Work Hard, Work Smart and Don’t Play the Lottery

Posted on November 20, 2012 Written by 1 Comment

Helpful apps

The New York Times had a great article this past weekend titled As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living.  As the title indicates, the life of a mobile developer is not often the glamor we hear about.  The million-dollar jackpots are few and far between and are more difficult now than in the early days of the Apple App Store.

The article chronicles the two very different levels of success; one, Ethan Nicholas who created the iShoot game and made over $1 million in 2009.  The other part of the story is a couple who worked full-time on a handful of applications focused on children.

It saddens me when I see smart people treating the app store akin to The California Gold Rush; same state and the same dreams of getting rich and too often a very similar outcome:

The Grimeses’ quest cost them more than $200,000 in lost income and savings. So far this year, their eight apps have earned $4,964. When the newest iPhone came out at the end of September, the couple immediately bought two. 

I can attest to the same experience as the couple who lost it all.  I didn’t let it go that far but having an idea, creating an application over a couple months and receiving very little return for my efforts…followed a similar path.  In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised. 

The app store is stocked with so many applications it’s almost impossible to stand out in the crowd.  Unless you are well-funded and can afford a lengthy and costly marketing campaign you will likely be cast to the abyss that is the app store.  Those lucky few will be selected by Apple to be promoted on the store, to be glorified in iTunes and will go on to nice rewards.

This is not the path a smart business person should travel.  Developers are smart, we work hard and just want to be rewarded for our efforts.  It is because we are smart that we should step back and think about the path of one-time customers greedily parting withe their $2.99, $1.99 or, I shudder to say, their $0.99.  We can’t support our families with these measly morsels.

Creating applications for iOS and Android are fun and very rewarding but these platforms should not be the island for your application.  The people building businesses in this space today should be cleverly thinking of ways to monetize their idea without the goal of hitting gold but rather building on a customer base willing to keep giving you money.  How many applications can someone create, sell for $0.99 and get a lifetime return of $5,000…if you’re lucky?  This is not even breaking even, it’s a really weak business model.

The better approach is solving real problems for someone who is willing to give you money to ease their pain and continue this on a regular basis.

Refer back to Ethan Nicholas and the direction he has taken since his million-dollar application idea:

Mr. Nicholas and a friend, Brent Miller, were inspired to form a company. “We were going to make another million or two,” said Mr. Miller, 38. But when none of their new games sold like iShoot, the pair moved in an entirely new direction. They founded echoBase, a start-up with 14 employees that is developing apps to allow doctors and nurses to view and update medical records across different computer systems. They brought in Mr. Miller’s father, Rod, a former I.B.M. sales manager, as chief executive.

This is an example of a solution to a real problem, making the life of doctors better and at the same time providing accurate and reliable care to the patient.  The application is free on the App Store but it’s very clear in the description that a server piece is also needed.  I am sure THIS part is not free.  This is someone who has made it in the App Store but realizes it’s not easily reproducible.  This should be the type of applications we are creating, ones that create a revenue stream for developers but also add real value to users. 

An organization like echoBase has iOS client software and some generic server piece which opens the doors to using other clients as well.  Anything from Android and Windows RT to web and rich Windows Desktop apps.  

The Apple App Store is very different today than it was in 2009 but it still holds great value to the people who are smart and don’t try to play the app lottery. 

Filed Under: Apple Tagged: , , ,

Get Your Mobile Development Chops On

Posted on April 15, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

It appears companies are having a difficult time finding enough mobile developers to suite their needs.  As reported by the Wall Street Journal:

The intense competition for mobile engineers, which affects large companies and fast-growing start-ups alike, is emerging as a key bottleneck as companies scramble to capitalize on the fast growth of smartphones and other mobile devices.

I wondered when we would start reading reports of such problems.  With Apple, Microsoft and Google releasing new version of their respective mobile operating systems and selling handsets at a blistering pace, companies see the obvious opportunity.  The opportunity may be there but developers are hard to find regardless of the technology.  This only makes it harder.

Developers today should be looking at each of the big companies and learning some aspects of one or more platforms.  Even if only learning a cursory level of the platform, enough to speak intelligently about the technology can go a long way.

Demand Means More $$$

As developers know, we are in a great place to make a good living but

The mismatch has put upward pressure on wages. According to an October survey by tech job board Dice.com, about 31% of companies reported that average pay among mobile software designers and engineers increased at a higher rate than normal, mostly because of heightening competition for talent.

 

The Dice survey said the average mobile salary last fall was about $76,000, but several companies said they pay experienced mobile developers anywhere from $90,000 to $150,000 a year.

Picking a technology doesn’t seem to matter.  Based on this graph, everything seems to moving at the same pace:

MK BL346A MOBDE NS 20110414185703

The exception here is BlackBerry, which seems to be declining.  I think Windows Phone 7 will be replacing some of the BlackBerry development and being a viable mobile development platform going forward.

Platform Resources

So, where to find out more about important mobile platforms today:

Do Something

So, instead of watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island this weekend, get out and read about these platforms and explore some code.   If demand is growing at the pace we see here, there is no time like the present to bettering yourself.

I know I will be spending some extra time learning a bit more about the new updates to Windows Phone 7 announced at Mix 11.

 

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged: ,

I Want My Content and Consume it Too

Posted on April 15, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

When Apple announced the ability of content providers to offer in-app purchases of their goods, newspapers and magazines breathed a small sigh of relief.  The Internet age has left traditional print a bit in the dust.

Over the recent weeks I have noticed several old-school publishers, The Economist in particular, offering their magazine to subscribers as iOS application.  A user grabs the app from the Apple App Store and when running it they can purchase a single issue or become a subscriber right while in the app.  How convenient is this?  I love it.

The issue is downloaded to the iOS device for later consumption.   Here is the kicker, it appears to be downloaded and probably most of the content is,  but the cord is not cut back to the mothership.  I received this email today:

TheEconomistOffline

Interesting..I may be unable to access The Economist on iPhone and iPad.  Why should this be?  If I downloaded the issue to my iPad I should be able to read the purchased content regardless of their backend.

Maybe they embed some analytics, make calls to a server or display ads served from their servers, but that should not render my reading experience useless.  I should be able to be in the most remote part of the world, or on a plane for that matter, devoid of WiFi or cell service and be able to read my copy of The Economist without issue on my iPad.

If mobile applications offering content to me aren’t going to be able to function without Internet connectivity, they are going to fail.  I would not buy a subscription or a single issue if I can’t acquire the content and have no further obligation from the publisher.

I see no legitimate reason I should be required to have a connection to view my purchased content, from any application, any time or place.

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged: , ,

Dear Android, More is not Necessarily Better

Posted on April 4, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

Marco Arment had a great and timely post about the future of Android over the weekend.  It’s timely because I had just gone through the whole iPhone on AT&T to Android on Verizon to iPhone on Verizon journey and his words rang true.  I had just wrote about the experience last week.

I had experienced the exact pain points Marco mentions:

We’re talking about Android… which has terrible development economics hindered by severe frag mentation and poor payment integration, and is not generally used by most of the influential people needed to spread the word on new services.

Google reports fantastic adoption of Android devices across all the major carriers, which is great but where are the influential tech people cheering for Android from the rooftops?  Well, nobody I can recall but iOS on the other hand…

Marco’s post was a response to Fred Wilson’s post of last week about Android:

It looks like the Verizon iPhone launch is helping iOS hold its own with 25% of the market. I expect (and hope) that iOS will remain a strong competitor to Android. But as I’ve been saying for several years now, I believe the mobile OS market will play out very similarly to Windows and Macintosh, with Android in the role of Windows. And so if you want to be in front of the largest number of users, you need to be on Android.

He points out the Verizon iPhone launch is helping iOS hold its own.  I think we won’t see the impact of the Verizon launch for a while since people (like myself) moved to Verizon for a smartphone and Android because AT&T has such lousy coverage.  I forced the issue and bought an iPhone off of contract, because I could, but I am sure most can’t or won’t go this route until their contract is up.   I predict a wave of users move to iPhones from Android on contract renewal.

Marco thinks as I do:

We don’t really know, of course. But it’s worth considering. Were they choosing to buy an Android phone, or were they choosing to buy the most iPhone-like option in the Verizon store? If the latter, what are they likely to choose next time?

If Android phones were delighting its customers and building loyalty after the purchase, it would be reasonable to conclude that a lot of its existing customers were likely to continue buying Android phones in the future. So how is that after-purchase experience? How much do mainstream buyers like their Android phones?

I am one of those buyers and I did not like the Android phone one bit.  Battery life alone was enough for me to take issue with it.

Google seems to recognize fragmentation is an issue with Android because they have decided to hold back the source to Honeycomb.  Wait, I thought Android was open?  Well, not so fast all you developer out there..it’s only open as long as Google says it is.

So, who can champion Android to real success? Amazon maybe? They have the infrastructure and ability to make it happen and the opening of their Android app store is probably a good sign they have intentions.  Amazon has a great device in the Kindle, so how hard would it be for them to produce a tablet with great hardware like the Kindle?  They certainly have the distribution channel, lots of books, MP3s and now apps.

Marco warns:

So while Android’s currently doing well, investing heavily in it for anything with long-term costs and obligations should be carefully considered. If you’re not in a rush to make such predictions, I’d wait and see what the market looks like 18 months from now.

I won’t be putting any resources into Android development.  iOS holds so much more opportunity at this point and with limited resources you have to go where the money is.

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged: ,