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Because iFarting is serious business
We were just fine with letting this story dissipate right into the air like so many bad smells, as it's not exactly the most impressive thing to ever happen in the App Store. But in the interests of completionism, we'll bring it to you anyway. First, there were two apps that made fart noises, called Pull My Finger and iFart. Then, there was allegedly some inappropriate twittering (and shady iPhone reviewing -- we seriously doubt that tons of people want to give five stars to an app about MC Hammer), $50,000 of damages were requested, a "Social Media Expert" (read: "tool") got angry, and eventually a lawsuit was filed, and now every blog and website everywhere is posting that two apps about flatulence are suing each other. Like we said, not the story out of the App Store that we're most proud to report. But Apple did get mixed up in all of this early on -- Gizmodo reports that the Mothership was approached for a solution, and that it was decided to let the devs fight it out. Maybe if Apple had said early on that applications on the App Store had to do a little more than make fart noises (or that there was already enough farting going on in the store -- what do those other 29 apps have to do with any of this?), the iPhone wouldn't now be known as the premiere device for farting. But we suppose there's money to be had -- someone out there is buying either or both of these idiotic apps, and as a result, both of these guys are willing to go to court over software that reproduces the sound of passing gas in the hopes of getting even more money, despite the fact that you can simulate the same effect with the human armpit. Can we cut the lawsuits and get to producing some actual software for the platform, please?
Rank and sales data could help figure out App Store popularity algorithm
Joel Comm, publisher of the highly-useful app iFart Mobile, has published some data about how sales related to popularity in the App Store. While I have only a high-school understanding of statistics, it would appear from Comm's data that as sales rise in a linear fashion, App Store ranking increases (or I should say decreases, because lower numbers are better) logarithmically. Comm admits that his data isn't carefully tabulated: he hand-counted the sales, as they're broken down by country, and says he didn't include countries "where one or two units were sold." Comm's data was collected between December 12th and 17th. On Sunday's talkcast, the Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry and Gedeon Maheux lamented the lack of analysis tools for sales, and said they'd appreciate more transparency about how rankings are mathematically determined. Comm anticipates more data will be forthcoming from other developers. With more data, a more detailed statistical analysis can be performed, and preferably from someone other than a TUAW blogger who majored in art.
