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PocketSand11

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2014
688
1
~/
I make a hell of a lot more than $5,000 per year on the Apps I've written. All of them are 100% free, with zero advertising.

Think about that for a second before doing some useless math like dividing revenue by the total number of Apps and concluding most developers don't make money.

No ads and free. So… you sell users' personal info for cash?

Anyway, the App Store revenue doesn't include ads from AdMob and such, so that already is a flaw.
 

dilbert99

macrumors 68020
Jul 23, 2012
2,193
1,829
No ads and free. So… you sell users' personal info for cash?

Anyway, the App Store revenue doesn't include ads from AdMob and such, so that already is a flaw.

Or is being paid to create apps that are free and have no ads,

Plus where did the $5000 figure come from? I can only assume someone did 5,000,000,000/1,211,461 = 4127, but the 1.2m apps weren't all bought last year?
 

mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
Or is being paid to create apps that are free and have no ads,

Plus where did the $5000 figure come from? I can only assume someone did 5,000,000,000/1,211,461 = 4127, but the 1.2m apps weren't all bought last year?

$5 billion earned by 2 million apps on the App Stores over half a year.

Obviously some of those 2 million might have released 5 years ago and not earned a cent in 2014, etc. etc.
 

EricTheHalfBee

Suspended
Mar 10, 2013
467
739
Or is being paid to create apps that are free and have no ads,

Plus where did the $5000 figure come from? I can only assume someone did 5,000,000,000/1,211,461 = 4127, but the 1.2m apps weren't all bought last year?

Bingo. At least someone's thinking.

There are countless businesses that would like to have an App for their customers to use. The most obvious ones would be banks who provide an App free of charge for their customers to use to pay bills, check their balance and so on. Larger companies/organizations (like banks, CC companies, schools, sports teams) would have full time developers dedicated to mobile App development.

Smaller companies/organizations aren't going to employ a full-time developer - they're going to hire someone like me (who works part time for an App development company). There are a LOT of App developers like me who make decent money developing Apps for other people.

I don't know why people always assume Apps are only created by individuals who are making next to nothing. Or that there are "zombie Apps" that have few downloads and never make the charts (like that one famous study those idiots recently did) implying that nobody makes money on them.

Open your eyes people, there are lots of Apps you will never hear about unless you walk into a local small business and see a sign that says "Now available on The App Store". Someone got paid to develop that App and just because it's not making money (or the best-selling charts) doesn't mean time was wasted making it.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,228
31,304
I'm curious why Apple announced this to CNBC. What was the reason for it?
 

dilbert99

macrumors 68020
Jul 23, 2012
2,193
1,829
$5 billion earned by 2 million apps on the App Stores over half a year.

Obviously some of those 2 million might have released 5 years ago and not earned a cent in 2014, etc. etc.

The article quoted 5 billion in 2014 and 1.2 million apps currently in app store...
 

mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
The article quoted 5 billion in 2014 and 1.2 million apps currently in app store...

You are quite right. I mistakenly added the 1.2 million to the 600,000 and the nearly 100,000 on OSX. This is good news. Nearer $10,000 per app per year isn't disgraceful as an average. Wasn't the average much less a couple of years ago, like under $1000 per app?
 

PocketSand11

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2014
688
1
~/
Or is being paid to create apps that are free and have no ads

Good point, but I thought he was referring to revenue directly from the apps. iOS developers get paid lots of money and, from what I've heard, usually are the only ones making direct profit. Of course, a business can profit indirectly from their app.
 

dilbert99

macrumors 68020
Jul 23, 2012
2,193
1,829
You are quite right. I mistakenly added the 1.2 million to the 600,000 and the nearly 100,000 on OSX. This is good news. Nearer $10,000 per app per year isn't disgraceful as an average. Wasn't the average much less a couple of years ago, like under $1000 per app?

Not the calc I would use, but If I divide 5,000,000,000 by 1,200,000 I get approx 4000 per app, BUT that would assume that they were all paid for last year which is not the case, and as others have mentioned, there would be a massive amount of paid apps and apps that are never purchased or have very few purchases.

You could look at the total amount $20,000,000,000 / 1,200,000 and get an average per app of $16,667 per app but that is pretty useless too (free apps, apps on OSX costing more, most apps downloaded few times etc and also not taking into account the apps that are no longer on the app store)


The post doesn't give enough info to work out what individual developers are likely to get.
 
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