There is a lot of price pressure on iOS apps, people expect them to be free or at least under $2. At that price you need to sell a lot of apps to make a profit, and probably very few apps reach that level. I've tried the opposite, selling a higher priced app and accepting the much lower sales numbers, and I think it has resulted in a better return than going low cost, but it's still not earning enough to grow. I do look at the prices that desktop apps get with envy, so maybe it is time to go back to that market? The idea about designing for mobile first though, that makes a lot of sense.

John mentions having to redesign for iOS 7, but the reality that there are many of these events that mean that you have to keep developing. New iOS versions, new screen sizes, WatchOS, (tvOS), new input methods, updating UI, all add up to quite a bit of work just to stand still feature wise.

I think the days of making money on the App Store are gone.