The Incredible App Store Hype | Hacker News Reader

The Incredible App Store Hype

stromcode.com

67 pointsaminuit41 comments

Good article and its nice to see people acknowledging the hype around the app store. I have been doing iphone development almost exclusively since november. This includes writing 3 of my own apps and contracting on two others.

I was encouraged by the success of my first app to write others. I spent a month or two working on my next app and it barely made a dent. I think I've finally made the money back i paid the graphic designer.

Another app I made in two days pulled in a couple thousand bucks over the course of a couple weeks. Go figure.

I think the take home point is that its really hit or miss and that success doesn't correlate with quality. I would be reluctant to recommend working on iphone apps full time to anyone unless you're prolific enough to overcome the poor odds of success.

I think a lot of this has to do with the way the app store is set up. The author hit the nail on the head pointing out the importance of being on the top 100 lists. Really, if you aren't on there you are invisible to buyers.

OTOH, selling iphone apps is a lot easier than selling desktop software. And its pretty fun. I definitely recommend it as a hobby and if/when i decide to get a 'real job' I'll probably keep making apps.

> The author hit the nail on the head pointing out the importance of being on the top 100 lists. Really, if you aren't on there you are invisible to buyers.

This makes me wonder if there are a lot of developers who would try to pay for XX of their network of friends to buy the software just to try to get it on the charts.

It's not unheard of to make an ad purchase (banner ads or admob) in order to "bump" yourself onto the charts, in hopes that you'll make your money back once you're on the chart.

It turns out that, just like any other business, it takes marketing and capital to succeed, not just ideas and good engineering.

i heard a talk by one of the guys from AdMob and based on their data he claimed you could buy your way to the top paid list with $10k in ads. this is based on their hypothesis about how the ranking works (greg yardley from pinch media hypothesized a 7 day rolling average)

its an interesting gamble. next time i have $10k to spare i might see if i can test it

Whoa! It's Phil!

The store is setup in a kinda stupid way, so the best thing to do is make kinda stupid apps, just done well. What's S. doing, like $600/day?

Anyway, if you figure out the dynamics, are a good programmer, and shoot for the right kind of programs, then your chances are much improved. Still a gamble, but a sane one.

Cheers from Phily, Joe

its joe!

i agree, understanding the market is pretty important in deciding which apps to pursue. i am surprised on some of the dumb sh!t people buy.

i think one big issue for folks like us actually trying to make a living off the app store is how sustainable the income is. we've both made our respectable apps that have held their rankings for 6+ months. we've also both made gumball apps that get downloaded/bought a bunch initially and then just disappear.

agreed. ultimately it is a good opportunity, if you know how to take advantage of it. but there are no easy, sure-fire ways to success.

hot weather is climbing in the charts, btw. especially in europe.

Thanks for crashing my server, guys :)

Now that I've made an account here I do want to clarify that clearly there is an exponential curve upward from the chart positions I am at currently (although, probably not so dramatic in the social networking category). Clearly once you reach the top 10 you are looking at a couple hundred downloads a day, and the overall top 10 is said to start at 10,000 downloads a day.

So yes, you CAN make a good deal of money off of an app. My point is, 99.9% of app developers aren't.

People have been trashing iPhone's dev program since Apple first announced it; however, those who are making money in the store were ones who ignored hype around Android and made apps for a phone that existed, and reaped rewards when iPhone OS 2.0 launched. And so on.

Claiming the app store is not a guaranteed gold mine long after its become obvious to everyone that it's quite saturated is not very useful.

Yes, avoiding hype is important (dropping Android and making iPhone apps.) But it's more important to replace it with another form of "doing", not just dismiss the art of software development. If not developing on the iPhone, then what? An article with an answer would be more enlightening.

As software entrepreneurs, we fail to do this time and time again. We measure the market by its huge successes... After years of playing the web game, I still can’t believe people think like this.

You created 20 apps on the iPhone. That means you kept pumping them out, all to make $20/day from your best selling game? And you say others should realize it's a crap shoot? Sounds like you made it a crap shoot. It also sounds like you're the one who "thinks like that", and not most others (I imagine very few developers have 20 active apps total, let alone on a single platform.) What you are criticizing others for mainly applies to you and rarely to any other developer.

I think the point of the article is that it isn't "obvious to everyone that it's quite saturated" (at least not for me). We are bombarded with iPhone success stories, and he's just pointing out it's not all rainbows and roses on the iPhone side of the field.

It's amazing how well this strategy of hyping the extreme cases has worked for Apple in terms of getting a ton of people to develop for the iPhone. A number of my coworkers have been busily writing iPhone apps in their spare time, and they keep at it no matter how many times I point out that the market is oversaturated.

Is it oversaturated? How do you know this? What data is this based on?

Don't be obnoxious. He was clearly stating his opinion (Apple would have to release comprehensive numbers for anyone to know for a fact how saturated the market is).

The very term connotes opinion (how much saturation is "over")

This is the most ridiculous opinion I've heard. The entire article and almost all the comments about it are based on the same assumption - yes, the market is oversaturated. So the question I think everyone should ask is this - what are the data points indicating that the market is saturated? My attempt to do that is ignored.

Being at certain positions in niche categories is not a data point. His claim that other apps are not making money is not backed up. There is practically no info on market saturation, but the entire article and all the comments are based on that assumption.

Logic involves using data to come to conclusions. What is happening here is that you all found an article you want to be true, so agree with it and make no attempt to pick apart the data behind it. This is shoddy thinking.

If I go to a fish market, there are 10 buyers and 20 men hawking fish, then I know the market is saturated. This information is not available to the author of the article.

Are they all trying to get rich, though? I write iPhone apps in my spare time, but more as an exercise for myself than anything else - have yet to release anything for money. It's a nice platform to develop for, and coming from a Mac dev background in the first place it's a natural segue for me - plus being able to take your work with you and show your friends is nice :)

That said, is the market really oversaturated? I feel that there's a lot of niche apps yet to be made. Sure, you have a million iFart's and its clones, but that's only one side of the market.

>I feel that there's a lot of niche apps yet to be made.

Do tell. :)

I think he’s wrong in attributing the tendency to overestimate success to the software industry or the app store alone. The author makes the perfect comparison when he compares it to the Gold Rush. No one was walking around New York circa 1850 screaming "There’s Gold in California." What did happen is a few people got rich quick and word of that spread fast (because everyone is looking for a way to get rich quick).

So whatever app store hype exists was largely inevitable. I don't recall Apple ever promising riches to developers.

There have always been people who jump on the "get rich" bandwagon. If there are more of them in the software industry it’s only because there are virtually no "cost of materials" in software development (particularly with digital delivery)

Your comment inspired me to brush up on the California Gold Rush, and this quote from Wikipedia made me chuckle:

"Sutter was dismayed by this, and wanted to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural empire if there were a mass search for gold. However, rumors soon started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. The most famous quote of the California Gold Rush was by Brannan; after he had hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, Brannan strode through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" With the news of gold, many families trying their luck at Californian farming decided to go for the gold, becoming some of California’s first miners."

Has Apple hyped any of the developer outcomes? My impression is that they released the iPhone and were then begged from all sides for a dev kit that would take advantage of the platform. I haven't seen "here's how you'll get rich quick" numbers from Apple.

This is how many markets are created. It's why so many school age kids play sports, they want to be famous and rich like the extreme case of the pro-athlete.

It is why 37Signals writes about that guy with the cars for $1000.

It's why lotteries sell so many tickets. It's why there are so many actors and actresses in Hollywood -- most of whom wait tables and valet park cars to make ends meet. They can't do it acting...

it's why people who write blog posts about SEO can get so many viewers.

It's the lie of easy. Apple knows full well that most developers don't make money building apps. Everyone knows full well that the average school student would be better off ditching sports to study for their SAT's and ACT's. Everyone knows buying lottery tickets is a waste of money.

But yet, rural towns all over the united states spend more on football stadiums than they spend on text books...

Point is, it's a problem much bigger than the app store... what is the root of the problem and how do we solve it?

Education. In each of those cases, the "buyer" doesn't understand the rules of the game, and misjudges his odds of payoff, and what that payoff might be.

In my opinion, when it comes to the app store, the root of the problem is that people are grossly overestimating the number of dollars that are up for grabs, and because people are ashamed to admit their app isn't selling well, and because Apple only publishes vague numbers, no one has a really good way of determining how much money IS out there. That's why I've been talking about my numbers as much as possible, and I hope others will as well.

So they are selling hope to the ignorant... It seems kind of wrong to do that. Well, it doesn't feel good to think about anyway, maybe it isn't wrong.

I suppose it is like those infomercials at night selling real estate mogul programs...

Is it true that Apple has made more money from developer signups (600,000 developers I heard) than from sales from the app store?

There's money in shovels and picks...

Not according to another article on here recently that put Apple's take from the AppStore at 45 million.

Wait, at $45MM, that would be $60MM from developer sign ups.

Ah yeah. I think that article had a much lower estimate of developer sign ups as well.

The 600,000 figure is probably just the number of times the SDK was downloaded (if the figure is at all legitimate; someone could have just made it up).

Boucher says it a lot better: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607884

600K is probably the number of developer accounts, including free and paid. Your metric is not useful because each beta release comes with a new SDK.

Yeah, I agree with you. My metric was erroneous, and I noticed too late to edit the comment. Thanks for calling me on it.

I develop and sell my own Mac and iPhone apps and have built up a business over the past few years, and I've recently gone full-time on it.

I'll mention this to someone at a party and they take instant interest in the iPhone part. While the investment of time I've put into iPhone apps has been a very profitable one, it's not quite what you'd expect.

Indie development virgins that I know seem to think that the app store is the ONLY feasible way to launch something you've developed on your own. And lots of people I've met who are web developers just want an iPhone app that launches their website or something because they think it'll magically make their website popular.

The reality is if you publish something on ANY platform and get it in front of people and put a price on it, you'll make money. It's just that it's intimidating for people who have never published anything on their own.

The App Store is certainly has some nice upsides. But the cool thing (and overwhelming thing for newbies) about publishing on normal platforms is that there are a LOT of variables you can control in how people actually find and buy your software. This lets you reach people who might not find you if there were only one big software directory.

The original article. I'll delete this comment once the author's web server catches up...

[The site seems to be back up]

I do want to add a few points to his data:

1) The average "Social Networking" price of the top 50 in the UK store is (in US tiers) $2.72, not $0.99. Similarly, the median is $1.99. Only 22 / 50 apps are priced $0.99.

2) The #1 "Social Networking" app has position #34 in the overall top 50 list. Clearly, social networking has a lot less market share than Entertainment or Games.

3) You shouldn't look at just the US store. Rankings can differ a lot between countries. Your app might be #34 in the US, but might not even be in the top 100 in other countries

"If the apps on the category charts are doing those sorts of numbers, what do you think the rest of them are doing?"

What if Board Games and Social Networking aren't popular categories? Just because an app makes it on the chart of an un-popular sub-category of games (board games) doesn't mean the apps charting in more popular categories are doing equally as bad.

the more popular categories are even more competitive and thus harder to rank on. i had an app that just fell off the top 100 entertainment category and i was still getting 60+ downloads a day. it'll be interested to see how many sales i get now that its not listed.

The fact that this article was written at all is just more proof that the iPhone app store is totally successful. Just ask yourself: Where are all the "The Incredible Android App Store Hype" articles?

stromdotcode makes a very good point and the numbers make a good case for him.Others have also made the same point with equally convincing data.

Of course, it is a lot more interesting for people to read about the so-called "gold rush" and so the media hype around the app store isn't going to go down. The number of developers (as well as the so-called "idea" guys) who think that their little project will make it big isn't going to go down.

The incredible FUD post.

You're right, it is easy to get rich writing iPhone apps. That guy is trying to keep his $20/day gravy train all to himself. What a bastard!

I wouldn't mind having a $20/day gravy train... That basically takes care of food.

It's also $7300 a year. I can think of an awful lot of good uses for that kind of money, can't you?

If putting it hard work for a weekend or two gives me a perpetual (or at least in the medium-term) $20/day gravy train, I'm down for it.

It wouldn't be too bad if it was likely to last for a year or more but without upgrades the sales are likely to fall. By the sounds of it once you are out of the top 100 they fall quite a lot. Remember also that the guy has nearly 20 apps in the store and this is likely to be his best seller so he's probably put in more than a weekend or 2.

You are making one REALLY bizarre assumption, that the $20/day is sustainable (it isn't, and is likely to last only a month or two). And as the comment above points out, you are also assuming that the $20/day is a guarantee. It isn't. The $20/day app is in the top 50 in its category. That's a _successful_ app.

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