Hello,
To write this short essay I was encouraged by an article
Developing for iOS as a lottery: 59% do not discourage costs .
The main conclusions that I learned from its reading: "iOS development is a lottery, the profitability of the application is almost independent of quality, promotion is indispensable for success."
')
I can only agree with the last thesis about promotion. The payback statistics given in the article is completely useless and demonstrates the classic “average hospital temperature.” And that's why.
The very iOS developers that the App Promo company operates in
statistics are completely different people. The fact is that most of them never considered iOS development as a business or simply never took it seriously.
To demonstrate this, go to the
iPhoneDevSDK website and look at the work of most developers, they speak for themselves. One example to illustrate the situation: many want to make money, but the overwhelming majority of indie developers are completely unprepared to pay for the design:
Poll on iPhoneDevSDK
Facebook
voting for Indie App & Game Developers group
As can be seen from both illustrations - many want to earn, while not investing anything but their time. If the first chart is still not so bad (as there are people on iPhoneDevSDK who opened their studios), then on the second we have a picture where 21 of 27 people said that they do not spend money on design and do everything themselves, in two There is a design partner, and only 4 people pay for the design.
Absolutely the same thing happens with application localization. Very rarely, the application is localized, trying to save on it.
Promotion is usually what is put off last. Although I know a couple of developers with a zero budget for a designer and a small budget for promotion. As I understand this approach works, but very rarely. In my opinion, it is better to spend this money on a quality icon and / or UI.
Moreover, all these people are called in one word - indie developer, although there are quite large differences. I would single out 3 types of “indie”:
- Small companies (yes, they also call themselves indie!)
- Independent Jedi developers who do it seriously (most often full time)
- People whose iOS Dev is a hobby
Companies
With the first category, everything is clear. These are either real companies, or simply well-established teams of independent developers, designers, marketers, etc.
The Jedi
The second category consists of people who make money for their existence (or at least try) iOS development. They have a serious approach, there are budgets for design, promotion, etc. According to my observations in Dublin such developers in 1-2 years either start their own companies, or together with other developers. Actually, of those whom I knew 2 years ago in the second category, 100% of the people moved into category 1.
Lovers
The third category is the most massive. I do not have exact statistics, but I am more than confident that the figure is close to 90% or even exceeds this figure. It's all very colorful. Someone decided to try out “for himself” and lay out a free application, someone succumbed to the “gold rush”, someone decided to earn some “pocket” money. Actually this category and “spoils” the statistics of the first two on the payback of applications. There are not so many stories of success, much less than all sorts of businessmen who follow the principle “20 clones, 5 bucks a week, give 100 bucks a week” :)
Instead of conclusion
Naturally, like any other business, iOS development does not guarantee profits. There is no “silver bullet” that makes iOS business not only payable, but also profitable, and you - a millionaire. But, in my opinion, this is still quite an attractive niche. And the problem is no longer a huge number of applications and poor "visibility" (there are still not so many high-quality applications), but the fact that the flow of applications of different quality has collapsed prices. If 2 years ago the application for iPhone for $ 4.99 or $ 7.99 was quite normal, now it is more the exception to the rule.
Quote from the
original article on ArsTechnica with which I fully agree:
More developers, trying to build a real business,
Developers would earn better by investing more money and effort in creating fewer, better applications and trying to build a real business with it.
Brent Simmons , former developer of NetNewsWire
Author, who are you?
I am currently in the 3rd category of developers. My application has paid for the direct costs of the design, the site and the purchase of a test iPad in six weeks. For almost a year it has been making a small profit, which is called “for beer”. I already described the creation process in an
article on the site . At the moment I have almost finished the second version of the application, which I hope will raise sales a couple of times. I already described the creation process in an
article on the site .
Not long ago, I decided to take a chance - quit, move back to Ireland and open a small application development company. Let's see what happens :)