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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure it's a good idea to develop iPhone or Windows Phone apps either? On average, those don't sell either... and they can be deleted by the Overlords for no reason whatsoever.

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.)

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> (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?

Because the OS already includes a home screen. When CyanogenMod ships with a processor, I'll be upset about paying for that, too. I'm not holding my breath, however.

Writing a launcher takes work. I don't think it's ever strange to expect payment in return. Just because Google wrote a launcher at some point in the past doesn't mean that all future programmer's work in that area should be released for free.

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.

Cyanogen uses ADWLauncher, not the one that Google provides :)

> Because the OS already includes a home screen.

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

Please, name a few deleted for no reason.

  > Despite the extremely high risk, people do it anyway

Extremely high risk of what? 400 000+ approved apps is an indicator of extremely high risk, I guess…

  > but since there's no Kool-Aid to drink,

Only money to be made.

  > there are more people wasting time on iOS apps

And getting more then $2 billion paid.

    > 400 000+ approved apps
    > And getting more then $2 billion paid.

Which is an average of: 2 000 000 000/400 000= $5000 per app since 2008. How is that a good source of revenue again? It's the same as Android, only a very small percentage make a descent living out of it. It may be a bit more for the iPhone (for paid apps only because android apps make more on ads on average) but it's still very unlikely you'll make enough money to survive.

Your math implies that all apps are paid and each is developed by different developer. Both are false.

And it is not the same as Android by far.

Remove the free apps, the poorly designed apps, and the one-app-per-ebook spammy apps, and you're left with a much smaller number to divide the major portion of that revenue against.

400k apps out of 500k submitted in total.

Where did you get those numbers? Apple claims 96% approval rate, you claim 80%.

> (As an Android user, I do think it's strange to pay $15 for the home screen when the whole OS is free.)

Just saw this app in action on a friends Samsung Galaxy S II.. worth every cent!

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