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Why exactly wouldn't you touch iPhone development with a ten-foot pole? Do you dislike Apple Inc., or don't trust your ability to design mobile apps that are wo

by listic 17y ago

Why exactly wouldn't you touch iPhone development with a ten-foot pole? Do you dislike Apple Inc., or don't trust your ability to design mobile apps that are worth paying for, or what?

patio11 17y ago
I feel about Apple quite similarly to how I feel about Google: they're a ginormous megacorp with a much better PR team than my insurance company and precisely as much soul. That doesn't mean we can't do business, it just means I go into business dealings with both eyes open. Mobile development doesn't play to my skill set as a programmer, but that is easy enough to fix. (One copy of Objective C for Dummies, please.) The graphical design I'd have to contract out. The (limited, to my understanding) ability to extract usage metrics from iPhone apps and multi-week wait time between re-releases effectively neutralizes my main strength (testing and iteration) and the app store's discovery mechanism neutralizes the marketing channel I understand best (search and search ads). And the big killer is that the hit- and fad-focused sales lists mean that if I don't hit a homerun immediately at launch I'm probably going to end up taking a bath on the development costs. I sold $25 of my software my first month and sell ~$4,000 a month now. That is a rare trajectory for iPhone apps: typically, they get released at whatever and then start immediately declining.
- gyardley 17y ago
  It's not so hard to extract usage metrics from iPhone applications. Companies offering help with that include Flurry (disclosure: that one's partially mine), Motally, Mobclix, Medialets, and Localytics. Pricing is generally free with the companies making money off of additional, primarily ad-related services. Or you can just roll your own. However, measuring conversions from marketing campaigns is still brutal, when it's possible at all - it's very difficult to buy installs profitably at volume. And the 'big killer' statement is largely accurate, although I've seen higher-priced niche applications grow more like your business did.

by listic 17y ago

Why exactly wouldn't you touch iPhone development with a ten-foot pole? Do you dislike Apple Inc., or don't trust your ability to design mobile apps that are worth paying for, or what?

patio11 17y ago

I feel about Apple quite similarly to how I feel about Google: they're a ginormous megacorp with a much better PR team than my insurance company and precisely as much soul. That doesn't mean we can't do business, it just means I go into business dealings with both eyes open. Mobile development doesn't play to my skill set as a programmer, but that is easy enough to fix. (One copy of Objective C for Dummies, please.) The graphical design I'd have to contract out. The (limited, to my understanding) ability to extract usage metrics from iPhone apps and multi-week wait time between re-releases effectively neutralizes my main strength (testing and iteration) and the app store's discovery mechanism neutralizes the marketing channel I understand best (search and search ads). And the big killer is that the hit- and fad-focused sales lists mean that if I don't hit a homerun immediately at launch I'm probably going to end up taking a bath on the development costs. I sold $25 of my software my first month and sell ~$4,000 a month now. That is a rare trajectory for iPhone apps: typically, they get released at whatever and then start immediately declining.

gyardley 17y ago
It's not so hard to extract usage metrics from iPhone applications. Companies offering help with that include Flurry (disclosure: that one's partially mine), Motally, Mobclix, Medialets, and Localytics. Pricing is generally free with the companies making money off of additional, primarily ad-related services. Or you can just roll your own. However, measuring conversions from marketing campaigns is still brutal, when it's possible at all - it's very difficult to buy installs profitably at volume. And the 'big killer' statement is largely accurate, although I've seen higher-priced niche applications grow more like your business did.