I had been trying to renew the contract through the Apple Store for over a month now. However, I initially signed up through the Swiss Apple Store, and that is the only store it will let me use.

The French Swiss store is broken, and will not work at all. The German Swss store works, but will only accept a Swiss credit card. Thankfully, I do have one, but for some obscure reason, it throws an “unexpected error” every time I try to use it. It won’t let me use my US Bank of America cards at all.

I’ve called and emailed Apple’s support team many times. Yet all they tell me is that they’ll forward it to some other team, which will (after waiting another week) email me proposing that I try “emptying my browser’s cache.”

I’m kind of unsure about what to do now. With every day that passes, I miss out on a substantial amount of money. Not only that, but not having the App in the Store causes many other problems, such as breaking links from my website, and more…

Today, after three whole months in review (seriously, I’m not making this up!), they decided to finally tackle the issue and issue me a rejection for no other reason other than “because we said so.”

See for yourself.

Please note, this is for iLaugh 1.1.1. iLaugh 2.0 is still in review, as a new application, and there’s no reason it should be rejected. In fact, the premium edition has already been approved and is already live on the App Store.

Speaking of iLaugh 2.0 – the first public screenshot ever:

The general question in all of these articles is: “Can an average guy become a successful iPhone developer?”. The answer depends on how you define success, and on that topic I can speak from my own experience.

If, to you, success means making a million bucks overnight you will most likely be unsuccessful. To me, success is defined as the return on my investment (both in time and money) on the project. In my previous article, I mentioned making somewhere around a hundred dollars a day on iLaugh. However, I didn’t mention how much I invested in the project.

The first version of iLaugh and its subsequent revisions took me very little time to create. I estimate that I invested between ten to twenty hours of my time to create iLaugh 1.0. At my asking rate of $100 per hour, that represents a $1,000 to $2,000 investment. The server running the first iteration of the iLaugh API cost me about $100 per month to maintain.

If you look at the numbers for iLaugh from previous months, I make over $3,000 monthly (for a total of over $8,000 so far). Thus, I consider it a success.

Many people, in response to my previous article, said that I too, was one of the lucky ones, albeit on a smaller scale. And while that may be true, considering the low quality of that first iteration of iLaugh, a more carefully crafted app would likely have done better.

I believe the potential for success is relative to the investment put into anything.

If you look at the familiar success stories, many of them involve reinvestment and good marketing. For instance, Tapulous hit the jackpot with their Tap Tap games. Being good friends with one of their employees, I know exactly how much work goes into their production.

Perhaps one of the most talked-about success stories is Trism. Its developer, Steve Demeter, made an insane $250,000 in just two months. What I believe is the key to Steve’s long-term success, is that instead of buying a fancy sports car, he reinvested his money into founding a sustainable business.

Part of reinvesting, and a facet of development often ignored, are things that a typical developer can’t do. Most importantly: design, copywriting and marketing. These are things that will most likely have to be outsourced. Developers are reluctant to do that, because it’s very costly, but in the end, ignoring it is going to cost them the popularity of their application.

I view iLaugh 1.x as a catalyst towards bigger and, hopefully, even more successful endeavors.

In fact, I have already put a big part of my (in comparison to the numbers above, quite mediocre) earnings into the second iteration of iLaugh. I’ve hired a bunch of people much more talented than I am in their respective fields, and iLaugh 2.0 is coming along really nicely. It will be entirely different and nearly incomparable to the first iteration. There are some very cool things coming.

So, responding to my initial question: “Can an average guy become a successful iPhone developer?”. Yes! An average developer can be successful in the App Store. But it takes hard work, a lot of time, money, and perseverance.

I have read your recent article entitled How to Block the DiggBar in which you argue that the the DiggBar is fundamentally evil. You then go on to show how you go out of your way to block traffic coming from a shortened Digg URL.

I’m all for calling out jackassery on the internet and am an avid reader of your RSS feed, in which you usually do a pretty good job of that. In fact, Daring Fireball is, according to NetNewsWire the feed I give most attention to. However, this specific article perturbs me in a number of ways.

Firstly, regarding the topic of the DiggBar itself, I disagree with you in that the DiggBar is the possibly very best possible implementation of that specific feature. I’ll be the first to agree with you that framing the content is not an ideal solution, but I fail to see a better one.

The DiggBar may have its fair share of flaws. It may or may not attribute to Digg some of the search engine ‘juice’ that is rightfully the publisher’s. However, it is important to note that Digg has denied this claim, and I, for one, believe them until proven wrong. It is also important to note that if it weren’t for Digg, the publisher wouldn’t receive the search engine ‘juice’ — or the traffic for that matter — in the first place.

I personally think they have done a pretty good job using the available technologies. The fact is that the DiggBar is primarily a tool for Digg users, and that for that purpose it is a very useful and both well-designed and well-engineered tool.

The second thing that troubles me about your article is how you go out of your way block Digg traffic, and by sharing the know-how encourage others to do so too.

This will certainly not be of any benefit to the publishers. In fact, it will most likely destroy any chance of them becoming popular on Digg. While I agree with you that average Digg users are of incontestably lower average quality than your average reader, it is widely agreed that just like any publicity is good publicity, any traffic is good traffic.

One definitely does not lose anything by letting Digg users use the DiggBar on one’s site. Blocking the DiggBar will only have two effects: to turn free traffic to one’s site into no traffic at all; and to ruin the experience of Digg user’s who’d like to use one of the site’s most attractive features in conjunction with one’s site.

Lastly, I also have a gripe with the tone of your article. I find it to be misleading in that it gives your opinion — a negative portrayal of Digg — and passes it off as fact. Your description of the DiggBar, for example, does not actually fully describe the DiggBar, but rather enumerates several negative facts concerning it. This immediately gives the reader a fully negative view of the DiggBar that it perhaps doesn’t deserve.

Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Ballenegger

GoDaddy is the corporate equivalent of a MOTHERFUCKING CUNT! No, Seriously!

And I totally mean that.

Today, they charged me close to $10 for the renewal of a domain I bought last year for one or two dollars for the purpose of setting up a site as a first of april prank.

Please note that I never agreed to renew the domain, and that with my usual registrar, I can drop domains just by letting them expire. Also, when I bought the domain with GoDaddy, I specifically used PayPal and chose the option to do a one-time payment, and not letting GoDaddy automatically charge me for anything, but it looks like that setting got ignored.

I already knew GoDaddy was evil, since they tried to upsell me tons of things when all I wanted to do was get a cheap domain, but now I know they actually steal people’s money.

A recent post by Marco Arment captured my attention.

The argument has been done to death the first season, no need to go over it again. But there’s a few things so fundamentally wrong with his argument that I have to call him out on it.

It’s the usual Phill Ryu publicity stunt that will result in a bunch of blog attention, a few developers selling licenses at very steep discounts, and a token charitable donation to downplay the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Ryu will likely walk away with.

Firstly, having worked with and for MacHeist personally, I can tell you first hand that it isn’t just a one-man show. There’s a much bigger team of Directorate, Coders, Designers and more, as you can see on their about page. Phill Ryu is best known as the public face of MacHeist, because it is his role. But by no means is it his own personal cash crop.

Secondly, specific numbers aside, donating 25% percent of revenues to charity is certainly not a “token donation.” A quarter of any revenue is not to be taken lightly. Now, granted it might be a marketing tool, but don’t let that negate the fact that charity does end up with a pretty huge donation in the end. MacHeist donated $500,000 last year, and this year looks like it might be getting a full million.

a previous MacHeist offered developers about $5,000 per application for sales that eventually grossed over $300,000

Now, this is just plain false. This is unconfirmed data and is based merely on rumors. It might very well have been the case, but do not parade it as fact, and do keep in mind that at the time a $5000 flat offer for an unknown business model that could very well end up in a flop was a pretty serious risk to take. The MacHeist guys did in fact claim that the numbers were much higher. Either way, this argument has gone back and forth enough the first season.

But the part that really gets on my nerves is this:

Their developers can tell themselves that it’s a good deal and it’s worth eating the discount to gain exposure.

We — and I say that as a developer who participated in a previous MacHeist bundle — are old enough to tell what’s good for us. What we especially don’t need is outsiders telling us we’re being ripped off. We’re running a serious business, and trust me when I say that we do not take such decisions lightly. What’s worse is that the person giving this argument is not even a Mac developer, according to his blog.

What you need to understand is that MacHeist is a business. We developers also run businesses. The keyword here is business. We don’t take these decisions on emotional value. We take these decisions because we judge that they will be beneficial to our businesses. We have to consider many things: The price of supporting and distributing thousands of licenses; (Please note that not all MacHeist sales actually mean an extra user for the developer. Many customers buy the bundle just for a specific app.) The actual (flat or percentage) monetary revenue we make out of it; The exposure we gain; The image this gives off the app.

Additionally, I’d like to prove this by giving the example of Gus Mueller. In the first season, he was offered a deal, which he declined, because he perceived it as a bad business decision. On the other head, he accepted the deal this time around with Acorn, because this time his perception of the new deal was different.

I have one thing to ask you, and that is not to believe when people tell you the developers are being ripped off. Rather make the decision to purchase the bundle on whether it has enough value for you to justify $39.

So, without further ado, the report, in all of its 6-page 2000+ word glory, is downloadable in pdf.

When you upload an iPhone application to the App Store through iTunes Connect, you’re presented with a few screens of information to fill in. First, there’s the screen where you put the Application’s description, category, and any other textual information about it.

Then there’s the screen where you upload the binary, the icon(s), and screenshots. And lastly there’s a screen to set the price. Unlike what I thought would be the case, you cannot chose a specific price. You get to chose from several price groups. A price group has a price in US Dollars, and a price in different currencies usually of a similar value. (For example, a $0.99 app in Switzerland is CHF 1.10)

At the top of this page, there is a little warning message that says you need a contract with Apple if you’re going to put up non-free apps. I did not pay too much attention to it, and the rest of the process seemed to go smoothly, eventually leading back to a page where I could see my app was “In Review”.

I was still slightly confused about this contract message, and decided to find out what it was about. I asked a few fellow developers, and found out that Apple would not sell my app until the contract was taken care of.

In iTunes Connect, there is a section on contracts, with a link to create a new contract. A contract is made of three parts; Contact Details, Banking Details and Tax Details.

• Contact Details

  This is very straightforward. I just had to fill in my full contact details. (Including physical address.)

• Banking Details

  This is slightly more complicated. I’m with one of the smaller Swiss banks, and I wanted to use this account for my App Store revenue.

  One of the things Apple requires is a SWIFT code. Luckily, I’m with a Swiss bank, and these tend to be very professional. I just had to give my bank a phone call, and I had my SWIFT code. However, after reading a recent topic on the MacSB mailing list, it appears to be very common for many of the smaller banks in the US and other countries not to have SWIFT codes. In which case you’re screwed and you’ll have to open a new account with a bank that has a SWFT code. (Apple recommends Bank of America.)

  Another thing required by Apple is the IBAN. International Bank Account Number. My bank informed me that they printed these on all the bank statements they issued. However, I didn’t have any bank statement around. It wasn’t too hard getting this number. Switzerland has a standardized way of building these numbers from your CB Number (Clearing Banquaire - this is what we call Branch IDs) and your account number. A handy little script I found on the web would take this info and convert it into an IBAN. (I later found one of my Bank statements, and the IBAN generated did indeed match the one on the statement).

  Apple also asked for the Branch ID (I put my CB number for this) and account number, and another number called the SIC / Short Code. I researched it a bit, and it looks like I didn’t need it. I just left that field blank.

• Tax Details

  This is where it gets nasty. Note that this is not an Apple thing, this is government tax regulation. Apple provides an online version of the government form W-8BEN. It seems I am not obligated to fill this form in, but if I don’t, Apples keeps another 30% of my revenue as anticipated taxes. This, with the 30% commission they take from every sale, leaves me with only 49% of my gross sales. (70% * 70% = 49%)

  This form is extremely cryptic, and I filled it in to the best of my knowledge. This, however, wasn’t enough for Apple. The form complained about missing information. It’s only then that I realized that Apple provides a handy tip sheet explaining how to fill the form in, and what are the most common answers.

  With this information, I was able to understand and fill in most of the form. Except for one field: Taxpayer Identification Number. Since I’m not a US resident (although I’m eligible for citizenship by blood, and plan to apply soon), I did not have this information. Apple’s tip sheet luckily had a small paragraph regarding this. An EIN (Employer Identification Number) would do. To get an EIN, I had to download another form entitled SS-4.

  This form was even more cryptic than the previous one. It is obviously made for more traditional companies, and had questions asking how many employees I have in different field, how much wages I paid them, where and when my company was incorporated, and a bunch of other tax-related questions. It also asked a few things I couldn’t fill in, such as my SSN (Social Security Number - I don’t have one). I phoned the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) - the government entity I had to submit the form to - and it turned out this field wasn’t necessary. In response to the question “Check one box that best describes the principal activity of your business”, there of course wasn’t anything about technology. I had to tick “Other (specify)” and enter “Royalties”.

  There is three way you can submit the form. Firstly, you can do it the traditional way of mailing it by post. But this would take a minimum of 4 weeks. Second way would be by fax, but this would also take at least 1 week. The third way is actually pretty clever. You fax while you’re on the phone.

  Problem: my phone and my fax are on the same phone line. Meaning I can’t do both at the same time. I do have a cellphone, but phoning oversees for a good half hour at least from a cellphone would be so outrageously expensive it didn’t make any sense. Luckily, I though of a brilliant idea, and opened a Skype Out account. The audio quality wasn’t very good, but at least it worked. After another hour of phoning, I finally had my EIN and could submit the W-8BEN form to Apple.

Everything seems to be in order as of now. My app is still in review, but expect it in the app store soon.

• Customs officers are assholes

  They have a boring job. They watch people walk through customs all day long. When they have a chance to demonstrate their “power” over people, and annoy people, they’ll do the best they can to have some fun annoying you.

• Air France & Pepsi = cheap!

  Air France recently decided to switch from serving Coca Cola to serving Pepsi when you ask for “Coke”. This is a cheap move on their part and is going to hurt their reputation as one of the airlines with the best in-flight food. Everyone knows that Pepsi tastes like liquid horse shit.

• Paris CDG airport shuttles are a failure.

  Specifically the shuttles that take you from the plane to the airport. They are often overly full, and using shuttle busses is a bad idea. Yesterday I was nearly crushed by a Boeing 737 when the shuttle driver was about to cross in front of a plane. Thankfully he realized his mistake and immediately reversed out of the way, and we waited for two planes to pass before we could go.

  I missed a chance to make it to front page news.

• Food

  Air France has damn nice food. There is a choice between two usually good-tasting main courses. With every meal comes some nice French food, such as a Croissant or Camembert cheese.

  However, my last flight today was with South African Airways, and their food is an abomination. There’s no choice. My meal was cold. There were next to no additional food apart from some not-so-good-tasting bread and butter. The meal itself was so bad I couldn’t even finish it.

• Airports should stop using Windows. Really.

  Saving the best for last. Sorry about crappy image quality. Not easy taking neat pictures while sprinting backwards.

  
  

Update: one thing I forgot to mention:

• There are no row 13.

  I was bemused by the fact that the plane I was on lacked a row 13. I sat on row 14, and it took me a while to figure out where my seat was. The number-tag for row 14 was scratched off, so row 12 was followed by an unmarked row and row 15.

I haven’t posed here in more than a month, because a month and a half ago I suddenly found myself without a computer. The local power utility company, Eskom, burnt my motherboard down. I have already posted about how much Eskom sucks in the past, so I will not elaborate on that.

So my Mac was broken, just when the 1 year warranty was over. I sent it in for repairs, at a local Apple Certified repairs place. They quoted me for nearly R10’000 (That’s about $1500). After a month of nothing being done, I decided to just buy a new Mac, instead of bothering repairing that one. I bought a new iMac 20” 2.66GHz, and switched the RAM and the Hard Disk from the old one. I am now back online, with a brand-new computer, and I shall be updating this blog more often now.

The real reason for this post, though, is to announce my new site. I have had this idea in mind for a long time, and I really needed a site that could serve as my identity hub. By that, I mean a page that links to my main profiles around the internet: This blog, my company site, my deviantArt profile, my Twitter account, my last.fm profile, and lastly my Facebook profile.

Introducing kenneth.ballenegger.com!

I have to say I’m pretty proud of this design.

Here’s a short video of the main design steps & decision that went into this site: