This is the opinion of people who don't try or fail at the App Store.
For a counterpoint, my start-up (me, my fiancée, and my good friend) started an indie GPS app at the tail end of last summer. We worked hard, did many iterations, built up our userbase, and now we have several top grossing navigation apps, and we are piling up cash in the bank.
We don't have a marketing budget. All we do is engineer and Tweet, and we have had steady growth. Now we are also licensing the mapping platform to a handful of other companies, and I'm guessing our revenues will double or triple over the next couple of months, again.
For all those deciding whether to do an iPhone app, it can be done. But pick a niche and plan to work harder than any job you've ever had, or it probably won't pay off. There may be a lot of disgustingly successful Fart apps, outliers in the game section, and the like. But there are also indie devs that make a job of it, and there is plenty of money in it for us too.
People like to say the "App Store" is a bad bet. The truth is, any start-up is a longshot, and the App Store is a fine way to sell software. We pivoted away from the web and Facebook because we found it too hard to monetize, even though we had strong traffic growth and we had won an fbFund grant early on. Different strategies work for different people - you just have to experiment, instead of basing your decisions on bad assumptions and never reevaluating them.
I think you hit the nail on the head here re: people who don't try or have failed as App Store developers.
I was in the App Store Day 1 of the iPad launch with an iPad-specific app. It was my first shipping iOS app and I built it in about 2 weeks in the evenings after work (I already knew Obj-C.) I won't get into specifics, but it's made me thousands of dollars. Apple handles the central distribution, the payment processing, application updates, crash reports, ALL of that, and puts money into my checking account at the end of each month. What more can I possibly ask for?
I have friends that are making serious money from the App Store, tens of thousands per month by themselves or split with a designer/developer friend they're working with. None of them are leaving, none of them are complaining, none of them are turning their native Obj-C apps into web apps.
For everyone out there who hates the App Store because of bad publicity and articles like this, please remember that there are tons of ordinary developers out there making good money doing stuff they love. The App Store and the approval process has a TON of flaws, but all I know is it's the #1 distribution center for apps to mobile devices and it's just getting bigger. Right now there's no better way to quickly build an app and start getting paid. Ranting about everyone moving to web apps doesn't do much to change this fact.
Well, I guess I should say we do a bit more than just Tweet :)
* We also network with companies to get their content in our app (maps and data), which leads to links from their sites. This is a constant activity and we see this as the primary way to create a defensible market position in the category. Not only do we get something to sell, but our partners go out and sell their customers too.
* We have a popular hiking website (that's what we first build before switching to mobile dev) and this provides us with good PageRank for some searches, since we link our app site.
* We also have started to make all sorts of nice PR contacts - this seems to come organically the more you hang around a niche (hiking and backpacking for us). We will probably get our first real write-ups this summer.
* We have tried some Facebook and Google ads but we don't have a good handle on how well they convert, so we pretty much stopped that... just using a free credit to advertise our Android app on Google now.
* Our most effective strategy is we offer the 50 free promo codes we get from Apple for each release on our website, to anyone who asks. This leads to a lot of blog posts and App reviews.
* We also heavily cultivate our beta group, which leads to solid software and word-of-mouth.
Is there any data about success/fail rates for the two paths? I don't mean to sound negative (congrats to you on finding success!), but personal anecdotes really mean very little. If we could say that 5% of web apps gain a following on mobile platforms, but 10% of native mobile apps do, that would be something we could actually use to make an educated decision about which path to take.
Or maybe data on revenue for the types, or something. Although I imagine it's more difficult to make money with a mobile web app than a native mobile app, since the payment processing is built into the native-app system. Perhaps I'm just revenue-generation uncreative, though.
* Apple processes over 1GB of downloads per day for me (and growing)
* Apple makes my software discoverable to their hundreds of millions of already-entered-my-credit-card users
Also, for expensive apps, 30% might seem steep. But I challenge you to find a payment provider who will let you sell something for .99 and wants much less than 30%, as a fee or percentage. Plus, you can avoid the 30% if you want by having a free app with in-app purchases that you process via some other mechanism.
While I don't agree with the original poster (and FWIW, my company is currently working on an iPad app) but your arguments are sorta silly too. You can process your own payments and get the money much faster and with less hassle for less than 3%. If you're monetizing your app, 1GB of downloads is a trivial cost as well. Ask any Facebook developer, Apple's raping you on those two for 30%.
The distribution is good and bad. Good if you get high on the lists, bad otherwise. Overall I'm not sure you can call it a win, half the reason the App Store is the best distribution method is because Apple prevents all others.
I'd disagree with OP largely because of technology. You can't build a compelling 3d game using web technology yet. You can't take advantage of the GPS chip or gyros or camera, etc. Most apps worth having will be more than a website can accomplish right now.
You're paying Apple 30% because they built the platform, which was an enormous gamble for them that paid off handsomely.
There is also the buying mentality that an app store user has when browsing for apps. It's hard to measure this but is probably bigger than anything else you get for your 30%. You sell an app store app and people don't mind droping 99 cents or a couple of dollars for something that preforms a few functions.
In contrast I think web apps are a much harder sell at those price points, so for a similar app your only real choice is advertising supported.
>>you can avoid the 30% if you want by having a free app with in-app purchases that you process via some other mechanism.
No, the Apple developer agreement doesn't permit external payment mechanisms (though it is true that that some apps have been able to use external payment mechanisms because of app-store-review inconsistencies or because they obtained prior approval from Apple)
[edit to respond to rcoder]>>Actually, you can round-trip users through Mobile Safari and process payments however you like
No, see what I said above. If you turn on functionality based on external payment mechanisms, your app could be rejected.
Actually, you can round-trip users through Mobile Safari and process payments however you like. (For example, Amazon does exactly this for the Kindle app.) Users simply can't click a "buy" button in your app and have it pass through a processing system other than Apple's.
Not really... I believe the OP was noting things that the developer gets (positive things) for the 30%. Arguably the approval process is not particularly positive. It's not something the developer "gets," but something they're forced to endure.
It's not a technical limitation, it's a matter of user expectations and perceived value. In a way it's a marketing issue, that's why Apple was so good at getting over it.
Yes, but in that case it's just a technical limitation, you could have a unified micropayment platform (wasn't DVD Jon trying to build one? Or something?) which would make it as easy for web services as it is for the appstore.
You could have another unified micropayments platform, but that's still another system I need an account for, etc. (unless you can back-end to iTunes...good luck! :)
The facebook one could takeoff, but then I think you will only be able to offer an app for free and sell virtual goods. Still the same kind of profit margin for facebook as apple though.
Would be lower since they only handle payments, and don't have to manage distribution, infrastructure and a bunch of services around the product itself, not just its sale and billing.
Considering the huge # of apps priced @ $1.00 his math falls apart.
If you're charging $1.00 and have even REASONABLE merchant fees you're going to wind up shelling out $0.40 - 0.50 of every dollar to the merchant processor.
Even paypal is 1.9% - 2.9% + $0.30 USD for the bulk of transactions.
Not to mention access to millions of consumers, not to mention completely eliminating customer service costs, etc, etc, etc.
> If you're charging $1.00 and have even REASONABLE merchant fees you're going to wind up shelling out $0.40 - 0.50 of every dollar to the merchant processor.
And that's without taking account hosting and distribution, as well as the handling (and forwarding) of feedback and crash reports
I agree that if you build one web app tuned for mobile phones --- it should work for both iPhones and Android phones...as well as for browsers on laptops and desktops.
But, HTML5 is nowhere close to supporting the features you need, nor does it have access to essential phone hardware. I've built a browser based paint app and a browser based GPS using HTML5 and while fun, I think if you're honest, you know it's not quite ready for that yet. There is too much browser sniffing/adapter pattern going on and it can't be avoided.
That aside, my question to other mobile phone users is how Native vs. Web apps are perceived by users on a phone. Since the Native App is --- well, native --- it is given more prominence within the phone's UI. I suppose you could bookmark the web app, but it just doesn't seem to have as much importance as something natively installed with a shortcut icon, full access to all hardware, native menus, buttons, etc.
So, I don't think you can blatantly say "web apps are better than mobile" --- unless maybe you have a vested interest in that position --- like you're writing a book or something (ahem, ahem).
I think the reality is that app stores are a pretty cheap distro opportunity with millions of people with credit cards on file and are certainly not going anywhere in the near future.
You can have your web app not show the safari bar when saved to the home screen. If you're using a framework like jQTouch it's automatic, and combined with a custom icon and splash screen really does give the 'native app' feel.
It's just a pity that it's so awkward to get it onto the home screen. Prompting the user to press the '+' and save it is clunky.
Amazon.com takes a slice of my sales when I use their marketplace. I'm also forced to agree to their policies with regards to shipping fees (I get a credit, but my costs often are MORE than the credit) and their A-to-Z guarantee.
I still end up making more money with the "global" marketplace of Amazon.com than I would my local marketplace. I think the same applies to a well written app over a well written web app.
This is a popular idea lately, that web apps can (and should!) do everything that native apps do. Are there any examples of that people actually use regularly? I know I have tried a few of these 'apps-in-a-browser' and even the ones that worked reasonably well were still clunky enough that it always felt like a worse version of something else, to the point that I stopped using them quickly.
m.facebook.com is trash, and really so is the native client. Though I don't think a native app could do better than the touch site, except for the obvious ways it can't integrate and do notifications (which I have turned off anyway.)
http://i.reddit.com is a touch better than RedditIsFun, though RedditIsFun is faster and has better caching, so I use that. This is on a Motorola Droid, so on a current-gen device i.reddit might be better.
"As you know, it has the iBookstore, which joins the App Store and iTunes Store as the third store on the iPhone. We have over 150 million credit cards on file ready to purchase your apps. We think we’re number one on the web." -Steve, June 2010
150 million credit cards with one-touch purchasing.
I think its clear that the store offers some benefits to developers, but mostly economic. Which is to say that the biggest argument isn’t that the development platform is awesome, but that the distribution platform is awesome. Probably even not that it’s awesome, but that it’s the only game in town.
What if there were a third party store out there, one that could provide the trust, and authority need to get consumers over the small purchase hump. What would it look like?
I think Google Chrome team is working on a HTML5 App store but its going to be for Chrome, do you guys think it would be possible to do it outside a major company.
This is something that I have been thinking about for a while, no one has tried this, but it could be huge.
What would this store need to offer, what would it look like?
The biggest reason to have an app is to be seen in the network, to be there when users go to search and try and something new. The next best reason, plays more to your ego, gives you internal drive to do more, learn something new and feel like you've made progress, it may be serious fail material but it's still more than a website. Third, transactional goodness is a mere click away vs create an account and enter credit card here, if you nail the concept and yes share the funds with the store you stand to reap the rewards.
It's true. Apple's App store will never produce a Google, a Facebook, or a Twitter etc. The App store platform is designed so that its children will never compete with its parent.
The App store reminds me of walking around a mall - it's mostly a 'retail' experience.
I believe nothing truly innovative will come out of Apple's app store because Apple locks up all the really cool shit for themselves.
The web is the only truly free frontier on which people can build real innovation.
An app for a truly disruptive product will be a web app first and an iDevice app second.
If you can get HTML5 to do what you need it makes a ton of sense. You can even get a nice icon on the desktop. I have some "apps" on my phone that work this way.
But apps and the App Store aren't going away and its developers aren't suckers. You should perhaps be trying to create apps that are connected with a revenue stream independent of Apple. No need to give them the same status as the IRS.
For a profession that's all about analyzing the impact and trade-offs involved for any particular solution, there's a massive amount of lazy and bullying writing about the various methods of software distribution that exist in 2010.
I'm the author of the original post being discussed here. I can see that most everyone on this thread disagrees with me, which is fine.
I just wanted to let you know that because of being linked to on HN, there has been some thoughtful discussion in the comments that addresses several of the points raised here.
These bait posts are annoying. Apple supplies the distribution, payment, promotion and a centralized market that can get you thousands of sales just by being good and on the store.
So how are you monetizing your web app? You taking payments? Paying bandwidth? Advertising?
Web apps are fine, but they're something ELSE not something better. Apple is doing some lifting on the App Store and they get a cut, that's it.
I am one of the people that has ideological problems with the app store, but after reading the article I chose not to upvote it. It seams to ignore all of the things that the app store does provide that have been enumerated in many comments here already. As much as I am annoyed when Apple fans upvote or downvote things on HN based solely on loyalty to the brand, I can't give the linked article much credit.
I did find this link from a comment on the article page interesting though:
I'm a ".NET enterprise developer", have two macs and two iPhones in my house, and am working on my first iOS app. Your bitter sweeping generalization is flawed and in my opinion has no place on HN.
If not for Apple, I would not be selling software. I would still code, but for myself. I like to solve problems and software is like a puzzle with any number of solutions. Any time I spend dealing with merchant accounts is time not spent coding. Not that Apple's submission process is smooth -- speaking of-- any opinions on iOS4 submission changes would be welcome. I am not going to quit my day job, yet, I love to use and write for iPhone and the state of cell data networks means an uneven experience without a front end.
everything he said was true and compelling. however there remain some arguments in favor of the App Store (unfortunately, in my mind) with the super simple purchase ability for users being possibly the most compelling. The large audience is still attractive but I think the benefit of this to developers is decreasing as the massive number of apps and updates cause so much noise it gets harder for any one app to stick out or be found at all. I've written 4 of the apps in the store now and have reached a point where I look hard for excuses to not make anymore, because I think in the long run it goes against my best interest and that of my clients. The best reason for a native mobile app is if it truly needs fast performance and/or offline access, for example.
For a counterpoint, my start-up (me, my fiancée, and my good friend) started an indie GPS app at the tail end of last summer. We worked hard, did many iterations, built up our userbase, and now we have several top grossing navigation apps, and we are piling up cash in the bank.
We don't have a marketing budget. All we do is engineer and Tweet, and we have had steady growth. Now we are also licensing the mapping platform to a handful of other companies, and I'm guessing our revenues will double or triple over the next couple of months, again.
For all those deciding whether to do an iPhone app, it can be done. But pick a niche and plan to work harder than any job you've ever had, or it probably won't pay off. There may be a lot of disgustingly successful Fart apps, outliers in the game section, and the like. But there are also indie devs that make a job of it, and there is plenty of money in it for us too.
People like to say the "App Store" is a bad bet. The truth is, any start-up is a longshot, and the App Store is a fine way to sell software. We pivoted away from the web and Facebook because we found it too hard to monetize, even though we had strong traffic growth and we had won an fbFund grant early on. Different strategies work for different people - you just have to experiment, instead of basing your decisions on bad assumptions and never reevaluating them.