Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

App Rot

marco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: App Rot

#31

Post by JetSpiegel »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #29
coldtea wrote: post #19

TL;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!)

> 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!) This doesn't deserve your "DUH!". It reflects the fact that making these apps is easy. If it were so difficult or time-consuming that hobbyists starved trying to get an app done, everyone in the app store would be living on their app income.

And yet not a single person proficient in Brainfuck lives off that knowledge.

Re: App Rot

#32

Post by JetSpiegel »

marban wrote: post #13

With 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 a…

I'm already feeling better that someone I never met stroke gold. I'll kick myself, don't bother.

Re: App Rot

#33

Post by janlukacs »

I simply hate the appstore - it's so full of useless bad quality apps - don't even get me started on games. i have only oppened it a couple of times in the past two years. They killed discovery for me, i'm not even interested in checking out new apps (still no trials?!).

Re: App Rot

#34

Post by maljx »

walterbell wrote: post #7
0x0 wrote: post #4

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. 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…

Why aren't developers choosing to build PC apps instead? Stardock said that their worst-performing PC game earned more revenue than most iOS or Android apps for which they could obtain revenue numbers. On PCs, it is still possible for developers to sell from their own website, without paying a 30% fee to a platform app store. PCs may be a numerically smaller (hundreds of millions vs. billions of devices) market, but…

I think a lot of game devs are actually switching to PC (steam), PS4 and XBox One. I know we are, it feels like a much more stable and safe marketplace.

Re: App Rot

#35

Post by tomjen3 »

walterbell wrote: post #7
0x0 wrote: post #4

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. 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…

Why aren't developers choosing to build PC apps instead? Stardock said that their worst-performing PC game earned more revenue than most iOS or Android apps for which they could obtain revenue numbers. On PCs, it is still possible for developers to sell from their own website, without paying a 30% fee to a platform app store. PCs may be a numerically smaller (hundreds of millions vs. billions of devices) market, but…

I know some indie game developers.

Plenty don't develop for any particular platform. You write your code in Unity3D, and then build for all the platforms it can (Android, IOS, etc) then you build your app for Steam where you make it run on all platforms (ie Windows, Mac and Linux) which is easy because it is almost just a button in Unity.

Then you hope that enough people buy your game to earn the development cost back. You don't develop just for one platform because it is unlikely that you will make enough money to get it back.

Re: App Rot

#36

Post by tomjen3 »

martinald wrote: post #2

Really interesting. Anecdotally, I'm seeing people starting to abandon their iPads and go back to laptops (generally macbooks/ultrabooks) in meetings and the like. I think the keyboard is just too useful for most people. Smartphone usage is definitely not following a similar trend, though.

That is going to change with the new IOS 8 keyboards. Believe me as an Android user it makes a world of difference in regards to how fast you can type.

Re: App Rot

#37

Post by bruceboughton »

tolmasky wrote: post #15

Its 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 wo…

What would your list look like with apps you owned removed?

     8. FartApp
    10. Flashlight
or

     8. FartApp
     9. Flashlight
In the first, with 9. Angry Birds removed, it looks like the data hasn't loaded properly.

In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking.

You could solve this by leaving a gap or indicator where 9. Angry Birds should have been but then the user's wondering "what isn't it showing me in that gap?".

So maybe you should just call the Top 10, "Your Personalized Top 10". But then it's not personalized really, all they've done is remove apps you already own. The user thinks, "Why are Apple showing me fart apps? Don't they think I have taste? Can't they see I only download Twitter clients and podcast apps?".

For the marginal benefit of not showing apps you already own, which are indicated as such, you are opening a whole can of UI worms.

Re: App Rot

#38

Post by tomjen3 »

nl wrote: post #17

This 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…

I make HTML5 gambling apps for a living.

You can certainly do that but be prepared to write special code on each platform to handle some things. Like IOS Also forget supporting the earlier models, forget retina graphics (at least pre webGL).

If you are just making games go with Unity and develop for all the platforms.

Re: App Rot

#39

Post by phloxicon »

bruceboughton wrote: post #37
tolmasky wrote: post #15

Its 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 wo…

What would your list look like with apps you owned removed? 8. FartApp 10. Flashlight or 8. FartApp 9. Flashlight In the first, with 9. Angry Birds removed, it looks like the data hasn't loaded properly. In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking. You could solve this by leaving a gap or indicator where 9. Angry Birds should have been but then the user's wond…

It could just show the ten best selling apps that don't include the one you already have installed. So instead of 1, 3, 4, it would push 3 up to 2 and 4 up to 3.

I'd also like if the store didn't keep showing things it's shown me a dozen times before. If I haven't downloaded them after seeing them advertised this many times, I'm never going to download them.

Re: App Rot

#40

Post by sandyarmstrong »

x0x0 wrote: post #21
baddox wrote: post #6

I 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…

do you have an iphone? In my (sample size me, so 1) survey (=P), tablet usage plummeted after I got a nexus 5 and my phone screen wasn't so damn tiny

Yes. I don't think I've turned on my Nexus 7 since I got my Nexus 5. The phone is more comfortable to hold and the screen is plenty big for anything from Netflix/Twitch viewing to ebook reading.

I always felt the original iPad 2 was too big and heavy to use comfortably for very long, too. 5"-7" seems like the sweet spot.

Post reply on HN