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0 pointsandrewljohnson14y ago0 comments

Most people don't try and build apps that they know will suit an audience, and most people don't try for long enough (as with anything).

I believe that anyone who works on an iPhone app in their spare time for a year, and who picks a known winner category (GPS tracking, bible app, free book downloader, offline city maps, etc.) can make a living.

Remember - most people who try at everything fail. Right now, the mobile market is red-hot, and it's a good way to make a living. It's got to be the easiest way to sell software and make money, with a much higher success rate than making a website or a Facebook app.

Moreover, you can command ridiculous rates as a contractor right now for iOS expertise - much better than for JavaScript programming on average.

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chc14y ago

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I still think you're making it sound a lot easier than it is. For example, I know more about iPhone dev than most people who aren't full-time iPhone devs, but I have no idea what is a "known winner" category or even how I'd go about guessing. AFAIK, Apple doesn't release the kind of numbers I'd need to figure out what categories are profitable. With a web app, we can use analytics, keyword tools, A/B testing, etc.

This feeling — that releasing for the iPhone is a crapshoot and that anything I release would probably be crowded out by the absolute flood of junk in the App Store — is why I've never bothered with the iPhone, despite having done Cocoa development since the early days of OS X.

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0 pointsandrewljohnson14y ago0 comments

Most people don't try and build apps that they know will suit an audience, and most people don't try for long enough (as with anything).

Moreover, you can command ridiculous rates as a contractor right now for iOS expertise - much better than for JavaScript programming on average.

0 comments

chc14y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse