In less than two weeks the wildly viral free app Sound Grenade, has surpassed 1.25 million downloads, hauling in over $10,000 dollars of Ad Mob money in one week. During peak downloads Sound Grenade was generating about $200 an hour in ad revenue from banner click-through. The concept of this app is simple, activate the grenade and a powerfully debilitating, high pitched, headache producing sound converts your iPhone into a pranksters wet dream.
It only took five days for the most annoying app on planet Earth to become the number one Top Free App in the iTunes App Store. After blowing up, Sound Grenade is currently resting nicely at number 7. As downloads began to level off the daily earnings dropped to $50 dollars an hour according to the creators and has since settled in at roughly $30 to $40 each hour.
New Zealand's dynamic duo, cloaked under the pseudonym "High Gloss", admitted that Sound Grenade was developed in twenty minutes using 10 lines of code. One half of the High Gloss team does the app development while the other half works out the graphics. This team of ingenious Kiwis may prove to be the Lennon and McCartney of iPhone apps if they can sustain their hit making magic.
"From naming to completion including graphics, Sound Grenade took us an entire 30 minutes to finish." said High in a phone interview with iPhone Savior from his native New Zealand lair. "We're still laughing out loud about it."
The epic roller coaster ride for High Gloss took a wicked turn when the duo started receiving emails from users claiming iPhone speaker damage, with the blame aimed directly at Sound Grenade. One email went as far as delivering a threat to break the developer's legs. A very small number of the 1,500 plus user reviews are extremely negative, with wild claims of ruined iPhones.
"I downloaded it, and played it for maybe... 15 seconds and my iPhone's speaker broke," one App Store reviewer wrote, "Insurance won't cover it!!! Don't download this piece of crap!"
Another reviewer posted this threat; "My speaker on the iPhone is ruined because of this app. Everything sounds distorted. Developer better fix my phone. I will cause havoc with Apple until my phone is fixed."
I asked High how he was addressing the dozen or so small but vocal gang of Sound Grenade haters who've contacted him directly.
"We used our own personal iPhones as test devices, leaving Sound Grenade on overnight to see if there was any damage," High said, "We had to leave them out in the Garage because of the noise, but we had no problems with the speaker afterwords. We've done everything we can."
After reaching half a million downloads, High Gloss took it upon themselves to contact Apple, seeking input and inquiring if there was something they needed to do differently to ensure they were not causing iPhone damage. Their email remains unanswered still at the time of this post.
I had to ask 22-year-old High if there was some secret formula to his success with Sound Grenade. He admitted that he's developed over 20 apps for another developer, though none have been as wildly successful as his brain melting pride and joy.
"The key is you have to develop about 10 apps, you get better the more you apply yourself, just like playing piano," said High who has an undergraduate degree in piano."
"I challenge any developer to create 10 apps. If you don't make it into the Top 100 of your category, then you're doing something wrong." High said.
The High Gloss duo currently have three apps in the App Store, Levelometer a $1.99 iPhone spirit level, Sound Grenade (Free) and the recently released Sound Grenade Pro for $.99 which has already had 4,800 downloads since its launch two days ago and has charted today on the Top 25 Paid Apps list. It's too early to tell if the Pro version will ever rise to the same level of its free counterpart. Though at this point, I hardly think it matters.
Fanatical High Gloss fans can expect another free app from the dynamic duo called "Grenade vs Truck", to launch in the App Store within the next week.
"The goal of my app was to create a tool for people to annoy others. The end product was Sound Grenade, which is a really terrible app. I wrote a Top 10 App and it's shit." High wrote in a blog post back on January 22.
I think it's high time to tell these Kiwis... great job guys. Mission accomplished!
Great way for Apple to get more business in repairs or people having to buy new iPhones due to damaged speakers. That's why they're taking their time to respond.
A question. Would it destroy the speaker even if the volume is turned down somewhat or does this app override any setting?
I mean, you could probably buy an special effects CD and damage your home speakers if you turned the volume up high enough. How does this make Apple or these developers responsible?
Posted by: Constable Odo | February 01, 2009 at 07:34 PM