There was a brief period - after the App Store opened, but before people had really figured out how to write good apps - where an indie dev could just put up a

There was a brief period - after the App Store opened, but before people had really figured out how to write good apps - where an indie dev could just put up a new app and expect sales on novelty alone. Those days are OVER. It's fairly appropriate that App Store apps are sold through iTunes - because the issue facing indie developers is exactly the same as the one facing indie musicians. If you don't have a massive promotional budget to drive traffic to your new thing, you'll need to get better at online promotion & connecting with your customers. It's still an improvement over the indie software ecosystem of twenty years ago, where either you were big enough to get shelf space for a boxed product (good luck!) or you were hoping enough people would get tired of the nag screen and pay the shareware fee...