Lyons: Profitability of iPhone apps

 From August 2006 to July 2008, Dan Lyons published the amusing blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs writing as "Fake Steve Jobs" or just "FSJ".  After over a year of people incorrectly guessing the identity of Fake Steve Jobs, Brad Stone of the New York Times finally figured out that FSJ was Lyons, who at the time was a writer Forbes.  Lyons wrote a humorous book under his Fake Steve Jobs name called Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs - A Parody.  This fictional story talks of Fake Steve Jobs dealing with the very real stock options backdating scandal that ended the careers of corporate executives and in-house counsel at many companies, including Apple.  (By the way, if you are reading this and you are inside counsel for a corporation, consider taking a look at the white paper that I co-authored last year for the Association of Corporate Counsel describing liability risks faced by corporate counsel including options backdating issues.)

A few months ago, and as a result of his FSJ fame, Lyons was offered the position of chief technology correspondent for Newsweek.  That position had previously been held by Steven Levy, who left to become a full time writer for Wired magazine.  Levy is one of my all-time favorite technology writers, and I love the book he wrote about the history of the iPod called The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness.  It would be great if someone who is as good a researcher and writer as Levy wrote a similar insider's tale on the history of the iPhone.  Given the success of the iPhone, I suspect that someone will.

That is a lot of background for today's post, but with Christmas around the corner I thought this would be a good time to recommend both of these books as gifts for the Apple enthusiast in your life.  They are both short but very enjoyable reads, especially Levy's book on the making of the iPod.  And they are inexpensive enough that they also make great gifts for yourself.  (Full disclosure:  if you buy something from Amazon using the links to Amazon that I sometimes place on iPhone J.D., Amazon gives me a very small referral fee, which helps to defray the costs of running this site.)

But the real reason for my post today is to point out that the current issue of Newsweek includes an interesting article by Dan Lyons about how some iPhone programmers are making a lot of money, even though most iPhone apps are really cheap, virtually all in the $1 to $10 range (if not free).  This is great because it only serves to encourage more smart people to create more great iPhone apps, something that benefits us all.  The Newsweek article is a good, quick read, and if you enjoy reading iPhone J.D., I think you will enjoy the latest article from Lyons as well.