The 2014 Panic Report
panic.com
The 2014 Panic Report
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#2[deleted]
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#3Perhaps the most interesting part for developers currently targeting or considering targeting Apple's App store:
"We had a very long, very torturous situation with Status Board almost being pulled that we’ve never written up out of sensitivity to our relationship with Apple. I only mention it here because it proves that it is possible to fix these awkward rejection situations without Apple suffering negative PR in the public eye — we did that 'offline'. But it took an absolutely massive amount of mental energy and time to work through — positively Sisyphean. I would never want to do it again — I’ve run out of patience, I guess. I can say for certain that the 'bad PR' version of the app dispute process is monumentally more effective. Which is a shame."
Apple's process is a favorite punching bag, of course, and for good reasons.
But I find it so common that 'bad PR' disputes that gain traction (or from parties who can easily command an audience) are more effective that I'm honestly have trouble thinking of exceptions to contrast Apple with.
Anyone know of some?
If not, what does this say about the limits of businesses to address systemic problems?
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#4Amazing transparency! Imagine if the whole industry behaved this way, we'd all be better for it.
Maybe a minor point to some here, but I'd love to know more about the QA process changes they're hinting at.
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#5[deleted]
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#6I wince a little when I read the section titled "Low iOS revenue." The iOS App Store's race to the bottom on pricing (and the parallel problem in Androidville) are very hard on developers. Panic reports that their unit sales are nearly even on iOS and OS X - but that the revenue is on the far side of an 80-20 split, that they make more than four times the revenue from a desktop sale than from an iOS sale! Even if you assume, very generously, that an iOS app can use a smaller project scope and only take half the investment of company time, that's still a heavily skewed ratio. It's a bad situation for developers that can't absorb losses or make their money via IAP (and I'm not sure how long the IAP route will be around, considering the utterly vile marketing practices some entities are using to juice up IAP revenue).
The problem is that this is not that Apple, Google, or consumers are doing something to development houses. It's an emergent feature of the market and the incentives, so there's no simple way to make it reliably financially viable to develop for mobile (subscriptions and IAP are not simple and don't fit all business models).
I hope Panic can afford to stay in the business of writing iOS apps. Their apps are great. But the money those apps are making them, isn't great.
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#7Perhaps the most interesting part for developers currently targeting or considering targeting Apple's App store: "We had a very long, very torturous situation with Status Board almost being pulled that we’ve never written up out of sensitivity to our relationship with Apple. I only mention it here because it proves that it is possible to fix these awkward rejection situations without Apple suffering negative PR in th…
I have seen some bloggers theorize that these problems are bubbling up more in recent months because of some kind of internal conflict within Apple. It does seem rather schizophrenic, with one team releasing a bunch of features in iOS and the SDK, only to have the App Store team disallow the features' use.
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#8I wince a little when I read the section titled "Low iOS revenue." The iOS App Store's race to the bottom on pricing (and the parallel problem in Androidville) are very hard on developers. Panic reports that their unit sales are nearly even on iOS and OS X - but that the revenue is on the far side of an 80-20 split, that they make more than four times the revenue from a desktop sale than from an iOS sale! Even if you…
Indeed. Increasingly I'm viewing iOS apps as value-add only, that is to say apps attached to a given service or other offering, designed to augment such a service.
I am sure people will cite a zillion examples of businesses that make their living from iOS apps, but increasingly this appears more like winning the lotto, akin to 'making it' in Hollywood, than as a viable business model for all comers.
The reliable way to make a living as an iOS developer is to develop for a bigger company that needs an app as a side-show.
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#9[deleted]
> because trying to do SSH without an actual keyboard is really frustrating and no, I don't want to buy a keyboard for my iPad.
A little OT, but reading your comment I remembered how I used to SSH to my home-server using my ex-wife's Nokia E71 sometimes around 2008-2009, when we were going out with friends and I was getting bored. That phone was pure genius, it had a nice keyboard, no need to purchase any SSH client, you could write Python code for it (I was always too lazy for that, though) and it was just pleasant to use.
Re: The 2014 Panic Report
#10I wince a little when I read the section titled "Low iOS revenue." The iOS App Store's race to the bottom on pricing (and the parallel problem in Androidville) are very hard on developers. Panic reports that their unit sales are nearly even on iOS and OS X - but that the revenue is on the far side of an 80-20 split, that they make more than four times the revenue from a desktop sale than from an iOS sale! Even if you…
Well, they price Coda Lite 1/5th the price of OSX version. So they get roughly 1/5h of the revenue. Math works out.
They could try and price Coda iOS at $99, but Cabel is right — it's just not that important platform for dev tools, and I don't see people paying that much. Now if those two were incredibly (and equally) valuable products on both platforms AND priced the same AND there was much less revenue from iOS, then sure, we can show AppStore's fault.
Not saying that appstore isn't broken, I think it is, but for this particular example, I don't think store is the problem.