IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers don't break even

Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by gyardley on Friday May 04, 2012 @03:29PM (#3929932)

iOS app success is pretty much guaranteed - if you're smart enough to take your skills and start selling them at market rate to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to hit the iOS lottery.

In a gold rush, the guys who do the best are the ones selling picks.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by evilduck on Friday May 04, 2012 @03:59PM (#3930080)

Selling your time and skills isn't selling pickaxes. That's just offering to dig for gold at a cost above what you'll find when you dig.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by incomethax on Friday May 04, 2012 @04:32PM (#3930217)

Exactly. In the app gold rush, the ones selling pickaxes are Apple and Google with iOS and Android.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by evilduck on Friday May 04, 2012 @04:42PM (#3930271)

Or writing books, holding seminars, training sessions, selling development tools, etc.

RubyMotion is a great recent pickaxe example. Write for the App Store using Ruby for only $150 now or $200 later! Buy Now!

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by cageface on Friday May 04, 2012 @07:10PM (#3930733)

I have two iPad music apps in the store that both had long stints in the "what's hot" section and one was as high as #13 in the US music category and #7 in the UK.

When I consider how much time they took to write I would have been much, much better off spending that time on oDesk contracts at $20/hr, and don't even talk about what I could have made on a real developers salary in that time.

Selling your own apps now is a fool's game. Apple trumpets the successes because it helps them sell hardware.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by notJim on Saturday May 05, 2012 @05:51PM (#3933390)

Did you make too few sales, or not enough money per sale?

Perhaps the iPad music category is too niche, unless you can justify a high price-point.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by cageface on Saturday May 05, 2012 @08:26PM (#3933698)

Hard to say. As other people have reported, total profit seems to be loosely correlated with price. I sell more at lower price points but total revenue is similar.

Some music apps make do really well but they're generally much less complex and technical than mine.

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Re:IOS app success is a lottery: 60% (or more) of developers... by dasil003 on Saturday May 05, 2012 @01:57PM (#3932712)

Working for every Tom, Dick and Harry sounds like a fucking nightmare.

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