This story is moving in three directions at once, none of them very convincing.

First, the bulk of this piece reads as an advertisement for Trapster.

Second, he's trying to make money by using advertising in a mobile app? yuck. I can only imagine what that would look like in Windows Mobile (or the 9 other platforms trapster is being built for).

Third, the last two paragraphs of the article come straight out of left field: "it's obvious that developers would have an easier time if their mobile apps could just run in the background." I don't see how this has bearing on my iphone app not being a 'surefire success'. But I digress.

Summary of the article in 75 words or less: If you try to create a product that has a large critical user base, questionable utility and safety (I'm supposed to be examining maps while driving on the expressway?), and obfuscate your interface with advertisements, "adjust your expectations and strategy accordingly," because money won't magically appear in your bank account. Especially if you're not actually charging for the app.

good points, though it is annoying when the "tracking my route, milage and pace while biking" get's deleted because of an errant phone call. perhaps the app could have been saving progress along the way rather than able to run or hibernate in the background?

When a phone call comes in, your application delegate gets a notification that you're about to quit; you can save whatever you want at that point, and of course, should, so when you restart the app, it goes back to exactly where you left off.

The most reliable way to make money during the gold rush came from selling shovels.

What's the analog here? XCode is free. What other complements to iPhone development can make money?

In the past I suggested that $200/hour contract iPhone programming might be more lucrative than entrepreneurial app development, but that doesn't quite fit the shovel analogy.

Maybe something that allows you to cross-deploy your app to a variety of mobile os's (adroid, iphone, etc) from the same code base?

The well-known indie mac app icon designers have more work than they can possibly do. They're mining the miners, so to speak.

Yes, but that was because nobody could institute a 30% tax on all sales of gold.

:)

yeah but in this case the shovels are being given for free (the SDK)... so that is out of the equation...

The implied comparison is more correct than the headline. The iPhone is much like the CA and AK gold rush. Lots of people spend money and time to get there, but not everyone strikes it rich. The media focuses on those who get good claims, and ignore the people who strike out.

Which leads to an influx of even more people hoping to get rich quick.

It's good to see a counter balance the "OMG Developer Made 100K in 3 Weeks!" mania we've been seeing lately. Still, there is clearly opportunity in these apps. You just shouldn't overestimate the odds of having a big hit right off the bat.

Ha. This is exactly the app idea my team worked on at iPhoneDevCamp2 in SF. It was never completed. I wrote the server side, but the other coder got wasted that night, and his hangover forced him to miss most of the day...

It's like the lottery for software developers.

It is a lot like the lottery.

However, it's a lottery that you can play (for 99 dollars and your time) and learn something in the process. Learning objective c and developing an interface for mobile multi-touch devices is well worth the price of admission.

You never know how that experience will pay off in the future regardless of whether your app was a success.