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Developing iPhone apps not worth the effort anymore

Written on 30th December 2008 11 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

If you’re an iPhone app developer, you’re basically working for that one big hit. Like the developer of the iFart app, he told VentureBeat ow much profit he makes on a daily basis. A whopping $10,000!

Dutch iPhone developer Vincent Verweij got pretty fed up with this. He burns a lot of money while developing his apps, without seeing much revenue coming back. “To survive in the App Store, you’re only hope is short hits, I don’t want my business to depend on that,” Verweij told Emerce.

He also complains about the low prices for apps – max 3 euros -, the short life-cycle, overabundance, and the cocky attitude of Apple. Verweij developed an app called Camera Pro, which added 15 new features to the camera. That app was a little too good for Apple, so the company rejected the app (for now). Verweij lost around €10,000 because of this disappointment.

So what’s Verweij gonna do now? Hold on to yourself: he’s going to focus on Windows Mobile and Symbian again, since these platforms have more possibilities. I bet he’s also working on Android apps, but he probably didn’t want to tell the reporter.

By the way, Gerard van Enk tipped the readers of Emerce about a research by Mobile Orchard: people are willing to pay more than 99 cents for business and GTD apps

11 Comments »

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

11 comments/trackbacks to “Developing iPhone apps not worth the effort anymore”

Dec 30, 2008: dorothysilva (dorothysilva)
“That app was a little too good for Apple, so the company rejected the app (for now)” http://tinyurl.com/74qp5t

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Jan 4, 2009: The iPhone shirt: world’s most locked-in device explodes « TheNextWeb.com
[...] products, you don’t stand a chance. Just ask Dutch iPhone app developer Vincent Verweij about his experiences with the Apple [...]
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[...] followers haga las impresiones de tu aplicación algo tan grande que te forres con adsense. Pero cada día es más complicado, tu app podría vivir solo 30 días (siendo gratis), la competencia es mucho más amplia y lo [...]
Mar 4, 2009: ¿Todavía hay negocio en hacer applicaciones para el iPhone o Facebook? « elblogdeponja
[...] followers haga las impresiones de tu aplicación algo tan grande que te forres conadsense. Pero cada día es más complicado, tu app podría vivir solo 30 días (siendo gratis), la competencia es mucho más amplia y lo [...]

By Tijs Teulings on Dec 30, 2008

I’ll go with the mobile orchard research. If your making yet another twitter or gas mileage app you will have to stick with $0.99 price-point but if your making something truly different people will be glad to pay more. I paid way more for Simcity, Things and several other apps myself and i’m guessing most iPhone owners will gladly do so as well. Perhaps Vincent just wasn’t making the sort of apps people wanted.

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By DIM on Dec 30, 2008

I think the attitude of Apple is just in the advantage of android in General…On our website we are getting more and more information of developers who want to switch to android-apps..aren’t the easier to produce ??

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By Darren on Dec 30, 2008

I actually think that itunes and the app store on the device needs to be better.

I don’t think he should walk away just yet, remember there will be a long tail effect on there. Once your app is in there it can be bought so maybe some old fashioned marketing might work.

I think someone is going to take apple to court for anti trust at somepoint because its unfair they have this much power over software. sure if they don’t want to sell it then fine thats up to them but they shouldn’t stop people being able to sell software for the device outside of the app store.

just out of interest how did your apps do?

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By Ortwin Gentz on Dec 30, 2008

I feel the pain of being rejected and wish there would be clearer rules about what is allowed and what not. However, I don’t think abandoning the platform is the right choice. Vincent should voice his concerns to Apple and the public. That’s the only chance to improve the platform.

There is an interesting discussion going on about the App Store favoring 99¢ apps at http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphon.....ffect.html

Ortwin Gentz, FutureTap CEO

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By Avatar on Dec 31, 2008

This is something that i expect to be an advantage for Windows Mobile in the long run with Skymarket. the app store is getting filled up with shallow apps that cost money. the same kind of apps you will or you are be able to find for free on Android or Windows Mobile. the problem with Android is that while Apple put a wall you have to climb first. Android got no wall and anything can go into it. this will result in a huge lot of shoddy apps.something that can already be seen right now. in the case of skymarket there is going to be a checkpoint you have to pass but you will be able to see where you are getting into. it will be no doubt interesting to see how this unravels. the wildcards are the RIM and the Palm platforms. but i think they will be mostly filled with app repetitions of whatever gets developed for windows mobile, android or things that could not enter into the app store. funny enough. recently the WM hackers got android running from a windows mobile phone. now you can have palm os, rim os and android os launched directly from windows mobile. there are also emulators for those 3. having a WM device will allow you to run Apps for 4 OS platforms. that is the kind of flexibility WM offers. now we only need that WM7 arrives…..yeah. i guess that is the only big problem.

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By Sean on Jan 13, 2009

I think Apple has every right to decide what does and does not appear on the “official” App store. But it’s absolute fucking bullshit that they won’t allow developers to release their own apps on their owns sites, without Apple’s approval. If Apple allowed that, this would be a much smaller issue, as people could still get your app, and could still pay you for it. Obviously unless you’re a well known developer or company you’re not going to get too much exposure without the official App store, but it’s the principle of the thing.

We (Clicky) were originally going to develop an official App for the store. But after all the horror stories we just decided it wasn’t worth putting up with all of Apple’s bullshit. In the end we just made a web app, which was much easier to make, and it almost as functional as a normal app would be.

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By Zane on Feb 26, 2009

I disagree wholeheartedly. I could have told him that the camera app would be rejected before he ever spent a dime. If he didn’t do his homework, that’s his fault. There are still plenty of very useful/fun (and, consequently, profitable) apps yet to be developed.

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