Why I develop for iOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#51

Post by flyosity » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:02 PM UTC

tzury wrote: post #6

Dear author, (OP as well) It is not clear from your website what type of applications you have developed so far for iOS which make it hard to "judge" your choice whether or not you were right about choosing native over HTML5. But I wish to remind us all that those two can, and in many cases should be combined. If we take Google iPad suite or Twitter formal client, they are iOS apps which render content through the we…

The only part of Twitter's native apps for iOS that use a UIWebview are when rendering a single tweet since in that specific use case, it's simpler and faster to render links that way rather than deal with rendering it via Core Text. Every other screen in the app is natively drawn. I don't think Twitter's app is a particularly good example.

> "elite-ios-wiling-to-pay" customers are indifference about it

They are? Are you just throwing that out there or is there some research you can back that up with? In my experience, from watching users use hybrid applications (that is, native app shells around web content) they're perplexed about why things look "a little wrong" and the scrolling is "not as fast" as other apps.

Note: I design/develop Mac & iOS apps.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#52

Post by darthpanda » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:25 PM UTC

itssoobvious wrote: post #13

Money. That's your reason.

That's my reason and I'm certainly not ashamed by it even if there are a few starry-eyed fools here on this board. I program for money. Not to be on the cover of hipster hacker. I program with passion to the best of my ability, for money.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#53

Post by darthpanda » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:32 PM UTC

I have a much simpler reason - there's money in it.

Besides, stick around long enough and you realize it's not the language or platform, it's the process behind the creation that deserves the most focus. Strive for perfection in that and you'll get much greater return on your mental investment.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#54

Post by aphexairlines » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:37 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #47

aphexairlines wrote: post #19

> The iPhone and iPad are the high-end of the smartphones and tablets. I don't think that's true anymore. The iPhone is often heavily subsidized by carriers to the point of being cheaper than other smartphones -- in Japan, for example, it costs zero yen and its data plan is further subsidized to be the cheapest in the country. Also, aren't most of this year's hyped tablets (whether Android ones, or webOS, or BlackBer…

To be fair, just because something costs more doesn't necessarily make it the high end of that product niche. Design and build quality has to be factored in as well.

Sorry if I misinterpreted, but I think he was implying that the iPhone and iPad are more expensive when he says the users are "willing to pay more money for a better experience."

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#55

Post by cageface » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:45 PM UTC

bignoggins wrote: post #28

cageface wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from experience, you can literally throw just about anything on the app store and it will make a couple hundred a month. That hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that once you drop off the "new & noteworthy" sales tail off pretty sharply. The app store is very competitive now.

very few apps make it onto new & noteworthy in the first place, so I don't consider that as a factor. From developers I've talked to, some have thrown pretty hastily put together weekend projects out on the app store and consistently make $5/day, which comes out to $150/month. If you want to make more than 1K/month, then yes, it is pretty darn competitive. Yes there are 450K apps on the app store, but if you have a w…

My last app (http://www.burgerkone.com/grainbender/) was on the New & Noteworthy music page for three days, and was as high as #17 in the U.S. iPad music apps store. Initial sales have been good but if it follows the trajectory of my other apps there's no way it will be pulling in $300 a month a few months from now.

I think you've chosen your niche well. It's popular but under-served.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#56

Post by cageface » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:46 PM UTC

conradev wrote: post #33

cageface wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from experience, you can literally throw just about anything on the app store and it will make a couple hundred a month. That hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that once you drop off the "new & noteworthy" sales tail off pretty sharply. The app store is very competitive now.

As a 13 year old, I put my first application on the store in October 2009, and all it does is play those mosquito ringtone sounds, and I still make ~$300-400 a month. It always manages to maintain the top 50 Entertainment in some random country. EDIT: Top 50 Entertainment for iPad, Top 100 for Entertainment for iPhone. I would recommend making your app universal, even if it is just to make the app fill the screen. Th…

The average app makes about $500 over its entire lifetime, so you should be pretty pleased with this.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#57

Post by cageface » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:52 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #46

slowpoke wrote: post #12

You need to do memory management, need to work with design patterns, learn a new language, and more. While he does raise some valid points (with which I still disagree, but then again I wouldn't be caught dead on anything by Apple, so I'm biased too), this is plain and simply nonsense. Assuming someone knows neither Objective-C nor any language (including HTML) for web development, the learning curve is probably abou…

I would say iOS development is more front-loaded in the amount of things you have to learn before you can build even a simple app than it is for web development. The net amount of work might be less in the end (as you say, there are a ton of technologies to learn in web dev work), but you don't have to learn all of those at once if you want a webpage. And I believe that was the point he was making.

Totally agree with this. Once you get past a certain point the intrinsic complexity of the problem dominates, but the initial learning curve on Obj-C and Cocoa is definitely steeper. You can't just slap something together the way you can with PHP, for instance.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#58

Post by leviathan » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 3:01 PM UTC

bignoggins wrote: post #28

cageface wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from experience, you can literally throw just about anything on the app store and it will make a couple hundred a month. That hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that once you drop off the "new & noteworthy" sales tail off pretty sharply. The app store is very competitive now.

very few apps make it onto new & noteworthy in the first place, so I don't consider that as a factor. From developers I've talked to, some have thrown pretty hastily put together weekend projects out on the app store and consistently make $5/day, which comes out to $150/month. If you want to make more than 1K/month, then yes, it is pretty darn competitive. Yes there are 450K apps on the app store, but if you have a w…

My last app submitted two months ago has made a total of $34, and it wasnt put together in a weekend, it took 6 months in design and development.

So its not as easy sailing as you make it sound. I think you still need a lot of advertising if you want to make some money.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#59

Post by cantbecool » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 4:09 PM UTC

sid0 wrote: post #41

conradev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a 13 year old, I put my first application on the store in October 2009, and all it does is play those mosquito ringtone sounds, and I still make ~$300-400 a month. It always manages to maintain the top 50 Entertainment in some random country. EDIT: Top 50 Entertainment for iPad, Top 100 for Entertainment for iPhone. I would recommend making your app universal, even if it is just to make the app fill the screen. Th…

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

I completely share your opinion.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#60

Post by cantbecool » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 4:25 PM UTC

conradev wrote: post #33

cageface wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from experience, you can literally throw just about anything on the app store and it will make a couple hundred a month. That hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that once you drop off the "new & noteworthy" sales tail off pretty sharply. The app store is very competitive now.

As a 13 year old, I put my first application on the store in October 2009, and all it does is play those mosquito ringtone sounds, and I still make ~$300-400 a month. It always manages to maintain the top 50 Entertainment in some random country. EDIT: Top 50 Entertainment for iPad, Top 100 for Entertainment for iPhone. I would recommend making your app universal, even if it is just to make the app fill the screen. Th…

You play the whole young programmer angle often. Good luck with future development, though.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stealth-tones/id334666404?mt=...