{"id":281715,"date":"2026-06-25T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/i-am-rich-the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-nothing\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:31:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:31:30","slug":"i-am-rich-the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/i-am-rich-the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Rich: the $999.99 iPhone app that did nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2026\/06\/25\/the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-absolutely-nothing-sold-8-copies-before-apple-killed-it.html\">I Am Rich: the $999.99 iPhone app that did nothing<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2026\/06\/25\/the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-absolutely-nothing-sold-8-copies-before-apple-killed-it.html\">https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2026\/06\/25\/the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-absolutely-nothing-sold-8-copies-before-apple-killed-it.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-25 12:43:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"boingboing.net\">boingboing.net<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In August 2008, German developer Armin Heinrich released I Am Rich on the App Store for $999.99 \u2014 the maximum price Apple allowed. The app displayed a glowing red gem. Press the gem and it showed a mantra: &#8220;I am rich \/ I deserv [sic] it \/ I am good, healthy &#038; successful.&#8221; That was it. Heinrich described it as &#8220;a work of art with no hidden function at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple pulled it in 24 hours. By then, eight people had bought it \u2014 six in the U.S., two in Europe \u2014 netting Heinrich $5,600 and Apple $2,400. At least one buyer claimed they&#8217;d purchased it accidentally. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Heinrich told the Los Angeles Times that Apple refunded two purchasers and that he &#8220;was happy to not have dissatisfied customers.&#8221; He also told the New York Times: &#8220;I regard it as art. I did not expect many people to buy it and did not expect all the fuss about it.&#8221; Vox writer Zachary Crockett later called it &#8220;the ultimate Veblen good in app form.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Previously:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2026\/06\/25\/the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-absolutely-nothing-sold-8-copies-before-apple-killed-it.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I Am Rich: the $999.99 iPhone app that did nothing https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2026\/06\/25\/the-999-99-iphone-app-that-did-absolutely-nothing-sold-8-copies-before-apple-killed-it.html Publish Date: 2026-06-25 12:43:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":281716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/toohey-1115056.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281717,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281715\/revisions\/281717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}