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Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

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Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#31
post #4
post #3

His entire analysis is basically taking the revenue total for all apps, divided by the number of apps, and saying each developer only makes an average of $3k per year. Sorry, this is not a good analysis. Some people give their apps away for free. Some quality apps make millions. This doesn't mean the opportunities are not there. A similar analysis could be done of PC shareware software authors, with similar results.

He has data that indicates 73% of total apps on the store are paid. He then bases his remaining calculations on that paid app number.

Yeah, but he doesn't take into account the fact that 73% of apps do not get 73% of the downloads.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#32
Some people seem to assume that building a profitable app is entirely about luck, and not about having the insight and ability to develop something better than what is in the store currently. Many of these app are developed by beginners and casual hobbyists and, frankly, just aren't very good. Thinking you can work to be in the top 10% of this crowd isn't necessarily unrealistic.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#33
> Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea?

I'm one of those developers. And do you know why? Because it's not my business. I wanted to make some apps. I didn't put in a huge effort.

For the numbers to mean anything, you should filter out the 90% (or whatever) of apps that aren't intended to be part of a serious, profitable business.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#34
post #16

"Full Analysis" seems like a bad title for this post. First off, in app purchases are not included. Secondly, his argument against free apps is simply that the reach is smaller than other platforms. Finally, he acknowledges that the median paid app get fewer than 1000 downloads. The 25-50K number for development costs is way off for the median app. Something like $5K-$10K is more in line for most of the apps I'm seei…

None of this refutes his point, which is that developing for iphone is a suboptimal use of marketing/advertising dollars. Even if you'd assume his numbers had a 100% error margin, you still couldn't get iphone apps to work.

Just assuming he's only off by 100% is silly. There are lots of ways he could be off by a factor of 5 or 10.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#35
This sounds very much like the way things worked when I was working in the AAA games business as well. >90 percent of all titles are lossleaders, and the few that are hits make up for the lost money developing the others.

My guess is that most branches of entertainment are similar. Movies, TV, music etc. There's no such thing as a steady, guaranteed income when it comes to things like this (in my experience/opinion).

That doesn't mean making apps is not a viable business. Just not for everyone who tries.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#36
post #8

I'm not sure I buy that a typical iPhone app costs $35,000 to develop. Considering the simplicity of most apps, combined with the fact that many apps are effectively the same program with some content alteration, it seems like a really inflated figure.

It doesn't really make much difference, for the purposes of his analysis. Let's say a typical app costs $1500 to develop. If his other numbers are right, that typical app would take about 2.5 years to break even. His argument is that, on average, developing an iPhone app is, in itself, a fairly dismal economic proposition.

Why would an app take $1500 to develop? I wrote 4. They took less than $1500 total.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#37
post #35

This sounds very much like the way things worked when I was working in the AAA games business as well. >90 percent of all titles are lossleaders, and the few that are hits make up for the lost money developing the others. My guess is that most branches of entertainment are similar. Movies, TV, music etc. There's no such thing as a steady, guaranteed income when it comes to things like this (in my experience/opinion).…

Unless you are Pixar.

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#38

Some people seem to assume that building a profitable app is entirely about luck, and not about having the insight and ability to develop something better than what is in the store currently. Many of these app are developed by beginners and casual hobbyists and, frankly, just aren't very good. Thinking you can work to be in the top 10% of this crowd isn't necessarily unrealistic.

Fair enough. How much does the last app in the 10% make?

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#39
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really make much difference, for the purposes of his analysis. Let's say a typical app costs $1500 to develop. If his other numbers are right, that typical app would take about 2.5 years to break even. His argument is that, on average, developing an iPhone app is, in itself, a fairly dismal economic proposition.

Why would an app take $1500 to develop? I wrote 4. They took less than $1500 total.

What is your time worth? I'd assume that each app took several hours to write?

Re: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics: Bad News?

#40
post #26
post #21

Why does the author assume normal distribution (bell curve) for apps' revenues? In reality app sales are similar to those of books and follow power law distribution. A few bestsellers will account for large chunk of overall app sales. Then there will be a very long tail of unprofitable apps. Therefore all of his numbers and his final conclusion are wrong. People do not write iPhone apps in order to achieve some sort…

Where are you getting the normal distribution information from? "This is the average, remember, it is not the median. The average skews too high because of the long tail. There are a few who make several millions, who distort the average number, so it is not true that half of iPhone App Developers earn more, and half less, than $3,050 per year." He references the long tail you mention, and describe exactly what you m…

Unfortunately that's not necessarily true. A normal distribution is just vastly different than an exponential distribution. Using the central limit theorem allows you to expect the mean to be normally distributed around your samples, but that's about all.

The reality is that taking an average over an exponential distribution is largely meaningless. There are an infinite number of distributions that would create that exact mean. Some of them not at all profitable for certain apps, others very profitable.

The problem with using an average over this distribution is that it doesn't give you anything to work from. You can't figure out who is profitable and who isn't, or how high up the curve you need to be to be profitable. Taking an average over all of the apps in the app store is like taking the average revenue of every website that tries to make money on the internet. It's a meaningless number.

At the end he compares the low numbers in averages to a single anecdotal example of something that had a 100 Million downloads. On the one hand he dismisses the few highly successful appstore apps but then uses another singular example of a highly successful app to recommend a different platform. Overall the methodological approach is deeply flawed.

I could go on, but ultimately, I found this analysis not very insightful. As with any new channel, it takes some time to figure out what works and what doesn't. Who is going to buy and who isn't. In almost all software the distribution is exponential where the top 10 to 20% make over 90% of the revenue. The same is true of the app store.

It all comes back to fundamentals. Find an unmet or under-served need in the market, figure out how big that market is, figure out how much it's going to cost to fill that need, make sure your app fills the need, and start trying to sell it. Then once you've built up a sales platform, then you start scaling it.

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