New Yorker iPhone Cover Boosts Sales for Brushes App

Jenna Wortham on Steve Sprang’s Brushes, the iPhone app used by artist Jorge Colombo to paint this week’s New Yorker cover:

The novelty and popularity of the cover has provided a healthy boost in sales for the 32-year-old who works shifts in a coffee shop when he’s not developing applications for the iPhone and Mac.

On Monday, Mr. Sprang said the application had its highest selling day since it was first released into Apple’s App Store in August, with 2,700 copies at $4.99 apiece flying off the virtual shelves.

Update: Via email, Steve Sprang tells me:

I just wanted to mention that the NYTimes article you’re linking to has many errors and misquotes. The primary one being that I don’t work in shifts at a coffee shop. I do occasionally take my laptop to the coffee shop to work (the source of the confusion), but I am not employed there.

Not that there’s anything wrong with serving coffee — I love coffee and the people who make it — but it did strike me as odd that someone who’s doing pretty well selling software would need a side job like that.

★ Thursday, 28 May 2009