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App Rot
11–20 of 60 posts
Re: App Rot
#12I use my iPad at least an hour a day before falling asleep, and I am pretty happy with the apps. The YouTube app seems to be under heavy development, and while they often break little things, they also fix and add stuff quickly. I really enjoy YouTube on the iPad and I spend a lot of time there. Likewise, the Google Maps app is great on the iPad. Most of what I said for YouTube applies to Google Maps. Twitter and Twe…
The economics are a bit different for indie developers rather than billion-dollar corporations. Much of the revenue on app stores and mobile advertising is associated with F2P games. Many big companies have free apps on iOS to avoid sharing 30% with Apple.
It may seem that indie devs don't matter, but they create new features that are later copied by the ecosystem, e.g. Reading Lists on iOS.
If the economics of iOS apps are closer to that of "content" like music, what does this mean for the users who invest time in learning app workflows and encoding new data? Should users prioritize data export and open-standard formats?
Hopefully iOS8 will make it feasible for apps to reuse existing data formats, instead of reinventing the wheel. This could improve the economics for some productivity categories.
Re: App Rot
#13With all the app charts bashing going on, one might think that it's regarded as a developer's right to have their famous 15 days with every product. Did anyone expect or aspire anything else than a development towards a Billboard Top 100 or NYT Best Sellers mentality in a matured market that's a 24/7 popularity contest? The app phenomenon has probably created more one-man army millionaires in a very short time than any other industry, so stop complaining and get creative.
Bonus:
Re: App Rot
#14It's funny, regarding the "indies can't be profitable anymore aspect of the article" I read a very similar article 10 years ago entitled, custom web development is dead... then five years ago entitled 3rd part web design is dead, now it's app development. My guess in a couple years we will be reading iOS extension development is dead...
That's just the world we live in. Init? There is no standing still in the IT industry.
Re: App Rot
#15Its interesting that it seems Apple has really shied away from doing the bare minimum to improve things on the app store (until recently with videos and bundles). Not having the store be significant revenue is a double edged sword. I think there are some really interesting hacks that would have been better for consumers AND developers. In another comment (years ago I think...) I mentioned how I wish the top charts wouldn't show me apps I already own. There were years where Angry Birds, for me someone who already owned it, represented the top 10 being an effective top 9. It knows I've already bought it, there's nothing I can do with that being there - even Rovio is only indirectly helped by this since I can't go and buy it again, it just serves as some weird hypothetical billboard on my phone for "other people". If instead I got a custom top 10 that was the top 10 apps I don't own I would be very much incentivized to buy more apps. This is of course not even entering into the actually interesting domain of suggesting better purchases for me.
App Store revenue not being Apple's bread and butter is a double edged sword. My point here is not that the above idea would "save" the app business, but to notice that the app store today is effectively the same as it was 6 years ago. Experimentation in that space doesn't seem to be in their DNA.
Re: App Rot
#16Top lists are also free marketing, every time someone makes millions on the app store, it makes headlines.
Those stories reinforce the message: develop for the app store and be a millionaire, attracting both more developers and more customers to the platform.
Apple has little incentive to change.
Re: App Rot
#17This is interesting and it begs the question: is now (finally) the time where HTML5 app development makes sense - at least for some applications?
The technology is pretty good, and the single code base for iPhone, iPad, Android and Web makes it as tempting as it ever has.
More importantly, now it lets you diversify your sources of revenue. That wasn't important when it was easy to make money in the AppStore, but - maybe - now it is?
Re: App Rot
#18This is interesting and it begs the question: is now (finally) the time where HTML5 app development makes sense - at least for some applications? The technology is pretty good, and the single code base for iPhone, iPad, Android and Web makes it as tempting as it ever has. More importantly, now it lets you diversify your sources of revenue. That wasn't important when it was easy to make money in the AppStore, but - ma…
For some applications, maybe. Mostly apps that are glorified web views.
For anything that needs to tap to the full power of the CPU / sensors, etc, that's a non starter.
>The technology is pretty good, and the single code base for iPhone, iPad, Android and Web makes it as tempting as it ever has.
Unless if we're talking about an established service, like Facebook etc, it's not like anybody made much (or any) money on the web version of their apps. If you're a startup you might even hurt yourself from offering a subpar (non native) Android and iOS experience.
Re: App Rot
#19TL;DR;
1) In a store with close to 1 million apps, a lot of them aren't actively developed anymore or updated to the latest iOS. (DUH!)
2) Hard work and effort are not automagically rewarded with large sales. (DUH!)
3) Not all hundrends of thousands or millions of app programmers competing with each other can live by their app income alone. In fact, few can. (DUH!)
Re: App Rot
#20Seems like the centralized app store model with week-long reviews and free-to-play IAP-addiction-reliefs has lead to a proper race to the bottom. When you have to peddle your wares in a crowded spot next to a million clones which are free or $1-2, with no proper way to do trials or paid upgrades, and you also have to take the full risk of development upfront with a chance for being rejected during final review, it se…
>Seems like the centralized app store model with week-long reviews and free-to-play IAP-addiction-reliefs has lead to a proper race to the bottom.
It's not like competing on the web, to be the next Facebook or even Basecamp is any better. If anything, it's worse.
>For example: Imagine spending 6-12 months on your own dime developing a really neat bitcoin wallet app that you'd like to offer for perhaps $20-30. It'd be completely crazy.
Then don't? Who said a "bitcoin wallet" is anything popular enough to justify a $20 app?