iPhone Developer Tapulous Captures Sales of Nearly $1 Million Per Month

[doctor-don]

... , will fail do so, does not to hit the market with another successful product, asks a consultant company for help due to request of the board of directors, needs to acquire third-party support, finally gets sold to a bigger company and gets outsourced.

Say WHAT?

This is just one success. They did it right. But who knows how they perform in the future.

But who knows how they WILL perform in the future?

 

[doctor-don]

Wow, if the 20 employees get 70%, they get about 30-40k per month, so each year they could about 300-500k each ... Rich...

$1 million X 70% ÷ 20 = $35,000.

$1 million X 70% ÷ 30 = $23,000.

Those figures do not include overhead, taxes, or other costs of doing business.

And it is doubtful that this is sustainable.

 

[doctor-don]

... you're asking for a tiny fraction of a penny every month?

No response from Compile 'em all?

 

[Superdelphinus]

isn't it basically just a copy of guitar hero?

 

[XxEjGxX]

think of this from apple's perspective, they take something like 30% don't they, so that is $300,000 a month just for 1 app! They have over 1million apps (granted a lot are free and tap tap is the most popular one) but they must be turning over tens of thousands of dollars a day. Big steve will be having a merry christmas!

 

[Shodan]

Exactly.. Problem with Apple's 30% tax isn't the tax in and of itself.. but the fact you cannot avoid it, if you want to legitimately sell apps for iPhone. Apple basically forcefully inserted itself as an unavoidable middle man between the developer and a consumer.

It would have been a different story if iPhone supported other 3rd-party "app stores", that could complete with Apple's.. or simple side-loading of apps (like Android does). But right now.. don't want to pay 30% Apple fee and would rather market/sell apps yourself? Tough luck, you can't.

I hope FTC steps in here at some point and set some rules against this type of behavior.. which is fundamentally anti competitive and not good for anyone in the long run.

I am sorry but this is utter rubbish.

There are plenty of other platforms for developers to develop on.

Have one's cake and eat it? Apple CREATED the App Store, it is their creation, their rules. their jurisdiction.

A lot of people do not seem to understand that - there would not be the platform for people to make any money on had it not been for Apple creating the the App Store.

How is it anti-competitive?

 

[johnsawyercjs]

In regards to "the apple tax", does anybody realize that it does cost money to do the credit card transactions and all that stuff? It may end up being 20 percent of thirty in the end, when it comes to costs...

Credit card transaction fees charged to large merchants (like Apple) by the card companies are more along the lines of 2% on average (and debit card charges are much less), though American Express charges more, which is why many merchants don't accept it.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Lowering the price of an app to free means you'll never see the money owed to you unless you start charging something again.

??

 

[MattInOz]

Wow, if the 20 employees get 70%, they get about 30-40k per month, so each year they could about 300-500k each ... Rich...

Well they use a alot of licensed content in there apps so not all that revenue is going to running the business per say. Plus they have venture capital investment so those would want to see some percentage of the revenue banked as profit to start retiring the debt.

plus a staff member will need a place to work, power, computer, internet access other supplies in order to stay productive.

So under a general business model wages are maybe a 1/3 of 1/3 average wage would be just under $70K. Still not bad.

 

[Cask]

I am sorry but this is utter rubbish.

There are plenty of other platforms for developers to develop on.

Have one's cake and eat it? Apple CREATED the App Store, it is their creation, their rules. their jurisdiction.

A lot of people do not seem to understand that - there would not be the platform for people to make any money on had it not been for Apple creating the the App Store.

How is it anti-competitive?

It might not be anti-competitive, but it is not good for the consumer either or developers either. Apple is not the SOLE distributor of APPs designed to run for MacOS are they??? Software developers have a choice on how to distribute their software, be it directly online, throught countless retailers or if they want through Apple.

Same thing thing for Microsoft, they created Windows, but they don't force software developers to sell through them. Imagine the kind of criticism Microsoft would get for doing that? Just because it is Apple on it's magical iPhone, do you think it should be any difference? With the upcoming competition from the Android platform, which is just starting, Apple will have to rethink their strategy. Before this year, the iPhone really had no true competition, as it was the only one in its class. But we the Droid, the upcoming Android Devices, WebOS to an extent, Apple is going to have to make radical shifts to still be the leader. Customers want choice and so do developers, and they are not getting any from Apple.

 

[holmesf]

App store recipe for success:

1. make something (it doesn't matter what)
2. publish your profits
3. get free press from publishing profits
4. make more money from free press
5. goto 2

 

[kdarling]

Lowering the price of an app to free means you'll never see the money owed to you unless you start charging something again.

??

Apple doesn't pay out to a developer until the amount Apple owes them in any region goes over a set amount, perhaps $250.

So if he only sells $300 worth of an app in a region ($210 his share), then gives up and drops the price to free, he won't ever see his money... unless he goes back to selling it again.

And there are seven regions. So Apple could owe him $249x7 = $1743, but he won't get paid. Limits like this are frustrating to all the tiny developers.

(Although I thought there was a time limit even on small amounts, where eventually they pay? Not sure.)

 

[Compile 'em all]

No response from Compile 'em all?

I didn't mean the number quite literally. I was just implying that I wish I could earn even a tiny little fraction of what these guys are making.

The reality of the App Store is that most devs aren't making any money. You would be surprised at the amount of sales you need to make it into the top 100 in a certain category. A copy or two per day is enough. This can only mean that some devs sell absolutely zero copies of their apps. Heck, in some countries like Spain you can be doing 4 copies a day and you are already #2 in news.

 

[Sander]

Credit card transaction fees charged to large merchants (like Apple) by the card companies are more along the lines of 2% on average (and debit card charges are much less), though American Express charges more, which is why many merchants don't accept it.

"To large merchants" is the keyword here. If you look up how much you'd pay to an intermediate like PayPal, I'm sure if you rolled your own webstore selling $0.99 apps, you'd come out in the negative.

Regarding the "median" of App Store revenue, I'm sure it will be quite sobering. I wrote an article on my App Store adventures here, should you be interested.

 

[Shodan]

. Customers want choice and so do developers, and they are not getting any from Apple.

You missed the point - they made the choice for developing for it.

You don't go to a Ferrari garage to buy a Porsche.

 

[iphonedev11]

Simply amazing. The iPhone has really paved the way for developers to become over night millionaires. Very interesting to see all these iPhone millionaires emerge...

 

[itransition]

Suppose that iphone application development becomes unprofitable for big software development companies. The average cost of custom iphone applications could be no more than $10000 so it's hardly possible to find great number of customers to cover good income.