Would you pay for smartphone homescreens/skins?

[Guest drblow]

Well ... OK, yes I have been thinking about the commercial possibilities of homescreens for some time now. I know it's controversial for a community that has an established free homesreen culture, but you know ... things change, people change, hairstyles change ...

What with the introduction of SBSH Facade, MadBeetle animation plugin etc. the thought of paying for homescreen plugins seems to have become a given (when they are worth paying for of course!). I have been looking at PPC themes, & it seems that there is an established culture there for paying for theme packs & skins. Smartphone theme packs have been on sale at Handango for a long time - they're not even good layouts or anything, just background images.

There are now quite a few designers who post quality homescreen designs & layouts. These things take time & effort & I can't help but wonder if the smartphone world could be converted to thinking of paying for homescreens as being a positive 'support' of homescreen designers, rather than evil DrBlow trying to squeeze a few quid out of everyone!! :twisted:

Now I'm not proposing that every homescreen becomes a chargeable download (in fact I'm not proposing anything, rather just testing the water ...) There would be plenty of times when my own skin designs could not be chargeable as they contain images that I do not own copyright on & I imagine that lots of designers would not want to be bothered with all the hassle involved in setting up an account to seel through, so what I am talking about would be special design packs (in my case most probably using Facade). My own ideas so far include things like several different layouts, backgrounds, different specs for different phones/OS etc.

If you vote, then plese add comments here with your ideas/suggestions/criticisms. Especially if you vote 'No' as I would really like to know the reasons. Or please feel free to suggest other options for the poll.

Thanks. ;)

[Guest Crispy]

Well, as a general rule of thumb I would never pay for such a "simple" thing as a phone theme. I mean, it reminds me of the old Nokia world; you pay 5$ for a stupid little 50x50 pixel picture of a teddy bear to be displayed on your homescreen... No, I think it's more reasonable that such things are kept on a donation-basis... Besides, how much money could make off it anyway?

[Guest drblow]

Well, how much money could be made is a total mystery to me - but I'm sure it wouldn't be much. Don't get me wrong with this idea, I am under no illusions that this is a 'get rich quick' scheme - but it may bring in a modest income.

When you say that a homescreen is such a 'simple thing' - can you elaborate? What makes you feel that it is 'simple'? What is the difference between someone spending weeks/months coding & designing a homescreen xml, & an application developer? Of course, skinning a smartphone is something that can be done fairly easily by anyone (look at me for goodness sakes ;) ) - but it's also something that alot of people can't be bothered to do themselves ... so why should the peoplle who spend hours/days/weeks designing homescreens not be rewarded for their efforts?

Like I said before, I am not talking about trying to make every homescreen chargeable - there always will be a free aspect to the whole thing. But surely there is room now for homescreen packs or whatever that were available for a small fee?

[Guest Disco Stu]

I couldn't agree with you more. You've said yourself that skinning is pretty straight-forward and on more than one occasion you've inspired me to give it a go.

My trouble, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is that I'm short of time to get to grips with basic things like image editing and xml coding. Neither are intuitive activities that can be mastered in 5 minutes and I'd be happy to pay for someone else's expertise.

After reading your first post I've been thinking about how to respond. As an accountant I wonder how this could be turned into a business model (yeah I know, you just qualified that ;) ) and I'm not sure if I'd want to pay for your concept when there are so many others doing it for free. I don't actually mean you, Doc, because I like your designs but I think I would be more inclined to pay if I could specify the images & plugins.

Then again, a prominent skinner on SBSH charges for his PPC work so I wonder if he finds it worthwhile the hassle of collecting money and if there are sufficient takers to make it cost effective.

[Guest Disco Stu]

Oh yes and.....when you refer to paying for packs, do you mean that I'd be buying a skin with versions for WM05/SP2003/SP2002 Smartphones, PPCs, Symbian etc etc ?

If so, why would I want to pay for all the ones I wouldn't use ?

[Guest w411y]

By pack I think he means extra things skinned such as XBar and other skinnable screens/apps and possibly different coloured versions of the screen etc.

I must agree to a certain extent. I feel work such as DrBlows, Jammas and my ChromeAqua screen could possibly be worth paying for if they were expanded as a 'pack'. I feel the simple screens are not worth paying for as they are straight forward and simple and widely available for free.

Over at my website I accept requests that people ask for for free, but every now and then people donate without asking. So maybe requested themes can possible be charged.

[Guest drblow]

Oh yes and.....when you refer to paying for packs, do you mean that I'd be buying a skin with versions for WM05/SP2003/SP2002 Smartphones, PPCs, Symbian etc etc ?

If so, why would I want to pay for all the ones I wouldn't use ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That ida was more to do with making skin packs avilable to all OS/phone types without having to then update them. I know what you mean about specifying imagefor yourself, but that would basically involve doing a bespoke deisgn for one person that may not be applicable to anyone else - you would then need to charge more for that than it would be worth I think.

My main motivation is that (as you mentioned) certain established PPC skinner have plenty of chargeable theme packs on offer which sell thousands of copies - some of them are fairly expensive too like $12!! The skins are specific to PPC today screen apps (like smartphone plugins), so why the big controversy over paying for smartphone skins and not PPC??

Like you said Stu - skinning is not intuitive, & requires time & effort (as opposed to any great degree of coding knowledge). Anyone CAN learn to do it, in which case then fine, you won't ever have to pay for skins coz you can do it yourself - but there is a great majority that don't want to do that.

There will always be free skins - enthusiasts will always be more interested in making their work public than in selling them, but I really no longer see why designers should feel that smartphone skins are some kind of sacrosanct "free" commodity. Some of my themes have been downloaded 4000+ times - does my time & effort not deserve any reward?? & even if I charged

[Guest w411y]

Why not try it? Make your next homescreen or 'pack' available to download at a price and see how it goes?

I'm in the middle of my next ChromeAqua screen so I may try it with that if I expand on it (ie. different layouts and screens etc)

[Guest mandt]

Surely if Ruttensoft (or someone else) had got their act together and released a QVGA version of homscreen designer there would be no need for this poll? I would much rather spend a one time outlay on a peice of software I can use again and again, to design homescreens tailored exactly as I want them.

If there was a well designed application that supported the QVGA resolution I would buy it tomorrow (someone please tell me there is). Now maybe that is a 'get rich quick' scheme

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

I'm not one for paying for skins but I know the excellent work you do and wish you good luck if you do decide to charge a small fee for select themes ;)

[Guest drblow]

Why not try it? Make your next homescreen or 'pack' available to download at a price and see how it goes?

I'm in the middle of my next ChromeAqua screen so I may try it with that if I expand on it (ie. different layouts and screens etc)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's the general idea - you could call this poll 'market research'! :P

I definately think that in order to make a homescreen 'product' attractive enough to a buyer it would need to be fairly special - things like skinning all the screens, different colour versions, multiple background choices, adding an xbar skin, different layouts using a variety of plugins ... not like Stu said above where people may feel they were paying for stuff they wouldn't use, but a variety & choice of layouts that were useable by all - that kind of stuff! ;)

I mean, over at handango you can pay I think it's $5 for what amounts to nothing more than a bunch of sized background images & some default MS xml layouts - and they have sold plenty!! :shock:

But the other thing is that I imagine in order to get enough exposure to the general marketplace, you'd need to be selling at handango etc - and they take a hefty chunk of sales! :evil:

I'm still not sure myself. ](*,)

[Guest drblow]

I'm not one for paying for skins but I know the excellent work you do and wish you good luck if you do decide to charge a small fee for select themes ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cheers Ash! :P

What I like to think is that once you saw the fantastic preview images of the amazing screen pack I have on sale YOU WILL BECOME one for paying for skins!! ;)

[Guest Jamma14]

Hiya guys, just read the topic, I've thought about this before and I think I'd be up for paying for or selling some homescreens, although only ones as w411y suggested, ones that took some effort creating orginal graphics and doing complex non-ruttensoft code.

eg. my xp one when it is completed it is going to have a start menu (using orange plugin) and wmp skin, all extra skins etc and making the images as well involves a lot of work. I think it would really motivate me (+ others) to get a move on and devote their time to producing more skins. I think charging a small price for it isn't asking too much, people charge for apps, and probably a lot vb .net coded ones take less effort than doing a complex theme :P.

Also I've been thinking after I finish my articles/homescreens/!exams! etc that I'd start taking requests for themes. I think that could be another good idea, take requests for complex themes, including what plugins are wanted etc and sell them. I'm sure people would pay for a perfectly tailored theme.

One other thing I've been thinking about is integrating the homescreen with applications. eg. for my start menu in the xp theme to make it act like a proper start menu put a shortcut to an app which displays images on top of the homescreen and seems as if it is part of it. Although in .net it takes too long to boot up really and my c++ ain't good enough to manage it...but I'll work on it. Anyway if you're really going all out for theming like that then I think people should be happy to pay a small fee.

Perhaps you could set up a site Dr Blow and give a few a try! If so can I sell a few of mine on there as well?

(You can take a cut! ;))

Edited April 18, 2006 by Jamma14

[Guest w411y]

Also I've been thinking after I finish my articles/homescreens/!exams! etc that I'd start taking requests for themes. I think that could be another good idea, take requests for complex themes, including what plugins are wanted etc and sell them. I'm sure people would pay for a perfectly tailored theme.

I've been doing free request on my website but every so often I recieve a donation of usually

[Guest drblow]

Perhaps you could set up a site Dr Blow and give a few a try! If so can I sell a few of mine on there as well?

(You can take a cut! ;))

;) I think that could be the way to go, although I imagine that in order to sell any quantity you would need to be on a big site like handango etc too.

There are several factors to consider, apart from just how to sell them. As Wally says I think copyright could be a major issue - I am not 100% sure, but I can't imagine that you can sell a product that includes something like a windows/mac logo without permission (which would involve payment). So any themes that were for sale would need to contain totally original images (or else images that were not copyrighted, or that were used in agreement with someone else).

I mean, don;t anybody get me wrong here, I'm not talking about making every homescreen that I do from now on a commercial proposition ;) I'm thinking more about doing something really special, that would involve alot of work, but would ultimately provide an attractive package that people would feel was worth paying a small fee for. I very much doubt that would have any effect whatsoever on the homescreen enthusiasts who post screens all over the web for free, & as I imagine any designs with copyright issues would probably not ever be sold anyway so all the complex designs using windows themes or whatever will basically still have to be free. If you look at other PPC sites that sell themes, there are often a larger number of free themes available from the same artists as are selling other, bigger, more attractive alternatives.

I am just also of the opinion that smartphone would now seem to be more widely available than in the recent past, & that a bigger market is opening up. If PPC themes have an established commercial setting, then why shouldn't smartphone? & all the great homescreen designers from here & elsewhere can be encouraged to produce more & more inventive & elaborate homescreens. That may eventually lead to an increase in the number of commercial plugins available ... & more themes to skin them!!

Am I just ranting again????? :P

[Guest spyghost]

the mere fact that windows mobile is customizable enough to the desire of the owner, i think paying for something that simple defeats the whole idea of "personal customization."

in addition, have you ever seen a 100% homescreen that fitted your need/want without any "but's"?

[Guest xda_gangsta]

Theres no need to buy a homescreen, program the xml to suit your needs and just get a nice looking backdrop!

[Guest conan_troutman]

i would pay for custom one off designs but not for ones that are about to be appearing an every tom dick and sally's phone

the point of a home screen is individuality.

my home screen hasno fancy pictures no fancy lay outs it just give me the in fo I want right there I even have it set up so I have to scroll the screen down for added info too but that all adds to the character of my home screen

its basic simple and informative

now if that could be replicated in a similar fashion with a font size i can read with out the aid of my specs in a cool graphically pleasing way I would more than likely pay for the home screen but it would be for exclusivity of the home screen not just the work being carried out.

is that not the point of custom homescreens any way

Edited June 6, 2006 by conan_troutman

[Guest nevawlkalone]

If i want a homescreen i generally make my own, however a few of W411y's have caught my eye and i have used them on my phone.

The ones that are publicly uploaded i.e On Modaco or you own site then no as every one can have them.

If they were requested then it may be ok to charge for them...but not a rediculous amount...nothing more that like 3 pound or something.

But with the selling of screens, comes the issue of are you paying the artist for the back ground image because if not you are making a profit from there work therefore stealing.

Edited June 6, 2006 by nevawlkalone