awolf, thanks for chiming in based on your experience. I'm really pleased to hear you've had success with your apps.

I'm sorry about my hyperbolic tones earlier. It's just that there's so much blind hype about the app stores, that it upsets me to see indie devs getting lured in and going bust. I don't hate Apple. I think they are brilliant.

I haven't done huge amounts of research on the distribution of outcomes for developers in the app store, but the typical prices are so low that you'd have to sell to a hell of a lot of people to make any decent money. Moreover, most devs only charge a small one-time upfront fee or IAP, which means you need to keep finding more customers or churning out apps.

I know how hard it is to make a good business even with a SaaS recurring revenue product. A life-time value of $2 sounds horrifying.

There is no doubt in my mind that some people are making good money on the app store. My point is that they could be doing a lot better in another market, with lower risks.

You mention one of your apps is making you enough money to live on. Do you expect that to carry on for a while? Or will you need to make more products? If you're willing to share, I'm curious to know more about your business, but I'll understand if you don't want to share too much.