iPhone Application Gold Rush
There’s an interesting article at the Wall Street Journal…
"Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month, Mr. Jobs said."
"Mr. Jobs said developers’ share of iPhone application sales in the first month was about $21 million, of which the top 10 developers earned roughly $9 million."
"I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software," he said."
Even if you have say 1000 developers sharing the remaining $12 million (less Apple commission), that’s still a good income for most of the developers.
The question I ask is how long will this gold rush continue? I was in the early market for Windows Mobile and Symbian applications. I once made a living selling applications direct to consumers. Now I do consultancy and custom development. Why? As number of developers increased, prices decreased. As more hobbyists wrote freeware, the value of software approached zero.
Today, its more predictable for me to write applications for others who tend to be companies getting their enterprise, brand, product or service mobile. This usually involves ‘free’ or ad supported applications and doesn’t depend on anyone selling anything.
Don’t get me wrong. The iPhone currently offers the best opportunities for developers wishing to make money from their mobile applications. All I am asking is how long the current gold rush will last?
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