I’m going to make, market, and hustle my iPhone apps like my life depends on it.
I've been doing exactly this for the last year and I'm very close to switching my focus back to web development. From what I can tell the easy money in the app store is long gone and conditions do not favor the lone developer now. I have two iPad apps that frequently appear in the "What's Hot" list for music and if the revenue they generate is any indication most of us would be better off working as fry cooks.
The web gives you so much more insight into your potential customer's behavior that I think that alone might make it a better bet for a solo dev.
If you do decide to go solo I'd strongly recommend you hire a professional designer. Aesthetic standards are very high now and from what I can see pretty graphics matter a lot more to the typical iOS app buyer than features.
I've been doing this full-time for about 2 years now, with some products that have taken off and others that have entirely flopped.
I agree that the "easy money" (e.g. air horns and flashlights) is entirely gone, but there is still a ton of opportunity available if you're willing to put in the work. The type of work necessary now is 1) different than it was 3 years ago and 2) different than what would be required of a web app. The App Store has evolved quite a bit over time and the bar seems to be getting set higher and higher.
In particular, user experience, design, and polish are supremely important on the App Store. I think unfortunately a lot of indie developers (especially engineering types, including myself at the start) tend to overlook this aspect - either from lack of time, energy, or budget, and as a result they make a poor first impression and never really build a following. On the App Store, it's more difficult to ship a MVP and iterate because users expect quite a lot. (You can still do it, but the 'M' might be in different areas than you would expect.)
On the other hand, there are a ton of iOS devices on the market right now, that number is continuing to grow, and that means there are many many users willing to put down money for your software. Apple takes care of the details of collecting payments and makes it easy for users to buy your app.
That said, there are definite tradeoffs to selling via the App Store vs selling on the web.
- You're definitely cognizant of the fact that you're playing in someone else's walled garden, and this can bite you if you're not careful.
- Like you mentioned, the sales funnel is a black box, which means it's very difficult to measure or optimize.
- Traditional advertising methods (e.g. AdWords) typically don't work cause app prices are too low.
I've also done both and prefer the App Store by far - business aspects aside, there's just something really fun about making iPad apps.
"Traditional advertising methods (e.g. AdWords) typically don't work cause app prices are too low."
Have you gauged the efficacy of advertising on directly applicable sites, such as (for games) TouchArcade?
I can easily see the low unit pricing being a hindrance - I suppose therein lies the temptation to bolt on IAPs, which opens an entirely different can of worms.
Yes. Not on TouchArcade (since I don't sell games), but I have paid for advertising on AppAdvice and CultOfMac. It seems to be roughly break even for me, but since I can't correlate click-throughs with purchases I don't really know for sure - and experimenting is not exactly cheap.
The What's Hot list is useless since it's not on the device. It's likely algorithmic as well. The only list that matters is the curated featured list on the device.
The #1 problem with the app store for a developer is that it's a total black box. I have no idea how my users find my apps, how they choose them over other apps, or even which aspects of my apps page are most or least effective in enticing them. Contrast this with the kind of insanely detailed analytics you can get on the web now and it's like flying blind.
I suspect most of my users have found my apps via posts I've made on dedicated music-making forums but I can't say for sure.
I haven't tried selling a web app yet but I did port my iPad synthesizer to the desktop and that seems to generate a lot more traffic without much effort on my part.
I see your point about the black box. But, I have this feeling that maybe the sheer numbers of people that enter the mobile app funnel at all far outweigh those on the web.
It seems like the difference between having a big shop on a quiet backstreet and having a tiny shack on a busy high street. You can watch every move of every visitor with a dozen CCTV cameras in your backstreet shop, but the footfall is all on the highstreet.
One tip for web apps: make sure to list it on the Chrome web store and keep pushing regular updates and replying to user reviews.
"But, I have this feeling that maybe the sheer numbers of people that enter the mobile app funnel at all far outweigh those on the web."
But you just heard from someone who said that even when their app shows up in the What's Hot list, they still don't get a lot of sales. Which also implies it doesn't take very many sales to get there.
Speculation about how truth may not be true is not very productive. It really doesn't matter how many people enter the funnel if few make it to the "give you money" step and you have no control over or visibility into the intermediate steps. It is for theory to explain reality, not the other way around.
I said nothing about conversion. My guess was about the top of the funnel. He said he hasn't tried selling his web app yet, so the comparison remains to be tested.
At least I qualified my speculations as a feeling. If you're going to misread, at least don't be so snipy.
Anyway, I say all of this as a web app developer myself. I prefer the high street to the mall.
In terms of absolute number of users the web is always going to dwarf any native app store.
Just being in the app store may have been worth something a few years ago but now with users searching through 600,000 apps with Apple's crappy search UI I don't think it counts for much any more. For example, for the Technology Review having a professionally designed app in the store was worth 353 subscriptions:
I've been doing exactly this for the last year and I'm very close to switching my focus back to web development. From what I can tell the easy money in the app store is long gone and conditions do not favor the lone developer now. I have two iPad apps that frequently appear in the "What's Hot" list for music and if the revenue they generate is any indication most of us would be better off working as fry cooks.
The web gives you so much more insight into your potential customer's behavior that I think that alone might make it a better bet for a solo dev.
If you do decide to go solo I'd strongly recommend you hire a professional designer. Aesthetic standards are very high now and from what I can see pretty graphics matter a lot more to the typical iOS app buyer than features.