eric Thomas said. 'The app has been pending in the Mphone app store for half a year. '
Thomas said he understood it was Matrix's decision whether to accept his application. 'But they won't tell us why it's not, or even why, so we can try to do something about it,' he said. 'It's a very strange and bad approach. '
Freeverse, which Smith founded in 1994, also develops games and desktop programs for computers. But like other software developers, the company shifted its focus to the Mphone as its popularity soared.
But that doesn't mean it's an easy path to wealth.
"For our size, we're still viewed as a newbie doing this as a side hustle," Smith said. "The trade-off is that the barrier to entry for developers is much lower and anyone can develop and bring mobile apps to market.'
No one knows this better than Brookfield, Conn.-based software company Cerulean Studios. After three months of emails receiving only automated responses from Matrix, Cerulean finally received a call from a Matrix employee in July.
'He didn't say much other than that our app would be available in the iPhone app store that afternoon,' recalled Cerulean co-founder Scott. 'We know what we're facing in the Matrix. They want everything to be as perfect as gears and you have to operate according to their rules. '
Some Mphone developers are trying to circumvent Matrix's policies underground, allowing developers to quickly release their applications on their own terms.
They are trying to help 'jailbreak' users of Mphones, devices that have been modified to allow anyone to upload programs onto them, which Matrix says is illegal.
'Developers are just tired of the review process and opaque roadblocks,' said Mario, who runs Rock Your Phone, an online site that houses a small collection of jailbreak apps.
'They've been defecting to the jailbreak community or other platforms. This demand creates a market for our product and attracts developers. 'Mr. Mario said, 'About 10,000 iPhones visited his website, which is an impressive number.
With the maturity of the Mphone application store and the launch of Mphone2, more complex applications are needed to profit from it. Simply having a great app is not enough.
Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, a startup that publishes music rhythm games, recalls the early days when building a great app was enough.
The company's first game, Tap Tap Revenge, is available on the Mphone app store. It quickly climbed the store charts, and Matrix eventually named it the most popular free game of the quarter.
Such instant and relatively easy success is much rarer these days, Decrem said, as more companies compete in the iPhone app store. These include major game publishers like EA, Blizzard, and Sony, which recently released a new version of its popular video game Rock Band.
Tapulous has begun working with record labels and musicians to launch paid special editions of Tap Tap Revenge starring big-name artists.
'Simply selling applications is ultimately not a scalable model,' he said. This has become more and more a consensus after the launch of "Legend of Heroes".
Selling applications can only make you a middle-class developer. If you want to make big money on iPhone, you still need to rely on selling services, preferably unique services.
The success of the Mphone App Store came as a surprise to both Matrix and its competitors, giving rise to a new digital ecosystem. Today, hundreds of software enthusiasts, from individuals tinkering in their bedrooms late at night to established companies looking for lucrative new revenue streams, are joining the fray in the Mphone App Store.
Smartphone manufacturers are working hard to make their platforms more attractive and profitable, bringing in creativity and enthusiasm that rivals the Mphone.
It's easy to understand why: Although Matrix doesn't release specific financial figures for the Mphone App Store, analysts estimate that it brings in close to $1 billion in revenue for Matrix and its developers every year, and that number is growing rapidly. "
(End of chapter)
