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My first attempt at iOS app development

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Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#21

Post by vachina »

heliographe wrote: post #11
earthnail wrote: post #2

The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.

Yes, making money on iOS is an uphill climb, many times more so if you’re not playing the TikTok ads and subscription model. I’ve been making iOS software independently for almost 2 years now ( https://heliographe.studio ) and am about ramen profitable. A few notes in case OP (or anyone interested in making some money in the App Store) is reading: - you have to make the app free to download, and quickly demonstrate v…

Took a look at your app, and would like to say you’re competing in a very crowded space.

It’s not immediately clear to the layman, what value your app provides. Even to me, it got me asking what your app provides over Adobe Lightroom.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#22

Post by 9d »

earthnail wrote: post #2

The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.

Pure iOS apps stopped being profitable in 2009 or so.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#23

Post by jll29 »

vunderba wrote: post #12
amelius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what they make? Maybe it's only $100? For three days work, that's terrible.

Made even worse by the fact that the apple developer membership costs 99 USD per year...

So Apple gets $99/year PLUS 30% app revenue share?

So at a $2.99 "fair" price point as mentioned in the post, how many copies does he have to sell to break even (assuming 4 days of development priced at $2,500/day contractor rate)?

  (1     * .99) * .70 - (4 * 2500 + 99)
The answer is => 14,574 downloads would give him $0.78 profit, before taxes. (In that time, he would have earned more than $13,000 for Apple.)

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#24

Post by jll29 »

The Apple ecosystem is polished, but controlling and unforgiving.

Tool upgrades are enforced and so are regular hardware upgrades, whether you like it or not. That's hardware that is still working, which Appled decides you will no longer be able to use some software on, just because.

And after Apple sells you a computer and developer subscription, it makes you work for them on their share of any app sale.

I like some aspects of Apple's hardware, and I liked their older OS and software (when it became preemtive, but UX was more simple and systematic than now), but overall, I prefer open ecosystems.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#25

Post by gumby271 »

bredren wrote: post #13
earthnail wrote: post #2

The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.

The author mentions code signing as a tricky ecosystem thing. Well, wait until the app has to get new assets to be resubmitted with bug fixes for new versions of iOS. And if they don’t keep updating it, it will stop working and the buy it for life idea commits the dev to maintenance that isn’t paid for either upfront or through subscription. There are folks who make and give away a lot but some learn their lesson qui…

I think a lot of what Apple has added to their App Store in the name of security is really just to get developers to move to recurring revenue models, which in turns makes Apple a lot more money. An old app that hasn't been updated in a couple years isn't inherently dangerous, but if Apple can convince users that it is, then devs will have to rethink how they do business. It's a shame to watch Google copy this move too on the Play Store.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#26

Post by sokoloff »

jll29 wrote: post #23
vunderba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Made even worse by the fact that the apple developer membership costs 99 USD per year...

So Apple gets $99/year PLUS 30% app revenue share? So at a $2.99 "fair" price point as mentioned in the post, how many copies does he have to sell to break even (assuming 4 days of development priced at $2,500/day contractor rate)? (1 * .99) * .70 - (4 * 2500 + 99) The answer is => 14,574 downloads would give him $0.78 profit, before taxes. (In that time, he would have earned more than $13,000 for Apple.)

I thought it was 15% for devs selling under $1M per year.

It also seems like a super-weird analysis angle to both pay yourself a (very generous) full day rate AND then expect upside on top of that and conclude that making just the $10K for 4 days’ work is somehow a loss for the solo entrepreneur.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#27

Post by ricardobeat »

jll29 wrote: post #23
vunderba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Made even worse by the fact that the apple developer membership costs 99 USD per year...

So Apple gets $99/year PLUS 30% app revenue share? So at a $2.99 "fair" price point as mentioned in the post, how many copies does he have to sell to break even (assuming 4 days of development priced at $2,500/day contractor rate)? (1 * .99) * .70 - (4 * 2500 + 99) The answer is => 14,574 downloads would give him $0.78 profit, before taxes. (In that time, he would have earned more than $13,000 for Apple.)

On what planet do iOS contractors make $2500/day?

That aside, 1) the author is not an experienced iOS dev 2) hourly rates != cost, and 3) you can certainly get the same app built for under $1000 by a freelancer.

You also seem to have accidentally used a $0.99 price instead of $2.99.

Real break-even would be closer to 1k-2k sales.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#28

Post by [deleted] »

ensignavenger wrote: post #14
earthnail wrote: post #2

The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.

At 3 days to develop, the author could make 100 of these apps a year. Of course, they will probably spend additional time developing and fixing bugs, IF the app gets any traction. And if it becomes something more substantial, they could up the price or release a preium in app purchase to upgrade with new features.

[deleted]

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#29

Post by MBCook »

earthnail wrote: post #2

The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.

It’s not just that. Companies who are anywhere between unethical and outright complete scams have discovered how incredibly easy it is to get people to sign up for a free trial for something that milks them of tons of money they don’t realize.

Despite the fact that Apple tells you when your subscription will renew it doesn’t seem to help enough people. So they buy a scientific calculator app because they don’t realize that it’s built into the one on the phone and then end up paying five dollars a week for it. And even if they find out after the first renewal that means the app developer got five dollars (minus fees).

There’s tons of subscriptions out there that are just completely out of whack with their prices. And Apple just doesn’t seem to care.

Re: My first attempt at iOS app development

#30

Post by threeseed »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #16
ryandrake wrote: post #15

Coming from embedded development, where it's mostly crappy SOC vendors providing a barely-working SDK and toolchain they cobbled together from an ancient version of gcc, moving to iOS development / Xcode was in most aspects a breath of fresh air. It does have its annoyances, though. Code signing, provisioning profiles, entitlements, AppStore wizardry... And the developer program fee is a bummer: It means you can't su…

The solution for code signing is coming: through jailbreaks or appdb.to, it's possible to sideload apps without the official app store process. The EU even mandated that there should be other app stores. Building for older models is possible using a collection of virtual machines, or even a multi-boot old laptop.

a) You still need to code sign on alternative app stores.

b) All of your users are still going come through the Apple one.

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