We’ve reported in the past on how Apple has not only been late on payments to iPhone app developers, but has also neglected to pay some developers for their app sales at the store entirely. We thought that perhaps our post might call Apple’s attention to the problem. Apparently, developers complaints have gone unheard at Apple and now they are so upset that some of them are threatening to sue Apple for breach of contract.
As we wrote earlier, Apple’s delay in payments is affecting some developers but not all of them. Some are being paid but other developers are claiming no payment from Apple for sales and continued poor customer support from Apple. You can read the complaints on the developer forums here and here.
Apple’s contract, which is embedded below, says that payment will be made to developers within 45 days of the end of the month. Developers are claiming that there are massive delays in payments for as early as last fall and are not being paid the amount of money that the developers are in fact due from sales. One developer, who hasn’t been paid since November 2008, forwarded us an email chain between Apple’s App Store finance team and himself. An Apple employee, who was responding to the developers complaints, wrote that the developer’s continued emails about the late payments was “bordering on harassment,” and claimed that the finance team receives thousands of emails a day and couldn’t get to his right away. Another developer on the forum says that he hasn’t been paid since September and is owed close to $7000 for sales.
It’s not clear how serious these threats are. After all, it is a forum and it’s a lot easier to vent and make empty legal threats in an anonymous forum. But it appears that despite the media reports, developer complaints, emails, and calls surrounding the delays in payments, Apple has not corrected its system at all. It’s definitely cause to wonder what is going on with Apple. Didn’t Apple just post its best second quarter earnings in the history of the company? We also recently wrote about Apple’s seemingly unfair refund policy, which puts developers at a clear disadvantage. And Apple owes a lot to iPhone app developers-the App store just reached 1 billion app downloads thanks to those very same savvy developers who have created useful and creative apps.
As we wrote in the past, Apple is in danger of alienating developers and giving them reasons why they shouldn’t be developing for the iPhone (on the forums, a few developers said they may even give up on the App store)—namely, they’re at the mercy of Apple, which is making a habit of taking its developers for granted.
iPhone app contract – Get more Information Technology
Apple being Apple. They tholimk they can do whatever they want.
> They tholimk
using the iPhone keyboard, eh?
Actually yes I was and also trying to wrap it up quickly because my class was starting.
and they should sue
Is it so hard to payout no less than 45 days after a sale happens? This is ridiculous on Apple’s part. A lot of these guys are one man shops and have families to take care of.
Didn’t the Android 1.5 SDK just come out…. hmmmmm
Apple is not approving media apps for a variety of reasons, and my business is pretty much out of cash. Trying to make a platform, like Kyte, that embeds media is proving to be a problem not so much technically, but business wise.
If Apple is threatened by applications that contain music because they fee that iTunes will suffer, what does that say about developing new products. With the database back end all we need to do is create the application platform that runs on Android. Not a big problem.
This is getting f-ing ridiculous!
Its only a very small amount of developers have not been paid. May be less than 10. I am not sure what is the fuss about it
If you provided a service or product, then signed a contract that stipulated payment within a certain time frame, then payments that were to be made to you were never made, it is an issue, no? No matter how big or how small, an injustice is an injustice..
Only 10? Unlikely. I haven’t been paid in about 4 months. I think it’s more like 10 people who *have* been paid on time.
If you were one of those “Maybe less than 10″, I’m sure you’d be upset too… Especially if you were one of those less than 10 that didn’t get paid $7k … That’s not an amount to sneeze at when you’re a one man show on a budget.
well if it’s only less then 10 then it should be very very easy to fix!
BTW I am in the same boat. Not getting payed from January .oh and they owe me A LOT more than 7000 $. I give them another month ,but next month I will sue them for sure if I don’t get payed.
Well I am sure its more than 10 people, it just happen that some of them are more vocal and have vent in some forums. But they probably represent a large number of silent one.
From what Ive seen also they dont seem to have a clear pattern about why those developers didn’t get paid. Some of them are in US based, some in other European country.
Can definetly confirm this.
Apple is really bad at paying, but they don’t tell us devs why. Money can’t be the problem for them.
So what?
Incompetence. And hubris combined with a cone of silence that refuses to admit there’s a problem to be fixed.
I bet Apple didn’t think through the back-end processes and systems fully enough to keep the tracking straight and/or insufficient staffing levels to address and fix the problem.
So you’re saying it could be a problem, but maybe not?
This is definitely a problem. I enjoy apple products but this is just bad business, and is not respecting a contract, which is inexcusable on a huge company’s part.
It’s not that hard to pay the developers! DO IT
Something that I’ve noticed is that when I was selling only in the US and Canada regions, payments and reports were always on time, and usually within 15-20 days of the month closing. Since we’ve opened up our apps to world wide sales, the reports seem to be taking much longer.
For example, I have yet to receive March’s report, where previously I would have received it by last week (or so). I had it timed fairly well, even on my calendar, when to expect the report, and then the payment.
The difference could be the sheer volume of Apps that have to be reported on, or the fact that they’re now reporting on that many more countries for me (and everyone else selling outside the US, which seems to be most of us).
Bear in mind that the reports and payments have become delayed in the last ~three months: I think it’s coincidental that you noticed longer reporting periods following worldwide distribution
Apple: greedy monopolists, even not paying for what they owe.
to james
that greedy monopolists comments is borne of ignorance. It is a logistical nightmare to get royalties paid out in the print world and you get your money no sooner than 90 days after they close the books; 45 is an improvement
With over 1 billion apps served up, I think that Apple can (and should) hire enough people that it’s NOT a nightmare. All of their records are digital, they know how many downloads per app, per region, they know how much each app sold for, they know the cut each developer gets. There’s no reason they couldn’t have a computer system spit out the checks for them.
Joe, it is NOT a logistical nightmare. Where I live (Europe) payment within 30 days is the law.
Of course there are always some publications which deliberately delay payment. I do not work for any of those a second time.
In my case, even after sending all the documents and repeated reminders, I still have not been accepted into the developer program.
The reason being I am in India and cant pay for developer account online using Credit Card (no idea why when i can buy stuff on itunes). So had to fax credit card details and signed form to finance dept and now developer approval dept keeps blaming finance dept for not approving things.
Have my game ready to release but have been waiting for 2 months
Keep waiting man. You will get there. Don’t give up at all.
Wait until you submit apps. “Application is Review.” Maddening to say the least.
I’m a complete Apple fan-boy but this is indeed ridiculous. The only complaints I ever hear about Apples products or customer service has to do with the App Store and Developers.
Whoever is currently running that department/team needs to either step it up or be replaced.
Well, if you had music industry clients you would hear some fantastic pieces of information. Did you know that there is one, yes one, person to service all of the indy labels in the iTMS?
This isn’t going to get better. The revenue model is on the device side, and Apple could have gotten things moving in the last number of months as the problems arose. Frankly, I believe that Apple wouldn’t mind weeding out the smaller developers as they take more time to support.
Frankly, I cannot see how we will make it. We have music related applications in limbo, and additional projects with these clients on hold until Apple approves those apps. Our revenue stream is dry, because of the log jam at Apple. And, I cannot in good faith sell applications that Apple may not approve.
I guess now you’re seeing why it’s a bad idea to develop for a closed locked-down device.
Sue Apple.
They have money and should take care of all these mess months ago.
As a iPhone user, getting developers keep adding value to my phone via apps suits my interest best.
This is just one side of the story.
The another one is their app approval queue. There’s an increasing activity on the devforums debating this issue, because their response times are getting crazy, both for new applications and existing app updates.
My story is a common one: sitting in the queue since January, without any response or rejection or something. E-mails, phones: they can’t help.
It was not occasional why Scott Forstall told the world that “97% of the applications are approved within a week”. They must somehow cover the App Review Team’s shit. I think Apple started to feel that something wrong is on the dev side.
Unfortunately the Android platform is very far from the iPhone SDK yet. I hope Google will make it better (the 1.5 is better, but not enough), then i’ll swith to Android immediately.
We’re still waiting on $14k. No payments since end of January. Over six weeks went by without a single response from their customer service people. I finally made 10 phone calls and got a hold of a customer satisfaction guy who made some internal calls for me. Apparently, we should receive our payments in the next couple weeks.
“We’re still waiting on $14k. No payments since end of January…”
That would make you the creator or owner of some pretty popular apps. How come no real name or link to the app website?
Let me guess. Your story is BS. Like the whole article, it’s based on the word of haters. Gamer/creeps posting to an anonymous forum. It must be time for TechCrunch to pay the rent. No easier way than cooking up something to feed the Apple haters.
hey, people are scared that if they will tell their real name then apple will penalize them.
obviously there are problems with payments and Apple should try to find alternative payment methods (RIM BlackBerry pays to developers through PayPal) and should work more on resolving it.
So his story is not BS, but simply a reality that although most developers get paid in reasonable time, there is big number (hundreds, not tens) that are paid with huge delays or not at all.
The Apple DevForums (closed for members only) is full with these late payments and applications stucked in the approval process.
I’m not scared and i’m using my real name, and Apple can really stick it’s NDA to his arse.
This … from a guy who’s real name is apparently “zato” and who posts no link to HIS website. Funny stuff man … you should go into comedy. By the way, Dave IS my real name, and I’ve posted a link to my site.
Wow this guys losing his lunch and you decide to bash him for speaking out , nice. What you fan boys don’t understand is that this is a real problem, people worked hard and have families and they’re not getting paid. I was one of the lucky few until now, suddenly they decided to miss payments and their reasons make no sence (like saying my bank rejected it , called my bank twice to confirm this is not true). We have no reason to make lies up , so stop being a jerk. PS, I left my web address.
I have to say I’m happy to read this because I’ve never been able to get my App through the approval process. Every week– and it’s always a few hours short of a week– they send another entirely bogus rejection. I’m not kidding. They just make up incorrect reasons to reject the application. When I try to write letters explaining why they’re wrong, they just send boilerplate trash.
It’s good to know that even if I managed to get the app out there, I wouldn’t get paid. So I’m not missing anything
as usual, techcrunch shady reporting. did you notice your linking to some hack job forum, mostly of 12 yr olds making fart apps? Please, if your going to report stuff like this, at least use something more meaningful.
I only wish I could get to the point of selling apps for clients, then we could find out. But, these applications are stuck in the magical world of the approval process for 10 weeks. I’m sure you have a problem with believing that too.
It would be interesting to speak with developers who have no problems. I bet they are large. I bet their applications are simple or games. And, I bet that they are fewer than Apple would have us believe.
“some hack job forum, mostly of 12 yr olds making fart apps?”
If you actually read some of the forums you would notice that several people have stated their age and there is not one 12 year old. (not that age matters). Also if you checked the users signatures you would see that some of them are developing pretty popular apps. I bet the dev mentioned in the article didn’t make $7,000 from a fart app.
Thank you TechCrunch for bringing visibility to this serious issue.
I’m an iPhone developer who’s had an app in the App Store since January and I’ve receive absolutely NO PAYMENTS at all from Apple.
I’ve sent numerous emails to their “black hole” departments (ITSPayments@Apple.com , iTunesConnect@Apple.com) and called their worthless “ADC Hotline” many times – still NO PAYMENTS (not even a single email reply)
This is a REAL and serious problem for many developers who, just like you, have bills to pay and families to feed.
It is especially annoying to see Apple continually brag about the “incredible success” of the App Store (”Thanks A Billion”) while they break their promise and breach their contracts with the very people who made the App Store successful.
If I could afford a lawyer, I’d be suing them.
Why did I post anonymously? I’m honestly afraid of “retribution” from Apple.
If you don’t believe I’m a real developer, post a question that only a real iPhone developer would know and I’ll answer it.
(As a consumer, I’m an Apple Fanboy – as a developer, I’m looking for a contingency-based lawyer)
“(As a consumer, I’m an Apple Fanboy – as a developer, I’m looking for a contingency-based lawyer)”
Ditto. If only they treated developers the same as consumers.
I have 7 apps on iTunes. Each of them were approved in under 10 days or so. I have received regular payments.
forget the lawyers – their fees will be more than you’re seeking to recover. as for contingency, that wouldn’t be a good deal either (they generally take 1/3+). look into small claims court. can generally do it yourself and the judge will probably be more sympathetic to your case.
I was about to suggest using small claims court in cupertino as the quickest and lowest cost method of getting Apple’s attention.
EACH purchase that Apple has failed to pay commission / rev share on is a SEPARABLE filing that can be made, which of course will bring you in under the limit of $5000.
You need to check what the filing options and costs are so that you do the least amount of case paperwork and spend the least money, but it will get in the system, you will have a court a few months outs, and invariably, they will pay rather than go to court and lose.
I have used this method several times, both while running a full-scale business and going after delinquent customers, and as a contractor going after delinquent general contractors who sub out. In most cases, I get paid before court date, but on the few I have to see through, its pretty cut and dry.
-avi
If it all true, this is really sad. Either Apple needs to hire a separate firm to handle this, or it will affect developer support of the platform in the long run.
Developer here.
Owed over 10,000. Family, kids, mortgage. Mails unanswered. It’s a big deal in my home.
Thank you for bringing this to peoples attention.
All I require is a mail with a reason from my business partner, apple.
Apple have been paid for the 1,000s of apps my customers purchased. Not me.
To the guy who thinks its just 10 devs and some sort of anti Apple movement – Cop on!
It’s a lot more than 10 devs and very real unfortunately. We all post anonymously because we don’t want/mean to offend.
I for one just would like an explanation as to where my money is. If I even got a reply to my emails I’d be delighted. Whatever the problem is, wherever the problem is we could fix it together. I’ll change what I need to change (banking details, whatever) and wait for apple to pay me on a given date.
But at the moment there’s nothing. Nothing at all and months have passed. My apps still sell and the ‘imaginary’ money piles up as do my very real bills.
Try calling like the dev above. I would be curious to see if you get any response. Sadly, with the approval process I see none.
Perhaps the numbers are overwhelming to Apple? A million developers selling a billion apps through them?
This has all happened in a very short time, and is something that I would not like to deal with if it were my company.
My app is stuck in disapproval cycle as well. From my friends inside Apple, the whole App Store team is a dysfunctional political nightmare of a department, and is kept under lock and key even from the rest of Apple. Oddly enough they did anticipate the volume, but apparently didn’t care to plan anything to support it. Even the web apps that developers have to use reek from bugs that go unfixed.
If enough bad press floats around maybe Steve will actually make some heads roll. I’d love to take over that department at Apple, it would be fixed for sure.
I state above that it is revenue. They don’t make money on the app side, they make it on the hardware side.
I state above that it is revenue. They don’t make money on the app side, they make it on the hardware side.
You say that they make no money on the app side, but I really cannot believe that. Apple takes a 30% cut from every sale of every app. That’s close to 1/3 of ALL the money that has gone into the App Store, right into Apple’s pocket. That’s 95% someone else’s work, and Apple makes money on it. Add to that the yearly cost of belonging to the dev program, $100 per developer. Again, 95% profit for Apple.
What about overhead, you ask? The iTunes store platform already existed for distribution. Little to no intial investment, on Apple’s part, to add a new category.
The approval process? Sure, they have to pay staff, utilities, etc. expenses that are normal for a business. But when you look at what the App Store has made for Apple, I will guarantee you that the expenses incurred in that area are extremely small.
The initial investment to get the platform ready and prepared for third-party developers? They already had the iPhoneOS and tools they used to develop their own apps for the platform. All they had to do was polish them up for public distribution. Again, little to no expense, because it was all something they had already done.
No, my friend, I’m sorry. The hardware sales of iPhones and iPod Touch devices are peanuts compared to the cash tree that is the App Store for Apple.
I am comparing to the iPod. While the iTMS made hundreds of millions of dollars, the iPod franchise made billions. Likewise, while I do not have the specific numbers, nor the time to look for them, I don’t expect that the app numbers would be anywhere near the revenue from the iPhone. The iPhone revenue is also distributed over multiple quarters, so that is difficult to accurately assemble.
You provide some numbers, but remember there are costs associated with running this program. Believe me, I’m furious. My statement that things are not about to change is in my opinion accurate.
I’m a new iPhone user (bought 2 for the fam within the past month) and I decided to buy the iPhone because of the wide selection of apps. Why choose a gadget that has a finite amount of things it can do for you? I wanted to go where the dev action was and it was definitely with the iPhone.
As users outgrow their iPods and mp3 players, they’ll be turning to the all-in-one devices (like the iPhones). Who wants to carry a cell phone and an mp3 player and a pda nowadays?
If Apple doesn’t bend over backwards to make sure that its app dev flourishes, they’re going to make room for competitors who will get the job done right. This isn’t about playing around with piddly app money IMO. Apple’s making a big mistake if they don’t take their app dev seriously.
They don’t make money on the app side?? That is truly absurd. 1/3 of the money from A BILLION sold.
Why don’t you take the money spent buying your Iphone minus the cost to produce and then add the money you’ve spent on apps on the iphone minus the money apple spent producing it.
If you’re going to include employees and the app store design cost, you can’t ignore the engineers, contractors, sub, fab plants, and on and on for the iphone.
Software is where the money comes from for iphone and most hardware/software companies. Get them with the hardware, keep them with the software. The ps3 and xobx are good examples. They sell their hardware at a loss because they’ll get it back via software.
I understand that it’s easy to reach an erroneous, emotional, decision but don’t stick to it, when you get the facts, just to be contrary.
Best,
KevinC
“We thought that perhaps our post might call Apple’s attention to the problem…” because we have HUGE egos.
“We thought that perhaps our post might call Apple’s attention to the problem…”
Sounds like TechCrunch might understand what it is like to be out money and time on the development of a popular app, only to see the elation of success turn to the anguish of non-communication and non-payment.
Wondering why the delay in paying developers especially when the company is in such a strong financial position in terms of revenue growth and cash on hand.
Are apps scaling too fast and Apple wants to get the control back
“Are apps scaling too fast and Apple wants to get the control back”
Interesting, but perhaps the beast place to do that would be before they collect the money for the developer’s work?
I’va been paid since december.. more than 24k $
A better article can be written once the lawsuit is made and the plaintiffs have to come out from anonymity. Before that, it’s just hearsay.
Hearsay is saying something someone else said. There are people writing about their own experience of not being paid by Apple both in the articles and here in the comments, that you can read on your own. So by hearsay you mean faking it?
I’ve read the comments and I’ve never said that they’re faking it. Actually hearsay in the dictionary is “information that cannot be confirmed” so I stand by that. Once people put their effort into a lawsuit (whichever type they choose), it’s a completely different thing. For the record, sue Apple if they haven’t kept their part of the contract.
Hey,
We have about 200+ iPhone apps and 15 full time employees. We’ve closed 100k in investment and are growing to 160 employees over the next 12 months.
They better pay, or we go bankrupt. I’ve emailed Tim Cook and my wife was going to head out there today to deal with the situation (along with KRON4 if needed) but they responded to 2 emails from itspayment@apple.com.
They said they will issue payments for March today.
If so, our cashflow is unharmed and we will continue to grow.
Its great that people recognize this issue though.
Android does not have this problem, but with such a low adoption on android, there are no users to sell to.
Best
Khalid
I’m a dev who’s in the same boat – Apple keeps collecting money for our app and has not paid us one dime!!
We spent over $20k to buy Macs and software and hired other programmers to help build our app. This was from our personal savings, not VC money that we could afford to lose.
We’ve emailed and called non stop and like others- no response.
Mike Arrington: You’re an attorney, should all of us who’re getting screwed by Apple band together for A class action suit?
I havent really been keeping an eye on them – I know I’ve done about $5000 since October…
But when I went to do my taxes, I could only find one wire transfer in the last six months!!! I seriously have no idea what to do about it.
The entire iTunes Connect Site is just so hobbled-together and the interface so unnecessarily confusing – and what is this deal with expiring reports so soon?
Are these little text files taking up too much precious hard drive space on your servers Apple that you need to delete them in 30 days? Don’t you need to keep them anyway to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley? Why hide them after x days?
I mean seriously – after 6 months maybe we could have some cool graphs, or maybe even (gasp) an iPhone app that allowed us to visualize our sales every morning?
It is truly ridiculous. I wish Apple users could see how little effort Apple puts into iTunes Connect for developers compared to their user-facing products.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
But who’s feeding? Apple? Apple only have a platform ( like the Mac in its beginnings…) …
Why did the PC became popular:
Software – among other things
How are they trying to make the iMac popular:
Software
How are they announcing the device:
“Yes. There’s an app for that”
It’s going to be interesting when other appstores appear (without jailbreak) for the iPhone…very feasible…
For instance TV-OUT ( censorship – only google and Apple)
Luckily many of us don’t use Apple as our full time job, because they are way too risky.
It could be related to the recent compromise of iTunes gift cards:
http://news.yco.../item?id=510365
Apple may be auditing / searching for patterns in those Dev accounts where there is heavy use of the gift cards:
http://arstechn...s-into-scam.ars
This is where I would assume the delay of originating.
Ok, ok, I don’t get it?
Apple is auditing sales and makes a contest for a billionth download =| ?
You’re posting links, so I guess you have a little interest…, just take a look to the threads mentioned in this article, the very beginning of “Please stop emailing us”…
I have a bit of experience as an e-commerce architect. One of the issues of online commerce is fraud. If Apple’s iTunes Gift Cards serial numbers have been compromised, and those who broke the serial number scheme have targeted iPhone developers in a ‘let’s split the take’ scheme, don’t you think Apple is going to take a conservative position (read: big delay) in making payouts for those developers who have received lots of their business from iTunes Gift Card payments?
I wasn’t even aware of this scam until I came here :S
Apple’s App Store stats did have an extra row for a week or so which looked like gift card sales and I had 10% sales via gift cards during that period.
Seems odd that they’d target specific apps only: it doesn’t look like there’s a trend with the unpaid apps (mine’s pretty popular and is owed a lot, others are not as popular and owed a lot less, etc)
Thanks!
No… the issue is not about gift cards… and the delay is not related to it… I’m telling this because the history quoted in the article is mine and I don’t know at all if any used a gift card to buy any of my apps… The problem (in my particular case) is the negligence of itspayments team. They didn’t setup my info and are making time… you can checkout the history in the forum…
I can speak for my self…
Ah, fair enough hrgpac.
Perhaps it’s possible that there is an underlying issue for you *plus* the current gift card issue.
Meh, I don’t know.
I just got an email telling me they OVERPAID me for January and are keeping 10% from my feb ‘earnings’.
Jeez, they can sure TAKE PEOPLE’S MONEY, but PAYING OUT they’re not so good at.
At least Microsoft values developers. Apple is beginning to look more and more greedy.
I got the same email about being ‘overpaid’ in January.
How to get your money from apple in two steps:
1. Send them a demand letter:
http://www.nolo...04/308/280/ART/
2. If (1) fails: file claim in small claims court. Judge will decide whether you are owed money by apple.
I’m well aware of Apple’s payment issues: they owe me around ?11,000 ($15,000) since January.
Their departments specifically for tax and *banking* issues are awesome (helpful emails within a couple of hours), but the people responsible for missing payments seem to be on a *long* holiday (no email replies: not even to say “we’re busy, but we’ll look into it”)
If only Apple were as nice to their developers as they are to the consumer: we are the people who got them to the one billion app download mark after all.
Some applications, approved in 1 day, regular payments.
Hello all.
I develop the AmbiScience and I can say that Apple is having a tough time managing this.
DEC – OK
JAN – overpaid (not by much)
FEB – underpaid
MAR – underpaid
All in all, I’m short close to $1,500 – I guess I feel lucky – others are much higher.
R
This isn’t too surprising. I’m not an iPhone developer (yet), but do have a site that is an iTunes Store affiliate thru LinkShare. Assuming LinkShare is being straight about when they’re paid by Apple, Apple has been late & irregular about their commission payments. Its supposed to be monthly, 30 days after end of the month in question, however a month is skipped frequently & gets lumped into the next one (and its hardly because I haven’t reached any minimum limits). So, yeah, I have no doubts about the developers’ stories and hope they get Apple doing things right.
does anyone know if at&t gets a rev share from the apps?
If somebody is suing apple please let me know I want to be the first one to sign the petition. Its been more than 6 months now and no payments, no reply to my emails, rejecting my apps with some irrelevant reason and many more…
I state above that it is revenue. They don’t make money on the app side, they make it on the hardware side thanks
دردشة عراقية
This isn’t too surprising nice
What if…maybe a reason why Apple take so much longer on some apps…is because they didn’t think of it themselves. So they put their resources together and develop YOUR app but with an Apple brand…release their app…then later decide to release yours…reducing competition.
I’ve been waiting now 20 days…and all I got was an email that they had a “file coruption issue” with my .zip file…an excuse.
Is Apple secretly stealing our apps? Good topic for discussion.
If Apple is threatened by applications that contain music because they fee that iTunes will suffer, what does that say about developing new products. With the database back end all we need to do is create the application platform that runs on Android. Not a big problem.
I mean seriously – after 6 months maybe we could have some cool graphs, or maybe even (gasp) an iPhone app that allowed us to visualize our sales every morning?