Apple Reaches 45B App Downloads With $9B Paid to Developers

[TouchMint.com]

Its not only the big companies that can make it on the app store. While I am not able to make apps as my full time job I could make it work if I needed it to.


I assume a lot of devs are in the same place. If you have the skills/talent to make apps odds are you already have a good paying job that would be hard to leave.

 

[twoodcc]

that's a lot of downloads. i wonder how much bandwidth that is

 

[ctdonath]

Not.

While outcome may not be assured...
- investments have positive average payoffs
- gambles have negative average payoffs

 

[marksman]

However, the bulk of that over $1billion per quarter is paid out to a very small percentage of app developers. The vast majority of app developers make a little coffee/beer money or less directly from the App Store. Consulting for companies that can throw money away is the only real income opportunity these days for most.

Yet apple still has foistered a multi billion dollar industry in creating apps for their mobile devices. Creating multi billion dollar industries out of nothing is extremely hard to do.

 

[marksman]

Personally, as an app developer, I would like to spend more time creating cool new and unique apps, and less time and money on marketing and PR efforts to keep older apps up the charts. But there's very little (near zero?) visibility for all but a tiny number of new interesting apps these days.

Then perhaps pay someone to market your apps for you. Marketing is a part of being in business. Basically you want apple to do a key part of operating a business for you.

Beyond that it is not even logistically possible. I own a marketing company, perhaps I shouid look into assisting down trodden app devs not getting their piece of the pie.

While I know this sounds like an attack it is not. You are a developer you shouid develop. I am sort of shocked there are not marketing houses or co ops for small developers to pool resources and maximize exposure.

With nearly one million apps there is no way for apple to make even a tiny fraction of them visible. The reality is as the store has gotten bigger developers should have been branching their marketing. There are still lots of ways to market apps but there is a cost, be it money, time; resources or a combination of all of them.

Plus the reality is there is so much duplication and narrow distinction that unless you have something unique you have little chance without a sizable marketing budget. If you have a truely unique app that is either very useful or uniquely entertaining you could make a lot of money with only a time investment. I realize that is time you want to spend developing but then you have to pay someone for their time to help you.

If i spend six months creating a website and then say I am open how many visits will I get if I tell nobody about it and do no marketing. Next to none. If you have a typo name of a busy website maybe three. Few businesses online or offline can just open and expect the cash to come in. Marketing is super important and takes a lot of different forms.

 

[ilmman]

Being an indive developer is hard work. Unless you have all the resources you need, you have to obtain them yourself or paying someone to do so. I released apps but with shocking icons and screenshots in the past and they were dismal, improving icons and screenshot gives a great first impression whether your app is good. Every little detail is needed to getting the right exposure and even if you do it right, you are not guaranteed for a success simply because "the app is better than this app"

 

[newagemac]

That used to be true. But, these days, marketing, advertising, social PR and having an established brand seem to be more important in driving app sales.



And there was also a recent news reports that someone won well over $30 million in some state lotto. But that doesn't mean the lottery is a "real tool for developers". The lottery is often said to be a tax on people who aren't good at math (statistics and probability). Only a microscopic percentage of the several 100 thousand iOS developers do anywhere near as well as Wavii. Maybe with slightly better odds than playing the lotto (but maybe not given the high "ticket" cost to play). Certainly not good enough odds for a business plan unless you are a professional gambler. Not many people are. Thus, the App store is really terrible for most small developers.

Well considering how much more money is made on iOS for small developers compared to Android, if the App Store is terrible for small developers, then it is downright ridiculously dumb for them to develop for Android at all.

By the way, the overwhelming majority of all small businesses fail in the first 5 years. Most small developers don't make much money on ANY platform. I fail to see your point. The reality of the situation is that if you are a small developer wanting to make money developing apps, iOS is by far your best bet. And there are a TON of small developers making good money on iOS.

I work with a lot of small developers whose apps I'm sure you haven't even heard of and they are making a very decent living developing for iOS. Quite a bit more than the $40,000 or so they made at their previous jobs slaving for some company. These are just regular people working on their apps alone. But even if they were making "only" around $40,000 that's pretty good considering all the other benefits compared to working for someone else 9 to 5 every day.

 

[JAT]

What? If you are referring to Galaxy users they all use G Play, since Galaxy uses Android.

Android, yes. G Play, not necessarily. Samsung makes its own software (including a store), which I'm sure many people never replace. My son's Galaxy Tab has G Play, but I had to install it.