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Developers: How Much Money...

J

johnqh

macrumors regular
Mar 31, 2008
233
0
1. The title of this thread is "Developers: How Much Money...", isn't it? If you want to talk about coding as a hobby, it should be in a separate thread.

2. Come on, coding is a sad hobby. The best software come from people who have a life. The geek culture is so 90's. ;-)
 
MacToddB

MacToddB

macrumors 6502a
Aug 21, 2007
926
0
Rochester, NY
johnqh said:
1. The title of this thread is "Developers: How Much Money...", isn't it? If you want to talk about coding as a hobby, it should be in a separate thread.

2. Come on, coding is a sad hobby. The best software come from people who have a life. The geek culture is so 90's. ;-)
Click to expand...

The hobby comment came from a different poster than the original poster.

Besides, nothing wrong with making money with your hobby.
 
Jeremy1026

Jeremy1026

macrumors 68020
Nov 3, 2007
2,215
1,029
SilentPanda said:
You can totally make money from a hobby... I think so long as you're not trying to make it your primary source of income you're still in hobby land.
Click to expand...

I think I have to +1 that.

From Apple's dictionary:
hobby (n): an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure
Click to expand...

As long as its not your full time job, and you enjoy it, it can be considered a hobby.
 
J

johnqh

macrumors regular
Mar 31, 2008
233
0
Fine, code as a hobby....

But don't put junk in App Store. We have enough of those.
 
marksman

marksman

macrumors 603
Jun 4, 2007
5,764
5
darkpaw said:
Exactly. Linx is only $0.99 and hasn't seen anywhere near as many sales as I expected. At this price I can't even put it on sale in order to generate interest.

When my advertising for this month runs out, I'll up the price to $1.99. You can hardly say I'm going to lose sales when I'm selling one or two a day worldwide at the lowest price I can sell it for.

I guess there's a bigger problem with the App Store at the moment. So many copycat apps are being put on the store that genuine, original apps lose placement very quickly.
Click to expand...

This is kind of bad news. As a consumer and not a developer, I thought the boon of the app store would be that developers would not really have to advertise because people could just browse and find apps they wanted.

I have no chance of that. The sheer number of apps makes me browsing for something that might be of use to me a pretty big waste of time. Weeding through the pages and pages and pages of duplicate apps makes me want to cry as a consumer.

Unless they add about 500 more categories to bring back some granularity, things will only get worse. It is too bad. I am glad so many apps are being written, but honestly, I am not sure the pretty much take all comers design is going to be the best route in the end.


One thing they need to do absolutely positively without any doubt or exception is make it so you can view new applications by cateogry WITHOUT apps that have new upgrades on them. I can't even look at what is new on the site, because I get 90% listings of apps that are just updates.
 
marksman

marksman

macrumors 603
Jun 4, 2007
5,764
5
One thing I would encourage developers is to consider the applications and their users and see how they can relate to a community.

We all know how strong various online communities are, for example the mac rumors community.

Say you made an app that was chocked full of information on Apple and Macs. You might become something that members of the mac rumor community recommend to each other. If you can interact with that community you can create a strong bond and they will market the product for you, and expose it to new people.

The Mac Rumor is not the best analogy, but there are communities and forums for every interest, and the point is most communities have their favorite toys, gadgets and programs that they recommend to each other. Become one of those, target them potentially and they will do a lot of the work for you.
 
J

Jomskylark

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 30, 2008
144
0
I appreciate the lengthy discussion everybody. :)

In the first post, I was looking for specific data. What I wanted to hear was "I have made $25,000 over a course of a week". I am not a developer, so I don't need advice on how to advertise my apps/make the most money/etc. Don't get me wrong, I've thoroughly enjoyed most of the posts in this thread. They contain good information, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Go ahead with the discussion. @ Detz, darkpaw, jmccullough108: Your first posts were what I was looking for mainly, but I put emphasis on the fact that my post wasn't very clear.

Now, my thoughts. I repeat, I am not a developer: Though it's a goal of mine to do before I die (better hurry now :D), I haven't actually made anything. I was surprised at how little developers made. To be honest, I actually thought that an average for amount of downloads for a .99 app in a day would be 200 or so... I was thinking mass money by the end of a month! Then again, I've been biased: App coverage companies will probably write articles about how MUCH money somebody's made, so I didn't see the real figures.

A different formatted question to all, being more open-ended. In this thread I've gathered it's important to place your app in the top 100/50/25. Now, after time, it will probably move deeper and deeper, off the top 100/50/25 charts, off the most recent chart, and is nearly impossible to find. At this time, which would be a better choice: Spend a couple of bucks and advertise your app, create a sequel to churn interest in the original, or move on and create a brand new app?

Thanks to all in advance!
 
J

johnqh

macrumors regular
Mar 31, 2008
233
0
Jomskylark said:
To be honest, I actually thought that an average for amount of downloads for a .99 app in a day would be 200 or so... I was thinking mass money by the end of a month!

Now, after time, it will probably move deeper and deeper, off the top 100/50/25 charts, off the most recent chart, and is nearly impossible to find. At this time, which would be a better choice: Spend a couple of bucks and advertise your app, create a sequel to churn interest in the original, or move on and create a brand new app?
Click to expand...

If you average 200/day, you would be in the top 10 in photo category, or top 30 in utilities category. So make a guess how many apps are getting 200/day?

If your app ever got to the top 100/50/25, consider yourself lucky. Mostly, it is not a result of your own effort.

The best choice is to count your blessings, because no matter what you do (sequel, new app, whatever), it is extremely unlikely that the luck will come again. Your next app will go back to the $10 to $20/day range like everyone else.
 
P

pixelglow

macrumors newbie
Feb 21, 2009
1
0
I have an app Instaviz in the App Store for $9.99.

99 cents an app is simply not a sustainable price for continued development unless you hit the jackpot of top 25 or top 100. But you can make a decent living or at least supplemental income at a higher price point. I've done a lot of marketing, most everything I can think of, except for paid advertising... the things that seem to make the most difference would be app upgrades (since you go up the Released charts again), getting well-known site reviews like TUAW, perhaps getting a press release out and doing as many language localizations as possible.

I'm interested in advertising but don't want to throw money away. At least with the $9.99 price point, I can either cut the price or add in more advertising, there's leeway to move.

Some hard numbers. At our peak (initial release), we made USD2,300/week profit. At our worst (the week after initial release; also last week i.e. weeks after last release), we made USD350/week profit. Average is about USD750/week. We've never hit the US charts but have appeared in the Canadian, German and Japanese Top 100 Paid Productivity apps before, with 3 versions out so far.
 
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