iTunes App Trick

Apple has sent a clear message to any developers who try to game its iTunes App Store. Software developer Molinker has been kicked out, along with more than 1,000 of its iPhone applications.

The Chinese developer had, according to some estimates, 1,000-plus applications in the store, most of which were copycat knockoffs of existing applications. When Patrick Timney, a friend of writers at the iPhoneography photography blog, saw these rather poor applications consistently scoring 5-star reviews, they got suspicious. Some investigation showed that Molinker’s applications were getting many top ratings and almost nothing in the 2-to-4-star range. In fact, the only other ratings were often 1-star, and likely the only truthful feedback on the apps’ pages.

iPhoneography wrote a long letter to Apple’s marketing boss, Phil Schiller, and posited that Molinker was giving out promotional codes — essentially free copies of the applications — in return for these 5-star reviews. In almost all cases, these reviews were poorly written, and came from customers who almost exclusively reviewed just Molinker applications.

This scam was so effective that the applications regularly rose to the tops of charts. One, called ColorMagic, even made it into the Staff Favorites section of the store (which brings some doubt as to whether these are actually staff picks at all).

After a week of typical Apple silence, iPhoneography wrote again, and received a reply direct from Schiller: “Yes, this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either.”

So what, you say? Some dodgy developer got its entire portfolio chucked down the memory hole, and the App Store continues as if Molinker had never existed. First, the scale of this purging is huge: 1,000 applications represents almost 1 percent of the entire App Store offering. This alone shows that Apple is happy to do whatever it takes to keep its house clean.

It also shows the power that Apple has over those that sell in its exclusive marketplace. Sure, Molinker was caught cheating, and punished, but Apple could pull the same trick on any developer, for any reason. We don’t think that it would, but iPhone developers are a nervous bunch as it is, rubbing on rabbits’ feet and crossing their fingers as their creations make their way through a fickle and seemingly arbitrary approval process.

And what about the customers? We doubt that Molinker will be refunding all the money it has made selling the applications (plus 30 percent on top that went to Apple, and is non-returnable). This means that, at best, these customers can keep using their now-banned apps until a future OS update breaks them. Perhaps, though, they should have bought better applications in the first place?

This is the key. Because there is no clear way to try-before-you buy, the shareware model that works so well for computers, the ratings are absurdly important to choosing an application. Molinker’s scam, then, is almost a symptom of the App Store setup itself. Can Apple actually be blamed for the rise of the ratings scamsters?

In April 2009 Stanford University announced that its iPhone Application Programming course had broken the 1 million download mark from the Apple iTunes site. And it did it in record time – less than seven weeks.

The course is nothing more than a series of classroom videos being taught by a team of Apple engineers. But the price was set at that very attractive price point of “free.” One catch though, only people who were enrolled at Stanford University received credits for the course.

With over 200,000 courses from over 200 different institutions to pick from on iTunes U, and all of them free to anyone who wants to take them, Apple is quickly becoming the world leader in courseware aggregation. The obvious question to ask is “what is Apple’s motivation for doing this?” and “how do they intend to make money?”

History of iTunes U

Shortly after Apple opened its iTunes Store in April 2003, the company started receiving requests from colleges to post courses on the site. Initially the requests were directed to the podcast section, but as the numbers grew, Apple devised a strategy for adding an entirely new division.

iTunes U was formally in May 2007. The service was created to manage, distribute, and control access to educational audio and video content for students within a college or university as well as the broader Internet.

In October 2008, Apple hired Dr. Joel Podolny, the Dean of Yale University’s School of Management, to run what was quickly becoming known as Apple University. This move, while very curious to most Apple observers, signaled a much farther reaching strategy than what most were anticipating.

The Missing Pieces

While Apple is doing a good job of aggregating existing courses from existing institutions, they haven’t made any moves to open the floodgates, and we are talking serious floodgates here, to engage other potential courseware providers.

In our way of thinking, communications and search have been the two dominant forms of use for the Internet. However, the one application that could become far more dominant that either of those uses is education. What’s at stake is the creation of the largest and most influential site on the Web.

Here’s what’s missing:

• Easy Authoring Tools: Currently the realm of online course creation has been reserved to learning professionals, not topical experts or passionate amateurs. In much the same way Wikipedia started, a simple online system for creating new courses could cause a tsunami of new content to flood the Internet. Some will be good, but most will be below average. In the middle will be a few shining examples of unique new ways to present course content, and these will be the ones that the pave the way for the next wave.
• Courseware Standards: Existing college courses are too long, too dry, and too boring. While we may not be able to create standards that prevent boring content, we can certainly do something about the length. All courses need to be standardized around 60 minute (one-hour) course units. Standards can also be created for testing comprehension, student records, transcripts, pricing standards, and a variety of other variables that will help streamline an emerging new system.
• Profiling Engine: The system needs to know the student before it can recommend courses. Profiling software has been used for many things and can be easily adapted for this. The trick will be to imbed learning objects that can read the learning style and adapt the course to the precise level of student’s skills, knowledge and confidence.
• Recommendation Engine: After the completion of every course a recommendation engine needs to list several options for the next course, but the options need to be closely synced with the whims and desires of the student.
• Feedback System: Courseware authors need to have a real-time understanding of student engagement, confidence, achievement, and enjoyment.
• Credits and Certification: Every course that is completed needs to be accompanied with a system for marking the progression of the student. And the system needs to lead to levels of accomplishment as certified by the organization that bestow them.
• Courseware Monetization System: If iTunes can change $1.29 for a three minute song, they can easily charge $1-$5 for a one-hour course. Money can be parceled out to the course author, distribution system, recommendation engine, profiling engine, record-keeping company, and possibly a few more. A little friction in the system will help deter the spammers and those intent on disrupting the system.

Apple has dabbled some in the courseware authoring arena with the Woolamaloo Automator, but it’s still a far cry from the fully integrated modality agnostic, language agnostic system that we see coming. You can see a more extensive look at the future of colleges and universities.

Colleges are on the verge of a significant transformation, and Apple is currently in the driver’s seat. But as we have seen so many times in the online world, new players can spring to life over night, and one that is positioning itself as one of the key players is a little startup in Denver called SatoriEDU.

Newspapers, travel agencies, yellow pages and record labels are all industries that have been greatly affected by the Internet, and each of them tell a different version of what may lie ahead for colleges.

The current system was designed for slower times and a different culture. In a world going through major upheavals in technology, culture, and lifestyle, our current college system has continually rearranged the deck chairs, but has shown virtually no ability to grasp the bigger picture. The next couple years will indeed be fascinating to watch, and for Apple, it’s currently theirs to lose.

Apple’s purchase of music streaming service Lala signals a fundamental change in the way that the company will present iTunes content on the web.

Apple is poised to totally change its iTunes business model with a increased focus on Internet-based content, reports the Wall Street Journal in an article appearing in Thursday’s edition. Using newly acquired La La Media Inc. as a springboard, Apple is considering to adopt a usage model that would allow consumers to access and manage their iTunes purchases directly through the Internet without downloading the content in question or the iTunes software.

In its current form, iTunes requires users to download and manage their iTunes purchases on a per-computer basis. With a new focus on Internet-based management, an iTunes user could log into their account and access and stream all their music from any computer with an Internet connection. This technology could also allow Apple to sell music on other websites or even in web-based search results.

Apple has already made some small strides into web-based iTunes functionality with the release of iTunes Preview in November. With iTunes Preview, users can share music links via iTunes without the need to launch Apple’s media suite. Previously, users without iTunes were prompted to install the software in order to view content.

The Wall Street Journal’s figure of $85 million for Lala’s purchase price is in the same ballpark of what Peter Kafka at AllThingsDigital reported Monday. The report also confirms what Maynard Um predicted about Apple’s reasons for aquiring Lala earlier this week.

Lala execs have already assumed important roles in shaping Apple’s iTunes strategy going forward. “It’s our understanding that the Lala guys are going to be in very significant roles,” someone familiar with Apple’s plans reportedly said.

Apple’s $1 billion server farm project planned for North Carolina may actually be tied to this web-based strategy, and could provide the backbone for a web-based iTunes.

According to the Journal, Apple could begin to make these changes as early as next year.