

Where do I sign up? Thoughts on iPhone app development, one year later - RyanGWU82
http://carpeaqua.com/2009/07/28/where-do-i-sign-up/

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xelfer
I'm currently in my final 30 days of my development license contract and I'm
still wondering if I should renew. I haven't had the problems a lot of people
are complaining about (my apps have been accepted or rejected with a valid
reason which I fixed easily).

It's been a fun year learning the cocoa language and getting applications out
there that lots of people find useful (my most popular app was #1 on the free
app store for a week within a week of it going online).

I'm just unsure if I should continue. I'm working on a game, but it's hard to
find motivation to continue when there's so many others out there getting
rejected with no reason after all their hard work. I'm still in the "it hasn't
happened to me so who cares?" camp, but I could easily get burnt after
spending 3 months of spare time developing.

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kqr2
What was the name of your most popular app?

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xelfer
Sydney Traffic Cameras:
[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=289197688&mt=8)

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spaghetti
I renewed a little while ago. I'm having a blast developing apps. I've had
three in the store... lately I've been taking my time making a game. What's
nice is I receive some money from Apple every month from sales of an app that
I've thought about for maybe an hour over the past year. Also ad revenue from
free apps is great!

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sant0sk1
Could you elaborate (numbers if you got em) on just how great the ad revenues
are for free apps?

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callmeed
I wouldn't call their app rejections _baseless_. They aren't going to approve
apps that compete with the phone's built-in functionality. Period. Yeah, it
stinks and yes, GV got a raw deal because Schiller apparently pre-approved the
app initially. But now that these precedents have been set, any lone developer
who is working on a VOIP/podcasting/digital music sales app is wasting their
time IMO.

Even if some "big name" developers leave the scene, I don't think it will
matter much. The barrier to entry for creating apps isn't that high.

As for the "unsustainable pricing structure" he talks about, that's partly due
to the above. It's not prohibitively hard to create a simple app–therefore,
any simple, successful app will have competition and the price will fall. I
think it's also due to the fact most people are create B2C apps. In my opinion
there's a good market for niche/vertical-focused B2B apps. The kind you can
charge $10+ for and that don't require app store visibility.

Just my $.02

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boris
_They aren't going to approve apps that compete with the phone's built-in
functionality. Period. Yeah, it stinks..._

It stinks even more when Apple adds new built-in functionality that competes
with your existing application and you are notified that your application is
no more. In fact, the more successful your application, the greater the
chances Apple will decide to make it part of the OS.

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nudded
What Apple has done it the past with Mac OS X (the desktop OS) is that they go
and buy the product from you.

Examples: * Coverflow(first standalone app by a developper) was bought by
Apple. * The new iTunes visualizer was also first developped and then bought
by Apple.

We'll see how Apple handles it with the iPhone

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liscio
Not always the case.

For example: Watson (<http://www.karelia.com/watson/>), was killed by Apple's
Sherlock. Later, SandVox (<http://www.karelia.com/sandvox/>) was later
followed up by Apple's iWeb. The list goes on...

Indie Mac developers have taken to calling this act, "Sherlocking". See a
mainstream usage of the term here: <http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1137>

So, Apple swings both ways. :)

