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> Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea? I'm one of those developers. And do you know why?

> Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea? I'm one of those developers. And do you know why? Because it's not my business. I wanted to make some apps. I didn't put in a huge effort. For the numbers to mean anything, you should filter out the 90% (or whatever) of apps that aren't intended to be part of a serious, profitable business.

pvg 16y ago
The numbers, assuming his inputs are reasonably accurate, still mean something - most people trying to make money selling iPhone apps don't make a great deal. It's easy to distinguish between apps that are trying to make money and apps that aren't - apps trying to make money are not free. The sort of filtering you want is next to impossible - you're asking that only the apps that are trying to make money but really mean it are to be considered. He doesn't address something that maybe you're touching on, indirectly - unlike the markets where someone makes zillions on SMS voting for a popular TV show or selling Tetris to feature phone users, the iPhone app market is very accessible to J. Random Hacker. Compared to the previous age of mobile development, it's a major improvement - same device (more or less), same screen size (more or less), same framework, no complicated permission needed from the carrier, payment taken care of, etc, etc. Plus, you never hear of anyone saying they program J2ME or BREW or Symbian apps for fun.
- xenophanes 16y ago
  > [all] apps trying to make money are not free. No, 3 of my 4 apps are paid, even though I'm not making a serious effort to make money. Why shouldn't they be? I don't mind making a little money. Just because filtering the numbers to get useful results is infeasible doesn't mean we should pretend averages across the entire store mean anything for a person who sets out to build an app store oriented business. It reminds me of all the psychological studies that use inadequate controls just because adequate ones for what they want to do would cost trillions of dollars. Then they claim to have done legitimate science. But the standards of science don't lower themselves to what data we can easily get.
  - jpcx01 16y ago
    I'd say your scenario represents a tiny segment (not 90% of paid apps). Most people who build apps for fun put it out for free. If they put a price on it, it's much less likely to be used. Where is the fun in that?
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      Well, I'd guess it represents a much larger segment than you guess. Neither of us has any data, nor does the article. So the only rational conclusion is to accept our ignorance, right? Or at least one should carefully document every single wild guess being made when coming up with some numbers, and carefully identify them as very plausibly being very large sources of error (so that no readers mistakenly doubt that the numbers might be off by a factor of 10 and think it's actually based on hard data).
    - DougBTX 16y ago
      Introverts, remember. The fun is making the app, seeing it with a price tag on it is just a bonus. And it's so easy to put a price tag on, there's no reason not to. It might even cover the developer fees.
  - pvg 16y ago
    No, 3 of my 4 apps are paid, even though I'm not making a serious effort to make money. Why shouldn't they be? I don't mind making a little money. Nobody said they shouldn't be. The point is 'serious effort' vs anything else is not readily measurable. This is something you say, rather than something you do. 'Trying to make money' vs 'Not trying to make money' is measurable - if you're not trying to make money, you don't charge. If you charge, you are obviously trying to make money, even if it's very little money. Just because filtering the numbers to get useful results is infeasible doesn't mean we should pretend averages across the entire store mean anything for a person who sets out to build an app store oriented business. The numbers are still useful, whatever their caveats and limitations. At the very least, they are more useful than non-numbers or numbers-that-ought-to-be-obtained-by-some-method-that-doesn't-actually-produce-measurable-numbers. But the standards of science I don't think there was any claim to reaching the 'standards of science'. It seems a little silly to bring them up, though - the author's sources and methods are well described. There's probably plenty of room to take issue there. But you can't trot out 'the standards of science' if your standard is some underivable set of data that just happens to support your viewpoint.

pvg 16y ago

The numbers, assuming his inputs are reasonably accurate, still mean something - most people trying to make money selling iPhone apps don't make a great deal. It's easy to distinguish between apps that are trying to make money and apps that aren't - apps trying to make money are not free. The sort of filtering you want is next to impossible - you're asking that only the apps that are trying to make money but really mean it are to be considered. He doesn't address something that maybe you're touching on, indirectly - unlike the markets where someone makes zillions on SMS voting for a popular TV show or selling Tetris to feature phone users, the iPhone app market is very accessible to J. Random Hacker. Compared to the previous age of mobile development, it's a major improvement - same device (more or less), same screen size (more or less), same framework, no complicated permission needed from the carrier, payment taken care of, etc, etc. Plus, you never hear of anyone saying they program J2ME or BREW or Symbian apps for fun.

xenophanes 16y ago
> [all] apps trying to make money are not free. No, 3 of my 4 apps are paid, even though I'm not making a serious effort to make money. Why shouldn't they be? I don't mind making a little money. Just because filtering the numbers to get useful results is infeasible doesn't mean we should pretend averages across the entire store mean anything for a person who sets out to build an app store oriented business. It reminds me of all the psychological studies that use inadequate controls just because adequate ones for what they want to do would cost trillions of dollars. Then they claim to have done legitimate science. But the standards of science don't lower themselves to what data we can easily get.
- jpcx01 16y ago
  I'd say your scenario represents a tiny segment (not 90% of paid apps). Most people who build apps for fun put it out for free. If they put a price on it, it's much less likely to be used. Where is the fun in that?
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    Well, I'd guess it represents a much larger segment than you guess. Neither of us has any data, nor does the article. So the only rational conclusion is to accept our ignorance, right? Or at least one should carefully document every single wild guess being made when coming up with some numbers, and carefully identify them as very plausibly being very large sources of error (so that no readers mistakenly doubt that the numbers might be off by a factor of 10 and think it's actually based on hard data).
  - DougBTX 16y ago
    Introverts, remember. The fun is making the app, seeing it with a price tag on it is just a bonus. And it's so easy to put a price tag on, there's no reason not to. It might even cover the developer fees.
- pvg 16y ago
  No, 3 of my 4 apps are paid, even though I'm not making a serious effort to make money. Why shouldn't they be? I don't mind making a little money. Nobody said they shouldn't be. The point is 'serious effort' vs anything else is not readily measurable. This is something you say, rather than something you do. 'Trying to make money' vs 'Not trying to make money' is measurable - if you're not trying to make money, you don't charge. If you charge, you are obviously trying to make money, even if it's very little money. Just because filtering the numbers to get useful results is infeasible doesn't mean we should pretend averages across the entire store mean anything for a person who sets out to build an app store oriented business. The numbers are still useful, whatever their caveats and limitations. At the very least, they are more useful than non-numbers or numbers-that-ought-to-be-obtained-by-some-method-that-doesn't-actually-produce-measurable-numbers. But the standards of science I don't think there was any claim to reaching the 'standards of science'. It seems a little silly to bring them up, though - the author's sources and methods are well described. There's probably plenty of room to take issue there. But you can't trot out 'the standards of science' if your standard is some underivable set of data that just happens to support your viewpoint.