I'd take $302 in profit for something that any person with half a brain could do for free in MS Paint. lol.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
'Redacted' Hits Number 8 Spot in Mac App Store With Just $302 in First-Day Profit
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You're making some assumptions here.
Not everyone chooses to live in the heart of SF where the cost of living is higher than almost the entire rest of the state.
Someone might be able to live off that comfortably, either in a lower cost area or another state where cost of living is less (i.e. Texas).
I would love to see more top developers release numbers. I cringed when I read what a top spot brought in. That is depressing. I would also guess Apple surely moved him down that list a bit as to minimize the perception there is no money in the MAS.
Yikes.
Yikes.
Or more likely people stopped buying the app after it had its initial sales spike, which is a pretty common trend—very few apps have sustainable day-to-day or monthly sales numbers after the initial "here it is!" announcement, new versions, or the flurry of favorable press.
I don't really know what people see exactly in this story—I've had lots of opinions that hold this up as the great failure of the MAS (e.g., this: http://www.512pixels.net/blog/2015/5/mac-app-store-a-ghost-town) but why should people expect to make a living off selling a $4 utility for folks who don't want to spend time in an imaging editing program yet still need to redact lots of documents? That's pretty damn niche.
No doubt there are issues with the MAS in general, but "I cannot make a living off this application and my Markdown application" don't seem to me to be the rallying cry. Even if this application is everything people want—then there's no reason to ever buy it again.
If people aren't downloading your product on the platform—it might be both your platform and the app that are at fault.
Or maybe developers need to start making apps actually worth paying half a cent for. How come no one reviews these apps to see if they are worth their money?
This sounds like an extremely niche app whose feature ought to be folded into another more utilitarian app like pixelmator.
Then on the other hand, we have jokers trying to charge $40 for a calendar app, and you wonder why people aren't buying?
I think they clearly need to do some self reflection before trying to point the finger in the other direction.
Are u saying developers make crappy apps ? or not worth paying for ?
However, i fail to see this one, apart from being somewhat on the "illegal" front.
While it can be used for other uses, i'm sure their are some users that do crime that will just enjoy going nuts with this...
However, i fail to see this one, apart from being somewhat on the "illegal" front.
While it can be used for other uses, i'm sure their are some users that do crime that will just enjoy going nuts with this...
I just don't understand why this is making headlines news on many popular tech websites. What are we supposed to garner from this piece of news?
Apple can redesign App Store to show price range and different icons.
Just quickly throwing my ideas here, but buttons can feature:
- Free with IAP to unlock features: Price range, e.g., "$0-9.99", where $9.99 is IAP for unlocking all features.
- Free with IAP for game tokens: Token price range, e.g., "$0-99.99/tokens".
- Free with subscription: Monthly subscription price range, e.g., "$0-4.99/month" or yearly price range, e.g., "$0-9.99/year".
[*]Free with ads: "iAds"
[*]Free without ads: "Get"
Lack off apps or any current ties to the store make it pointless and it won't incentivise people to put apps on the store if no one is using it, if no one is using it then no one is going to put apps on the store. See the issue? Apple has to shift people over, it won't happen on its own.
heart of SF? I know people living in less than stellar parts of Oakland who are paying $2K a month and happy to be doing it
----------
my takeaway is that despite macs supposedly selling better than ever, nobody is actually buying any apps for them. to me that's a huge red flag that should be investigated further.
I'm sorry, I just have to bite at this...I'm sure others have as well but passing it by is more than I can handle at this point...
Seriously? Come on man. The world is not the Federation of the Star Trek universe unless you're limiting it solely to the Ferengi. If you have any kind of productive job in the private sector, pay for your own food while not living in mom and dad's house you are at war with your so-called world view.
Hmm, perhaps iPad might be the sweet spot then? They're still expected to be pricier than iPhone apps, but they get to be on the iOS AppStore.
If it's a hobby then you're an average musician. So, you're right. Few will pay for average music.
Frankly, there are so many comments, no only on this forum but all over the place, posted by people with average thinking. This thread has people gloating about $400 rents in the boonies. You should be figuring out how to pay a $4000 rent in an awesome city full of life, opportunity and excitement. Thinking $36,000 a year is doable? Y'all ought to be shooting for $360,000. When you do get there then go for millions.
Or stay average. Stay comfortable.
Not everyone chooses to live in cities as expensive as San Francisco....
Frankly, I would think many programmers (particularly self-employed ones) could live wherever they wanted as long as there was a quality Net connection. Yeah, the weather in San Francisco is nice, but it's not THAT nice. I honestly don't know how your city can even have ANY fast food restaurants. The workers would have to live at home with parents or share an apartment with like 10 other people.
I pay <$500 a month mortgage (less taxes) for a 2100 sq. foot HOUSE (with 4 living/family rooms with a massive home theater, game room and music production room) in a very low crime area near plenty of shopping and restaurants and not far from the country either. I could make it on $36k a year if I had to here, possibly without moving even (by staying away from pricey vacations and new cars). I'd imagine even the lower 6 figure ranges would be downright POOR in NYC or San Francisco. Unless that's the only place one can find a job or one REALLY loves those cities, I can't imagine wanting to live there (and the weather in NYC sucks; I know since the climate where I'm at is very similar, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter and almost nothing in-between).
iOS sales comparison
I had an app ranked #1 in the paid sports category for about 4 weeks, and it barely made $100 a day. The same app was also ranked #1 in the Android store for about 4 months and it barely made $100 a month. I also had a different app that made it to the top 20 paid list for all iOS Apps (Apple even put it in a TV commercial) and it barely made a $1000 day. And it was only ranked there for a few days before it went back to making a few dollars a day even still ranked high in the puzzles category. So out of experience, the paid category for iOS is not good either. Honestly, all the money seems to come from addictive free app like candy crush, etc. I think the general public thinks anyone who publishes an app is an automatic millionaire, but clearly not the case. The proof with with the guess that redacted made $12,460.67 but instead it was $453.
I had an app ranked #1 in the paid sports category for about 4 weeks, and it barely made $100 a day. The same app was also ranked #1 in the Android store for about 4 months and it barely made $100 a month. I also had a different app that made it to the top 20 paid list for all iOS Apps (Apple even put it in a TV commercial) and it barely made a $1000 day. And it was only ranked there for a few days before it went back to making a few dollars a day even still ranked high in the puzzles category. So out of experience, the paid category for iOS is not good either. Honestly, all the money seems to come from addictive free app like candy crush, etc. I think the general public thinks anyone who publishes an app is an automatic millionaire, but clearly not the case. The proof with with the guess that redacted made $12,460.67 but instead it was $453.
I can almost guarantee he spent way more than an afternoon making this app. Coding is only part of the equation - there is testing, debugging, fixing, polishing, dealing with app review, website, support, etc.
----------
I'd be willing to bet that there would be a spike in sales although overall the profits would be lower. I've done this before for some apps on the Mac App Store and I ended up making less.
The best way to do it is to make a quality app that customers are comfortable paying a reasonable amount for (5-15 dollars or so).
The race to the bottom (i.e.: free or $0.99) is really hurting indie developers.
using that black pen in preview is oh so hard.
----------
Definitely depends where you live. I pay $1200 a month and live in the outfield of a baseball stadium
On my current location with $3,000 after taxes. I could likely save over a grad a month plus do a few things with another five hundred if I wanted to. Single and not a ton of bills.
Now that the app is out there, $36,500 a year (based on earlier posts) is pretty decent *extra* income above what he can get from a day job.
Developing for the Mac App Store
As a developer of apps, I have a blog post about what it's like to develop for the Mac App Store along with some detailed pros and cons.
As a developer of apps, I have a blog post about what it's like to develop for the Mac App Store along with some detailed pros and cons.
The point isn't really that...it is the fact that 50 sales gets you in the top 10 apps in the entire mac app store. There is no way the tail for this app is going to be $100 a day, most likely it will be around $40-$50. For a single dev and a small app that is decent.
But for a small company 50 sales a day at $5 a pop will barely afford a single developers salary. The point is the MAS can't sustain companies.