The First $1000 iPhone Application

It doesn't do much of anything! It's kind of expensive! And it's available now!

By  |  Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 4:16 pm

iPhone developer Armin Heinrich has released an application for the iPhone with two noteworthy characteristics:

1) Its primary function is to display a handsome glowing red jewel on your iPhone’s screen:

2) It sells on Apple’s App Store for $999.99, thereby explaining its name: I Am Rich:

(Okay, it does have one other feature: If you touch the “i” in the lower right-hand corner, you get “a secret mantra…[which] may help you to stay rich, healthy, and successful.” Unless Heinrich decides to hand out reviewer’s copies of I Am Rich, I may never learn what that mantra is.)

Heinrich, incidentally, also sells an iPhone calculator app which, at $4.99, most likely appeals to a wider, less well-heeled audience.

Apple’s policy for approving or rejecting iPhone apps has been a bit fuzzy: It keeps approving and unapproving Nullriver’s NetShare tethering utility, and pulled the seemingly innocuous Box Office movie info app. It seems possible that whatever person or automated system put I Am Rich on the App Store was asleep at the proverbial wheel. But if I it stays up–and I have to confess that the jokester in me kinda-sorta hopes it does–one thing’s clear: Practical jokes are acceptable.

At first, all this reminded me of the days when lots of wiseacres put stuff on eBay ranging from babies to kidneys to pieces of space station Mir to their own souls. The auctions sometimes got bids in the thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of dollars; eBay tended to look askance at such hijinks, and shut down the sales as quickly as it could. But those auctions differed from Heinrich’s offering in at least two crucial ways: The items in question were usually illegal or impossible to sell, and  “bids” were clearly pranks that eBay would never have enforced.

Heinrich’s app. on the other hand, is real and seemingly clearly explained, and the App Store presumably automatically charges your credit card once you agree to buy it. Wonder if anyone who isn’t rich has been silly and/or bold enough to make the purchase?

(Via Daring Fireball’s John Gruber on Twitter.)

Further thought: Other than me, most of the people who are blogging about this seem to think it’s an obnoxious travesty, and possibly insulting to iPhone developers who are trying to sell real apps. The non-jokester in me see the point. Betcha it gets pulled down–if nothing else, the hassle of dealing with anyone who “accidentally” buys it isn’t worth the pain for Apple…and neither is the distraction from all the useful, worth-the-money iPhone apps out there.

Further further thought @ 8:19pm: Hey, let’s conduct a poll!

Further further thought @ 4:26pm on 8/6: I Am Rich is now missing from the App Store. Big surprise!

 
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30 Comments For This Post

  1. monkeystick Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    I thought a friend of mine was kidding when he told me about this app..

  2. bud Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    I have heard that the Rotten Tomatoes App being pulled was not Apples Choice, but the app authors choice, to perform an upgrade (I think the app has been renamed, for whatever reason)

    But that raises another possible issue.. if a developer changes the name of their App, I suppose that by default pulls the earlier version under another name, from ever being upgraded. If a developer did not want to you to upgrade for no charge, but to buy again (if the app has a price) they just rename it. And possibly lose any publicity they had built up however.

  3. dcato33 Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    This is genius – seriously – this is free enterprise at it’s best – click off a few of those, there’s a down payment on that BMW.

  4. JazzMan Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    I’m so glad the powers that be at Apple decided that this I Am Rich farce of an App is worth putting in its store and NetShare isn’t.

    I mean who needs a practical App for using your iPhone as a modem when you can have a glowing useless gem on your iPhone for $1000.

    I think Apple arrogance and cocki-ness needs to be put in check. What’s Apple’s cut on the sale of a $1000 App?

    Yes, I’m grumpy.

  5. toby johnson Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 9:28 pm

    You forgot an option on your poll: “Wish I would have thought of this first”. Just like MillionDollarHomepage.com.

    Of course, I’m sure that it will also attract a slew of copycats as well. If it doesn’t get yanked, we’ll soon see “I’m Rich Too” apps selling for $500, then $100….

  6. Mark Carey Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 5:21 am

    This app is genius way to bring free publicity to the developer. A smart move, I bet sales of his calculator app have already spiked. It’s kinda like link bait. Heck, technologizer took the bait! 😉

  7. Robert Rademacher Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 6:43 am

    Damn…I wish I have developed that “5 minutes quickie” fool’s gold application and rack in their useless gold easily.

    The “I’m Rich” developer is very creative and ingenuity, as well as did a find job mocking AppStore’s approval process.

    Robert

  8. Sam B Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 8:08 am

    A fiver says the “secret mantra which may help you to stay rich, healthy, and successful” is “Stop buying crap like this”.

  9. Brent Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 8:46 am

    to pay $1,000 for a bottle of great wine is crazy, But I would do it, but this…please don’t indulge this person’s marketing ability to entice the people that have money to just blantanly pay just to prove that they can!

  10. Dub Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 8:48 am

    Isn’t the point of a marketplace to have ridiculous extremes? The travesty of the Apps Store is that Apple is watching over it at all. Yes a case can be made for ensuring stable applications but after that it should be anything goes.

  11. Anonymous Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    http://rapidshare.com/files/135373203/IAmRich.ipa.html
    Not cracked tho

  12. American Male Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    Apple just removed this app from their online store.

  13. Michael S. Copeland Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

    I personally think this is a genius idea. Hell if people want it, and have the money, they can get it. It reminds me a lot of http://www.blingh2o.com/. It’s more of a status symbol than anything else. I wonder what the $10,000 iPhone app will do?

  14. Joe Schmo Says:
    August 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    If you right click the pic above you can save it to iphoto, then sync it to your phone and use it as a wallpaper. All your friends will think you bought it. Ha Ha Ha.

  15. MarcosV. Says:
    August 10th, 2008 at 7:23 pm

    I think I’ll write a “I’m a Billionairre” app that costs $1 million dollars. Heck, I’d only have to sell one of them.

  16. iPhoneCrazy Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 8:46 am

    That’s crazy but hey, aren’t there enough fools to download it just to prove that they can! 🙂 Please, don’t be one of them…
    Better go to Pikaba.com and win a free iPhone 3g.

  17. chishmishdeez Says:
    September 23rd, 2008 at 10:40 am

    I will give u mantra for FREE: Dont become poor by $999…..

  18. Music Fan Says:
    September 30th, 2008 at 4:44 am

    Great application, but nobody will buy it 🙂

  19. Mr. Nobody Says:
    October 18th, 2008 at 4:37 am

    First the phone was a rip and now the apps for it is an even bigger joke. Good Luck to apple and its business model.

  20. DJDanone Says:
    April 20th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    This app plays to a market niche of which most of the posters here can not relate with. By adding a high price tag, the creator of this app was banking on exclusivity as well as on a superstitious, “law of attraction” market niche of wealthy, self-made individuals. And this niche does exist, I have seen them. $1,000 for a hand held mantra reminded them they are successful, wealthy, or fabulous actually seems feasible to me. And he will need to have a high price, because the sheer size of the niche is much smaller in comparison to the mainstream. I applaud the boldness and creativity of this application. Just because you are not the customer of a business, does not mean it does not have its niche.

  21. British Boy Says:
    September 1st, 2009 at 2:32 am

    My friend who has a private jet bought this and he always boasts about it….

  22. Geoff Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    The “I am Rich” app is currently £0.59, which is around $0.99. By the looks of it, its the same glowing jewel and the same guy that made it.

  23. Capitalism at its finest Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 9:06 pm

    Ahhh capitalism at its finest indeed. I think it’s incredibly inteligent. Finally someone had the brains to prey on the rich. Why is everyone so upset? Did he take your $1000? If he did, your a moron and you deserve it. Get over it people. The guy clearly stated in the app description what it was about and what it did. They all knew what they were buying and so what if he made a few hundred thousand. Props to him

  24. Sid Says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 10:33 pm

    $1000, are you kidding me? I also wish them luck trying to get average Joe’s to buy this.

  25. iPhone Apps Says:
    June 15th, 2010 at 6:41 am

    Honestly, this is brilliant. The ultimate status symbol app for iPhone owners. While I am very surprised it made it past the iPhone app approval process, I think Apps like this deserve a place in the appstore along all of the others.

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27 Trackbacks For This Post

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