Please note the date on this post. Read our more recent posts on the iPhone for more up-to-date information.
I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed the discussion we’ve been having about the upcoming iPhone SDK (due out next month) and Laridian’s plans with respect to a native iPhone app. I want to clarify a few points and let you know what the future holds with respect to the iPhone and iPocketBible.
Our position from the beginning has been that we’re neither going to commit to a native iPhone app nor refuse to do one until we see the SDK. Some of you interpreted my comments about not doing a native app in the present (that is, before the SDK is released) to imply that we’re not going to do one in the future (that is, after the SDK is released). This is not a valid assumption.
I admit I’ve probably been egging you on a little bit. I love a good discussion but I want people to make sound arguments. I’ve been defending the “no native apps” position more strongly here on the blog than I actually hold to in person in order to see if I can get you to give me some better arguments in favor of native apps. While playing devil’s advocate, I’ve always been careful to clarify that I’m not saying we’d never do a native app, but for those who don’t always read to the end of my comments before firing off a response, you got the impression that we’re pretty entrenched.
So here’s where we really stand: We’re not going to make a decision about a native iPhone app until we see the SDK and have time to study it. If you got the impression our minds were already made up, you got the wrong impression. To the extent that I gave you that impression, it’s either the case that you misread what I wrote or that I didn’t write as clearly as I thought. I would apologize for the latter if I didn’t strongly suspect the former was the real problem. 
Furthermore, we won’t announce our decision about a native iPhone app one way or the other until well after the SDK is released. Don’t expect a comment the next day saying that we’re definitely working on a native app. Don’t assume that we’re not working on a native app if you don’t hear anything from us. Don’t assume that we are working on a native app if we refuse to say one way or the other. Don’t expect us to announce the fact that we’ve decided not to do a native iPhone app, even if we have.
If we decide to develop a native iPhone app, the chances are good that we won’t say anything about it until it’s ready for beta testing. If we decide not to develop a native iPhone app, we won’t say so because there’s always a chance we’ll change our mind. We don’t want to chase people away who might otherwise wait for an app to come from us instead of going to a competitor.
Don’t expect a native app (if we decide to do such a thing) to appear a week or a month or maybe even six months after the SDK is released. All good things take time. During that time we will be neither confirming nor denying that the work is underway. Yeah, it’s frustrating, but that’s how it goes.
In the meantime, the best thing you can do to encourage us to develop a native iPhone app is to purchase the iPocketBible subscription service. This might seem counterproductive if you’re really dead-set on getting a native app, but the only gauge we have of your interest in an iPhone app is sales of iPocketBible subscriptions. If interest drops off, then why would we want to invest $100K or more in developing an app for a non-existent audience?
I’ve deleted the most active blog post on this topic in an effort to bring the discussion to an end. We’ve heard all the arguments. Some of them were good. We’ll weigh them all as we consider what we do next. We just won’t necessarily be sharing that decision with the world until it’s in our interest to do so.
Brett,
Perhaps I should’ve used a winking smiley
instead of a smiling smiley 
I understand what you meant and was making a joke.
Not sure why you bought an iPod Touch if you don’t have WiFi, but that’s a different blog.
Doh! I should have gotten that…
I do have WiFi most everywhere but not in some of the quiet places that I like to read and study or on the road (not when driving). Plus the iPod isn’t compatible with the wireless at work where I like to read on lunch break. It’s great at home and lots of other spots just not enough for me to be interested in a subscription web app of any sort.
As a subscriber to iPocketBible, I would add my vote for a native app. The main reason is when I’m out and about, using AT&T’s Edge Network is slow, and a native app should considerably increase the speed at which I access my resources.
Having said that, I’ve got to hand it to you, Craig and crew, when I abandoned my PocketPC and the whole Windows platform for that matter, I thought my Laridian resources were gone, but you made a way for me to get them back. Thank you.
So, you want a good argument for developing the iPhone? Well, I’m a customer, and I will be purchasing the first native Bible app that exists for the iPhone. That’s the only argument that should really mean anything – customer demand.
I use the Laridian MyBible product on my Treo 650 all the time – often in buildings that have poor reception. The native app is the only thing I’m interested in.
As far as your statement about purchasing the subscription to let you know I’m interested in a native iPhone app – I find that basically ridiculous for two reasons:
1) I’m waiting for a native Bible app for the iPhone before I purchase an iPhone!
2) I don’t want to pay a subscription for something that should be a one time purchase, so I will not be purchasing a subscription, yet I definitely would purchase a reasonably priced native app – go figure.
Personally, I think whoever creates a decent native app for the iPhone will have a big first mover’s advantage.
P.S. Please move the “anti-spam word” above the submit button. The submit button was the lowest thing I saw and I clicked it and got an unhelpful error. I had to hit the back button, and then scroll down to see the anti-spam word.
If you read the article you know we’re not looking for good arguments for developing for the iPhone. We’ve heard them all. And we’ve heard the bad arguments, too. But thanks just the same.
Obviously if you don’t have an iPhone or another Web-enabled phone for which our Bible software isn’t available it would be foolish to buy the iPocketBible.com subscription.
Being first in a market is important, but it doesn’t guarantee success. You’ve probably never heard of the product that was the first Bible software for Windows CE (aka Windows Mobile or Pocket PC), for example.
Obviously I wouldn’t by software for a device I don’t own yet, but thanks for pointing that out.
You may have missed my point that your method of measuring demand for the native iPhone app via increased subscriptions is quite flawed, and since you’re probably a smart person and realize that, it comes off as pitch to increase sales.
There’s nothing wrong with that – a CEO should be a good sales person, but that doesn’t mean it’s not insulting.
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter; either you’ll develop a native Bible app for the iphone or you won’t. I’m just hoping someone does because I’d like to get an iPhone, but I won’t until something like MyBible exists for it.
I didn’t miss your point, I just chose not to enter into an argument about whether or not it’s a flawed method of measuring demand.
But since you brought it up, the logic is this:
We have to pay for the cost of development of the iPhone app somehow. The most logical way to pay is by selling copies of the finished product to people who own iPhones and are interested in using them to study the Bible. There are two problems with that. First, we don’t know how many of those people there are, so we can’t determine if there’s enough sales revenue potential to cover our cost of development. Second, we don’t know who those people are, so we can’t communicate with them to tell them we have a native app.
One good way to find the answers to both of these questions is to turn to our list of iPocketBible.com subscribers. If we figure that some fairly high percentage of those people would pay some reasonable price for a native iPhone app, it gives us the beginning of a development budget.
Of course we know there will be people like you who haven’t subscribed but who are our customers already, so we can add to that budget some percentage of our existing non-iPocketBible.com customer base. We also know there are people who are not currently our customers, but who own iPhones and will somehow find out about our product. So we can add some fraction of the total number of iPhone owners to our budget.
Those three groups constitute our potential customer list for a native iPhone app, and they are listed in order of most responsive to least responsive. That is, we can be sure that the current iPocketBible subscribers will be the most likely to purchase a native app. They have an iPhone. They already understand how their existing Laridian books and Bibles are transferable to a new platform. They’ve been using the iPhone for Bible study and have some idea of how valuable that is. Our existing Laridian customer base is our second most likely group of purchasers. They’re familiar with us and trust us, but the vast majority of them do not own iPhones. So their response rate will be markedly less than the iPocketBible subscribers. Finally, the general population will make up the third group. There are a lot of iPhone owners among them but they are very difficult for us to find without spending lots and lots of money on advertising. They will ultimately probably constitute the majority of our native-app customers, but they will be the most expensive to obtain.
With all of that in mind we can establish a budget. If we had 10,000 subscribers and figured 90% of them would spend, say, $10 for a native app, that’s $90,000. If we have 100,000 other customers and figure 1% of those own iPhones (remember they are our customers because they own some other PDA/smartphone other than iPhone, otherwise they’d be iPocketBible subscribers and be counted above) that’s another $10,000. We can’t be sure how many of those there are because unless they already own a subscription to iPocketBible.com there’s no way to know they have an iPhone or that they would buy one if Bible software were available for it.
Of course I’m making up numbers and I’m making them intentionally different from reality (higher, lower, both, or neither) so as to not reveal any proprietary information.
In addition to sales to existing customers there’d also be a contribution from those who are new customers as a result of us releasing a native app. The problem there is that we often have to spend more money acquiring a customer than we receive from them in the initial sale. But we can probably add something for those who just wander into the site or who hear about us from other users. It’s just hard to say how much to add for those.
As you can see from this analysis, you are “invisible” to us. You say you’ll buy an iPhone if Bible software were available for it. As we look at our customer list, there’s no way for us to know you’re there. On the other hand, when we look at the iPocketBible.com subscriber list, it’s abundantly evident that those people are using iPhones (or other Web-enabled devices — but for now the service works best on iPhone and is being advertised only to iPhone users).
While my original comments didn’t go into this much detail, that’s what I was getting at. That is, current subscribers are the most likely bunch to buy a native app so the more of them there are, the more likely we’ll see we have the budget to do the work. Not only is it not “quite flawed”, it’s impeccably logical.
My answer to this is simple. Since I already own MyBible for Palm, and already paid for it with lots of extra modules, and I enjoy the speed and convenience of the native app, I will stick with it until the native version for iPhone comes out, even though it is inconvenient to use two devices in the interim.
I think many people will be in a similar mindset.
Assuming you’re carrying a Palm and a phone, you can migrate to one device right now. Just get a smartphone that runs the Palm OS and you can use MyBible on your phone.
I agree that there are certainly more people than just you who think like you do and are waiting for more applications for the iPhone before moving. There are, however, several other important considerations that could limit the migration. These include:
Etc.
So I don’t know how big a group that is. In any case as I said in my previous comment, we understand that if a native version of PocketBible were available for iPhone, there are people who would choose that time to make the switch to the iPhone, or to choose to buy it for the iPhone they already own.