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Why I develop for iOS

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Re: Why I develop for iOS

#71

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

ashconnor wrote: post #26
bignoggins wrote: post #14

Disclaimer: I'm a full time indie iphone developer. I'm an iOS developer for one reason: it is the best platform if you want to start your own business and keep writing CODE. Apple takes care of distribution, payments, marketing (via features and top lists), and some legal issues (you get a default ToC with every app). What this means in practice is that I spend roughly 80% of my time actually in the code, which is s…

Would you say that saving all of that hassle is worth the 30% you give to Apple?

It amazes me how much people prefer to have 100% of NOTHING to give someone 30% for handling most of the distribution problems.

Apple App store has been just barely profitable-just break even for a long time. It takes time and money to maintain it.

It lets you access millions of people overnight. Not so easy to do for an startup.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#72

Post by reidmain »

alanfalcon wrote: post #70
leviathan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've read your website and watched your preview video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKvYH_Qdp1Q ) and I still have very little idea what your iPad app does exactly. It seems that it displays pictures from Facebook? I'm not trying to rub dirt in the wounds, but I don't think you're doing a good job of creating a value proposition for many people.

I agree with alanfalcon. After watching that video I'm not exactly sure what the app does. Sure there are a lot of marketing buzz words and flashy animations but that doesn't sell me on why I should bother installing it.

That fact that the app isn't free wouldn't be what would dissuade me from downloading it (although I won't lie it is a minor barrier). It is the time I'd have to spend on figuring out why I want to use this app.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#73

Post by cpeterso »

bignoggins wrote: post #34
palish wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are seriously looking to make some side income, and potentially even quit your job, I don't think there is a better option than iOS development right now." "If you want to make more than 1K/month, then yes, it is pretty darn competitive." So.. Do you make more than $12K/yr?

Yes. Made ~75K last year. On track to triple that this year (I've released 2 more apps this year). In response to below: - How? Started off first app as a side project, released on app store. Got traction and went from there. Then started releasing more apps and each of those did well also. - How long did it take you to reach this point? Released first app May 2010. Quit soul-sucking BigCo Dec 2010. Started traveling…

Awesome success! Do you need to frequently publish app updates to keep your revenue up? Or can you launch your apps "fire and forget", generating money without needing to touch the code again? That seems like the only strategy that would scale well without being burdened by maintenance.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#74

Post by bignoggins »

cpeterso wrote: post #73
bignoggins wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Made ~75K last year. On track to triple that this year (I've released 2 more apps this year). In response to below: - How? Started off first app as a side project, released on app store. Got traction and went from there. Then started releasing more apps and each of those did well also. - How long did it take you to reach this point? Released first app May 2010. Quit soul-sucking BigCo Dec 2010. Started traveling…

Awesome success! Do you need to frequently publish app updates to keep your revenue up? Or can you launch your apps "fire and forget", generating money without needing to touch the code again? That seems like the only strategy that would scale well without being burdened by maintenance.

Frequent updates are a must for staying on top of the charts.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#75

Post by conradev »

cantbecool wrote: post #60
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…

You play the whole young programmer angle often. Good luck with future development, though. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stealth-tones/id334666404?mt=...

I actually am aware of this, it is very true, and have been moving more away from it as I am getting older. I am in the (well, constant) process of updating my online identity. For example, my website is shit, haven't got to that yet.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#76

Post by conradev »

cageface wrote: post #56
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…

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

I didn't know this. Hrmm. Where do you find data on that sort of thing?

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#77

Post by cageface »

conradev wrote: post #76
cageface wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't know this. Hrmm. Where do you find data on that sort of thing?

Here's an article from last year with some numbers: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/06/full-an...

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#78

Post by trezor »

bignoggins wrote: post #30
aphexairlines wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding mini payments, what about Google Checkout for the chrome web store? If Checkout accounts are the same as Android Market accounts, you have lots of people with credit cards on file already for 1-click payments.

google checkout doesn't have nearly the same traction as iTunes. That's why android apps sell significantly less despite having a larger install base than iOS.

I hear this claim quite often, but I have yet to see it documented. I'm not saying you are wrong, just asking if you have some link to a study supporting this argument or anything similar.

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#79

Post by atomicdog »

cageface wrote: post #56
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…

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

What exactly is the 'lifetime' on an iphone app?

Re: Why I develop for iOS

#80

Post by chriseidhof »

ejenkinsiii wrote: post #65
econgeeker wrote: post #5

All good reasons. My reasons are: -- The Apple frameworks are first class. In the past 20 years, there has never been a set of GUI frameworks that I've seen that was anywhere near as good as things are in iOS right now. (I've not looked at android, but it being based on Java doesn't fill me with hope. A lot of what makes CocoaTouch work so well is due to Objective-C.) -- You can write an app once and have it run on i…

I love Apple products, and am learning C++ on my own, alone along with web development, (huge task I know) but the one thing I noticed about apple these days is that if you create an idea on their platform and they like it, it could be an feature in their next upgrade with no compensation to you, also could someone please point out any other use case for Obj-c I come from a background of using/instructing with propri…

Yes, Apple does that sometimes, but it doesn't always have to be a bad thing, see http://www.marco.org/2011/06/06/safari-reader-and-instapaper

As for learning Obj-C: yes, it's only widely used for building iOS/Cocoa apps. There's also Cappuccino (http://cappuccino.org/), where you can reuse your knowledge for web development. Even if you use another language, your code will probably still heavily interact with the Cocoa framework and effectively lock you in too.

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