Sales figures for iPhone apps

Seems that developing apps (and presumably games also) is a profitable business on the iPhone platform. Link below.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/05/can-you-make-a-living-as-an-iphone-developer/

Apple take 30%! That's rude!

So what do apple -do- for their 30% other than allow you to write more programs for it?! (which is in their interest anyway).

With Rob... Rude.

70% seems quite fair to me.

A 30% publisher cut seems pretty good, actually. 30% is about the standard payout for affiliates, too.

Try getting 70% from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or indeed any of the Windows Portals. As Bill says, 30% is the sort of amount you might pay an affiliate, so it's pretty cheap for a publisher.

It stands to reason that those early to market with IPhone software would be making a killing. It'll be interesting to see if the market holds up long term when it starts to become flooded with developers. Personally, I'm relatively optimistic.

Rob,

Apple handle all the transaction costs, the web costs, advertising and marketing as well as putting the icon which gets people to their App Store on the home page of the iPhone.

I think 30% is very good for developers in that case.

IPete2.

Don't you also have to pay $99/year for the privilege of asking Apple to post your app to the site?

It sounds fairly reasonable to me overall. 20% would've been nicer, but so would 1%.

Haha... You think 30% is a lot to pay Apple? Develop commercial games for the PC, and 30% is YOUR cut!

I got myself the new iphone 3G, a macbook and i'm working on my first app now.

I have not paid 99$ yet, but when my app is finished I will.

Look at it from this point of view -

it doesn't matter to you at all... unless you have an app/game to sell, and well... as I said I think its good.


IPete2.

@Tri|Ga|De - You might want to pay your $99 sooner than later. There is a lag between the time you apply to be a developer and when they will actually grant you permission to pay them the $99. Then, there's a lag between when you submit your app to them, and when they post it. If they post it. They can reject it for any reason.

Also, I don't think you can test the app on a real iPhone/iPod Touch until you pay the fee, and there's some code that will work on the simulator but not on the actual hardware.

I agree that a 30% cut is quite small. It is a great opportunity and the market is going to continue to grow rapidly. I am considering grabbing a mac so that I can play with the sdk.

@jhansom - I know, I've been thinking the same. But I just want the complete a little more of my app before applying.

You know, I'm about halfway done with an app for the iPhone, and I think I'm going to just stop. I'm simply not having fun with it. Sure, there's a good market there, but I'm finding that I just really don't enjoy writing objective-c code or working with the interface builder. If I continued working on it, it would purely be as a money grab and not for enjoyment.

Plus, I won't ever own an iPhone, so it's not like I'll get to enjoy my creation myself.

20% would have been awesome but 30% is cool too if you compare it to what they offer for this price.