91Èȱ¬

Google release a potentially market-changing laptop (a subscription similar to a smartphone in a way) and you talk about rubbish Apprentice apps.

Seems to me that you don't/can't/don't want to see past your beloved Twitter and Apple. This may not be correct but surely the Google event deserves some attention. Apparently, the 91Èȱ¬ and their 'technology' correspondent don't consider anything that's not excessively expensive technology :().

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Even if Apple had fast-tracked the reviewing of the apps, they'd have both got the boilerplate email from the Apple Review team saying the app had 'limited functionality' - the days of fart apps being approved in Apple Land are long gone.

I think Lord Sugar put too much emphasis on the localization issue as being the key to the girls winning (although it would have been a factor, just not the main factor IMO). Having their app on Wired gave the girls the edge - it's the equivalent of an Apple app being featured on TUAW as opposed to a minor tech blog.

Rory, it wasn't hundreds of thousands of downloads, it was 10k for the girls app, 3k for the boys. Without any marketing at all, let alone a mention on Wired, I've got 25k downloads in a day easily on a free Apple app...

Only an idiot would consider this a business success story: I wonder how many people actually kept the apps, and didn't delete them after trying it once out of curiosity? A better test would be to see if people still had the apps, and were still using them, a week, month, or even year later. Would the same number of people have downloaded the apps if they had not been free? No doubt some would still have, but probably nowhere near as many.

Is it considered a business success to have a 'quick kill'? The idea that it doesn't matter whether the product is actually any good or not, or that people would continue to use it, the only thing that matters is getting them to buy, and after that, who cares?

Sadly, The Apprentice is indicative of what's wrong with business and industry in this country: we don't produce anything of real quality any more, and what we do produce is created by idiots only interested in short-term profits.

And don't get me started on the ruthless back-stabbing that this programme promotes as somehow necessary to to get to the top! What the hell are we teaching the next generation? You'll reap what you sow...

@Graphis #4

You seem to have forgotten that The Apprentice is an entertainment programme, it's not real :)

@Rory #0
There were no elephant noises, just a picture of one. You did watch the show, right? ;)

As Graphis says, the whole task was flawed from top to bottom - they kept talking about selling the apps, but were giving them away for free, with no test as to whether they would be able to make any money off them. Who knows how many people would have paid for an In-App Purchase from either of them, or if they decided to go down the advertising route, how many impressions and click-throughs they'd actually get ... both the apps are the sort of thing you're likely to launch once or twice before never looking at again, which isn't a successful business model.

And Lord Sugar talking about how easy it is to start a business from scratch was nonsense based on this task - they had professional coders employed to make it for them, a chance to pitch it directly to three big tech websites (which seem to have been contractually obliged to promote one of the apps) and a chance to appear at a tech convention and promote their app that way. None of those things are as easy as a random person deciding they want to make an app ...

Making money off apps is a lot harder than getting downloads, especially in a 24-hour period, which even if a lot can happen in this time, not enough can happen to pay the bills if your app is free with no pay-for content available ...

@Hristiyan: "Google release a potentially market-changing laptop..."

Google release a netbook (of the sort we've seen for years) that only has a browser... how exciting (yawn).

#1 and #7: The Google laptop story is covered by Maggie Shiels in her blog. ;-)

Sugar, himself, has some mixed success at picking technology winners. He made his name, and fortune, selling naff music systems to the gullible in the 1980s. A great success for him, not so good for those who bought them.

His venture into computers was much more successful. The CPC range of home computers, and the PCW range of word processors were pretty good,and his PC range brought the IBM compatible into the price range of normal people.

The NC "notebooks" were good enough, but were already out of date when they were released.

The PenPad was a complete shocker, most units sold off for half what it cost to build them.

Then there's the eMailer. Sold at a huge discount on the expectation that the user will subscribe to the overpriced "Amserve" dial-up email service. The phone wouldn't work without subscribing to the service. How Sugar ever believed this was a viable business model is beyond me. It made Amserve a zonking great loss and led Sugar's Amstrad CEO, Bob Watkins, to resign because of his (Sugar's) obsession with the thing.

Finally there's the Sky boxes. Nice little earner and a nice nest-egg for Sugar when Sky bought Amstrad.

Oh, we'd better mention Viglen, purveyor of computer kit to the public sector.

Sir Alan seems more out of date every day. He's not been a force in the tech world for ages, and look at the dreadful Amstrad Mailer. Now he's getting involved with "apps" in big sign of "yeah, me too".

And what he has proven? How to shift a few thousands units more of something that's FREE? How on earth is this a good example of rebuilding the UK economy? Just last week the "winners" earned about £250 profit - and that's for eight people spending an entire day's work.

This show isn't a patch on the US one, which while it too plays up the drama has some truly great business tasks and some great inputs from brands (which I guess the 91Èȱ¬ can't do, despite its obvious placement of Blackberry last night).

I think it was refreshing that The Apprentice made a foray into the digital market for a change. It seems that generally Lord Sugar is keen to make all the tasks revolve around market-stall selling and haggling.

The apps themselves were both terrible but I thought that Slangatang was a reasonable effort for 24 hours work - I have downloaded worse apps in the past. The girls' app was just plain awful and so was their pitch.

I have to agree with Kenichi that coming up with an idea is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to actually developing and marketing the app. Both groups magically had online magazine meetings, costumes and a chance to pitch their app at a major tech conference which would not be so easy in the real world.

I guess if nothing else, it encourages people to think if these guys can do it then so can I. If the app is good then word of mouth is probably enough to make it a success, especially on the Apple app store.

Was the episode true to life - no. But if it was then probably a lot of people wouldn't watch it!

As an app developer myself, it was interesting (and a little cringeworthy) to see the contestants making apps - hats off to what the teams produced in only a day, but I agree with previous commenters that the task lacked real-world business relevance. I popped a few thoughts on to my corporate blog if anyone's interested:

This was NOT A FAIR COMPETITION! The girls developed the app for blackberries which operates in a different market segment and has different market forces influencing the downloads. The boys developed the app on android which is a more competitive market and thus have lost market share. Clearly the decision was flawed. LORD SUGAR! Hire me cause I have identified the error and I happen to have an app that is under patent review which holds huge commercial opportunities!