An iPhone app that has made 30K in 6 months
makecoolshit.com
makecoolshit.com
To me this looks similar to what you might make from many kinds of small app projects, but the App Store process seems to introduce so much additional risk.
The problem is the sheer emphasis on iPhone apps over seemingly everything else. We all would be better off (developers and consumers) if there was more discussion around cross-platform mobile development. I know there is some of this, but not at the enthusiasm level you see with App Store discussions.
No one should do anything they really don't want to do. That's not what I'm saying. (And more power to everyone developing for iPhone, whether successfully or not.)
What I'm saying is that in the long run, this is a temporary state of things, and I personally feel we are better to move beyond it sooner than later. Geo-social apps are a great example that will benefit from better cross-platform support. And doing it in-browser, or some other compatible way, encourages more innovation faster than having to develop for n different proprietary platforms.
What really bothers me about the "gold rush" stories is that they just aren't big enough. Some kid makes a game that nets $250k - basically enough to hire a couple people to help you make your next game before you go out of business. And to top it off, these are only the cream of the crop - most iPhone devs never recoup their investments. We aren't seeing real value being created here, just a few people capturing the spare change of the masses.
The modern smart phone is as close as we've gotten to a flying car... lets see something awesome already. I grew up thinking that software developers were like astronauts, not crop dusters.
Albeit with its own unique challenges (getting approved, managing the poor review process, marketing, etc...)