Tausendstern, a not so memorable developer name, has a different approach to earning dollors (or euros) off their apps — sell the source code.
I came across this outfit while doing research on budget apps for our own upcoming iBudget. Tausendstern has a budget app but it’s not very good. By that I mean not complete, not full featured. It seems they did just enough development to get it through the App Store inspectors. In fact all their apps are like that.
Their website shows nine apps available on the App Store and they’re all free. The screenshot here is for an app which is supposed to simulate an artificial horizon used in aviation. Problem is it doesn’t work. It’s just a bubble level type app with a 2D image of a 3D horizon bubble. And it’s pointless and it’s useless. In fact all their apps are like that.
Here’s the kicker: you can buy the source code to all these apps for a mere EUR 29.95. The intended audience is new iPhone developers who need a little help getting started. That explains the low-quality we’re seeing from this outfit. It seems these apps were developed with the intent of selling sample source code. Some developers may find that usefull, but there are other free sources available.
Apple’s developer portal has about the best sample source code available and has probably become the basis for most new starter apps. There’s also appsamuck which has samples to demonstrate core functionality not touched on by the Apple portal.