I Am Rich
2008 iOS application priced at US$999.99
I Am Rich is a discontinued 2008 mobile app for iPhones which had minimal function and was priced at US$999.99 (equivalent to $1,495 in 2025). The app was pulled from the App Store less than 24 hours after its launch. Receiving negative reviews from critics, only eight copies were sold. In the years since, several similar applications have been released at lower prices.
Overview
I Am Rich was developed as a joke by German software developer, Armin Heinrich, after he saw iPhone users complaining about software priced above $0.99. The app only showed a glowing red gem and an icon that, when pressed, displayed the following mantra in large text:
I am richI deserv [sic] itI am good,healthy & successful
Heinrich told The New York Times that "I regard it as art. I did not expect many people to buy it and did not expect all the fuss about it."
The application is described as "a work of art with no hidden function at all", with its only purpose being to show other people that they were able to afford it. Vox writer Zachary Crockett called it "the ultimate Veblen good in app form".
Release
Heinrich released and distributed I Am Rich through the App Store on 5 August 2008. The app was sold for US$999.99 (equivalent to $1,495 in 2025), €799.99 (equivalent to €1,078 in 2023), and £599.99 (equivalent to £978.12 in 2025), the highest prices Apple allowed for App Store content.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “I Am Rich” is 2008 iOS application priced at US$999.99. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rich, application and priced, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2008 iOS application priced at US$999.99” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1187627. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2025 and 2023.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “I Am Rich”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow I Am Rich primary sources, I Am Rich archive and Rich research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “I Am Rich”?
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- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “I Am Rich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.