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Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

bigswing.com

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Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#21

Post by ryandrake »

potatolicious wrote: post #16
MisterWebz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of profit are we talking about? I'd be content with 2k revenue a month.

Mobile app profitability isn't linear, or even close to linear - you're either rolling in the dough or you're not even making ramen money. Discoverability is a huge problem, if you're not in a featuring, a top-X list, or something of the sort, your profitability is extremely limited. If there's no visibility on the App Store for you, you don't get fewer users, you get almost no users. $2K sustaining revenue a month i…

From this discussion, it sounds like it's potentially very profitable to be a consultant MAKING apps for other companies, but, except for very rare cases, the apps themselves are not profitable.

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#22

Post by RickDT »

10dpd wrote: post #20

- Note this is a self-reported survey where people are likely to overstate their earnings in order to impress peers. - Additionally there isn't enough supporting data, e.g. no where is the rate of time defined in the article. I'd be interested to see the original survey to see if this is clearly mentioned here. - Can someone point to one clear unambiguous place where an iOS developer position is advertised at over $1…

- The survey was anonymous (unless you signed up to get the results). And, I don't think anyone is trying to impress us ;)

- The data clearly shows that this is per hour (see the data here: http://bigswing.com/ios-rates-2013, per the post). You can also view an archived copy of the survey here: http://bigswing.com/ios-rate-survey-2013-archive/ It poses the question: "If you do have an hourly rate, what is it on average?"

- The point of doing this survey was that rates are rarely, if ever, actually posted. There are a lot of reasons for that, but it also makes hard to know if you're in line with your industry. Hence, the survey!

Your critiques and questions seem to imply that you don't think our findings are valid. Is that true or am I reading too much into it? ~$100/hour USD is right in line with our experience for an average across the whole industry. It's low for an agency or big firm and high for a young freelancer.

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#23

Post by RickDT »

wolframarnold wrote: post #11

You guys are asking some interesting questions in particular about whether people feel they charge too much or not enough. The best expose on that I've seen is in Gerald Weinberg's "Secrets of Consulting" http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0932633013/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=... It's a question that's both externally determined, e.g. "What does the market bear?" and also based on someone's own perception of their worth. It's ha…

Fantastic point on challenging your own perceptions of the value of an hour, the market, etc. We really hope this survey (and subsequent ones that we plan to do) gives people an additional data point to consider.

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#24

Post by RickDT »

pjungwir wrote: post #14

Interesting that "innocent"s charge more than "exposed"s or "apprentices." I wonder if these are senior developers making a transition into iOS.

I hadn't considered the transitioners. That's a good point. The other way to look at it is that they don't know how bad they are yet :) When you first start to learn something, you feel like you know everything until you get that first smack down!

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#25

Post by RickDT »

Phlarp wrote: post #8

These "feel" low to me. For context I'm a freelancer doing mostly front end web work based in MN and comfortably charging 50-60 with relatively little experience (~18 months, three of which were an internship with a creative firm). My intuition would have previously been that iOS devs; being both more supply constrained and needing more technical depth in skills (webdevs can get away with just knowing how to string u…

Especially comparing the average rates to proficiency and locale, I was surprised. I would expect Journeymen and Master to be charging more than $100/hr on average. Same with people in tech-heavy areas.

But, our data may be skewed this year just due to our reach. We didn't have many people from companies in the range of 20-100 people which I think is a sweet spot for high specialization.

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#26

Post by RickDT »

ryandrake wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile app profitability isn't linear, or even close to linear - you're either rolling in the dough or you're not even making ramen money. Discoverability is a huge problem, if you're not in a featuring, a top-X list, or something of the sort, your profitability is extremely limited. If there's no visibility on the App Store for you, you don't get fewer users, you get almost no users. $2K sustaining revenue a month i…

From this discussion, it sounds like it's potentially very profitable to be a consultant MAKING apps for other companies, but, except for very rare cases, the apps themselves are not profitable.

We may do a follow-up survey to attempt to confirm our assumption that the vast majority of people that make money from apps are doing so by invoicing clients, rather than selling apps in the store(s).

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#27

Post by jtc331 »

10dpd wrote: post #20

- Note this is a self-reported survey where people are likely to overstate their earnings in order to impress peers. - Additionally there isn't enough supporting data, e.g. no where is the rate of time defined in the article. I'd be interested to see the original survey to see if this is clearly mentioned here. - Can someone point to one clear unambiguous place where an iOS developer position is advertised at over $1…

>> "- Can someone point to one clear unambiguous place where an iOS developer position is advertised at over $100 per hour?"

I think this misses the point. You seem to imply you're thinking about what a developer could make in a full-time salaried position. What a consultancy (whether one person or ten) charges is generally significantly higher.

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#28

Post by MisterWebz »

potatolicious wrote: post #16
MisterWebz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of profit are we talking about? I'd be content with 2k revenue a month.

Mobile app profitability isn't linear, or even close to linear - you're either rolling in the dough or you're not even making ramen money. Discoverability is a huge problem, if you're not in a featuring, a top-X list, or something of the sort, your profitability is extremely limited. If there's no visibility on the App Store for you, you don't get fewer users, you get almost no users. $2K sustaining revenue a month i…

So what's stopping people from making a web app that offers better native app discoverability than the app store?

Re: Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey

#29

Post by potatolicious »

MisterWebz wrote: post #28
potatolicious wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile app profitability isn't linear, or even close to linear - you're either rolling in the dough or you're not even making ramen money. Discoverability is a huge problem, if you're not in a featuring, a top-X list, or something of the sort, your profitability is extremely limited. If there's no visibility on the App Store for you, you don't get fewer users, you get almost no users. $2K sustaining revenue a month i…

So what's stopping people from making a web app that offers better native app discoverability than the app store?

Those exist, but there are a few key problems:

- Most of them are pretty sketchy marketing schemes, not unlike the "Top Sites" aggregators of yore. There's no user trust, because they are just pay-to-play.

- The friction is still enormous. You're on a website, you find an app you like, you tap on a link. It switches to the App Store App (heh). You wait. You wait some more. You wait for the hybrid-webview-bullshit-thing to kick in and load the detail page. You tap Buy/Install, you authenticate. You wait some more. There's no way to bypass the App Store, sadly.

Android does better in this regard where a user sitting at their home computer can send an app to their phone. This does wonders for your ability to market your app.

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