I give up, there is no way for a small developer to make it in the App Store anymore. Unless you are associated with a big publisher who can attract reviews and spend money on marketing, or win the lottery, the App Store is too big, too poorly organized, too low priced and run by some kind of Mafia-like organization.
Despite having a long list of products I'd like to make for the iPhone, it's not worth spending time (and what little money I have these days) only to disappear either into the Rejection black hole, or into the 200+ daily pile.
From a customer standpoint, the App Store is awesome, so much goodness you could download or buy apps every hour and never get bored. Most apps are either free or cost a buck. It's a real massive platform with great hardware, a mostly great SDK, and nearly 40 million strong market eager to get more apps.
From a developer standpoint it's a nightmare. An Orwellian review team which does not communicate to anyone (even inside Apple), uneven policies which change at random times leading to horror stories form Shaken Babies to Google Voices, and an apparent "so we treat you like crap, there are hundreds more suckers eager to try" attitude. Then there is the mouthpiece "Richard" whom I have been rejected by already (and appears in the Google Voice story) with a solid future in government stonewalling (at least the Iraqi Information Minister was entertaining). Add to the App Store Review Team problem the inability for anyone to find your applications (I always tell people that 2% of the applications sell 98% of the copies) in the app store. Unless you make it into a top 25 list somewhere, you may as well be selling out of your trunk at a flea market in Alaska in January.
I think the store surprised Apple in how big it grew, and from their standpoint the success came without having to do anything to promote the platform, so it makes sense (of a sort) to not care if most of the developers get disillusioned. In the mid 80's Apple was desperate to get developers on the Mac, and we were treated likely royalty in many ways, since the platform would die without applications. I still remember the 1986 WWDC, where the entire Mac developer community got to ride a boat in the harbor, talk, gamble for free hardware, and joke that IBM could kill the entire Mac market with a well-placed torpedo. Today Apple rules the world and thus the little guys no longer matter.
I'm not giving up on the iPhone, just developing apps for the store on my own. I would be happy to build apps for others, I like the SDK and the opportunities for amazing apps are still there. It's just the irritation of dealing with the App Store team, the poorly organized marketplace, and the sheer volume is too much.
My next app will be for OSX. Sure, the apparently market is less exciting but there are actually a similar number of devices running OSX and iPhone OS. Being able to update apps whenever I need to, not have to wait for anyone's approval, be able to directly communicate with customers, and also get to collect any revenue in something under 3 months time is much more appealing.
Sure, my apps aren't anything exciting. Quantum Pool has been doing well but with an eCPM of about 17 cents it's not even beer money. The more complicated interesting apps I would have done would take too long, and the risk is simply too great on my own thin dime.
The other phone markets don't interest me either, the devices and the SDKs don't really provide what the iPhone does. I've worked at Apple, used Apple computers since 1980, and really don't care to switch. It's just dealing with the App Store bunch is too much even for me (note the DTS folks are still great and do a wonderful job in support).
Apple as a big entity won't care what I think, and the other 14,000 iPhone developers either have given up, keep trying, made a million (very few) or gotten a job at Ngmoco. But there are another 14,000 out there hoping to hit the big time.
Good luck with that, hope you never hear from Richard.
Herb 08/01/2009 20:38
One word: Android
jj 08/01/2009 21:57
sell on cydia? http://cydia.saurik.com/
Justin Williams 08/01/2009 23:13
It is frustrating, but like you I came to the same conclusion as well. I love my iPhone, and I love building software for it, but it's just not a wise business move at this point.
I'm still slightly optimistic that someday Apple will make the necessary changes to improve the experience for developers, but I don't anticipate it anytime soon.
Andres 08/01/2009 23:42
A better word: Nokia
Reg Muffet 08/02/2009 18:13
I'm not disagreeing with anything stated, but I've always wondered how the "it's too hard to get exposure on the App Store" argument differs from the "it's too hard to get exposure on the Web?"
Say there is no App Store. Say the iPhone app installation process is as simple as clicking a .zip download and it automagically gets onto the iPhone, the same way Mac software does.
So, you can now put your iPhone app on a web page, people can visit, buy with a PayPal link, and download it, etc. All good.
But how do you get any more exposure this way?
You're still one app floating in a sea of web sites. Without the hosted environment that brings millions to the door every day, you have even less chance of hitting the numbers.
If you ARE prepared to advertise, get some press happening with positive reviews, find yourself in The Google, etc, there's really no difference having a URL link to your own page, or to Apple's iTunes page containing your app.
(Which, let's face it, the end-user would much rather go to than some unknown and untrusted web site.)
For some concrete examples: How much of a sales boost do you think FieldRunners or the ragdoll game gets every time it's mentioned on the MacBreak Weekly podcast? Or the extra sales Brushes got when the New Yorker talked about its cover...
These are good apps, but probably didn't get much Apple promotion. However, they got word of mouth in the community, the snowball of interest started rolling, became bigger, and I'm hazarding a guess they're doing pretty well right now.
Unsigned code on a web site, or approved app in Apple's Store, they are really just means of getting apps onto users' iPhone. It's still up to the developer to have something:
As for Richard... Yes, Apple's behavior is nothing short of disgraceful for the apps that have been capriciously rejected. However, the "Kama Sutras" and the "Google Voices" represent a very small percentage. The vast majority of apps have been accepted into Apple's virtual shelving. Apple has its own selfish reasons for rejecting, but it also has its own selfish reasons for accepting: 30% rake, and end-users happy with the profundity of choice.
And even operating outside the sandbox, as in the scenario above, doesn't guarantee an "anything goes" approach to apps: if I write "Better Than Apple's Super Hot iPod Player" and stick it up on my high traffic website, chances are I'll receive a trademark infringement smackdown. It would have been better to receive a Richard rejection than have to hire some lawyers.
Ouriel Ohayon 08/03/2009 01:15
Don't you believe that if an app is good enough, it will make it in the appstore? i have a lot of examples around me.
In addition we created a new tool so users, if they like an app, can recommend it easily in one click (www.appsfire.com)
Hugh Jass 08/03/2009 07:55
So you want the Apple people to approve more apps, at the same time they reduce the number of apps being approved (the daily 200+ pile)?
Thomas Hansen 08/03/2009 08:00
Psst...! ( http://ra-ajax.org/ra-ajax-the-backdoor-into-the-iphone-s-app-store.blog ;) )
Or use any other Ajax Framework out there to do your stuff in...
Advantage; * Accessible also from NON-iPhone based devices * Can loose your device or experience device-crash without loosing data etc, etc, etc...
Zoltan H 08/03/2009 17:40
I get the idea behind the the AppStore - I mean it's one solution that to a problem that goes back to when a flood of junk games pretty much killed Atari in the early 1980s. But this is not the first time I've heard that the vetting process is not transparent at all and eventually this is going to either a) cause indi developers to move on (either alternate platform like Android or even some kind of non-Apple-sanctioned App Store most likely running out of Russia, China, Sweden, or British Columbia :) ) or b) it will become like the regular video game industry where only large companies have the resources to play. Of course, I'm hoping for option c: on one side Android/Nokia/etc. get serious and start eating into Apple's market and on the other side, enough developers start bad-mouthing Apple's practices and thus simple self-interest causes Apple to change its ways.
Zafar 08/03/2009 22:47
Apple is Evil . Much evil than Microsoft or Google. I loved Apple and still love their products but I have started to hate their attitude toward developers. I can only hope that android will take off and can give them tough time. Because competition teaches you many thing which you don't understand when you are leading the market.
Test 08/07/2009 10:39
Testing HTML injection for you!