Despite facing competition from thousands of other developers, Slide and RockYou have managed to establish themselves as powerhouses on Facebook’s application platform. Using a combination of social networking and clever (and sometimes shady) marketing, both companies have seen several of their applications rise to popularity in a space where the vast majority of developers fail to have even one success.
Tapulous, a new startup that formed earlier this year, is looking to do the same on Apple’s new app store, which is expected to launch this Friday. The company has accrued a stockpile of finished programs and a team of developers hoping to release new apps on a weekly basis. To conincide with the launch, Tapulous will be releasing three applications, with more on the way over the coming weeks.
The company consists of a team of “all-star” app developers, some of whom have been working on iPhone apps since long before the launch of the SDK. These developers have brought their apps with them, giving Tapulous a significant headstart against many of its competitors (they currently have six on the backburner). For the time being each app will operate independently, but Tapulous intends to build a social network on the iPhone by connecting them together at a later date.
The apps that will be part of Fridays launch are Twinkle, Tap Tap Revenge, and Friend Book. Twinkle is a Twitter client that includes geo-location information along with every Tweet. The client is also effectly a Twitter clone, as it will run over its own network whenever Twitter’s service is down.
Tap Tap Revenge is a rebranded version of the game Tap Tap Revolution, a popular app that has been used by over 700,000 users on “jailbroken” (i.e. hacked) iPhones - a huge number given the fact that many people have not jailbroken their phones.
Friend Book is a revamped address book that hopes to replace the standard app that comes with the iPhone. The app’s coolest feature is a “Handshake” that allows colleagues to exchange their information by placing their iPhones side-by-side and shaking them together (it sounds weird, but it’s actually pretty impressive).
Tapulous has raised $1.8 million in angel funding, with a slew of investors that include Andy Bechtolsheim, Marc Benioff, Rajeev Motwani, Katrina Garnett, and Jeff Clavier. The Tapulous team consists of Bart Decrem (co-founder of Flock), Andrew Lacy, and Mike Lee (Delicious Library).
Awesome, great that Mike Lee is doing well, he’s a great guy that really does great things for Lemurs all over, everyone should join Club Thievey!
I find it interesting that you’ve compared Tapulous to Slide and RockYou, as both companies have come under fire for violating Facebook’s TOS in their applications. Does this mean that Tapulous apps may without warning vanish from the App Store because of privacy concerns?
On a more serious note, Twinkle sounds intriguing. I’ll have to look forward to comparing it with the iPhone version of Twitterific. I don’t think that hosting tweets on their own network will work that great, unless they can automatically transfer them to Twitter once the infamously unstable site returns to normal.
I don’t see that much point in using Friend Book, especially if it’s meant to be a direct replacement to the Contacts app already in place. Unless it directly integrates with the iPhone’s contacts database (which I have no doubt it does), it pretty much isn’t worth anything. Honestly, I don’t really see much need to instantly share friend’s contact information, as I can just get it from Facebook in most cases (or I’ll just ask for it - much more personal).
Tap Tap Revenge. No comment on this one. I’d rather use my iPhone for productivity rather than gaming, but I’m sure that at least one person out there will enjoy having this on the App Store.
Awaiting 8 AM on Friday…
How will they make money?
priced apps ?
psst- it’s Jeff Clavier ;), not calvier.
Thanks Judson, fixed
@john Friend Book is billed as a “super address book”. If you’re satisfied with the default contacts app, that’s cool, but a lot of people are champing at the bit for more power, and that’s where Friend Book comes in
Videos of Friend Book and Tap Tap Revenge on the Tapulous blog (http://tapulous.com/blog/). The Friend Book contact transfer technique is interesting but frankly I’d be wary of shaking 2 iPhones held together since each costs $400.
700,000? C’mon Mike, you can’t possibly believe there’s any real-world justification for that number. There aren’t even 700k jailbroken iPhones out there.
there are far more jailbroken phones than 700k. jailbreak app developers have been able to track unique downloads by the phone. i’ve heard 1.5 million jailbroken iPhones and iTouches.
There are more than 700k jailbroken phones.
Go Bart! The Stealth Mode was awesome. How did it stay so quiet for so long?