Despite the extremely high risk, people do it anyway. I'm guessing the risk vs. reward is about the same with Android, but since there's no Kool-Aid to drink, there are more people wasting time on iOS apps. Just a guess, though.
(As an Android user, I do think it's strange to pay $15 for the home screen when the whole OS is free.)
Why should the value of an application have anything to do with the price of the operating system that hosts it? Why not apply the same reasoning to the hardware you run it on?
I happen to think this particular launcher is a gimmick, but it's clear that they put work into it and that it's very different than what Google ships.
Right, but if you are looking for a different one it means that you need/want something different than what's provided and satisfying your need surely must have some value to you.
> and they can be deleted by the Overlords for no reason
> whatsoever
> Despite the extremely high risk, people do it anyway
> but since there's no Kool-Aid to drink,
> there are more people wasting time on iOS apps
> 400 000+ approved apps
> And getting more then $2 billion paid.
And it is not the same as Android by far.
Just saw this app in action on a friends Samsung Galaxy S II.. worth every cent!
So what you do is to write trivial apps, when you get consulting gigs you can say "30 apps in app store", and have a portfolio of apps that look good, also, you write apps around features so you teach yourself the feature, etc, GPS, Gyro, Camera, BUMP API,FB Connect, etc. This is also an important part, spend time making your app look good. Customers can't see code quality, but they do see graphics. To customers good graphics == good code quality.
Now if you have 30 apps and one happens to hit a niche you've got a great way to promote your other apps and don't have to do consulting BS anymore, and because you have lots of apps in the app store and lots of experience writing against the various features you can justify a much higher hourly because you'll be delivering their app faster.
I definitely agree with you that writing a single app to try and strike it rich in the app store is foolhardy, unless you already have people signed up to buy it.
They tried to make a big deal out of it, trying to show that it could be a downward trend, but it's nonsense. Android sales keep growing worldwide, and I'm sure it will rise above 50% in US by the time iPhone 5 launches (and take a hit again for a few months, and then rise again).
Android has 38% install base vs 27% for iPhone.
The app was never intended to be paid so making a free app with the ability to use a proprietary in-app payment mechanism (PayPal) was what lead to a really easy decision (PayPals Android Developer Challenge was another nudge into the Android direction).
The next step will be a webapp to which i'll redirect the iPhone customers. I didn't start with it initially because from the little research i've done, "wizard of oz"-style, people didn't find iPhone webapps stable and trustworthy enough to Donate Money via them.