[lyndonl]

Hi Everyone,

Over the weekend my fiancée had a great idea to help Chris raise even more cash for Comic Relief for his climb up Kilimanjaro. The idea was to build a simple iPhone application but with a Chris Moyles twist. I won't give away the idea but essentially the application would be for sale through the iPhone Application Store (nominally for £1) and all proceeds gained from the sale of the application would be donated to Chris' Comic Relief appeal (subject to any tax or VAT implications and Apple charges).

I think this is a really great way for Chris to raise even more cash for this worthy appeal. I have completed the application and am ready to submit it to Apple for listing in the store. However, I want to get Chris' approval to do this and to use his photo in the application. I sent Chris an email (to [email protected]) detailing the idea and giving some screenshots but am yet to get a reply. I'm concerned that my email will be lost amongst the thousands of others that Chris probably gets each morning. Do you guys have any other suggestions how I might get in touch with Chris to get his approval for this?

Cheers,
Lyndon

[MK Chris]

Lyndon, your best bet is to email another member of the team - probably Aled, seeing as Rachel is away at the minute.

[TIAL]

Yes, email Aled. I seem to remember Chris saying he doesn't check his emails much.

[lyndonl]

Good suggestion, I forgot to say I tried that on Tuesday and didn't get any response either. Perhaps they don't think it's a good idea / worth raising more cash!

How many of you have an iPhone and would be prepared to buy a £1 app in aid of Comic Relief?

[Andy B]

Might do if there were some guarantees that the money went to the climb fund or comic relief in general. Bear in mind that developers only get 70% of the profits of an app. Oh and it usually takes Apple about 12 years to finally get around to rejecting it for some daft reason.

[crazybadger]

Nice thought, but fairly limited audience compared to 7 million listeners. How many people have the iphone?

[lyndonl]

Might do if there were some guarantees that the money went to the climb fund or comic relief in general. Bear in mind that developers only get 70% of the profits of an app. Oh and it usually takes Apple about 12 years to finally get around to rejecting it for some daft reason.

Yes, there would be a written guarantee that all the proceeds would go to Comic Relief. If I got the go ahead I was going to see if Apple might even be able to send the cash directly to comic relief. Either way I'd be happy to sign whatever contractual agreements Chris felt was necessary. It is a bit pants that Apple take 30% but that still means a good amount goes to Comic relief. I was also thinking about calling Apple and seeing if they would waive that fee as it's for charity. Of course they'll probably say no but it's worth a try at least.

Nice thought, but fairly limited audience compared to 7 million listeners. How many people have the iphone?

Having 7 million listeners is great but at the moment they all have to go to the Comic relief website to donate. Downloading an application from the Apple Application store is a fairly quick and easy process. Even if it only sells 500 copies then that’s still going to add to the amount that Chris raises. After all, it can't reduce the amount as there is no cost to Chris or Comic Relief.

With regards to the number of iPhone users - I just took a look through Google and O2 appear to be quite cagey about saying how many phones they've sold. Estimates seem to put the number at least at 300,000, plus you'd have all the iPod Touch users (who can also buy & download the app) which I'd guess puts the total at a lot more. Lets assume 500k units in the UK then that's about 0.9% of the UK population as a whole. At that ratio it means about 63,000 of Chris' listeners should have an iPhone or iPod Touch. In reality Chris' audience base probably aligns a lot more with the iPhone / iPod Touch user base so the number could be higher (e.g. few young children / elderly will listen to the show or have an iPhone/Touch). In any case, even if only half of those 63,000 bought the app then that's a whole lot of cash that will get added to Chris' appeal.

Anyways, the application is ready for submission to Apple at any time and the offer still stands should Chris decide to approve it. In the mean time I'll go grab the latest Chris Moyles show on the iPlayer and get on with my work

Cheers,
Lyndon

[Andy B]

What sort of thing would the application do?